#musings ;;

[plaidos]

the “transfem separatist movement” is a transmisogynistic conspiracy theory concocted by antitransfeminists to justify their bigotry towards trans women. there is no transfem separatist movement, only transfems who feel separated from the wider trans community due to a pervasive culture of transmisogyny.

[chigirisprincess]

thinking about jerking aizawa off after a long day of teaching. cradling his head to your chest, your fingers in his hair and massaging his scalp and you languidly pump his cock, his thighs are twitching and his eye is lidded, so relaxed and melted into you

[plaidos]

just saw somebody call portal 2 “accidentally”feminist… i don’t know man; i think you’re just bad at analysis. the main plot is pretty clearly about workplace sexism and women’s body autonomy

[hyperlexichypatia]

It's not just about the word "sentient" -- most speculative fiction reads like it's written by someone who's never heard of animals, and once I notice this, I can never unnotice it.

So many fictional stories center on "What if there were these beings who were different from humans? Like aliens, or elves, or talking rabbits who wear clothes?" And yeah! I love stories like that!

But there are also literally millions of non-human species right here on Earth!

We just don't understand them. We want to think about "What if there were a species of life forms that weren't humans?" but we're so locked into our cholesterol-based human brains that we can't really imagine being one of these other species. So we either imagine other species in an anthropomorphic way ("What if a fox wore clothes and had a job and spoke English?") or imagine a completely fictional type of life form ("What if there were beings that were like humans, but they could live for hundreds of years or more, or they could read minds, or they could teleport, or?") and I, once again I must reiterate, I love stories like that.

But the appeal of these stories is that it's easier for us, as humans, to imagine and empathize with a robot, or an alien, or a mermaid, with human-like thought processes, than it is for us to imagine or empathize with an octopus, or a canary, or a beetle. Let alone a tree, or a lichen, or a mushroom. I find it so disappointing when a story featuring nonhuman beings just reifies the human/animal binary by reframing it as "higher creatures/lower creatures" or "sentient/non-sentient" or "intelligent/non-intelligent."

Usually when I mention this to people, their response is, "Okay, if 'sentient' is the wrong word, what word is better? Sapient? Intelligent?" and no. I'm not saying you're using the wrong vocabulary word with the wrong precise meaning. I'm saying you need to radically, fundamentally reexamine your base assumptions about the human/animal binary. You don't need to find a different word to express the assumption that non-human animals don't think, feel, communicate, learn, or solve problems; you need to actually start understanding that non-human animals do, in fact, think, feel, communicate, learn, and solve problems.

I only started thinking about the human/animal binary as an outgrowth of my interest in disability rights and youth rights, since so many of the purported things that make humans essentially different from "animals" are also things that exclude children and some disabled people. Oh, humans can talk and animals can't? So preverbal children and nonverbal disabled people aren't human?

Sometimes animal people invite this comparison themselves, saying things like "A dog is as intelligent as a 3 year old child." I mean, no, that's not true, a 3 year old human isn't as good at, say, scent tracking, as a dog of any age, but more fundamentally, a 3 year old human child is, in fact, human. And then some animal people like Peter Singer will actively spell out that a nonhuman animal should have more human rights than a disabled human child. The fact that "intelligence" is a concept always invoked in animal discussions, and that pet-keepers often self-identify as "parents," is proof that we can't seriously build the underpinnings of disability and youth liberation without problematizing the human/animal binary.

One time in a fandom group my partner pointed out that nonhuman animals are, in fact, sentient, and somebody responded sneeringly "You must be a vegan." Now, they're not a vegan (neither am I), but what a comeback. "You only acknowledge that animals have thoughts and feelings because you don't eat them!" My man, my dude, if acknowledging the reality that animals are thinking, feeling beings makes you feel weird about eating them, that's something you have to reconcile within yourself. You don't get to deny reality about it.

And ultimately, I do understand why stories about humans interacting with nonhumans tend to anthropomorphize the nonhumans -- because these stories are written by humans, read by humans, interpreted through the lens of human understanding. We really can't understand what it's like to be a frog or a salmon or a hippopotamus. I can't really know what it's like to feel the air change with my antennae, or process information through my octopus arm. That's our limitation. But I wish we would be more aware that we don't know what we don't know.

The best story I've read that really confronts the human/animal binary in all its existential absurdity is the Animal Man volume by Grant Morrison. Animal Man realizes that the human/animal binary is meaningless, becomes an eco-terrorist about it, has an existential crisis, realizes he's a fictional character in someone else's story, and confronts his creator. We're all God's creatures, and xe's fucking with us. Only logical reaction, really.

[lafamilledelioncourt]

trixie: just drop him, you faggot.

[azaablue]

something something dick grayson was found by bruce wayne and jason todd was found by batman idk

[kilonovai]

—- I slept through the news again, the new jersey drones and all of the being that it takes to be human,

people shooting at stars,

a collective misalignment, united flying objects gone hungry,

prednisone in the eyes passing, I look down before I look up. there is so much left for us all to see,

it’s the fermi in me, I think, we’re all down to earth like we’re told to be, hearts beating to the sound of an empty galaxy,

only in our dreams do we visit the hidden reality,

and in the meantime, everything we are becomes holographic, the atoms phasing right through our skin,

when I touch the grass it just changes to a color the human eyes can’t perceive yet.

[rokonrrc2]

Learn More

Aren't plushies beautiful? They were created so a sick child had something to hold. They were created so an adult living alone might have a friend to keep them company. They were created for a teenager to clutch to her chest as she cries. They were created to accompany a college student to his geology classes. They were created not for any material benefit, they don't change tires, but to be loved.

They were created for the purpose of love.

[johannestevans]

December 24th's Free eBook of the Day: Like a Thief and an Assassin

A thief-for-hire mounts a seduction of his handler.

Rated M, 6,7k, M/M. A kooky thief at a for-hire intelligence agency starts to romance his handler. Banter and some back-and-forth, mounting sexual tension, age difference. Tone is playful and restrainedly horny.

Free to buy on Smashwords on January 1st!

[lipikkawrites]

The biggest lesson I've learned this year is to let go of forcing anything- conversations, friendships, relationships, attention, love, success, even my own expectations.

- @lipikkawrites

[butcharium]

I can't say I've ever had baby fever, I am net neutral towards children and would love for someone around me to have kids I could be involved with but so far I doubt I'll want any of my own, however what I do have is kitty fever. Something I feel a deep ache and sorrow within me because I don't have a cat. I am babysitting the neighbours' cat rn and surely this is what love is about i feel when she feels ready to show and receive affection. Just as I write this she's sleeping curled up against me and just stretched out a paw towards me. I am genuinely part of the demographic of women who'd find conceiving difficult and might even be borderline infertile, but this neither bothers me nor will it likely be truly confirmed because as I've stated I'll probably never even try to get pregnant. However the fact that my life circumstances but most importantly my allergies is preventing me from getting a cat is something that hurts more than words can describe:(

[nessieac]

are you kidding me?

[two-bees-poetry]

Hey, what would you guys think about me making a discord server? I feel like we're cultivating a little community on here, and I think it could be fun! How about it?

[shamebats]

If T makes you gain weight and E and antidepressants do it too, and do does enjoying good food and not being hungry all the time, then perhaps maybe sometimes joy & weight gain come hand in hand and that's good

[septemberkisses]

the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.