#not to say it’s actually ok to erase another queer identity

[solitaireships]

I hate so much how it seems like people get that it’s bad to call canonly bi and pan characters straight, but then will turn around and say it’s ok to “headcanon” canonly bi and pan characters as gay men or lesbians. The problem of calling mspec characters straight isn’t just erasing queerness, it’s the erasure of multi gender attraction. Saying a gay or lesbian character should have been bi or pan is bad, and the reverse is also true bcs either way, it’s serving as the erasure of a specific form of queer identity

[yakkety-yak-art]

Just saw an absolutely atrocious take on TikTok abt a trend that is apparently happening?? (I never get trend vids but I always get the videos that are making discourse abt whatever the trend is) regarding the movie I saw the tv glow where the person was saying that like. Cisgender ppl shouldn’t be making videos using the “I saw the tv glow” metaphor bcuz the movie is “about” being trans and I’m just.

Ok first: I am trans. So this isn’t me being like aw I’m cis and wanna feel included. Bcuz I saw a ton of ppl try and claim that abt a commenter under that vid who shared my perspective even tho they were trans. But yall. The thing abt stories is that there can be multiple interpretations. There being more than one interpretation doesn’t erase the most common one or the one you think is the correct one, nor does it diminish it in any way.

Also I would argue that while transness/genderqueerness is one of the ways that the movie’s theme is conveyed, it is not the theme itself. The general theme, from my perspective, is a feeling of wrongness and lack of confidence. Of identifying an aspect of yourself that you do not feel you can allow yourself to be, of the need to pretend that you’re normal. The movie is absolutely about queerness, though I mean that in a sense that encompasses but is also broader than just LGBTQ identities. (Because yes, other queer interpretations exist. I was talking about the movie with one of my cis friends when she first saw it and she told me about how isolated she had felt in a previous conversation about the movie she’d had because everyone in the discussion was debating what aspect of queerness the film was trying to portray, and they all dismissed her out of hand when she told them that she identified heavily with the movie as an asexual person. Because to them, asexuality didn’t count enough to be a “real” queer identity that was worthy of being a theme in a movie.)

Plenty of people can identify with the general feelings and theme and interpret the movie differently. A lot of neurodivergent people (myself included) saw an interpretation about neurodivergence. Cishet people who don’t conform to societal expectations of gender and sexual expression probably see their own interpretations. And yes, the cisgender teens and young adults on TikTok who resonated with the movie’s themes in a less “valid” way, in a more “basic” way, have their own interpretations.

And none of them are wrong. They are correctly identifying the feelings the movie is trying to evoke. They are, in their own ways, relating their experiences to the ones being shared to them by this film. It would be wrong of them to try and claim that the movie isn’t about queer themes, but that’s not what the trend is. And why should we discourage broader discussion of media which portrays these issues, especially when it’s clearly getting the intended emotions across many different identity groups?

Media doesn’t have a singular interpretation that is more correct than another. The only time an interpretation can be wrong is if you can’t back it up with evidence from the media itself. You can disagree with an interpretation if you want, but that doesn’t make it bad or wrong or erasing of queerness. Thinking that it does is an incredibly narrow and unhelpful way to view media. What it’s “meant” to be about isn’t the end all be all of the work. The response it receives from the people who view it is a huge part of it, too.

Anyways sorry I’m an English major and the idea of gatekeeping media interpretations and analysis based on identity pissed me off so much I had to rant about it. Especially when it comes to queer interpretations. Like I get it can be annoying to see cishet takes on media generally regarded as being queer but to actually try and discourage ppl from engaging w discussions about it is such a weird gender essentialist take on media analysis????

[indielowercase]

white trans woman refusing to discuss the nuance of race. being a white woman means they still have privilege over even cis black men and other men of color. when they refuse to consider that in these conversations that thats racism. openly talking about how they hate all men including other queer men/masc folks, men of color, disabled men all men who face bigotry at the hands of society makes them a bigot

being trans doesnt erase their whiteness and the only people i see using tme/tma have been racist white trans people funny how the trans women of color i know never use those terms and how its extremely common that those terms are used to harm and harass trans masc/men especially those who are not white and how trans men and yes even cis men still face misogyny at the hands of society. it goes hand in hand with homophobia. the tme/tma binary is also transphobic to people who are intersex and non binary

transmisogyny exists and is terrible and the solution isnt being horrible to other trans people who have different experiences cause again thats a very white and usually american way of thinking cause god forbid other cultures and how they deal with things exist

ok i'm back from sleep and work

so this is opinion, not proof. you haven't given me anything i could use to confirm this for myself. while i understand why you'd want to send these on anon, all that together makes me considerably less likely to take you on your word.

with just the info provided and gleaning from conversations i've read, it sounds like you're discussing her individual privilege over another individual in discussion on tumblr. this doesn't tell me anything about the actual interaction. saying a white trans woman has privilege over a black cis man is uhhhhhhhh questionable at best we'll say. she may have been racist, the other party may have been misogynist towards her. neither may have happened and one, the other, or both could have just been assholes. i have no idea.

your personal interactions with people aren't the only ones that happen, online or otherwise. i've seen very thoughtful discussions of tme/tma as tools in certain contexts to discuss structural (not individual) oppression of trans women that doesn't happen on a larger scale or systemically to people who are not trans women. then again i've seen it listed alongside other identity markers in people's bios (always tme not tma tho), which makes me feel weird because it's like saying "antiblackness exempt" instead of your race so like there's that. it's useful as a description of transmisogyny specifically but not as like an identity category that's fucking weird but that's also not how i've seen it used the majority of the time (this may be a personal experience difference between us)

i haven't seen it used as a cudgel against trans men. i have seen trans men use it in discussion while trying to claim transmisogyny effects them too (always within the context of discussion of transmisandry) which is something i don't understand at all. i'm a trans man in a pink collar job and while the pay gap for a man working in elementary education (me) or as a nurse (not me) effects any man working in that field, i think it would be weird and inaccurate to say we experience misogyny because of that. this sounds nitpicky but being effected by it vs being the target/experiencing a particular bigotry or structural bias feels like an important distinction to me. the structural forces of bigotry are used as a method of social control, yes, much like homophobia and racism. it's a tool used to make sure "we" aren't too much like "them" because being "them" is bad (because we treat them badly and also their identity category is incapable of doing anything outside of what we prescribe to it.)

or, put another way, white people aren't structurally effected by anti-asian racism because kids at comedian john mulaney's elementary school were racist to him because they thought he looked asian.

nothing here aligns with any terf ideas. someone saying they hate men does not a terf make. if you mean gender essentialist please say so instead.

i would like to say, you're damn right the solution isn't to be horrible to other trans people.

[800-dick-pics]

im basically like  either have a backbone with your sexuality or stuf sit down and let other lgbt exist in quiet without hearing your bullshit destructive cishet bootlicking trash 

[species-id]

Mod here, this is a anon group owned blog where anon things are submitted.

Us : checking notifs

Ppl claiming a stock image website is pushing an exclusive anti alterhuman agenda: oh deer

this is in no offense to the websites maker. but I think a disclaimer needs to be made. I'm gonna have a professional side, but also an unhinged side. So in my professional voice I'll say. No free stock image website is pushing an exclusionary agenda. Why are yall sounding like....

This is where my mother, defender of baby queerios, Begins. Buckle up if you want some fun, the defense of the unserious search of identity, life, and maybe some funny stock images.

The replies are So funny bc yall are claiming this definition is trying to fix something or talk over you when it isn't. Like wtf bro. It's a free website with no press and free stock images.

"If you don't like alterhuman then don't use it "

Anon to the resource blog: OK I made another term for anyone to use. submitted it to resource page. Here's a free website or whatever this is for anyone that resonates. ANYONE THAT RESONATES.

Comments: "stop trying to fix what isn't broken and pressing things on ppl, stop excluding ppl for ur comfort dont remake it."

Well, stop telling ppl that theyre doing actual nefarious things like actively excluding people based on a niche blog ? Remaking it? Why yall like a similar term erases another? Yeah, It just sounds like yall think every general umbrella term made is an attack on yours. I assure you it's not. It's not just yall though. It's an alternate flag, sign ect. Gets this treatment. It's literally just a post on how someone defines alter being. Sometimes we post a flag or two.... To me alter being is the a different way of being in the world than normally accepted. It includes all that alterhuman does. Simple as that for me. FOR ME. every reply here is stating their view of this website as "yes i know this is what exactly they meant" but I've seen it defined differently the same way I've seen so many renditions of EVERY other term.

I could go off and say theria- from theirans means theria as in placental mammals and therefore exclusive to reptile therians. Theyre making an exclusive term against reptiles. Thats how y'all be sounding.

And on the other side of that..you know what if a reptile feels that way about it they have all the rights to say they aren't a therian if it bothers them so much.

They'll use something else (whatever they want) and won't bother you. It's not that serious. But what is serious is accusing ppl making new terms as an exclusive agenda against one you think is better. Because it makes ppl afraid to speak their mind about things that ppl might make fun of as being "too much" and thats the part we don't like.

Literally chillax in the replies yall.

Yall saying it's already used in research sounds like ur telling ppl "stfu our word is official (tm) so its more important (tm) so stop making things up and pressing ur comfort on others " it sounds like yall are more pressed about it (and pressing your thoughts, or at least defending them for no reason) more than this random free made website thats literally anon so no clout there.

this is why I used to shut up about being queer and meaning I'm nonhuman within queerness bc yall are just gonna dog pile anyone that says that. I define nonhumanity under queerness. Am I suddenly pushing ppl to call everyone queer? To be honest a few of us don't like some terms bc there's just too much drama associated with it, feel talked over in experiences." I don't feel it fits me. There fore it doesn't." Simple right? So really no general term is sacred. I don't think the maker of the site should care where it's been cited especially over someone exploring identity. And save ur time quoting this innocent website bc as long as i dont see "alt H is shitty for everyone!" Which i dont. Anything you think is alluding to an anti alterhuman agenda is an assumption. But I see that about being anti alt b in the comments. "It doesn't make sense" " its creating an exclusive club" followed by yall mentioning a research paper to make your point "official"? wtf? Who's the club here?

I assure you that no one cares this much. Out in grass world, I call myself nonhuman and the normies call me lgbtq. And to be honest nonhumanity is like queerness for most people. The idea of queerness is already so familiar with society at large, the the jumping off point is my offline people calling it an extension of queerness. It is already happening offline where i live and yall are honeslty the same as furries to most people. Theres no controlling the mainstream which will always be much bigger. And sure to me, im unbothered. But am i gunna tell yall to stop making words up? No. So I shrug, and move on instead of writing think pieces on why other people I will never see again dont like doodlebob calling themselves queer and have an agenda. im neutral on ppl using whatever. Who cares. But what i dont like and why I'm writing this, is for folks who resonate with this resource and feel bad bc ppl in these comments turn around and tell someone else that their way is stepping over theirs bc they made a random free website that just exists with no press….like lmao. then saying their term is some kind of official bc its used in research and its lowkey saying to use the other official terms you use and urs doesn't Need to be fixed (implying you think they're trying to fix yours?) or pick something YOU think is better. if youre telling them that maybe alth is not for them then dont use it? Thats what theyre doing. They need something different than anything out there apparantly and If you don't like the path they made for themselves, it then it's not for you keep scrolling.

Anyways homies if you wanna make a term called blah that describes ur general feelings on ur identity and it an umbrella term for whoever feels what you describe as it make a resource page made of stock images with no press or paying for ads do it because it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to press anything on something as personal as identity because we have the capacity to make choices which cant possibly be brainwashed by a FREE STOCK IMAGE WEBSITE. For satire istg I'm making a blah post. yes with the shitty watermark stock photos. Not to make fun of op. No offense to who made the website. ur definition of alterbeing is interesteing and even if i dont use it im ok with you making a website (free websites slay btw) to share ur insights. I just want To make a point about how ridiculous the comment section is making the point that a free stock image website is pushing an agenda on anyone.

just be nice ppl. No one is attacking you. They're just trying to find themselves. And we're here to share niche shit. You need to calm down. Also we know we aren't calm, bc what we passionately defend here is expression without being accused of an agenda. Be nice yall. It's just all hugs and lots of stock images here. Lots. Maybe those silly pixelated ones from the last search page of google.

Shout out to one of our anon mods who co wrote this to add the funny stock image reference lmao

ALTERBEING RESOURCE of the day:

[hellomynameisbisexual]

1. Being bisexual means different things to different people

Many people use “bisexual” as the umbrella term for any form of attraction to two or more genders.

But ask a few people about what being bisexual means to them, and you might get a few different answers.

This can make things confusing if you think you might be bisexual, know someone who is bisexual, or you’re just wondering what it means to be bisexual.

So let’s talk about some of the different factors that determine what bisexuality really is.

2. Some people see the term as reinforcing the gender binary

Does the term “bisexual” refer only to attraction to men and women? Some people see it that way.

To them, bisexuality excludes nonbinary genders, or even erases transgender people altogether.

For some, other terms like pansexual, queer, and fluid feel more inclusive.

3. While others apply a broader meaning

Historically, the term bisexual has referred not to “men and women” but to “same and different” — as in, attraction to people of your own gender and to people with gender(s) different than your own.

One popular definition was created by bisexual activist Robyn Ochs:

“I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted — romantically and/or sexually — to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.”

— Robyn Ochs

This definition makes sense when you think about the definitions of homosexual — attraction to the same — and heterosexual — attraction to what’s different. Bisexuality can include both same and different.

4. One thing everyone agrees on: being bisexual isn’t a 50/50 split

While defining homosexuality and heterosexuality might help you understand the definition of bisexuality, don’t make the mistake of thinking that bisexual people are “half gay” or “half straight.”

Bisexuality is a unique identity of its ownTrusted Source, not simply an offshoot of being gay or straight.

5. Some people are attracted to cisgender men and cisgender women

You might meet a bisexual person who says they’re only attracted to cisgender men and cisgender women, though that’s certainly not the case for all bisexual people.

This definition can be based on some misconceptions about gender, as you can’t always tell by looking at someone whether they’re a man, a woman, or cisgender.

6. And others are attracted to people across the gender spectrum

Plenty of bisexual people are attracted to trans and nonbinary people, and plenty of bisexual people are transgender or nonbinary.

So for many bi people, there’s no question that “bisexual” is an inclusive term spanning across the gender spectrum.

7. Some people are more attracted to one gender than another

You might think you’re only “allowed” to identify as bisexual if you experience an equal attraction to multiple genders.

Don’t worry — nobody can take away your bisexual card if this isn’t the case for you.

Research shows that lots of bisexual people are attracted more to one gender than another. Their bisexuality is perfectly valid.

8. Dating someone of a different gender doesn’t make you “straight”

Getting into a relationship is another thing that might make you wonder if you’re “bi enough.”

For instance, if you’re a woman in a monogamous relationship with a man, does that mean you’re not bisexual anymore?

While you may come across people who think you’ve “picked a side” by getting into a relationship, that’s not actually how bisexuality works.

There’s even a whole movement – #StillBisexual – created just to affirm that bisexual people are bisexual regardless of relationship status.

9. Some people have different relationships with different genders

Maybe you’re more attracted to one gender than another. But what does it mean if you experience different types of attraction to different genders?

For example, you could be romantically attracted to people of multiple genders, but sexually attracted only to men. Or maybe you don’t have sexual feelings for anyone, but you do experience romantic attraction.

This is sometimes referred to as cross (or mixed) orientation: romantic attraction to one gender group(s) (or no gender group) and sexually attraction to another (or none).

It’s possible to be bisexual or biromantic, along with another orientation like asexual or aromantic.

10. Who you’re attracted to — in whatever capacity — is valid

Don’t see yourself reflected in common descriptions of bisexuality? That’s OK.

If nothing else, this shows that there are many different ways to be bisexual, and many different expressions of sexuality as a whole.

Your unique experience is valid.

11. Being bisexual isn’t a “pitstop” or a “phase”

One of the most persistent myths about bisexuality is the idea that it just doesn’t exist.

Do people say that they’re bisexual just to go through a “phase” or hide that they’re really gay?

There are many, many people who live their entire lives identifying as bisexual.

And while there have also been people who identified first as bisexual and later as gay, their experience in no way invalidates the existence of bisexuality as a whole.

12. If you find that your individual definition of being bisexual is changing, that’s OK

Does it turn out that bisexuality isn’t what you thought it was? Did you used to define it one way, and now you think of it as something else?

Welcome to the club! That’s actually how a lot of us have come to reach our understandings of bisexuality.

You’re not obligated to stick with a definition that doesn’t feel right to you anymore.

As long as you’re not hurting anyone (including yourself), let yourself explore what bisexuality really means to you.

13. And if you find that you no longer identify as bisexual, that’s OK, too

Once you’re bisexual, are you always bisexual? You certainly don’t have to be — and if you used to identify as bisexual and you don’t anymore, you’re not the only one.

Some people’s sexuality is fluid, meaning it changes from time to time.

It’s also possible that you’ve learned more about yourself and sexuality over time, and realized you were never bisexual in the first place.

This isn’t anything to be ashamed of — the journey to figure out who you are is an important one, and it’s wonderful that you’re growing to know yourself more.

14. It’s often used interchangeably with other terms, but they don’t always mean the same thing

Some people see no difference between bisexuality and other terms like “pansexual” or “queer.”

Some even identify as more than one of these terms at once.

The term they use could simply depend on who they’re talking to or what about their sexuality they want to convey.

But these terms aren’t always interchangeable.

For example, someone might have specific reasons for identifying as queer and not bisexual, so it’s important to respect how each individual chooses to identify.

15. Sexual experiences are independent of sexual orientation

Polyamorous people come in all forms of sexual orientation, including gay, straight, bisexual, and more — and so do monogamous people!

Bisexuality has nothing to do with determining how monogamous or how faithful a person is. That’s all up to the individual.

16. There isn’t really a “test” to assess your own sexuality

It might seem like everyone else has this sexuality thing all figured out — have they taken some sexual orientation test that you don’t know about?

I’ve got some bad news and some good news for you.

The bad news is that, though it might seem like it would make things easier, there is no test to tell you what your sexual orientation is.

But the good news is that you’ve already got the keys to determining your sexuality.

Just consider your attractions, your experiences, and how they may or may not be influenced by gender.

You’re the only one who can say what all of it really means to you.

17. Ultimately, you should use the identifier(s) that you’re most comfortable with

So, does this information mean that you’re “technically” bisexual — even though the term doesn’t call to you? Does it seem like you’re not actually bisexual, even though you’ve always identified that way?

You — and only you — can determine your own sexual identity.

You may prefer to call yourself bisexual, fluid, cross oriented, gay with some bisexual tendencies, multiple identities, or no identity label at all.

If you’re looking to answer what bisexual means to understand who you really are, then it’s time to look inward for your answers.

You’re on your own unique journey toward understanding yourself.

[jeonjk0504]

Hi! I admire your open minded responses and ethics. You have said in some posts that you believe Taehyung and Jungkook are mutually attracted to each other but that they haven't confessed or consummated. (Please correct me if I got it wrong!) I was wondering why, in your opinion, Taehyung and Jungkook wouldn't just take the leap and be together after being on a journey of so many years? Is it your opinion that homophobic society is holding them back? Is it the risks to the band? They seem like two rich, empowered men to me. Taehyung seems like a very honest and authentic person. And Jungkook tweeted a drawing he made of a famous line from Love Simon. These guys would know that being in a committed same sex relationship is an option, right? I am not saying they could necessarily be open about it but I find the idea of them wanting it but not acting on it challenging.

It is a sentiment that I see in a lot of cis het female dominated spaces that revolve around queer men, or the idea of queer men. It's love, it's attraction, it's everything but the relationship. And the sex. It strikes me as a heteronormative overlay on what queer men can and can't do, as if the relationship is allowed to be sexual and romantic only in y'all's minds. It looks like shipping but it also looks like erasure.

Personally, I do not think that Taekook are together but I could be wrong. Anything is possible. I admire the way you stand up for what is right and role model that it is never ok to be a bully. What people consider 'harmless' is relative. I don't buy any 'ships' in BTS as purely aesthetic relationships. I am a gay person and can't take away my identity while seeing this content. Hovering between the space of 'they are real' and 'I just want them to be real' is a safe space for bloggers to be. But it isn't a great representation of genuine LGBTQ+people. A 25 yr old and a 23 year old aren't nuns.

You don't have to answer this question if you prefer not to, of course. I didn't mean to try to make you defend your interests. Your points of view are as valid as mine.

Hey anon!

Thanks a lot for your interesting questions! :)

My personal feeling of them being mutually attracted to one another but not being in a relationship, stems from the dynamic they have. But i got to say, i‘m never 100% sure. I don‘t think you can tell at the tip of their noses if people are in a relationship, because it‘s mostly based on „what would i say/do/act like in a relationship?“ and that can never be copied onto people, even less if you don‘t know them personally.

What makes me say that though is a mixture of reasons. The biggest of them is simple: their friendship. My personal impression is often, that they feel drawn to each other but they also have a good eye on their responsibilities and possibilities. This is less of something i can „prove“, it‘s simply a feeling i get based on various situations and how i see them act, none in specific. I also imagine to cross the line of friendship, might be a lot harder in a conservative country while being in this wide reaching spotlight in contrast to other spaces. And all the other things you took as an example, can add to that they don‘t have to though (the popularity, the band, the family, …).

Also when i say i get the impression it‘s unspoken, i refer to them talking about that attraction or establishing a mature understanding, i have never said they haven‘t acted on it. Their body language feels like they have, actually. To me at least.

I know they both support LGBTQIA Artists and Art. But supporting it and identifying with it are two different pair of shoes.

And while Taehyung seems very, let‘s say adventurous to me, he has always had a strong affinity to a self-image based on his father. Which might mean you can indulge in something for fun (same sex intimacy) but when it get’s serious (same sex relationships) it‘s better to follow conservative ideals, like a lot of oppressed or erased homosexuals in Homophobic countries do.

This is just a connection i keep thinking about though, not a fact. It‘s only a fact that he views his dad as a role-model, visually and also in the role that he performs. His strong wish for children supports that as well. And i‘m not saying it‘s impossible for same sex couples to start a family with children (at least not where i come from) but in SK it‘s sadly not an option as of now. They‘re neither allowed to marry, nor have a legal partnership which will definitely have an impact on how you approach relationships in any case.

And i keep questioning myself: would you share such a sensitive wish like having kids, knowing fully well that it‘s not an option while being in a serious same sex relationship? Or would you share it in the belief that laws will change in the future or you will („somehow“) end up with a woman to make it happen? It may be nitpicky of me to question that, but i see it as a possible indicator of Taehyung not being in a serious same sex relationship as of now, because i feel like his desire to have children in some way, has always been noticeably strong and if he shares his wishes in such a carefree way, maybe his wish is in no danger.

Btw i know a lot of TKer i talk to disagree with me on this and they don‘t think it has to mean anything! 😌 and to be fair: we have the same amount of possible indicators that speak in favor of a relationship. I feel like i‘m talking a lot about why i think they‘re not, rather in what way they could actually be… (very ironic, looking at my blog)

Jungkook on the other hand is a little romantic to me, but he seems very careful too not like someone who just takes the leap (i‘m not saying shy, pretty sure he got over that a few years ago for the most part..).

There is a lot more, but it would take up too much space to elaborate so i hope it‘s okay i only gave a small reason for now.

Concerning your criticism on cishet spaces, they are of course valid and it‘s important to keep an eye on that and call out people who hurt the community. I don‘t feel comfortable with you associating me in that space though, because i doubt you actually know from what perspective i am sharing my opinions. I also use BTS neither for hetero nor LGBTQIA representation because i don‘t know what they identify as. It goes both ways. You might see it as hovering in a safe space, but for me that safe space is mostly there out of respect, not because i don‘t feel brave enough to take a stance.

I thank you for your respectful questions! :) it was interesting to reflect on why i view them the way i do. Please always feel free to share your opinions with me 🥰 have a nice day!!

[butch-bakugo]

So, just found this, a few standard questions from that header top your blog: why do you not prefer the term queer? Do you prefer the term LGBT more, or do you see queer as strictly a slur, nothing else?

Ill be glad to answer however first off im gonna be alittle nitpicky...

I dont "not perfer" the term queer same as i dont " not perfer" she/her pronouns. Dont call me queer at all. Never. Same as dont refer to me using she/her pronouns at all. Never. Im really aginest calling peoples pronouns their " preferred pronouns" cause preference dose not imply that those pronouns are the only option they have, it just means out of all the pronouns you can use for them, you perfer they use he/him. I hope that makes seince. He/they arent my "preferred pronouns" because it implies that ill still be ok with she/it, they just aren't my preference and i am 100% not ok with she/it. He/they are my pronouns same as i say that i do not identify as q*eer.

Now getting into the nitty gritty of your question.

There are many reasons why i dont want to be called queer and alot of it stems from my experiences inside and outside of the lgbt community as someone who has identified as just about every letter other than gay. My reasons dont have a primary but just a bunch of things colliding at once of pretty equal force. The first reason is because ive been assualted with it multiple times with just haveing it spit out of cars at me as i walked to the marathon up the street to even during my sexual assualt by a cis bi woman.

I know to some privilaged people here who live in very progressive areas that are totally shocked when they hear that another lgbt person isnt ok with that word and has had multiple moments in their life where family and friends will use that for them as an issult. They only know it as the new trendy way to say lgbt or the " inclusive" way to say lgbt when rly all that dose is exclude many lgbt people who dont want to be involved where they will be called that.

Another reason is because, from seeing it happen to many MANY celebrity sapphic women and related nbs, soully calling them queer to erase or depublize their sapphic identity. Think about it. When lil nas x was forced out, everyone called him gay cause hes gay. Not once has anyone called him queer or achillian or anything other than gay. Now think about when jojo siwa came out. Everyone was calling her pan and everyone was calling her queer. When she came out, she came out as a lesbian and they were purposefully ignoreing that word. Infact coverage of her totally vanished. I only heard she came out as a lesbian through her tik tok. Nothin else.

Thats common in the lgbt community. Lesbians are hated by alot of people for no good reason and even if im not a lesbian anymore, i can still attest to that after years and years of identifying as a lesbian. It was hell. Lesbians deserve to respected, have more representation and that word shouldnt be silenced.

I also don't like it when fellow lgbt people ignore my identity just to slap the word queer on my forehead and ignore my actual terms. Im a two spirit alloaro butch bisexual, not just vague queer. Many many white people ignore my two spiritness to just slap bigender or intersex on me cause they can comprehend that erasing a two spirit persons identity is racist.

That brings me to one of my last points as to why i do not consent to being called queer nor do i identify as it. I barely identify as lgbt anymore because of my native reconstruction. The more i learn about native culture, the more i learn that my gender and sexuality experiences would be respected and loved by my native communities. The lgbt community is very very white so i tend to shy away from it.

Now onto your next question which i kinda inadvertently answered but ill answer it more directly. Personally out of all the terms that could be used for me in a general sense, i perfer two spirit. As two spirit covers both native genders and sexualities which are complex but also not in comparison to the lgbt community However if i have to pick lgbt. I dont want queer used for me. At all. Ever.

Queer has historically and is still widely being used a slur today so yes, i only see queer as a slur. Im sure alot of questioning lgbt people thrive under that vagueity but im also sure alot of privilaged cishet people thrive in their exploitation of it and im sure alot of lgbt people, such as myself, suffer under it for numerous reasons. Most of them being trauma related.

I could also gent into how alienating the lgbt community is to trauma victims and how cishet centered its been getting but for now, ill stop this post cause my spoons are low and its nothing i haven't said before.

All this to say that if you feel safe and at home in vague " queer" , theres nothing wrong with that and ill never stop someone from calling themselves that or identifying with it. Basically i wont reclaim it and it should never be used to name the community( just say lgbt??) But if someone else identifies with it, good for them. They should still understand that it is effectively still used as a slur and not be pretentious about tagging it

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Connie and Carla

I know nothing about this film requested by Chad other than the following facts: It was Nia Vardalos’s follow-up to the indie smash hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and it was universally reviled by audiences and critics alike. So I’m in for a fun afternoon! The plot is your basic Some Like It Hot ripoff - Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Toni Collette) are childhood best friends who have spent their whole lives performing together, believing they are destined for musical theater greatness. After witnessing a murder, they go on the run and hide out in the last place anyone would think to look for them - as women pretending to be men pretending to be women, aka performers in a drag queen bar in L.A. Everything’s going great until a BOY shows up (David Duchovny), and Connie falls for him. Gender gags, musical theater numbers, mistaken identify, Russian mobsters, hijinks - yeah, we’ve all drunk this cocktail before. So was this top shelf, or something found in a plastic jug at the gas station? Well...

How about a mid-level ridiculous flavored vodka? Like Pinnacle Whipped Cream or something. The film’s conceptions of gender (and of straight women’s feelings of entitlement to what should be LGBTQ spaces) are not my favorite. But its heart is in the right place and overall this leads to something pretty fun and charming, especially if you happen to love musical theater.

Some thoughts:

If there were an airport lounge where I could watch two sad 30-somethings singing a medley of musical theater’s greatest hits, I would go there every day. I wouldn’t even book a flight, that would just be my favorite bar. I think I would go broke driving to the airport every day and buying drinks in this lounge. I’d have my birthday party there. 

Oh I love Greg Gruenberg in a bit part as the cheesy celebrity bus tour guide in L.A. 

Hello David Duchovny as Jeff! He was my first celebrity crush, and his aw shucks nice guy thing in this movie is really working for me. 

This is wildly offensive to drag queens not because of stereotypes, but because no drag act would ever come so ill-prepared with a Rocky Horror number. I recognize that in 2004 we didn’t have over a decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race under our belts, but c’mon, even the most sheltered Midwestern queer would come with something better than this. 

Is this supposed to be some kind of feminist statement about beauty standards in L.A.? This anti-botox rant Connie and Carla go on, and the makeover of the woman in the salon - no no no, straight hair and beige lipstick is Bad but curly hair and lip liner is Good. It feels confusing that we’re supposed to see this as empowering when we’re just trading one commodified flavor of femininity for another. 

There’s something that just feels deeply wrong about these women taking one of the only paying drag gigs in town, particularly when actual drag performers come to them and beg them to open up their act to include other drag queens. Note that they all offer up tangible skills - I can sew a dress in 3 hours, I can do incredible makeup, I’ve got great choreography. Yes Connie and Carla can sing, but drag is meant to be performative - the artifice is part of what makes it an art form. Smarter queer people than me have written about this, but even for the uneducated, there’s something about this concept that feels off, wrong and exploitative, and deeply rooted in straight privilege. It’s the same icky feeling I get at the gay bar when all the seats for the drag show are taken up by straight women’s bachelorette parties, while actual queer women and men who came to see the show are pushed to standing room. 

Ok, I do kind of love these interludes with Tibor (Boris McGiver) looking for the girls in every dinner theater and Broadway show in the country and the only show playing is Mame every time. Fun fact - McGiver’s father actually starred in the 1974 version of Mame!

Feels a little weird that Connie is the one who is explaining to Jeff why drag queens “like to dress up.” Is this being an ally or just erasing and talking over queer folks’ experiences? This is what I mean when I say it feels off - I don’t think it’s malicious, but the way the film handles queer stories feels like a dismissal, an invalidation. Like these straight women can do queer camp better than these gay men. 

Did Carla literally just say “I need to get out of this closet”????

Connie is literally the worst at maintaining a cover. The trappings of fame are proving too alluring! 

As far as performances go, Collette and Vardalos have great chemistry, and Duchovny is being pretty dreamy as the romantic lead who’s around because he’s trying to reconnect with his estranged brother, Robert (Stephen Spinella). Nobody is winning an acting award for this, but Collette especially is a lot of bubbly fun.

Jeff is a difficult character to grapple with. On the one hand, he doesn’t always handle Robert’s sexuality with grace or compassion, and that can be difficult to watch as a queer person because we all have experienced that same kind of look, that tone of “why can’t you just be normal?” However, he’s putting in an honest effort to grow, and I think that should count for something. Also he straight up gets sexually assaulted by Connie, so I don’t blame him for having a hard time feeling comfortable around the drag queen scene. And that’s another fucked up thing, just adding to the “gay men are predatory and will put the moves on straight guys at the first chance” stereotype. 

Even though it sounds cringey as hell when he says it, I’m sure it is probably cathartic for any gay kid who stumbles across this movie and hears Jeff make his big speech about “I should have just loved you and accepted you and not cared about the fact that you wear dresses.” That’s what I mean when I say the script seems to have its heart in the right place even though the way it’s expressing a lot of these ideas just reinforces the status quo rather than interrogating it, or propping up the stories of people who live outside that status quo.

My god, do I love Debbie Reynolds in this head-to-toe red glitter number.

Yeah I don’t think all these queens would take this kindly to being lied to and having their act infiltrated by a couple of straight women. Like this feels laughably “all’s well that ends well.” 

Did I Cry? Ok, a tear slipped out when Jeff and Robert hugged for the first time. 

This was a very interesting watch. I know I seem to be dragging this shit out of this movie, but I actually largely enjoyed the experience of watching it. It’s got a very 2004-esque view of some complex gender and sexuality issues (and wouldn’t it have been so much more interesting if a queer person had written this and was able to use it to interrogate issues of femininity and its performance as it relates to queerness?). BUT, honestly, the whole thing is Shakespearean in its plot and its broad strokes characters. You’ve got crossdressing, mistaken identity, some light gay panic, long lost brothers reuniting - all that’s missing is a Duke and a forest setting, and you’ve got half of Shakespeare’s comedies right there. And much like Shakespeare, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before - it’s the medium parts of Some Like It Hot, the general plot of Sister Act (swap nuns for drag queens), the gender panic of every cross-dressing movie. All very surface-level stuff but there’s a reason these same kind of stories have been putting butts in seats for 400 years. 

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[posi-pan]

Hi, I’m not ace but I 100% support them and I know for a fact they are part of the lgbt community. I have a question though: “cishet” means cisgender heterosexual, and far as I can tell, aces can’t be heteroSEXUAL because they don’t feel sexual attraction (they can be, however, heteromantic, right?) so... I believe that “cishet” automatically wouldn’t include aces. Am I wrong? Please educate me if you can. Thank you.

hi ok so I’m not ace either, so I’m definitely not the person to be reaching out to about this, but I’ll try my best to explain it as I understand from seeing aspec people talk about this.

this is probably going to get a bit long and rambly

the way anti-ace people weaponize “cishet” against aspec people is that they don’t use it to mean “cis heterosexual” they use it to mean “cis heterosexual OR heteroromantic” because one can be cis, asexual, and heteroromantic or cis, aromantic, and heterosexual. and in their mind, therefor those people are “cishet” because, again - in their mind, the attraction those people experience, whether romantic or sexual, is “straight”.

actually, I take it back that they don’t use “cishet” to mean “cis heterosexual” because some do, so when they say “cishet ace” they could be invalidating or erasing or minimizing asexuality. in the way anti-ace people do when they claim asexual means you don’t want/like sex. like, “just because you don’t want sex doesn’t make you queer/lgbt, you’re still straight” that sort of thing. that sort of very wrong, very ignorant thing.

but I’ve seen a lot of aspec people (rightfully) argue that “cishet” means “cis, heterosexual, AND heteroromantic” so no, a cis ace heteroromantic person or cis aro heterosexual person is not “cishet”. and also that to allocishet people, ace and aro people are not the same as them, they don’t experience the same things and are not included in society’s idea of what the ~status quo is for attraction and relationships. the way anti-ace queer people reject aces/aros from their community is the same way non-queer people reject them from their’s.

and also when people say heteroromantic aces or heterosexual aros belong with non-queer people over queer people, and use “cishet” to exclude them, it doesn’t make sense to me, because people outside of queer, more specifically aspec, circles are not going to think, “ah you’re heterosexual but what’s your romantic orientation?” or vice versa, ya know? they conflate sexual and romantic attraction, which is why aspec people who have different attractions are not the same as and shouldn’t and most likely wouldn’t be included/accepted as the same as non-queer people.

(then there’s the whole “aspec people don’t face oppression” argument to exclude them, which is just literally, factually incorrect, on both the claim and the basis of inclusion. but that’s another topic.)

idk if any of this made sense or is worded properly or in the best way but I tried

also the blog asexualadvice is all about aspec identities, so you should check it out, they’ll probably have a lot more helpful information on this. also this thread from asexualjournal on twitter, and their account as a whole, is very informative.

and for anyone reading this: no, this is not an invitation to tell me aspec people aren’t queer. your message will be deleted/you will be blocked.

because spoiler alert: all aspec people are queer and part of the community.

[pbscore]

Because I saw that disgusting Pride Month post that excludes the voices of and erases ace/aro, pan, poly, and nonbinary people based on the OP’s opinion (not facts)....

I’m just gonna say HAPPY PRIDE MONTH TO ALL PEOPLE WHO HAVE FOUND REFUGE IN THE LGBT+/LGBTQ/LGBTQIA/QUILTBAG/WHATEVER YOU CALL IT COMMUNITY.

It’s none of my business what you label yourself as.

It’s not up to me to determine whether or not you “belong” here.

I refuse to use the Pulse tragedy as a way to push away those who may need to reach out to this community because 1) IT’S DISRESPECTFUL TO THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY PASSED ON and 2) you’re hurting people who you claim to support

Whether you agree or disagree on the different identities that have been created in the past few years DOESN’T MATTER. Learn how to disagree quietly and respect people who are different from you.

In the end, if you KNOW you ain’t straight, then you ain’t straight. Don’t let anyone (especially people in the LGBT+ community) punk you out of your own experiences and make you feel like a freak. Take your time figuring stuff out, life is not a race, I can promise you that.

You DON’T HAVE to like the word, queer. You DON’T HAVE to use the word, queer. If that’s how someone else describes themselves and their community, have some respect and realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you and they have every right to use it. However, if they are using that word in a negative way towards YOU AND OTHERS, then you have every right to shut them down. Respect is a two way street, y’all.

EVERYTHING IS A CASE BY CASE BASIS. If an intersex person includes themselves in the LGBT+ community, then they are LGBT+. If they don’t, then they don’t. Which leads to my next point...

Stop speaking over one another and realize that NONE OF Y’ALL ARE THE SAME AND NONE OF Y’ALL WILL HAVE THE SAME EXPERIENCES. Some of y’all will experience the worst types of discrimination and some of y’all won’t. Some of y’all have families who are super supportive of you and that’s fantastic! And some of y’all don’t have that and that sucks! It’s ok to realize that there are people and experiences that exist outside of yourself and that’s what we need to get back to as a community.

We need to get back to uniting against the actual people who want to hurt our community. 

We need to stop ASSUMING people’s identities and telling them that if they don’t identify EXACTLY like us, they are “basically straight” or “not inherently LGBT+”.

We need to stop demonizing and dehumanizing each other based on petty reasons (”cishet aces,” “bihets,” being “gender critical,” transphobia, homophobia, racism, able-ism, and all that other nonsense that’s not helping us as a community).

We need to realize that not every LGBT+ person is going to have the same experience being LGBT+.

We need to stop being so afraid of expanding our community to include people who describe their attraction in complex ways. Example: Someone who describes themselves as nonbinary aceflux/panromantic is not going to kill you, so stop being so dramatic about it and stop making fun of them. (Pedophiles and other groups related to them ARE NOT INCLUDED)

The tumblr LGBT+ community needs to grow up. It needs to stop falling into this cycle of self-hatred to the point of taking out that self-hatred on others who need this community. We need to stop talking about being a helpful community and actually BECOME a helpful community to those who need it.

So, in conclusion, HAPPY PRIDE MONTH to EVERYONE WHO HAS FOUND REFUGE IN THE LGBT+ COMMUNITY and thank you to the allies for supporting us as well.

P.S. Just so we are CRYSTAL CLEAR...

Just because you are LGBT+, IT DOES NOT GIVE YOU ANY AUTHORITY OVER WHO IS LGBT+ AND WHO ISN’T.

Pansexual and polysexual people are not “just bi” and they are not just under the ‘B’. They have their own identities that are similar but they are not THE SAME.

Same thing goes for nonbinary/genderqueer people. Stop shoving them under the ‘T’ when many have EXPLICITLY said that they do not belong there.

The ‘A’ stands for ASEXUAL/AROMANTIC/AGENDER. It does not stand for Allies and allies is not “code for closeted” people. That’s a lie exclusionists made up so they could cause more problems within the ace discourse. Closeted people would go under the label they SECRETLY IDENTIFY AS (EXAMPLE: if you are closeted and gay, then you would just be a closeted gay person, NOT AN ALLY)

[strange-goodfellows]

A Sweet Friend: Power and Erotics in Doctor Faustus -- A Summary

So, let’s talk male-male relationships in this time, shall we? Hey y’all! I actually am getting around to this now! Now some disclaimers overall: I am an undergrad. I’m not like an expert in any way shape or form. This is just the conclusion I reached in a 9-12 page essay for a 10 week class on renaissance literature. Additionally I feel as though I may have misrepresented the amount of this paper that is explicitly about the use of the word “sweet.” It is an important part of my paper because it complicates the topic in a weird way. I am in no way done with this paper, it’s something I want to continue to research, refine my thesis, and eventually maybe get this shit published. But for now, I’ll talk about the stuff that I have done. Probably gonna put this under a cut because this could get aggressively long.

My main topic was to determine the power dynamic between Faustus and Mephistopheles through a lens of the erotic. We’d spent the whole term looking at how the Elizabethans were actually pretty into having power over others, thus the erotics of a young boy’s body on stage (there’s lots of shit with this). So I thought, well if we can identify erotic elements of a relationship based on the difference in power, we should be able to go the other way, and determine a power dynamic based on the erotic elements.

I started this paper going there is clearly something going on between Mephistopheles and Faustus, right?? Like surely there will be no shortage of scholarship identifying the homoerotic language in this play... RIGHT? Well as it turns out it was actually difficult to find scholarship on the erotics in this play specifically. Weird. So I had to turn to more general topics-- how do men show affection to each other normally in this period? By determining the norm, and attempting to quantify how the relationship between Mephistopheles and Faustus does or does not fit within it, I could study the queer qualities in their relationship, and hopefully from this I could determine who holds the power between the two of them.

So, let’s talk male-male relationships in this time, shall we? I relied heavily on the works of Alan Bray in this particular regard. He wrote an article titled “Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England” in around 1990 that summarizes what he considers to be the normal relationship between two gentlemen of equal or very similar rank. An important detail: this relationship that I am about to summarize is not in fact queer because it was a perfectly normal relationship. That’s not to say they are not gay as hell (pun not intended). As we define relationships now, this absolutely would constitute a gay relationship so please don’t panic as I continue to use the term “gentleman’s friendship.” I am with you all. I just want to point out the weird intricacy of this relationship. It was not considered sodomy to the Elizabethans, and they didn’t have the identity concept of homosexuality we have. It doesn’t mean we are trying to erase the queer aspects in any way, it just means we need to deal with it slightly differently (one reason I put off writing this so long is I’m very afraid people will be like ‘you promised us gay code and now you’re just calling them friends’). That said, Bray outlines two very important features of a friendship between two gentlemen: an outwardly-directed physical relationship, and an inwardly-directed emotional bond.

Let’s break that shit down now. What do I mean when I say outwardly-directed physical aspects? Bray explains that these relationships included public displays of affection. Gentlemen could embrace in public, kiss in public, and in fact share a bed with each other. While the bed-sharing would not be public in itself (they weren’t like hey look watch us sleep!), people would make it very clear who they were sharing a bed with and people would know they were “bedfellows” (Bray 4). This public side of the relationship was incredibly important because these relationships between gentlemen of rank were often power plays in themselves. Everyone wants someone to cuddle and smooch, but at this point in time two gentlemen could essentially protect each other’s rank by showing their bond. Same concept as having powerful friends to my understanding. You have someone to call on if someone wrongs you, who will undoubtedly be on your side. Looking at the public aspects of this, it opens our options for finding examples of this relationship in Faustus a little bit more--rather than just looking for examples of them kissing or embracing (relatively scarce seeing as no stage direction like ever)-- we can look for examples of favors between them (literally everything that happens).

That said, there are some very real places that we do see evidence of Faustus and Mephistopheles sharing a bed. Take for example when Faustus and Mephistopheles visit Rome, Meph has this lovely little present for Faustus:

...and because we will not be unprovided, I have taken up His Holiness’ privy chamber for our use.

                                                                                              (3.1.843-845)

Now ok so a privy-chamber isn’t exactly a bedroom, though some privy chambers may in fact have had a bed, the intimacy of sharing that space remains. So is this in fact an implication that Faustus and Mephistopheles would share a bed there, perhaps even with the Pope (ok but a threesome with the Pope and a literal devil?? Marlowe buddy)? Another piece of evidence for Mephistopheles and Faustus sharing a bed is that right at the end of his life, Faustus confesses to some fellow scholars, crying to one:

Ah, my sweet chamber fellow! Had I lived with thee, then had I lived still, but now I die eternally!

                                                                                               (5.2.1390-1391)

So maybe Faustus and this scholar used to be close and share a bed, but they no longer do. Why? Most likely because Faustus has been bedding down with somebody else recently. Also note Faustus’ use of the word die there, because it has one of my favorite double meanings. “Die” was at this point very much a slang word for orgasm. Amazing Faustus super subtle bro. (I mean to be fair he likely means his actual impending damnation here, but also Marlowe most certainly chuckled as he wrote that shit, and it is still significant that elements of their relationship are coded as erotic).

And I’m not gonna get into the specific favors that I covered in my paper because this is already super long and I haven’t even touched sweetness yet. But idea being, go through the play if you’d like and note all the favors Mephistopheles does for Faustus. You can argue that Faustus “owns” Mephistopheles and thus Mephistopheles has to follow his orders, but I think the next section may complicate that understanding.

OK NOW WHAT MOST OF YOU ACTUALLY WANTED: “sweet.” 

The source you should all start with for interest in the use of this word is Jeffrey Masten’s “Toward a Queer Address: The Taste of Letters and Early Modern Male Friendship.” It is incredibly interesting, and covers what Masten discovers to be “a rhetoric of sweetness between men” (Queer Address 370). First of all, what a fucking great way to put that. he examines the use of “sweet” between Valentine and Proteus and Hamlet and Horatio (”Goodnight, sweet prince” anyone? literally kill me it’s so good). So maybe it wasn’t “queer code” then because that relationship was normal but it sure as hell points to a queer relationship in modern view. Now looking at Faustus, this play is absolutely fucking littered with the word “sweet.” 

Now the angle I used from this article was actually Masten’s examination of the etymology of “sweet” as coming from the word meaning “to persuade” and therefore its use in persuasion between men (think “my good sweet honey lord” Poins turning on that charm to get Hal to play along). But remember how I said the play is littered with sweetness? The thing that struck me when I was looking more into it is that I could not find one example of Mephistopheles addressing Faustus as sweet. Ever. Maybe I missed one but I don’t think I did. So in an equal relationship, Faustus and Mephistopheles ought to share this rhetoric equitably right? So what is up with this why does Faustus call Meph sweet all over the damn place and Meph never reciprocates?? Like honestly what a dick move Meph. This is where my thesis comes in (and I will reiterate, I’m not fully sold on this thesis myself) -- their relationship is not equal. The power truly rests in Mephistopheles’ hands; however, Mephistopheles is clever and knows he cannot let the proud Faustus realize this. So, Mephistopheles allows their relationship to become framed as a gentleman’s friendship in order to rhetorically dominate Faustus.

I ended up looking specifically at the situations in which Faustus uses “sweet” and it is most often at times when Mephistopheles has appeared unwilling to follow his order. Take for example when Faustus asks Mephistopheles to bring him a wife

Faustus. …let me have a wife, the fairest maid in Germany, for I am wanton and lascivious, and cannot live without a wife.

Mephastophilis. How? A wife! I prithee, Faustus, talk not of a wife.

Faustus. Nay, sweet Mephastophilis, fetch me one, for I will have one.

                                                                             (2.1.587-592)

Mephistopheles immediately denies Faustus’ request, and this drives Faustus to flex his persuasive rhetoric with his use of “sweet Mephistophilis.” 

Basically this is where my paper fell apart in my opinion. I don’t think my thesis is necessarily wrong, but it does not cover the intricacies of their relationship. I also am unsatisfied because I essentially draw the conclusion that Mephistopheles only ever is doing his job to drag Faustus to hell and never becomes really close to him, which I just don’t think is true. It bugs me to no end that Mephistopheles never uses the word “sweet” in reference to Faustus. So I’m still examining the text, looking for new sources, I may dip into the B-text a little bit sometime because I used only the A-text for this because it is the one more accepted as “accurate.” 

I hope this interested some of you, I’ll include my whole bibliography that I used for this paper (lots of it was not covered in this summary, and also several things didn’t even make it into my paper because I hit 12 pages very fast). There were a couple more relationships I wanted to examine the erotics of, but I really only got to talk about 2 of them in my full paper. 

Thanks for your interest though y’all! I’m very proud of this work, even though it has a very very long way to go and I’d be interested to hear thoughts on this one.

Bibliography:

Barrie, Robert. “Elizabethan Play-boys in the Adult London Companies”. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 48.2 (2008): 237–257. Web.

Bray, Alan. "Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England." History Workshop 29 (1990): 1-19. Web.

Cox, John D.. “Devils and Power in Marlowe and Shakespeare”. The Yearbook of English Studies 23 (1993): 46–64. Web.

"die, v.1." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 29 May 2016.

"familiar, n., adj., and adv." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 29 May 2016.

Goldberg, Jonathan. Sodometries: Renaissance Texts, Modern Sexualities. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. Print.

Masten, Jeffrey. “Between Gentlemen: Homoeroticism, Collaboration, and the Discourse of Friendship.” Textual Intercourse: Collaboration, Authorship, and Sexualities in Renaissance Drama. Ed. Stephen Orgel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 28-62. Print.

---. "Toward a Queer Address: The Taste of Letters and Early Modern Male Friendship." GLQ:      A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 10.3 (2004): 367-384. Project MUSE. Web. 29         May. 2016. <https://muse.jhu.edu/>.

"ravished, adj." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 29 May 2016.

Richmond, Velma Bourgeois. “Renaissance Sexuality and Marlowe’s Women.” Forum. 16.4 (1975): 36-44. Electronic.

Smith, Bruce R. Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare’s England: A Cultural Poetics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991. Print.

Stockholder, Kay. “‘Within the massy entrails of the earth’: Faustus’s Relation to Women.” “A Poet and a filthy Play-maker”: New Essays on Christopher Marlowe. Ed. Kenneth Friedenreich, Roma Gill, and Constance B. Kuriyama. New York: AMS Press, 1988. 203-219. Print.

Weil, Judith. “‘Full Possession’: Service and Slavery in Doctor Faustus.” Marlowe, History, and Sexuality: New Critical Essays on Christopher Marlowe. Ed. Paul Whitfield White. New York: AMS Press, 1998. 143-154. Print.

[demitgibbs]

Troye Sivan Talks Finding Power in Femininity, Unhibited Second Album

Nobody is stopping Troye Sivan except for maybe Troye Sivan. No queer-averse label bosses, no identity-stifling pressure to be anything but who he is: the LGBTQ community’s precious paradigm of unapologetic, unicornian queerness.

But even with the YouTube-launched pop fixture’s steady mainstream rise, with assists from Ariana Grande on a single featured on his sophomore album, Bloom, and a live duet at a recent Taylor Swift concert, the 23-year-old’s follow-up to 2015’s Blue Neighborhood refuses to sacrifice self for commercialism.

And he won’t stop there this time, not during this album cycle (or ever): In the seductive video for the album’s first single, “My My My!,” Sivan works a room doused in the carnal grit and flashing lights of a gay bar’s seedy backroom – and also an entire street – in a blistering heat as hot as the shirtless guys feeding his desire.

He’s coy about its subject matter, but Sivan wrote an entire song about bottoming too.

I tell the South African-born, Australian-reared Sivan that “Bloom,” notably an official single, is the perfect Monday song to crank on your way to work, or at a family gathering. Its gay-sex specificity perhaps lost on heterosexuals, the anthemic send-up is concurrently a love song and the most liberating of queer secrets. Giggling, he tells me, “That was the goal.”

Elsewhere, the celebratory, spirited and brazenly gay Bloom turns the page on Sivan’s youth, which was cast with wistfulness and, admittedly, tentativeness on Blue Neighborhood, his first Capitol Records album. That same sentimental lilt – but now, with winks – also marks his burgeoning adult years captured on Bloom: losing his virginity to an older man during a Grindr hookup (the dreamlike, fraught-with-realness “Seventeen”); recognizing he’s failed his better half (the tender and winsome “The Good Side”); and a strutting, newfound sexual liberation, with “Bloom” and “My My My!”

Sivan’s transparency is hardwired: He truly can’t be anything but himself. This is clear on Bloom, but holds true during conversation, as Sivan talks about deriving power from femininity, working through residual queer issues, and dealing with the fear of shooting “My My My!” with a crew of dudes bigger than him.

WATCH:

Did you imagine you’d be answering all these questions about sex after “Bloom” was unleashed into the world?

No way. Honestly, I never would’ve thought I would have written that song. That song came out of a session that I felt wasn’t going too well. It was me and my best friend (and producer) Leland, us being like, “OK, well how do we make the most of this day? Let’s just start messing around and having fun.” And we wrote it that night – never, ever thought that it would see the light of day. We ended up with something that I thought was really, really cool and interesting and real.

Mainstream culture has come around to same-sex love, but gay sex is still taboo. Does your frankness about gay sex on this album feel radical or political?

Not really. I wanted to make music for people like me. The first album I was conscious of trying to keep things really digestible for as many people as possible. This time around I had a different set of goals, which were to really, actually, accurately represent where I feel like I am in my life. And if it’s talking about going out and partying, or if it’s talking about staying at home and cooking in the kitchen – or if it’s talking about sex – whatever it is, I wanted a 20-year-old queer person to hear this and be like, “Oh yeah, this is, like, legit.” 

What influenced you to deliver something more queer-specific?

It was having all of these really inspiring experiences and meeting all of these really inspiring people. You know, whenever I start writing music, my number one goal, always, is to keep things honest and real, because I think it’s the only way to stay relevant and stay true over a long career. I wanna be doing this for the rest of my life, and I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to be thinking about cool concepts and things like that for the rest of my life. But I’ll always be able to speak about where I am in my life, that’s always gonna be there. So I fall back on that, and I wanted to not hold anything back. It’s so cool to me to be able to celebrate all of those things I was celebrating in my real life. So, why not go for it and talk about that on the album?

When did the album’s more defiantly queer narrative begin to take shape artistically?

It was probably just the moment where I had immersed myself in the LGBTQ community. When I think about my real life, I have almost exclusively queer people around me in L.A. I’m living in this little bubble right now where I forget sometimes that it’s a thing and that there are, like, straight people in the world (laughs).

I’m sure that you’re reminded when you perform in small towns that aren’t like West Hollywood.

Right, exactly. And then I travel to somewhere like that or I’ll go home to Australia – or I’ll just read the news – and very quickly get reminded just how lucky I am and how specific my experience is. But my hope is that it’s an experience of hope for people, that they hear this and feel like, “Oh, that’s possible and I can go and live this happy and healthy and fulfilled, fun life.” And see that there is, 100 percent, another side to the world.

For some gay people, coming out doesn’t mean the personal battle has been won – there’s still overcoming sexual repression. I feel like you work through some of that on this album.

Probably, yeah. Totally. And I think just in general a lot of the residual issues that queer people deal with have also completely followed me into my older life, just internalized homophobia that I’ve held onto without meaning to from when I was, like, 13 or whatever. It’s like, “Oh no, you can’t talk about that or you can’t sing about that.” I’m doing my very, very best to actively throw all that away. It’s been really empowering.

What has been the most challenging part of navigating the music industry as an unapologetically out gay man?

Normal music industry stuff. I came into the industry at the perfect time for me, a time where people were willing to let me be who I am and say what I want and do what I want, so that’s been the biggest blessing. All that really leaves is just personal challenges of like, what do I want from my career? Am I making sure that I’m releasing the very best thing that I possibly can? And what’s inspiring to me? And do I want this to be a radio smash, and if I do, how am I gonna get there? Or do I just want this to be something that means something to people, and how am I gonna get there? It’s been fairly typical music industry stuff, which I feel really thankful for, because I think 10 years ago, it would’ve been a whole separate set of worries and issues that now feel much more intense than dire.

Is your goal to make gay radio smashes?

I actually don’t know. For me, I’ve walked this line between having a really young, active online audience – a similar audience that you would see at an Ariana Grande or Justin Bieber show – and then also wanting to do these really subversive queer pop songs. I think my approach to it is not thinking too much about what I want commercially, just letting things happen, making stuff that I like. Hopefully if I like it, somebody else is gonna like it.

When you performed “The Good Side” on SNL in January, I got lost in you getting lost in the song. For a performance like that, are you in the moment? Or does your mind tend to wander beyond the performance?

I’m mostly just in the moment. Sometimes I think about the lyrics. I try not to think about them too much because, like “Good Side,” it’s one of the most personal songs on the album and that can get kind of weird, being that vulnerable, so I try not to let myself go too deep into the hole. But in general, I’m just thinking about doing the song justice.

WATCH:

You have a role in the forthcoming film Boy Erased, starring Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe as parents who send their child to a conversion-therapy camp. What about the film resonated with you? 

The script. I just couldn’t put the script down. It really tore at me. Then I read the book and started immersing myself as much as I possibly could in that world. My coming out experience – and the moment where I accepted my sexuality as something that I couldn’t change – was a weight off of my chest. This wasn’t for me to deal with; it was more for everyone else. I had come to the point where I had accepted it within myself, and then it was about navigating through the rest of the world: my family, my friends.

So, the thought of going to a program like the one in the film at that crucial, vulnerable moment and being told, “No, this is 100 percent back on you, and you’re filling a God-shaped hole in your life with these tendencies” was one of the most harmful and hurtful things that I can imagine. It’s been proven to be ineffective and extremely dangerous, and you’re signing these kids up for an impossible task. It really hit home and struck a chord with me, and I haven’t wanted anything as bad as I wanted this role in this movie, so I just auditioned and thankfully got the part.

Your sister once caught you in a vulnerable state, dancing to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” When did you become comfortable with that kind of vulnerability on stage?

It’s still really new to me. I think the “My My My!” video was a huge step for me personally; that was a moment where I really had to actively pep talk myself into it. I knew that was the way I naturally wanted to move to the song, and that was the way the song made me feel, but that didn’t make it any easier to do in a big group of people – especially with burly cameramen! (Laughs) It was scary! But when I pushed through, I felt how amazing it felt. It felt so right, and now I have to retrain my brain a little bit to be able to do that on stage and to be able to do that in front of other people.

How do you get into that mental space?

It’s a really active decision that I have to make. I have to actually think about it and push through a lot of nerves and vulnerability. And, again, the only reason I do it is because it’s what feels right to me. That’s what I would do in private. So, why the hell not do it publicly, and celebrate that?

You were scared of your feminine attributes as a child. Can you tell me about your journey to embracing femininity? And when you do embrace it now, how it makes you feel?

I was really scared of it in my childhood, and it was something that I definitely tried to shy away from. Now, I celebrate it as such a source of power for myself. I feel so liberated and free, and I’m having fun. And femininity is magical. Who wouldn’t want to be feminine?

It took me a second to get to that point, but now that I’m here it’s so fun to be able to push through all of those worries. On the other side of that is such a liberated existence where you can just do whatever you want, and it’s just been a pleasure.

How would you compare where you were to where you are now?

It’s like night and day. It feels really artistically inspiring to me, really personally inspiring. And I’m just much happier.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/08/30/troye-sivan-talks-finding-power-in-femininity-unhibited-second-album/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/177553844055

[republicstandard]

Equality is a Lie: Men, Women, and Everything In Between

“I am a modern day Nero / So hand me a fiddle and bow / ’Cause dancing on ashes and graves / Is the only joy I know.”-This Is Hell, “Procession Commence”

“And we danced like a wave on the ocean, romanced / We were liars in love and we danced.”-Hooters, “And We Danced”

It doesn’t get any more tiresome than the same re-hashed social justice causes that are essentially no longer causes. Physics Today bemoaned the fact that there’s still a gender pay gap between men and women (5.7% after factoring in age and experience), which the magazine then goes on to unintentionally explain away as women being less aggressive in salary negotiations and in asking for raises. It’s a small gap to begin with, and we now have the solution right there in front of us. Case closed. Right? Wrong.

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Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College, states that in negotiations, men are more likely than women to request higher salaries: “Women say ‘Thank you very much.’ I’ve done that myself, several times—it’s embarrassing.” I thought women could do anything a man can, so simply speaking up shouldn’t be an issue, now that the root cause has been identified, right? Again, wrong. Nancy Hopkins of MIT believes that women should be on hiring committees proportional to their numbers in the field of physics, but I don’t see how that solves the issue of gender disparity or the pay gap in the field. Claude Canizares, also of MIT, states that;

“Men need to be more proactive about equity for women and underrepresented minorities”

Equity, as you should know by now is a clear SJW red flag; but quite beyond the fact that the bizarre comparison between men and minorities (are there not male minorities?) has been made at all is that this is an empty platitude uttered exclusively for virtue-signaling brownie points. Most of the physicists interviewed attributed the stubborn pay gap to the ever-elusive “unconscious bias.” Mind you, we’re talking about a very small percentage which, as I mentioned, the article already attributes to a pair of correctable factors. Nancy Hopkins observes, “It seems like women have been talking about gender discrimination forever.” Yes, yes it does.

Education Researcher recently released an article that revealed the “disturbing” fact that there is a gender gap in PhD article submissions and publications. On average, men submitted an average of 5.9 manuscripts for publication and women submitted 3.7 publications; the number of submissions published were 4.9 for men and 2.9 for women. So men submitted more often and were accepted more often…but women, statistically speaking, were more likely to be published. The article goes on to explain that more women teach and more men serve as research assistants, so logically, would the fact that men are involved in more research and hence more potential papers not explain the disparity in submissions? Also, could these causes get any more niche?

Once again, I see no one’s talking about the gender gaps in mining, logging, and garbage collection. I wonder why? Less lucrative? Less visible? More physically demanding? More likely to be killed on the job? If we want true equity, we had better goddamn well start seeing equal numbers of men and women slinging trash. For your consideration, a few of the most dangerous occupations in the United States, accompanied by the male percentage of the profession and their fatality rate per 100,000 workers (courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics):

Logging: 97.2% / 132.7 Fishing: 99.9% / 54.8 Garbage Collection: 89.6% / 38.8 Truck Drivers: 94.9% / 25.2 Construction: 97.3% / 15.6 Police Officer: 86.4% / 11.7 Mining: 99.9% / 11.8

It can’t have anything to do with wanting to have your cake and eat it too, can it? Can it?

Consider the following news item from last June, where the “accidental gay parents” Biff Chaplow and Trystan Reese announced their “trans pregnancy”; Reese is a biological woman who “identifies as a gay man” and Chaplow is a gay man who identifies as the “mom.” Reese told NBC that, “We know a lot of transgender men who have babies. We have several in our close friend circle.” (S)he explained to CNN, “I’m OK with my body being a trans body. I’m OK being a man who has a uterus and has the capacity and capability of carrying a baby. I don’t feel like it makes me any less of a man. I just happen to be a man who is able to carry a baby.” As Stuart often repeats in Hello Ladies, “I don’t know what the rules are!” We are through the looking glass, people.

Gender and sexuality are, as we “know,” fluid, n’est-ce pas? I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t “taught” who and how to fuck, nor cajoled into rendering myself sterile when I was a child because I was a child, and thankfully my parents aren’t evil, like lesbian couple Pauline Moreno and Debra Lobel who have their eleven-year-old on hormone blockers (direct quote from The Daily Mail: “The mothers say that one of the first things Thomas told them when he learned sign language aged three - because of a speech impediment - was, ‘I am a girl’”) nor did they send me to a “transgender day camp” like the one in San Francisco that caters to children as young as four, though according to UC San Francisco professor Diane Ehrensaft, children understand their gender by age two. What could possibly go wrong?

Brad/Ria Cooper, who had his first sex change at fifteen, has decided he will now undergo his third sex change to make himself more like a woman again, as at age eighteen Cooper “transitioned” back to his biological sex to live life as a “gay man.” Cooper originally took hormone blockers to stop puberty and, per The Sun, “had female hormone injections to help [him] form breasts and cut down [his] body hair, but [he] didn’t have full gender reassignment surgery.”

Let me say this, and I’m appalled I even have to: children are off limits. We do not have sex with them, we do not sexualize them, and we do not project our feelings, desires, or inadequacies on to them or make executive decisions on irreversible hormonal treatments while they’re still developing, but the Social Justice Warriors do this all the time. As for the rationale, well, it is the current year, so simply because we mark this year on the Gregorian Calendar as 2018, training yourself to be bi-sexual or something should be a given with no further explanation. Try this one on for size: “I mean, why isn’t there a white ethno-state? It’s 2018!” What do you make of that? Or as Ricky Slade says in Made, “Can I color me that?”

Color indeed: the demography of the future is downright harrowing. Fear of a black planet? Not exactly, but there are very serious consequences coming our way regarding the shifting demographics of the post-modern era. While Westerners are busy dressing their one adopted nine-year-old in drag or out “dogging” in the woods (or is that no longer a thing “because current year”?), the demographic time-bomb between the Tropics is set to explode. In the past, due to high infant mortality rates, diseases, and other causes, it was often necessary to have a good number of children, but today, with our modern advancements in medical care and vaccines, in order to sustain the population, reproductive levels do not need to be what they were in previous eras.

What concerns me, however, is that in Africa particularly and to a lesser extent most of the rest of the Third World, these people are not adjusting accordingly, which bodes very ominously for the future, especially when you consider Westerners have simply given up on reproducing altogether, unless they are mixed-species gender-queer vegans. The people of the Third World are not showing a willingness or, more terrifyingly, ability to adapt to their changing circumstances. I know many people get into a tizzy when I mention biological realities, but this really does have a lot to do with differing levels of time preference or the ability to plan and manage resources. It’s not at all unreasonable to use race as a civilizational proxy. The Japanese build Japan, the Swedish build Sweden, and the Somalis build Somalia. The issue is when you import Somalia and expect to get Sweden. Just ask Maine or Minnesota.

The real questions, to my mind, are, however, how many of the people in charge, and/or to what degree, do they actually expect identical outcomes? How much of this is egalitarian window-dressing masquerading as “tolerance,” “equality,” and “diversity”? For some, perhaps many, the fiction is too tantalizing to resist, or maybe they simply don’t know any better, but for others, there can be no question that the large-scale importation of the Third World is designed explicitly to at minimum atomize whites and in their isolation make them easier to control, but more likely in the face of mounting evidence, the Final Solution is not to move them all to Madagascar, but to erase their very existence.

The literature strongly suggests that the host (white) population in Western countries is being adversely affected by the sustained commitment to the diversity agenda, and it’s directly responsible for the squandering of what Robert Putnam terms our “social capital.” In his 2006 study, Harvard professor Robert Putnam found that, based on analysis of the responses of almost 30,000 Americans, the greater the diversity in a community, the less people trusted each other, the less they donated to charity or worked on community projects, and the less they voted and were civically-engaged. In the communities “enriched” by diversity, neighbors trusted one another half as much as they did in homogeneously white communities. From the very beginning, there was a concerted effort to ensure that the citizens of the West would have no say in the mass importation of alien peoples who, it has clearly become evident, do not share our values and don’t particularly care for our delicate, liberty-oriented political systems that’ve evolved in fits and starts since classical antiquity. Though immigration started after World War II in certain parts of Europe in the form of “temporary workers,” it wasn’t until the mid-1960s in the United States and a while later for most of the other non-Eastern Bloc Western countries that the numbers started to trickle in, but by the turn of the century, that trickle became a (relative) flood—though that flood is going to get Biblical when the population in Africa hits four-and-a-half billion! And there’s only a relatively small strip of water separating Africa from a Europe that’s largely proven unwilling to defend itself.

As Jared Taylor says, “The purpose of immigration is not to set a moral test for natives.” Ah, but it appears that it is. Louis Farrakhan recently used his bully pulpit to call for an end to the White Man, “because his nature is not in harmony with the nature of God.” He continued:

The white man was only given 6,000 years (6 days) to rule. You cannot deny he has ruled but on what principle did he rule? Righteousness? Truth? Justice? Fairness? I don’t think so.

How interesting that the most open and tolerant societies the world has ever known have somehow become the bad guy. In this inversion of reality where not only Farrakhan but a majority of the world now lives, the people who abolished slavery, the people who established the doctrines of self-government, who enshrined women’s rights, and civil rights, and gay and transgender rights, the people who built the modern world, these are the wicked and the cursed, these are the ones denied a heritage, these are the ones told to debase themselves. As Jim Goad catalogued:

The more that white people apologize, the more they get mocked. The more they concede, the more that is demanded of them. The more frequently they make gestures of goodwill, the more they get emotionally sandblasted with malicious rhetoric about how “whiteness” is a poison that needs to be uprooted and eradicated…Whites are publicly reprimanded if they dare to notice anything in white history beyond slavery, colonialism, and the Holocaust. Look with disgust upon these squirming white worms with their endlessly tacky public displays of self-flagellation, exulting in the idea of their own wickedness, trying to drown their historical sins in a cleansing wave of softly genocidal immigration. Afflicted with a perverse sort of racial body dysmorphia, they would crawl out of their white skin if they could only find a way. This is the sort of thing that happens in the late stages of a crumbling empire, when the fat, lazy, and pampered have grown so soft they’ve blinded themselves to the wolf pack waiting at the door that’s eager to tear them to pieces. Believe this—if white people actually held such iron-fisted power and were remotely as ruthless as they are portrayed, there would be no such mocking.

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And so the wicked shall fall. Between Goad’s “cleansing wave of softly genocidal immigration,” and whites’ self-abnegation, learned helplessness, and their genderless, barren-wombed, de-fanged Eloi-like existence, Farrakhan won’t have long to wait before we’re nothing but a memory. Then the world will know true peace, harmony, and prosperity. In the meantime, it’s much better to focus on niche issues like “dead-naming” and “transphobia” than the fact that the entire fabric of Western civilization is coming unraveled.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

That blood-dimmed tide sounds an awful lot like Enoch Powell-by-way-of-Virgil’s “River Tiber foaming with much blood.”

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