#like i get the issue with people misusing terms specifically for lesbians or queer people but oh my god

[bedforddanes75]

my issue with terminology discourse isnt that i think everyone's stupid and sensitive it's that literally nobody explains the meanings of things and then get pissy when people dont know what things mean

[rollercoasterwords]

why aren't lesbians more popular in fanfiction?

hello literally no one asked for this but i feel like i’ve seen a lot of discussion about the disparity between mlm and wlw fanfiction, and i simply. have thoughts about it lol. this is mostly focused on marauders fanfic bc that’s really the only fanfic community i’m plugged into, but i feel like it probably applies to others as well -- this is definitely gonna get long so if u don’t feel like reading a lil essay abt it then just scroll past :) 

anyway! i do think the prevalence of gay ships in fanfic is a particularly interesting conundrum given that the vast majority of people who read + write fanfiction are women -- and, particularly in the marauders fandom, i’d guess that the majority of those women are queer. so i guess the question i find interesting can be boiled down to: why do so many gay women gravitate towards stories about gay men?

generally, i tend to see a mixture of three answers in conversations about this question.

1. there’s more canon info about male characters

essentially, i see a lot of people say something along the lines of, “well, it makes sense that there’s more fanfiction written about men, because in the stories these characters are originally from the male characters are main characters/much more developed than female characters.” and i think this answer makes sense, but i don’t necessarily think it’s a sufficient explanation on its own for two reasons:

fanfiction can branch quite drastically away from canon, and there are plenty of popular fics where canon is completely disregarded. even if writers have very little canon information about a character, that doesn’t necessarily mean the character won’t be loved in fandom spaces. which leads to the second reason...

in the marauders fandom specifically, male characters with almost no canon information have become very popular. i feel like i’ve especially seen this more recently with characters like barty crouch jr. and evan rosier, but even some of the bigger marauders characters -- peter, regulus, etc -- have very little information about their actual characters in canon. additionally, there are characters like lily evans, narcissa malfoy, andromeda tonks, etc, who, if we’re going based on the amount of canon information, seem like they should be more popular. 

however, none of this is to say that certain characters should be more or less popular--this is just to point out that i don’t think “there’s more canon information” is a sufficient explanation on its own for why mlm fics are so much more popular than wlw fics. i certainly think it accounts for some of the disparity, but i also think there’s more going on!

2. “fetishization” of gay men

i’ve also seen a lot of people throw out the answer that “it’s because women are fetishizing gay men,” and i...just don’t really think this is the issue that some people say it is. honestly, i think that in most of the cases where i’ve seen people saying this, the term fetishization is being misused. in the marauders fandom, at least, i’d argue that the vast majority of fanfiction is not fetishizing gay men, in that it isn’t reducing gay men to sex objects--in fact, i think that oftentimes the opposite is true. even in heavily explicit fanfiction, the characters are often built out as well-rounded people, and there’s almost always an equal emphasis on the relationship and emotional dynamic between the two characters being shipped together. 

i think when people talk about the fetishization of mlm couples, a lot of times the person they’re arguing about is this imaginary cishet woman who’s like foaming at the mouth to read about gay men fucking each other while simultaneously not really viewing gay men as real, complex people--and sure, maybe there are some women like that. but something that i think this straightforward answer of “fetishization” misses is that there is fanfiction catered specifically to straight women, and it often looks very different from queer fanfic. like, i can almost always tell when i’m reading fanfic whether it was written by a straight woman or not, because heterosexual desire and queer desire manifest in very different ways. and my impression is that the majority of queer fanfic is catered towards other queer people--even if straight women read it, too, i don’t really think they’re the main audience. i haven’t tried to research statistics on this or anything; it’s all just based on my impression of this one specific fandom space, and i’m not trying to claim otherwise. but in the marauders fandom, at least, it seems as though the majority of the readers are queer women; in fact, many writers, like myself, are actually lesbians who literally hold zero attraction to men. so why do we still love reading and writing about gay relationships?

3. *vague hand-waving* misogyny 

once we get past these first two explanations, i typically see people saying something along the lines of, “well, of course mlm fics are more popular than wlw fics, because of misogyny!” and then just...leaving it at that. and it sort of drives me a little insane, because i’m always like, yes, but WHY??? that’s like someone asking why the sky is blue, and answering, “well, because of science.” like--okay, yes, but WHAT science? why?? what’s actually happening??

so, if you’ve made it this far into my little esay, here are some thoughts that have been marinating in my brain about some specific ways in which misogyny effects the popularity of gay vs lesbian fanfiction (and, in some ways, gay vs lesbian media more generally). essentially, there are two big things that it boils down to, in my mind:

the inherent alientation of womanhood

the universality of queer desire

and those two things kinda play off each other, but i’m gonnna take them one by one!

1. womanhood as a process of alienation

so, this is something that i’ve been turning over in my mind over the past few months. generally, i try to avoid broad generalizations about women/womanhood, because i think of gender much more as a socialized series of performances rather than any kind of fixed identity category, however! that being said, i do think that womanhood is, in many ways and for a majority of people, a gradual and unrelenting process of alienation from one’s own body, sexuality, and desires. 

what i mean by that is that in a patriarchal society, becoming a woman means being taught constantly and consistently that you are meant to center men in your life (which is one reason that so many lesbians have such a complicated relationship to gender--because removing men from the equation essentially knocks out one of the pillars propping up “woman” as a gender category). teaching someone to be a woman means teaching them to ignore and suppress their own sexuality, physicality, and desires in favor of men’s. i think many people raised to be women learn to think of their own sexuality as an object of male desire; we are told that we should want to be wanted, but not that we should want. learning to be a woman oftentimes means learning to separate yourself from your own desires--women aren’t supposed to be hungry, or messy, or loud, or ugly, or ambitious, or sexual.

obviously, everyone raised in a misogynistic society internalizes that misogyny; so i think that for most people taught to be women, there’s this shared experience of alienation from your own body. we are systematically and purposely cut off from lesbian desire, from sapphic desire--from any kind of desire or sexuality where men are not a focal point. this makes it understandably difficult to envision rich, complex, sexual and romantic relationships between women, because anyone taught to be a woman has to spend a significant amount of time unlearning internalized misogyny in order to truly embrace queer desire.

so, yes; i think that mlm fics and gay ships are more popular at least in part because of misogyny. but i don’t think it’s this conscious, purposeful thing that queer women should be condemned for--in many ways, i think that gay fanfiction actually provides queer women (especially young queer women) a space to explore queer relationships and queer desire outside of the patriarchy that hangs like a specter over any relationship involving women. for queer women who are still working through internalized misogyny, who still struggle to envision romantic and sexual relationships between women that exist outside the bounds of patriarchal narratives, i think it’s understandable that gay relationships in fanfiction have become this sort of refuge. we are taught to center male desire and sexuality; we experience queer desire that we must learn to stop suppressing; when we look at these two ideas together, i don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that the exploration of gay relationships in fanfiction is oftentimes a way for queer women to explore their own sapphic desire.

2. the universality of queer desire    

this first point leads me directly into my second, which is that gay fanfiction can oftentimes provide a space to explore lesbian desire specifically because queer desire has a unique sort of universality--it is outside the boundaries of cishet norms and narratives, which often leads to different expressions of desire and different relationship dynamics. for example, as a lesbian, i feel that my lesbian relationships generally have much more in common with gay relationships than they do with straight women, simply because the dynamics of typical heterosexual relationships are so far removed from my own experiences with sex, romance, and dating.   

something that strikes me is that, in many instances, these fanfictions about gay men read to me, a lesbian, as lesbian romances--i find myself reading about these characters and thinking that the way they relate to one another, the way they process emotion, etc, feels very much like a lesbian relationship. i think part of that is because many of them are written by queer women, but it’s also because of this overarching universality of queer desire.

anyway, i don’t really have a final point or conclusion that i set out to make with this. i guess i just think it would be nice to move the conversation a little further past “wlw fics are less popular because of misogyny!”, y’know? at the end of the day, i don’t think it’s inherently harmful that mlm fics/ships/media are so popular in queer spaces, and more often than not i think it’s actually an important medium for all kinds of queer people to explore desire + sexuality + gender + relationships through stories written by other queer people. however, i do think it simultaneously calls attention to the ways in which internalized misogyny and compulsory heternormativity can make it very, very difficult for people to envision lesbian desire and lesbian relationships, and i do think it’s important to like...do some soul-searching, y’know? like, just on an individual level, especially if you’re a queer person, and especially if you’re a queer woman--if you struggle to get into wlw fics/media the way you get into mlm fics/media, it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong, and it doesn’t make you a bad person, but it does mean that you should probably take some time to think about why that might be! what kinds of things did you learn to internalize that might be preventing you from embracing lesbian/sapphic/wlw (whatever u wanna call it) desire? and i say this as someone who had to spend years coming to terms with their own lesbian desire, who knows how difficult it can be to work through the layers of internalized misogyny, internalized homophobia, and compulsory heterosexuality. but at the end of the day, a lot of this fanfiction we’re reading is all tied together by the same elements of queer desire <3 

this is by no means meant to be a comprehensive or even particularly academic analysis of the situation--i’ve just been thinking about these questions a lot lately and wanted to write down some thoughts to help me organize them. if u actually took the time to read all of this and have any thoughts or ideas to share i am clearly dying to discuss + my dms + ask box are always open :)    

[mueritos]

hi sorry can u explain to me the d slur thing? /gen like i don’t understand why it’s bad for the person to callout a nonlesbian to say the slur -🧜🏽

To be honest Im not too keen on the current idea thay reclaiming queer slurs are only meant for specific sub groups within the community. For the most part, these slurs have been weaponized against most LGBTQIA folks regardless of their identity (because for the most part, bigots can only call us generalized slurs since they are awful at clocking us, but now not so much). This is why we get issues when it comes to reclaiming certain slurs, like the F slur. While historically used against gay men, saying that it can ONLY be reclaimed by gay men doesnt sit well with me since the slur has been used against the ENTIRE community. Same with the d slur, while it has historically been used against lesbian women, there are instances of it being used againsg other LGBTQIA folks (tho prolly not to the same extent as the f slur).

A note i want to make is that queer slurs are VERY different from racial slurs in terma of reclamation. Racial slurs and queer slurs should only be reclaimed by their specific community, but we do not see the same level of reclamation gatekeeping in racial slurs than queer slurs because if youre BIPOC, theres no doubt that you have a historical connection to those slurs. But if your queer, your specific identity shapes your experience with the world, so theres a chance you may even have been exposed ro certain words or slurs, maybe not even have any weaponized against you.

That being said, I appreciate the take of “if it has been used against you to marginalize your marginalized status, you are free to reclaim it” in the context of reclaiming queer slurs. This does not mean that reclaiming a slur means it is not part of your initial vocabulary, no, it may just mean that you recognize the power of the word that you reclaimed as now your own. Also, certain slurs have already BEEN reclaimed, and therefore it is not my place to use another word for a person who wishes to be called by it. If a lesbian wants to be called the d word and is proud of it, I will refer to them as such because I recognize the power that word brings them. Keep in mind that not all queers are young, and many elder gays use “slurs” and old terms to decribe themselves, like “transexual” or “dyke” or “transvestite”.

We also need to understand the context of these words. When we call each other these slurs when around each other as a community (and it has been established that these words are okay to use for each other), they are either reclaimed or simply words, because you could argue that many of us never saw the words as anything negative in the first place, regardless of its misuse. In this context, these words bring power and community. But if someone is weaponizing that word to target a queer persons marginalized status, then that is being used as a slur. Therefore I dont think it’s appropriate to call it out within the community unless specific parties are uncomfortable with it and we DO see it as intercommunity marginialization (like maybe a lesbian that hates gay men?? i know its weird but theres a lot of hate even within the community). And yes, it is completely valid to feel uncomfortable around certain words and their use, but have a conversation about it if you can first before trying to shut down its use in someone (unless, like mentioned before, the person is literally bigoted).

I think its more meaningful to ask why certain queer people use certain words instead of telling them to stop. We need to understand that decades ago, it didnt matter whether it came out of a butch or a gay’s mouth, what mattered is that is brought community. This language discourse is a clear indicator of the lack of queer historical knowledge within contemporary queer society. I highly encourage yall to look into notable queer activists, and if youd like to start to understand the historical power “dyke” brought to the community, search up the “Gays for Dykes” movement.

This was very brief but I hope that answerwd ur question and im open to conversation about this topic! Be aware that I only have the experience of a nonbinary gay transmasc whos a white latino and all of these factors affect my view on this. Either way, I hope it helped!

[mayasdeluca]

I think some ppl watch shows to just decompress and do not really care about the story in deeper terms (greys for me was that, just passing time), and than there are people that watch because they love to see specific stories/issues and possibly some (good) representation, in a respectful way (there’s always gonna be drama on TV no matter what, that’s literally their job lol)”, but it’s how it’s done that differ) but it doesn’t mean we need to accept it all and don’t bring constructive criticism and just be quiet about it.

Shondalan shows are not really the best things out there, they have a specific audience lol, it sells for what it is, they never sell it for more or less, you know exactly what you are gonna get and most time it’s cheap repetitive writing, and that’s ok too, sometimes I want that and not to think too much, it’s indeed entertainment.

The comment of the other anon is very frustrated for sure but also kinda true especially for show from Shondaland, it’s a problem they have with wlw couple so in that contest yes, it’s not particularly good writing, nothing groundbreaking or even remotely relatable under certain aspects of the story, I think the comment was more aimed to the fact that would be nice at least to have a fresh respectful view of lesbian relationships, without bringing in misogyny, homophobia, stereotypes that are clearly present in the writers room and are inserted in the story some without clear thinking imo.

I understand we don’t know half of what goes on bts/production/network executive, who’s in total control and who takes the final decision, who has the power to do and why, but some things are just clear to us all and social media makes it difficult to hide it nowadays, so I understand we cannot really have an opinion based on 100% facts on what is going on, but only on what we see or what they let us see, and in the case on S19 is a lot, and the amount of ppl that think the same it’s pretty telling..

It’s also true that not everything is gonna be what we want but it doesn’t mean we have to accept offensive writing just because it’s on TV, but each person thankfully has a choice and can switch the tv off any time.

It’s social media that make everything a bit more amplified of course,the good and the bad, especially the bad…S19 isn’t the first show to treat women and queer stories badly and won’t be the last, but we learn and hopefully they learn as it happened with byg (still happening) but this conversation bring awareness to both writers actors and audience, we learn from each other experience and views, and honestly I’m almost more grateful to this than the show, that’s what fandom is; both when we agree or disagree (mostly always respectfully)

I have friends that just go with the flow of a show no matter what, and that’s totally fine, personally I have a limit to my tolerance towards predictable offensive storyline, and S19 crossed that line, but I know it hat I still care about Marina, but for me wasn’t enough probably.

You could say the same about BYG trope, should we just watch it cause it’s TV?

No, no everything is acceptable the same way for everybody, for me, the sperm donor storyline plus the misuse of Carina character, the women in the background, and all the whitemen savior hero part, made this show unwatchable, I was holding onto Marina, but for me ain’t it any longer but I totally understand why ppl keep watching.

I don’t judge people that keep Watching or dropping it, I just think us “gayudiance” deserve better.

Absolutely. It all comes down to what you're looking for in a tv show and why you're watching the show. Some watch to get away from the real world and others are looking for representation and hoping to connect and relate to the storylines the writers are portraying. But it gets tricky when you start expecting things that just aren't going to happen on a specific show. Like you said Shondaland shows are particular in what they bring to the table. They're always going to have that chaotic type of drama and love to put their couples through hell. We honestly should've expected that something like this would happen with Maya & Carina, despite us wanting them to be different more than anything because of the amazing chemistry and connection they had. Most of us watch Greys or know at least all the hell Calzona went through and really all the popular ships on that show so unfortunately Marina wasn't going to be any different once they became a main staple of S19. It sucks and we don't have to accept the disrespectful way they're portraying certain things but I think we also need to realize what they're doing and the harsh reality of the situation and the way they've reacted to our criticism and tamper the expectations and if that's not enough then you have every right to take your viewing elsewhere.

It's also how a lot of people didn't like that a lot of tv shows were writing COVID into their storylines because people like to escape the real world when watching tv and that's understandable as well. Social media has definitely heightened everything for people in all aspects, good and bad. But like you said, not everything is acceptable for everybody and everyone has a different tolerance for certain things so it just depends on the person and the subject and what they're getting out of said show. We definitely deserve better though and this wouldn't even be a topic of discussion if lgbtq+ rep wasn't still so poor all around tv, especially wlw ships in particular.

[bingleycharles]

First off, I don’t spend a lot of time on tumblr any more, and this blog was mainly meant to be a reference blog for wuxia/xianxia genre, which has been my favorite genre for a long time. My main intention was to provide some information that might be helpful (I think MDZS becoming so popular so quickly due to the tv drama came a bit unexpected to us who have loved the novel for a long time) and not really engage much beyond that. But, the more time I spend here, the more I feel that some things need to be said.

There’s been a lot of talk about the MDZS novel dubcon/noncon elements and I definitely had no intention of engaging with that to any extent, but the mentality of this particular group of people (and I use that term generously because it’s mainly the mentality of extremely sheltered children) on tumblr is so unbelievably wild that someone needs to say something, and I guess that’s going to be me. I am going to warn people in advance, that I am going to make no attempts to be nice about this, because after some of the discussions I’ve seen recently, even if niceness was deserved, I certainly am no longer capable of it.

Now that the disclaimer is in place, let’s talk a bit about where this hatred for mxtx and her sex scenes comes from.

1. People who believe that nothing problematic should exist in fiction, because nothing problematic should exist in the world.

Sometimes, this is based on a simple inability to recognize how fiction and real world are not, in fact, the same thing, and this inability can be more commonly found among those too young to understand complex subjects (see great majority of the above children, who have already caused a great deal of damage to vulnerable communities by misusing and misrepresenting terms like pedophilia, incest, etc, etc). More often however, it is based on the inability to understand how real word and fiction are actually related, an inability that is unfortunately found among many people who should be considered adults. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of both, rooted in a belief that real world problems exist because they are normalized in fiction (but not all world problems because no one is trying to get rid of murder mysteries, just the icky problems they don’t actually wanna think about or do anything to solve, but would still like to never see again. All this while simultaneously getting to say “well, I’m against incest in fiction so that’s my contribution to the issue,” so they can then feel good about themselves).

This belief, by the way, that real world problems exist because they are normalized in fiction, has been proven as a false narrative many times, but like “Bible says all gay people are evil” or “climate change isn’t real” doctrines, it refuses to die even when faced with facts. “Fiction does not exist in a vacuum” they keep saying, as if those capable of critical thinking have not addressed this subject so many times, that you could practically walk your way across the Pacific Ocean on their responses alone. The real world problems do not exist because someone once wrote them down in a piece of fiction, and that should be abundantly clear to us all. Instead, problematic subjects exist in fiction precisely because they existed in the real world first, and we, the human beings, find writing things down to be one of the many ways we process information, problematic or otherwise.

There is also an insistence on seeing every piece of fiction as an instruction manual for “bad things,” and honestly, I don’t know what happens in these people’s heads, nor do I want to. Again, according to them, any underage fiction is an instructional manual for a possible pedophile, but tens of thousands of murder mysteries are just entertainment. If you read/write underage fiction, you must be a pedophile, but by the same logic, if you read/write bloody murder mysteries, this logic either doesn’t apply, or murder is just fine. So inevitably we go back to the fact that a lot of these issues are only raised by people who just don’t think anything they personally find “icky” should exist, and that’s rooted mostly in white privilege (and we’ll get to the white minority individuals later) and ethnocentricity (and we’ll get to that in a minute too). Basically, when I hear “people will learn that rape is okay from fiction,” I automatically think you’re either extremely immature or extremely ignorant, or both. Please take a psychology/sociology class or seven, throw in Moral Development 101 in the mix, and get back to me in like ten years, when we can both try and have an adult conversation. In the meantime, arguing against this is like arguing with climate change deniers. More likely to make me dumber than them smarter.  

In short, you will never be able to get rid of problematic fiction, because you will never make the world not problematic, nor will stopping the people who choose to reflect their problematic world in writing fiction accomplish absolutely anything, except them having no way to process their reality, and you being considered an immature child (which most people who think like this already are, so no news there, let’s move on).

2. They believe things are problematic because they believe that their particular experiences are common to everyone else. If they see it as problematic, then everyone else should to see it that way too.

This should be self-explanatory, and a thousand of these discussions have been held in the past, by people more eloquent than myself, about every subject from rape fantasies and bondage (go back a few years to 50 shades), to experiences that are unique to specific minority groups, like trans individuals, refugees, rape survivors, those with disabilities, multi-national and multi-racial individuals, and so on and so forth. Even among the hundreds and hundreds of these vulnerable groups of individuals, there are hundreds of different subgroups, whose experiences are all wildly different, wildly subjective, and all completely valid to them, regardless of how they differ.

None of us have the ability to understand each and every one of those unique experiences. At best, we may be able to somewhat understand a few people who have had similar experiences, but our opinions on a variety of subjects have been shaped by the smallest differences in those experiences, and are likely to never be exactly the same.

What I’m saying is this: the little white girl from Iowa, regardless of her minority status as disabled/lesbian/bi/queer female, will never understand what drives a young/disabled/queer/multiracial/2nd gen. immigrant girl, to write 55k of rape fantasy fiction between two multiracial men, and she doesn’t have to understand it. Neither her disability nor her queerness should give her a single iota of moral high ground over the other individual, or vice versa. Her personal understanding of what is morally right or wrong in fiction does not give her the right (nor should it ever) to pass judgment on anyone else’s experiences, or their method for processing those experiences. There is no sensitive way I can say this, so I’m not even gonna try. You don’t get to be automatically right because you’re gay, disabled, or a minority of any kind. Like, I know this is uncomfortable to hear, but people around here often use their status to invalidate others and to get them not to engage in any type of discussion that would prove their opinions wrong. I’m literally watching children on tumblr going, “I don’t need to know about oppression, I’m gay,” like holy shit. The only oppression you know is your own. That’s it. Please tone down the arrogance and realize you’re not alone in the world, minority or not.

I get that if you were raped, you may never want to see rape in fiction. But in the same vein, there exist people who were raped, and want to see rape in fiction. I get that you’re gay and offended by certain type of fiction, but there are also people who are gay and prefer the same type of fiction you find offensive. This is exactly when words like “pedophile” and “incest” get thrown around a lot, for things that in no way meet the definition. Because there is no factual or valid argument that exists here, and people are browbeating other people by saying “Well, I’m gay and oppressed and I just don’t like it so it has to be wrong.” But when the dissenter is also gay and oppressed, and you have to admit that based on the status you’ve used to validate yourself, you also have to admit that their opinion is as valid as yours, then the only fallback is to point a finger and say that there must be something wrong with them. “Well, your opinion is not valid because you read underage fiction so you’re a pedophile,” and this is literally what keeps happening over and over again.

At the root of all this is a twisted, sick belief, that those who process their issues and their problematic environments in the morally pure and acceptable way are the only valid voices in every community, and that everyone else’s experiences are immediately invalidated by default. It’s a pretty fucking gross rhetoric, and it’s been going on here on tumblr for a very long time now, but it’s only gotten worse, and it’s especially prevalent among the new influx of mdzs “fans.”

3. They believe things are problematic because their culture considers them problematic, and they have no concept of the fact that theirs is not the only culture in the world.

This is particularly nasty proclivity, commonly found in Western consumers of fiction. The Western audiences like to think themselves enlightened, despite the fact that most Eastern cultures have carpets in their government buildings older than the entire Western culture, system of law, morality codes, or their Constitutions. This is mostly true of U.S. in particular because their ethnocentrism keeps self-validating itself through ignorance, poor education, and other evils of capitalism. But it’s also true of other white European consumers of fiction, who have a long history of colonialism to thank for their continuous insistence that their morality is more enlightened than everyone else’s (oh, the irony of that). But not to go too far from the subject at hand, if I had a dollar every time a white girl from United States said “Ew, this rape scene this Chinese author wrote is really gross and I find it to be offensive to my entire existence,” I could pretty much overthrow the entire capitalist system that produced this ethnocentric fucking nonsense in the first place.

In short, there are many individuals in the West, who might be minorities in their general community, but have no concept or understanding of other cultures, other minority communities, or other individuals that have life experiences drastically different from their own, so they judge everything they see from their own perspective, because it is the only perspective they have, and unfortunately, it’s a pretty narrow one. There is an important lesson to be learned here, and it’s the one I’ve already mentioned above:

Being queer, or being any kind of a minority, does not automatically save you from being ignorant, being ethnocentric, being unable to understand other people’s experiences (minority or otherwise), and it most certainly does not mean that your queer culture is the only right queer culture in the world. If you doubt my words, I highly suggest consulting some native-Chinese male queer individuals, who have also read that rape scene by that Chinese author who has upset you so much that you can’t stop crying about it (although it wasn’t written for you, and you were under no obligation to read it), and maybe ask them what they think, since their opinion is the only one even close to being relevant to this particular conversation. I guarantee that their answers will shock and amaze you, and you may even learn a thing or two along the way.

(And if you immediate answer isn’t that their opinions will all be wildly different as well because them all being native-Chinese male queer individuals still doesn’t mean they’re all the same fucking person [because hello? China has 56 ethnic groups alone] and that each and every one of them is a unique individual with a unique perspective based on their particular upbringing, social environment, sexuality, etc, etc, then you’re fucking missing the point, please go back up to the beginning and try again).

In the end, the answer to never having to see anything that upsets you is pretty simple and straight forward. If it’s bothersome, do not engage. If you don’t understand something, if it seems alien to your experience, if your very existence feels utterly repulsed by it, consider the fact that it was probably not written for you in the first place, and simply remove yourself from its presence.

Do not assume that you know why it was written, do not assume it is a personal attack against your existence, do not assume that you understand (or ever could) the culture that gave it birth, the history that formed it, or the shared experiences of those who happen to like it. Do not assume that you are the authority on problematic when it comes to anyone else’s work except your own, because you are a unique individual, your moral beliefs and expectations are your own, and no one else is required to share them. The world does not have a common morality, and if it did, it certainly wouldn’t be a common morality of a white girl on fucking tumblr who isn’t gonna take an intercultural competence class unless she’s in her fourth year of college, and even then, the exact privilege that allowed her to take that class is gonna make it pretty unlikely that she’ll understand it. It’s a tough life I know, but you’ll get over it tolerably well I’m sure.

In the simplest words possible, please try and turn a mirror towards your own propensity to think that your viewpoint is superior to all others, quit making excuses that amount to your particular minority status somehow making you immune to rampant cultural ignorance, because it’s literally been centuries of this bullshit from white colonialists countries for the rest of the world, and everyone is pretty fucking sick of it.

People are simply asking you not to be a dick to other unique individuals on the sole basis of the fact that you are incapable of processing their world, their culture, or their experiences, in the same exact way that they have, and frankly, it’s really not a lot to ask.

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

Are genital preferences transphobic?

Lee says:

Personally, I am attracted to women and some non-binary folks. I used to call myself a lesbian before I realized I’m transmasculine, and now I use “queer” as my sexual orientation label.

And I also do have a genital preference. I’m not turned on by penises and penises aren’t something that I think about when I’m fantasizing about stuff.

But that isn’t something that determines who I’m attracted to, because when I meet someone who I think looks cute then I feel attracted to them, and that happens before we’re at the point where I’ve taken off their pants and underwear to view their genitals.

For example, I met my partner (mod Devon) in Algebra II when I was in high school, and I thought they were cute but I hadn’t yet taken off any of their clothing before I formed that opinion. I just saw them and (eventually, like several months later) talked to them and then hung out with them and so on.

Generally, I don’t inspect someone’s genitals before I decide if I’m attracted to them. For me, seeing people’s personal parts is usually something that happens in the relationship after I’ve already developed feelings for them and found them attractive, otherwise I wouldn’t be in the situation where started asking questions about their body or taken off their clothes.

So I am not attracted to people with vaginas as my sexual orientation, I’m attracted to women and some non-binary folks because those are the genders I’m attracted to.

And if we get to the part of the relationship where genitals come into play, what parts they have is going to be relevant for me. How a couple chooses to navigate that depends on the wants and needs of both people, and it might mean finding alternate ways to be sexual or having an open relationship or even breaking up. But their genitals aren’t what determine my sexual orientation or initial attraction.

I think most people find someone attractive before they know what genitals that person has, but they don’t always realize that’s true because they’re so used to assuming that they can tell what genitals someone has based on their gender identity.

So it’s fine for you to say “I am not interested in having sex with someone who had a vagina” or “I’m not interested in [doing a particular sexual act]” (not every person with a penis wants to perform penetrative sex, and not all people with vaginas are interested in receiving vaginal penetration) but it’s transphobic when someone assumes that all women have vaginas (given some trans women have penises), and it’s transphobic to assume that all trans men do have vaginas (because some trans men have gotten lower surgery). Basically, don’t assume you know who has what parts or assume how/if they want to use those parts.

Genital preferences can exist, but that isn’t covered under the word “sexual orientation”. And while it isn’t inherently transphobic to say you prefer one part over another, the issue comes in when people make assumptions on who has those parts when the person in question hasn’t told you about their parts or shown their genitals to you yet.

And in many cases, genital preferences are used to prop up transphobic assumptions and beliefs— how many times have we heard a certain group say something along the lines of “all trans women have penises so my sexual orientation is cis-women-only because I’m not attracted to trans women. I can always clock trans women because they’re not real women, so I’d never accidentally find one attractive because I like vagina!”. So I think the trans community has rightfully become suspicious of people who say “my sexual orientation is penis!” or “my sexual orientation is vaginas!” because that’s A) misusing the term sexual orientation, and B) indicative of a certain set of assumptions about trans people’s bodies.

Personally, I don’t meet someone and say “I don’t know if you’re cute yet and I can’t tell if I’m interested in you because I haven’t taken off your pants yet. Could you take off your underpants real quick and give me a good look at your junk from all angles before I decide if I think that you’re attractive?” And if you try that with a potential partner before you ask them out on a first date uhhh…, good luck… I think you’d be single for a real long time.

Again, we aren’t saying that you are required to be interested in having sex with genitals you aren’t interested in, but we are saying that you shouldn’t assume who has those genitals and recognize that it’s possible to be attracted to someone without knowing what their genitals are.

And if the genital preference is a relationship deal-breaker for you, and you discuss your options with your potential partner and you don’t think you could have your sexual needs met in a relationship with someone who has those parts, or you aren’t interested in a hookup, or whatever the situation is, then it’s fine to say you don’t think staying together is the right choice and that isn’t transphobic. But it isn’t fine to give someone a once over in the club and decide that you’re attracted to them because you think they have a penis because you can’t actually know that for sure.

One thing I think you might find helpful here: When you’re watching a TV show or movie, have you thought that any of the actors are attractive? Have you ever had a “celebrity crush?” And did you actually need to inspect this celebrity’s genitals first before you determined that you found them sexually attractive? Probably not, right?

I don’t know if there is a term that means “preference for penises” and I also don’t know if a term like that is strictly necessary because you could just say it in words, like “I like to have sex with people who have penises,” instead of inventing a new label for that. But a lot of trans people are also wary of adopting new genital-based attraction terminology because we know that kind of label is likely going to be immediately misused by people who are going to apply it in transphobic ways (back to the “assuming you can tell if someone has a penis” thing) and use it to mean they’re not interested in trans people, even if that’s not what the label was meant to convey.

TLDR; there isn’t a sexual orientation word for “attraction to penises/vaginas” because sexual orientation is about the genders you’re attracted to, it isn’t a term that describes whether you prefer a certain body type or body parts. 

So sexual orientation is about gender, not genitals. Genital preferences are a different things, and they aren’t inherently transphobic but it depends on the assumptions you’re using about who has what genitals and what they want to do with said genitals.

And because sexual orientation is about gender and not genitals, if you say you’re attracted to women that means you’re attracted to cisgender women and transgender women because trans women are women too. Similarly, if you say you’re attracted to men, that means you’re attracted to men, which includes transgender men and cisgender men because transgender men are also men just like cis men are.

Kii says:

Whether genital preferences are transphobic depends on a few things. 

First things first:

You are not ever required to have sex with anyone you don’t want to have sex with. We are not going to tell you you’re required to have sex with a trans person or you’re transphobic. The only reason you should have sex with someone is because everyone involved mutually consents to having sex.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s some other information.

If you find someone attractive, and then you find out they’re trans and are instantly no longer attracted to them, that’s transphobic.

If you are a lesbian and dating someone who later comes out as a trans man, and you want to break up with them because you’re not attracted to men, that’s not transphobic. (Same goes for if you are a gay man dating someone who comes out as a trans woman.)

It’s okay to not want to touch, penetrate, or directly interact with a certain type of genitals during sex, but if you have a partner where this would be an issue, you can choose not to have sex with them, or you can work on alternative sexual situations that you’d both be comfortable with. (Examples may include: use of toys, touching through clothing, mutual masturbation) If you’re making assumptions about how a specific type of genitals is going to be used during sex, that’s generalizing. (ex: just because a penis is involved doesn’t mean the penis has to enter an orifice / just because a vagnia is involved doesn’t mean you have to put something in it.) Sex is very personal and individual. If you like someone, you two can work out what your sexual needs and wants are and you might find they match up even if you didn’t expect them to. 

If you say you refuse to have sex with trans women because you don’t like penises, or you refuse to have sex with trans men because you don’t like vaginas, that’s transphobic, because you’re generalizing what trans peoples’ bodies look like. Some trans men have penises, and some trans women have vaginas. Some trans men are some of the most typically masculine people you’ll ever meet and they still have vaginas and some trans women are super stereotypically feminine and still have penises. Some trans people are intersex.  Some trans people seek out alternative bottom surgery (two examples). Bottom line: you don’t know what’s in a trans person’s pants until they tell you. 

If you’re cis and you’re only attracted to trans people, that’s a fetish and you’re still generalizing trans bodies. This is generally referred to as trans chasing.

If you’re trans and you only feel comfortable dating other trans people, that is generally a safety and security concern, or wanting to date someone who first-hand understands what you’re going through, and that’s okay.

Genital preferences are often heavily skewed against trans women with penises, so it’s important to evaluate why you dislike penises if you feel that way. Transmisogyny is a real problem, and many people use “I don’t like penises” as a blanket statement to avoid dating trans women (yes, this includes some AFAB trans people).

Another person explaining it, via @otherparenthesepleasespecify’s post:

‘what is it called when im attracted to only a certain sex?’ nothing. thats not an orientation, thats a physical preference. one might generally only find themselves attracted to blondes, but that just happens to be what theyre into. one might find penises the most attractive genitalia, but that just happens to be what theyre into. it’s not an orientation to be attracted to physical characteristics, it’s an orientation to be attracted to people.

‘what if i am attracted to a gender but dont feel comfortable interacting with a certain set of genitalia?’ nothing. thats not an orientation either. you are whatever orientation you are, with a repulsion to sex with certain characteristics. thats fine. there are heterosexual people that are sex-repulsed. there are asexual people who aren’t. people of all orientations might be made uncomfortable by certain types of sexual interactions and not others. your comfort with sexual interactions and comfort with certain genitalia can be defined by your personal preferences, your history, trauma, or just complete happenstance. it is perfectly valid to be attracted to men, for example, but not want to get involved with cis men, because of perhaps a history of abuse or oppression. you do not have to justify your choices to participate or not participate in sexual or romantic relationships with anyone, regardless of your orientation. ever.

what would be problematic would be identifying your entire orientation as trans-exclusive or -inclusive, because that quantifies transgender persons as a holistic group who have a single identity, which is not true. anyone you know could be trans without your awareness, and if your interest in or perception of them would wane upon this knowledge, you should consider inspecting yourself for internalized transphobia.

And now that you’ve read all that, please return to the main idea at the beginning of my answer:  The only reason you should have sex with someone is because everyone involved mutually consents to having sex.

TLDR: No, genital preferences aren’t inherently transphobic. But it is transphobic to make a blanket statement saying that you wouldn’t date a transgender person because you assume that all trans women have penises (this is wrong because some trans women have gotten surgery and do have vaginas). 

It’s also transphobic to equate gender to genitals and say you’re interested in women because you’re attracted to vagina, which assumes that all women have vaginas (this is wrong because some trans women have penises). You can say that you’re attracted to women and you can say you’re attracted to vaginas, but those are two separate statements and saying the first doesn’t necessarily mean saying the second one for some folks.

So don’t assume that all trans people with a particular gender have a particular set of genitals, or assume that you know if/how they want to use those genitals, and then you’re fine.

[evilelitest2]

What do you think are some of the pitfalls of modern day feminism and how can we improve feminism? I don't think the current feminist movement does enough to help lower class women who are more likely to deal with things like sexual assult, domestic violence and restricted access to abortions. I think the transition from an academic setting to the blogosphere has lead to a lot of feminist terms being misused or overused. What do you think?

Fun fact, I tried to answer this question three times and every time something happened and I lost all my writing.  But yes, great question, but sort of difficult because there isn’t one form of feminism, my critiques of Second Wave Feminism are totally different from my critiques from 4th Wave, or my critiques of Marxist feminism, its like having a single critique of every form of goverment, technically possible but the specifics matter a great deal.  Some forms of feminism focus exclusively on lower class women, others do in fact ignore them.  That being said, there are a few broad critiques I can make of the movement, but a few caveots i want to make clear first.

     Firstly, every movement, regardless of its ideals, are going to have stupid people, simplistic people, and bullies within its ranks, and there is no real fix for “some feminists online are dumb”.  The question when it comes to a movement is “are these just idiots attached to the wrong cause” or “is the cause itself rotten” which isn’t true of feminism the way that White Natioanlism is fundementally broken 

     Secondly, every movement interested in human rights struggles with intersectionality, it is not a uniquely feminist thing, intersectionality is hard both practically and psychologically, and that is something I think all of the movements are struggling with, feminism has done better than some with its active efforts to incorporate queer efforts into its larger movement.  

Ok so actual critiques 

1) Branding.  Feminism has major major problems with its image, one thing I notice constantly is that various feminist ideas and terminology might be easily accepted by people because they are objectively useful, but when people hear that they are feminist, suddenly people are like “eww no” .  Feminism really needs to rebrand itself to try to be more approachable, especially in regards to the usefulness of the ideas, because many of these concepts are just make life objectively easier to understand, but also there need to be active attempts to countermand the way feminists are depicted in the media, especially that sort of man hating militant 

2) Clarify terms:  THis is actually for the larger left wing movement, but the reason why the right can so easily strawman/co-op our rhetoric is that we aren’t specific about it . I mean take privilege for example, the fact of the matter is every person on the planet has some privilege in some context, a trans lesbian lower class black women in the Us still has privilege of being able bodied, or American citizenship.  A wealthy white man might still have down syndrome, privilege isn’t like a bioware morality system with most privilege vs. least, its a complicated interconnected system of power relationships.  

Or the Bechdel test, it isn’t just a scoring system for sexism, its a way of measuring an observable reality of the film industry, its a measurement of a larger trend rather than a condemnation of any specific movie.  The more vague these terms are, the more they can be strawmanned and approprated by reactionaries.

3) Tell Terfs to fuck off: Terfs suck, end of story 

4) Drop the moon goddess shit: This is more of a 2nd wave feminism issue, but i notice a lot of people perception of feminism comes from things like feminist fantasy or the sort of 2nd wave rements online, and its just utterly absurd.  All of the sacred femininity, primordial matriarchy, feminine nature magic stuff is extremely dated and makes the whole movement come off as a neo pagan nonsense movement.  Facts are on the side of feminism, embrace those 

5) Embrace complexity.  Again this doesn’t really apply to academic feminism, but more the way it is understood by tumblr folks, but we need to be more comfortable with larger complexity.  Bad people can make good art, somebody can be problematic in one regard and useful in another, simplicity remains as always a tool of the right, so that needs to just be abandoned. 

6) Explain utility: How is Feminism useful to me?   Yeah this one kinda sucks, because when it comes to basic human rights, there is something kinda upsetting about having to be like “oh yeah, these people are being fundamentally oppressed but here is how caring about their plight can help men” like that fucking sucks.  Problem is though, a lot of people are selfish, and if we can’t get them to support this cause, they will drift towards reactionary causes.  Fact is, for men, it is beneficial to them to support sexism on the surface, they benefit from it, and feminism is never going to win out if you don’t draw more men away from opposition.  So as much as it sucks, feminism needs to explain how patriarchy hurts men, how toxic masculinity is actually really destructive for men, how many of the issues that MRAs pretend to care about are issues caused by patriarchy rather than by feminists, how embracing gender equality is actually better for everybody involved.  

7) Finally and maybe most importantly, embrace humor, I think the “humorless angry feminist” sterotype  is one of the greatest weapons of the reactionary right, so we need to drop it.  I admire what Anita Sarkeesian is trying to do but beyond the fact I think her videos are simplistic, she is really really boring and utterly without humor.  Which i think weakens the movement as a whole, if feminism is funny and approachable, it can win adherents, cause again, the facts are on itself, it doesn’t need to hide its core identity the way that reactionary movements do.  

Bonus Round: Feminism should not be equated with other causes, feminism isn’t necessarily communist or pacifistic, 

Edit: 

Ok one thing I think I should add here, and this isn’t really the task of feminism but I think this needs to happen for Feminism to figure out where it go next.  There needs to be a clearer way for men to relate to the world feminists hope to build.  Now I don’t mean that in the sense of “oh no feminism hopes to oppress me and leave men obsolete” and all that conservative nonsense, I mean that when patriarchal gender norms are challenged and broken down (as they should be) it isn’t necessarily clear where men should go.  And many times they return back to reactionary hyper conservative gender norms, because those are simply and easy ad all that jazz.  Like, this isn’t the fault of feminism, its more of an unintended consequence that happens when change comes a calling, like how ebay has been putting malls out of work.  But while men should be able to come up with their own purpose once masculine identities are torn down, creating new identities based upon themselves rather than vague socialist expectations...that clearly isn’t happening, so feminism would do well if they could offer suggestions and try to address those anxeities.  Which....isn’t fair.  I mean its totally not fair at all that feminists have to both care for the needs and interests of a systemically oppressed under class....AND spend time trying to address the emotional needs of the oppressive class but you know...life isn’t fair.  And its just easier, if men, episodically young boys, can’t find a new purpose and identity, they are going to drift back to conservatism, this is how MRAs recruit.

   Honestly, a Men’s movement focusing on how to address men’s issues within the context of feminism and addressing the legitimate issues facing men (suicide, toxic masculinity, sexual insecurities etc) would be a really great thing, but that has largely been co-opted by MRAs as a way to recruit troubled young men into a reactionary hate group.  It shouldn't’t be feminist job, but finding answers for the anxieties of these young men will help them greatly in the future, its just more practical to address that from the outset rather than let them be corrupted by simplistic conspiracy theory narratives about the castration addicted matriarchy bent on white genocide.