#sex ed meta

[catty-words]

the complicated familial dynamics captured in this moment tickle me.

all otis wanted throughout season one was an acknowledgement from the adult world that jean's treatment of him as a case study was inappropriate and crossed boundaries, yet as soon as he gets another adult in his corner about her blurring the lines between her work and her home life, he pushes back because, well, complicated feelings about fatherhood and masculinity but also. he doesn't care for this random dude undercutting his mum, who is very good at her job and taught otis everything he knows.

i love the way he still manages to assert his initial complaint, though, snotty-teenager style.

[amelia-creatrice]

Sac de frustration..

Le sac pour contrôler votre vessie en solitaire ou en couple vous permettra de découvrir un contrôle cérébral hors du commun, dans le même univers que la chasteté, mais appliqué à la vessie. C'est une pratique éducative dans le domaine du BDSM. En cuir véritable toutes mes créations sont fabriquées à la main.

[zykamiliah]

what about bingqiu?

this is my response to this post. i didn't want to reply in the same post because it's going to get really long, and i disagree with almost everything, so this way i may avoid the discourse. haha. anyway, i'm gonna try to answer each of op's points.

-why bingqiu are a couple:

♦ because despite everything, they've chosen each other. not because they're soulmates (though mxtx did pull the string of fate thing), but because they genuinely want to spend time together

it's very subtle but they do share some values and similarities: they both repay kindness with kindness and believe that one should pay back those who hurt you twofold/tenfold. furthermore, they are both petty bitches. as @fireandgrimstone pointed out here, they're both busybodies: they get restless if they aren't doing something.

on that note: self-preservation is not a core value they share. sqq is terrible at self-preservation. from the first moment, instead of minding his own business, he risked losing points (which would terminate his account and kill him) just to protect binghe when he was being bullied by ming fan and co. sqq couldn't stand by watching someone being bullied. then during the demon invasion, he was ready to risk his own life to protect all the cqm disciples. he was willing to self-destruct to take out sha hualing.

the thing is that sqq likes to lie about himself and say everything he does is out of self-preservation, but it isn't true.

so, if it wasn't out of self preservation, why did sqq pushed binghe into the endless abyss? yes, it needed to happen, but he didn't do it to save himself. he can't hurt binghe just to protect himself. he did it because he brainwashed himself into believing this was the best for binghe, that binghe needed to in order to become strong and achieve his fate.

(chapter 4: conference)

♦ because they give each other what they need. consistent love, support and understanding was something lbh really needed, and those 2-3 years before the immortal alliance conference did wonders for binghe to allow himself to feel vulnerable and be more in touch with his own feelings. this will get screwed up post-endless abyss but sqq does encourage him in the extras to express his feelings and talk about what he thinks and feels.

now, what lbh gives to sqq may not seem obvious (thank you for the help, luuny!♥), since sqq's layered narration is tricky to deconstruct, but by the end of the novel lbh can get past sqq's tsundere/savin face bullshit. sqq has all his toxic masculinity ideas and internalized homophobia that he keeps dragging everywhere he goes, and his relationship with lbh, who was supposed to be the epitome of masculinity, has allowed him to shed off some of it. but not all. thus, lbh knows when sqq needs to be pushed or coaxed into doing something he already wants to do but thinks he shouldn't want and doesn't know how to justify (sex for example). lbh also gives sqq the whole domestic package: someone to dote on, someone that does the chores and takes care of him, because frankly sqq is good at many things but he fails at self-care.

♦ domesticity and companionship. for bingqiu it wasn't like other couples who were first attracted to each other from one reason or another and from then on the relationship developed. the first period of their relationship is mostly platonic (poor binghe is suffering the teenage hormones), and was based on the easy domesticity and companionship they shared. and honestly that's such a simple yet beautiful kind of love. they genuinely like spending time together, living together, talking to each other. they never get bored of being together or of each other, which brings me to

♦ the obsession. like, it's honestly hilarious how obsessed they are with each other. sy was already obsessed with pidw protagonist bingge, but in svsss he got to love and get obsessed all over again with his own binghe aka bingmei. and from lbh's pov it's more or less the same: he had a complicated relationship with original sqq, which was the start of it all, but the person he loves is not the cold shizun from the past who he needs to prove himself to, but the one that's always trying to protect him, even if it's from himself. in both cases, their relationship started with distance, with the shadow of the other version of each other they'd known before. but what made them fall in love weren't those ghosts from the past, but the person they could see underneath it all: the hardworking boy that just wanted to be loved, and the closeted man who wants to give love and help others and have a purpose and belong to something (binghe understands that sqq would be unhappy if he couldn't visit cqm, qjp and his sect siblings). this relates to the fact that

♦ they understand each other better than anyone else. it takes them time, but that's the point of their journey and by the time we read about their relationship in the extras, we can see that despite everything, they not only understand each other very well but actively try to understand each other better. they already made the mistake of making too many assumptions, and they're not doing that again.

________________

another point that op got wrong:

off the top of my head an example would be how bingge (he-with-no-shen-yuan) took a harem of beauties so he could control xin mo but bingmei (he-with-shen-yuan) decided to just... cripple people's cultivation (...) what i'm getting at is that binghe was willing to pay other people's lives just so he didn't have to be intimate with anyone except shen yuan.

bingge too was cripping other cultivators to get ride of the excess of demonic qi, it's just that after he captured the three nuns from tianyi overlook they taught him how to achieve the same result using dual cultivation. (thanking @stardust-falling for their notes on this topic!)

(chapter 9: borderlands)

[chekhovs-tantrum]

Camilla: don't let strangers touch you. don't let strangers see you naked. sex stuff is right out. also breakfast is the sexiest thing.

Nona, left alone for five minutes: *climbs on top of a corpse she's never met to smooch*

[alpaca-clouds]

Let's Talk About Sex

I want to keep talking about issues in this blog whenenver I have time. And one thing that I really want to talk about, is sex and sexuality - especially in terms of popculture and fandom. And let's be honest: Also in terms of the USA, because a lot of the issues originate with US purity culture.

We know the issue in fandom spaces of the "antis", who are anti-shippers, who will try to police other people's fandom experience. It is usually about more than just shipping. It is about the sexual practices that people depict those fictional characters engaging in fanart and fanfiction. It is about characters, who in canon are minors, having sex at all, even if aged up (and even if the writer is living in a country where it is perfectly fine and dandy for like two 15yos to have sex). It is also about characters who have some trauma in the canon material having sex at all. Oh, and it is also about original characters by any writer - and be it in novels - are not holding up to any sexual purity stuff. Oh, and according to some of those people BDSM in general is not alright.

But, like... The fact remains that this is very much connected to American purity culture, that thanks to globalization and the fact that all social media and a lot of influential media in general originates in the US, this is pretty much forced onto the rest of the world. And that is without going into the backstory of bloody colonialism, that brought this purity ideas almost everywhere and is still pushing it onto other cultures.

Remember, a lot of cultures internationally were perfectly fine with homosexuality in one way or another - until colonialism happened.

And we are on tumblr. Who, if not us tumblrites know about how censorship for sexual topics, while a lot more bloody, and violent aspects are absolutely fine? And of course this is true for fandom culture in general. After all, the older fans do remember the purges on FF.net and Livejournal.

Something I will talk about this week is also the fact that a lot of media does indeed go with this: Naked women without any sexual context? R-Rated! Blood and murder? Oh, yeah, that is absolutely PG-13.

And we also of course know that a lot of sexual education online will very much be censored. Even though this sexual education will help people - including kids - to protect themselves from sexual assault and exploitation.

We are too afraid of sexuality, but all-too okay about violence. Hells, when I look at media like some HBO shows, we are often more okay with explicit sexual violence, but consensual BDSM? That often gets censored.

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

Inspired by @piratecaptainscaptainpirates amazing post and @saltpepperbeard who mentioned a wonderful song I had never heard before, I made a short video.

[hermitw]

ch. 7 (part 4 of) 4th manga read thoughts

outside of the detention center, everyone is getting rained on. no umbrellas. the only people who rain is drawn hitting and bouncing off from, are Yuuji and Ijichi. Yuuji is going to die and Ijichi is going to take responsibility for it (he does apologize to Yuuji in the first light novel btw). more symbolism of water in jjk (it's everywhere and I want to rewatch the ringu/Sadako movies to see if it's similar there too. there's probably some larger context I'm not aware of).

Fushiguro has never seen a domain so big before. the fingie curse's strength seems unprecedented to him... idk if Gojo had been taking Fushiguro along on special grade missions before, or if curses are just getting a lot stronger since Yuuji ate the finger (similar to that old guy in Shibuya blaming Gojo's birth for the increase in their strength). ofc this curse can be blamed on that bc it also has Sukuna's finger, but there's also the evolution of Tengen and the shortage of sorcerers to exorcise curses and the causes of curses increasing, not to mention the ones that grow a lot over time before manifesting (disaster curses) so I feel like it's more than just the birth or action of a guy.

this is so stupid but :3 cat coded sukuna idk (also the way Geto also does this and Gojo has a type and it's also my type is still funny to me idk)

here the fingie curse looks all twisted backwards and I'm just hearing Laura Palmer say "sometimes my arms bend back" and I've compared her to Sukuna before, so I just searched and twin peaks was rly popular in Japan and her secret diary (which has entries that scream sukuna to me) was printed in Japanese (and the cover looks cooler than ours smh) SO maybe I'm not so insane for relating the two? maybe gege was inspired by twin peaks. (someone pls see the vision I want to write read a crossover fic like. obviously B.O.B is kenjaku and Sukuna is Laura. Sukuna could have spent a thousand years in the black lodge idk. Cooper feels like Gojo, in a way, Mei is like Blackie, idek. tbh I expected jjk to end w Gojokuna looking in the mirror like Cooper at the end of season 2 and I found so much foreshadowing I swear but alas the last chapters of jjk were not on my bingo card 😔 lmfao)

also, at this point Sukuna doesn't know or is not sharing the knowledge that Yuuji was born with one of the fingers in him. I'm lot sure when or how he figures that out (if anyone has ideas I want to hear them).

once again (but more subtly here than usual, I think) we have uncomfortably sexual curses. put your dicks away.

[lucilia-citrine]

Hey @certifiedsexed have you posted something with this video yet?

There's a lot going on with tea in Harrow the Ninth.

It's "overwhelming" and "too much" for Harrow, yet John regularly summons her to sit alone with him and drink it.

You did not understand why anyone ate these biscuits or drank this tea.

In the scene where John gets Harrow to admit what her parents did to create her - nobody has to know! - the entire exchange is framed around descriptions of how much John is enjoying drinking his tea and eating his biscuits, and descriptions of how much Harrow does not want to consume them at all and yet feels unable to do anything else. She understands herself as "required to drink it."

When John tells Harrow about the Tomb and the Body, we again get multiple descriptions of his enjoyment of drinking tea. Harrow is having a much less enjoyable experience: "you had not known you were shaking until God himself reached out to still your wrist, so that you mightn’t spill your tea over your knees." He asks her if she likes poetry or biscuits, and she makes it clear she isn't interested in either. He insists she eats two biscuits, and begins to recite the Poe poem associated with Humbert Humbert's first victim to her by way of reminiscing about who he buried in the Tomb.

In moments where Harrow tries to assert her own agency, tea is there too. When she tells John about the Saint of Duty and Cytherea's body, her tea is "stubbornly undrunk" and John's biscuit crumbles into his tea. John is drinking tea when Gideon finds him interrogating Wake, and when the game is up and Mercymorn and Augustine turn on him, they both smoke and tap the ash from the cigarette out into John's empty mug.

Conversely, we see John drinking coffee by himself in the Mithraeum kitchen when he's not interacting with anyone. Harrow is also offered coffee by Abigail Pent, and "accepted a cup, mainly to warm her hands." Despite Abigail being another powerful figure of whom Harrow feels wary, there's no sense of compulsion or discomfort in this offered drink (despite it otherwise being a situation of gentle compulsion). Harrow feels able to accept it on her own terms. Which brings it roughly in line with how Harrow feels about physical touch from both John and Abigail as well.

But Katakaluptastrophy, you might be saying, sometimes the tea is just tea! Yes, but sometimes the author was a secondary school teacher in the UK, where this is a popular video for explaining the concept of consent to teenagers:

[catty-words]

rewatching the series because it's been a minute since i've been in my sex education feels and i wanna be in the proper headspace for season four. anyway, this moment in 1.08 caught my attention -

- for the way it's reminiscent of maeve's introduction. we meet the legend of maeve wiley first, not the complex and beloved character we come to know, and her flipping off the untouchables during eric's monologue serves as a refusal to participate in this narrative. her peers can think what they think - she'll be maeve wiley the way she wants to be maeve wiley.

otis hasn't had so strong a backbone. over the course of the season, he lets down eric on his birthday and blames maeve for 'making him' question tom because he can't admit he'd prefer to be doing that in the first place and he lets jackson push him into compromising his friendship with maeve to jackson's advantage and he tries to have sex with lily until he's whipped into a panic because his father made him anxious about having not done it yet. again and again, he allows his fear and neuroticism to dictate his life - until the above moment.

like maeve defying the gossip-mongering, here otis is defying the literal narrative jean has committed to paper. his parents have both contributed to otis' crippling discomfort with sex - they built it into something of legendary proportions, something that has the power to ruin happy lives - and he's done letting that define him.

[sarucane]

Why did Ed headbutt Stede?

This one is fairly straightforward in the show but also fun to rant about so here goes!

I think the short version of this answer is "because Ed had no other way to communicate FUCK OFF at that moment." Ed can't talk, doesn't seem able to move, and is very unclear on exactly what's going on and what he's doing (even a while later he has a deeply revealing conversation with a confused rabbit--he's definitely not all there in this moment). Still, Stede's wrong when he suggests it was an accident: Ed owns the action later when he yells "I'm glad it hurt, that's the point of head butts!"

That being said, it's worth taking in the context for a sec, because Ed does love Stede and there is a theoretical potential for this to go to a very dark place. Balancing the violence of the pirate world with portraying healthy relationships is quite a challenge for these writers, as it'd be easy to tip over from healthy to very unhealthy.

In the same episode, Mary gets stabbed in the back quite deeply (it's knocking on bones) and it barely bleeds, let alone hurts once it's out. Ed and Stede have both been run through with swords but since "the important bits" didn't get hit, they needed no recovery time. Hell, Ed got shot in the arm and hit in the face with a cannonball in S2E2 and he's fine by halfway through E3. A headbutt is nothing on this show, it's like a kid elbowing another kid on the bus.

Ed head butts Stede because he's angry and in emotional pain, he's a pirate and pirates (not to mention many humans) express emotions through violence, and Ed can't break a chair or smash something--so the headbutt is the only available option.

And in terms of walking that line between health and unhealthy/violent relationship: the headbutt not only does not take place while Ed and Stede are in a relationship, it is itself a way of Ed saying "WE ARE NOT IN A RELATIONSHIP 'CAUSE YOU DUMPED ME FUCK OFF." When Ed is in possession of his faculties, he is still using violence to externalize emotions, but Stede is emphatically not a target of that violence.

Ed doesn't even look at Stede from the moment the anger starts rising, and he turns his back on Stede and moves to another part of the room entirely to smash shit. Not the most mature response, but consistent with Ed's character and history while also pointedly sidestepping that dangerous territory.

And Ed's anger fueling the headbutt is completely justified.

Stede and Ed are often in different emotional places within their relationship, but they're rarely as far apart as at the beginning of episode 3. Stede is acting (in fairness understandably given the near death thing) absolutely no differently than he would if they were, at that moment, in a romantic relationship (which fits with his whole "I didn't dump him, we're on a break" schtick). But Stede quite brutally broke Ed's heart, triggering a crisis that led to Ed being so convinced he's "not loveable" that he despaired of living at all.

Stede says "I thought I lost you," and the only appropriate response to that is "YOU DID," and that needs to be made clear to Stede, because there's a difference between "being on different pages in a relationship" and "being on different pages about a relationship existing." Ed is hurt, badly, and Stede's total lack of acknowledgement of that is absolutely infuriating. Like Ed says, hurt is the point of head butts: Ed was hurting and Stede wasn't, and that distance in experiences demanded a response, so Ed seized on the only one available to him.

[dicktimweek]

DickTim Week 2025

Prompts for DickTim Week 2025 are now out! If you have any questions, check out our FAQ or send us a message! We also have a discord server for anyone who would like to talk about the event or about DickTim in general :D

DickTim Week 2025 Prompts: Day 1 - Breathless: Dream Sharing | Time Loop | De-aging Day 2 - Seduction: Cam Boy Tim | Sex Pollen | Hands-on Sex Ed Day 3 - Rage: Secretly a Meta | Forced Confessions | Talon Dick Day 4 - Obsession: Codependency | Incest Kink | Fake Dating Day 5 - Jealousy: Requited Unrequited Love | Omegaverse | Hanahaki AU Day 6 - Protectiveness: Time Travel | Soulmates | Reverse Robins Day 7 - Trust: Batman Dick and Robin Tim | Hero Worship | Wing Fic

[mis-mcgifsten]

Are they as amphibians confusing impotence with infertility? As in they tried to make infertile clones in the past, doing so made the species concerned unable to have sex at all, an army of eunuchs, and thus it drove them all mad? Because in a universe with womb tank technology and cybernetic implants they can't do an artificial dick with sensory wiring and a seed free spooge compartment?

Not being able to sire a child isn't the same as not being able to have sex at all. And like others have observed if the idea was eunuch soldiers would go mad if not allowed to have sexual experiences vasectomy is something easy and quick that works to a high degree for humans.

Basically it looks like the writers just couldn't have their characters have no dicks or dodgy dicks and be seen as the pinnacle of military might. They had to have functional genitals but be socially prevented from using them?!?

It's hilarious is what it is.

someone had to teach the clones sex ed and our options are aliens, space monks, and some bounty hunters who were game to cut ties with friends and family for 10 years with no explanation (excellent at healthy relationships)

[genderkoolaid]

crazy because like. to anyone who has ever spent any time in transmasc/trans man spaces sex ed is such a necessity, especially if youre on t. so many people dont know about atrophy and the effects and how to be safe about it. so many people dont know about bottom growth and expect a trans man 10 years on t's genitalia to look no different to a cis woman - i know countless trans men whos partners left them when they started t solely because they got weirded out by bottom growth. i personally dont bottom and SO many cis and trans people dont even consider that to be a possibility for a sexually active transmasc. the comments being like "oooh its so obvious just talk to them like anyone else" yeah but also itd be great if everyone was more aware, its kind of annoying to explain all this stuff every single time you wanna hook up, and for a lot of people to still get freaked out at the sight of a naked trans man

Fr!! The amount of people in the comments of that post being snarky about "oh just ask" like. it's clear those people haven't read Fucking Trans Women because that zine starts by talking about /why/ having resources for good trans sex is important, how even trans people ourselves often don't have the words or knowledge to express to a lover how we want to be touched or what feels good. It is in fact very nice to have sex with someone who is already familiar with what your body looks like and how it might function.

& the assumptions… for one like you said, people not knowing what a trans man's genitals can look like. People who think every trans man is gonna be clean shaven down there, or who don't realize (like you said) that testosterone Does Things To Your Dick. & the assumption that every trans man who is attracted to women is a stone top & every trans man attracted to men is a bottom. Or that if you aren't topping, you NEED to involve a hole. For me this is less a trans thing & more body-weirdness-possibly-intersex thing, but like. My mind has always been more focused on my clit/dick, and penetration is something that's extra at best. You don't need to penetrate anything. Just because a hole is there doesn't mean it needs something in it.

Also!! We need more appreciation for bottom surgery dicks!!! I'm tired of only seeing them in clinical contexts. I need to see 30 minutes of someone lovingly sucking on phallo cock stat. I need meta dick worship. Even the sex ed things I've seen talk about phallo and meta do so in such… frankly unsexy ways, that don't do much to make having sex with a neocock sound positive. I need us to start romanticizing and sexualizing bottom surgery.

[innerchildabortionclinic]

what do you figure the "something darker" is with meta? i think it could be something with making people more desensitized to violence overall. also do you buy into the whole "grooming children via fetish content/desensitization to softcore porn" thing? i think it could be about making people more privy to viewing women as sex objects. not sure tbh i'd love to hear your comprehensive theory if you have one, this seems like something you'd be knowledgable about.

what do you figure the "something darker" is with meta?

encouraging antisocial behavior in defense of reactionary politics.

do you buy into the whole "grooming children via fetish content/desensitization to softcore porn" thing?

that's just not really how grooming works and is inching towards the conservative argument against sex ed. if we put an adult in this scenario coaching the child to replicate the content or something (which is sometimes what cp is used for), it would be child grooming, but just seeing the videos out of context doesn't automatically turn kids into deviants or whatever. the reason you see so much porn online is it's profitable (gets a lot of engagement) and becoming easier to create independently (see: OF). I really don't think there is a grooming conspiracy here. just a reflection of online engagement.

[randomfoggytiger]

SEX, THE X-FILES WAY

(Excerpt from an in-coming post.)

It is a no-brainer to jump from Carter's wish for Scully to remain "separate" from the sexy, jump-in-bed-ers in the other tv shows of the 90s landscape-- @cecilysass wrote an excellent meta on the subject here-- and to expand that statement into a puritanical view of Scully's sexuality. But it's not, I believe, the complete picture.

Mulder was allowed to have sex with a woman in 3 during Scully's absence-- however, he was immediately "punished" for this transgression (losing the case and having to live with the guilt of not helping a like-minded lost soul.) But two important points remain: the sex was only allowed off-screen-- a principle Chris Carter stuck to-- and was part of a fraught, lonely relationship Mulder had with sex (Fire's Phoebe manipulating his emotions, Syzygy's Detective White tackling his body in fear of her life, Kill Switch's nurses manipulating his body for information, One Son Diana attempting to subdue his morals with easy seduction, First Person Shooter's Jade Afterglow trying to kill him in the climax, etc.) In short: Mulder was the Whore to Scully's Madonna, post here.

Although she is held to the same standard-- sex off-screen-- Scully is rewarded more often than Mulder: she has had at least two past relationships that were successful (Lazarus's Jack and Small Potatoes's Marcus), and was almost written with an on-going relationship in the Pilot. She desires a family and a sense of normalcy-- but not to the detriment of her career (e.g. The Jersey Devil and Home and A Christmas Carol); and her desires are rewarded with a miraculous pregnancy after Scully challenges her beliefs on her own terms (Amor Fati and all things.) In the end, she (theoretically) gets it all: a partner, a new baby, and a new beginning (that is, until Season 9.)

Tellingly, Scully's most fraught sexual experiences (Never Again and all things) were, in fact, derived from Gillian Anderson's input, not Chris Carter's.

If we set aside Ed Jerse and Daniel Waterston, Carter wrote her with two past successful relationships (Jack Willis and Ethan Minette) and okay-ed Vince Gilligan's high school boyfriend mention (Small Potatoes's Marcus.) When compared to Phoebe Green, Det. White, and Diana Fowley, a pattern emerges in her favor.

Even more pivotally: it's not sex that is punishing so much as who the characters have sex with. When Mulder has sex with women other than Scully, he is emotionally and physically neglected; and when Scully has sex with men other than Mulder, she is emotionally and professionally disrespected. That dynamic is sexist-- it's meant to be, a truthful depiction of the times: men's emotional needs trivialized and their desires reduced to sex; and women's capabilities and accomplishments minimized and their sexual freedom frowned upon. The show, however, takes it in a different direction, using the MSR dynamic to-- in a historically romantic sense-- liberate Mulder and Scully from those judgments. Mulder and Scully are unlucky in love unless they're together, two abnormal pegs trying to fit in square holes. Fated, in that mythological sense the show plays with, to be together. Cursed, in fantastical or folkloric tradition, when separated or apart. They are both rewarded when they come together: Mulder's closure and Scully's enlightenment; a miraculous pregnancy and a new way forward.

Even though Gillian fought to have an on-screen sex scene for her character, David also fought for Mulder's personal life outside of work ("The Official Guide to The X-Files", post here: When it’s pointed out that the show’s most fervent loyalists... have been especially vocal about not wanting to see Mulder and Scully romantically involved with anyone but each other, Duchovny simply shrugs and says the nuances he refers to don’t necessarily have to involved ‘romance’. “Give Mulder a friend. Give him a squash partner,” he suggests. “It’s got to happen. I really don’t care what anybody thinks we should or shouldn’t do.”) Neither were, of course, successful. And though he had the first (off-screen) sex scene in 3, David-- like Gillian-- was not satisfied with the result (and cringes over the sink-and-shave sequence to this day.)

Is it the best writing, all told? Perhaps not. The fact remains: Chris Carter has stated, multiple times, that he is not a fan of emotional exploration ("domesticity") and he does not want to focus on Mulder and Scully's personal lives, platonic or otherwise. Sex, then, is not a character beat so much as a tool: it must serve the story or narrative, or he won't bother to explore it. It must factor into an X-File (Gender Bender, 3, Never Again) or episode B plot (Requiem's reveal, Season 8's pregnancy arc, MSIV's second reveal), or mytharc throughline (e.g. Diana and Mulder's past, and Scully's pregnancy); or not at all.

Let me repeat: sex is not a revealing character beat to Chris Carter. It must contribute to the mytharc or monster-of-the-week, or it won't be included or touched on. At all. And through that lens, Mulder and Scully's romantic moments are merely another cog in the ever-spiraling hurtle forwards-- as far back as Tooms's stakeout admittance to Memento Mori's and Redux II's hospital confession to Fight the Future's hallway avowal. That is CC's modus operandi. That is his calling card: two characters always searching for something. That is Chris Carter's Code To Live By. As Chris Carter himself said, "It's sex, 'The X-Files' way!" (interview here.)

In this case: Mulder and Scully's desires are centered on work and family: Mulder's sister, Scully's sister; Scully healing by the UFO ship, Mulder dreaming of his son; Mulder and Scully finding wholeness in Season 7-- closure and enlightenment-- to build towards that elusive, happy ending in Season 8. However, as Frank Spotnitz put it, "You can't get the truth-- you can't"; and thus, Mulder and Scully's primary goal-- work (the slippery, dangerous "truth")-- will always, purports the show, consume their secondary goal-- family. So, Mulder suffers and is tormented in his quest; and Scully is hurt and tormented on her quest. Until, at last, both realize there is more to life than this; heal their broken pieces, and draw to each other more than the work-- colliding together and creating a family of their own. It is, admittedly, puddle-deep; but the simplest things in life are often the most memorable.

Had CC stuck the landing-- focused on character arcs and tied up loose ends-- it could have, possibly, succeeded. Instead, the execution was poor, and continues to be poor: what passes as a rushed happy end in Season 8 becomes trite and overdone when repeated, without nuance, aught years later. What was the culmination of the mytharc and Mulder and Scully's story ("planned" since the Pilot, posts here and here) becomes discordant and muddled, bent and confused.

[quarterblindsocialworker]

I love how tender and caring Stede is. Consent is so important to him that even in the throes of confusion, passion, and desperation to feel loved, Stede won't act without Ed's consent. I often feel like Stede's reasons for the end of 0206 was that he feared he was losing himself, and the only thing he knows damn well about himself that doesn't revolve around his image is his love for Ed. He wanted reassurance that the love he has for Ed and the love he is certain Ed feels for him is unchanged in spite of his seemingly uncharacteristic murder of Ned Lowe. Stede isn't willing to lose himself, and he isn't willing to lose Ed over this either. He's so desperate to know that the actions he's taken haven't changed who he is. He's also so desperate to ensure that he isn't hurting Ed again that he won't move forward without Ed's enthusiastic consent. God this fucking show.

Thinking about how Stede mainly touches Ed's elbow or cups the back of the head — never his face. How Ed reacts poorly to people touching his face, especially without consent. (Face touching has been used as a form of aggression and control on him in the past.) Stede touches where he knows Ed feels safe and comfortable.

The two times we see Stede touch Ed's face he asks first - the snake scene and Ed leans into it - and the bathtub scene where Stede touches Ed's shoulder and Ed is the one to lean in and touch his face to the back of Stede's hand.