#ssssssssssssss123

[ssssssssssssss123]

My favorite part of fall is the heartbreak.

[ssssssssssssss123]

if you need me this Fall i will be buried deeply in the butch for butch tag as its the only thing that brings me joy at this time

[ssssssssssssss123]

Im going to need hetero people to stop being upset about the horror of the ‘gays’ when they are the ones who cant stop destroying the environment with their gender reveals

[ssssssssssssss123]

I was thinking about how I experience my ARomantic-ness.

The definition of ARomantic (according to Google) is people who have a 'lack of romantic attraction to others.' But, for me I don't view it as a 'lack' of anything.

Ive been in a Romantic Relationship before and the feelings were so counter to my being that I cracked under all of the tension mentally and physically.

'Romance' and 'Romantic Partners' are really just made up roles and expectations dictated by Society. 'Romance' feels so confining to me because I feel like it takes away me and my partners power to define ourselves in our relationship, under Romance I feel like I have to follow a standardized list of what being a 'Romantic Partner' is.

And, 'Romance' is a terribly isolating thing when you think about it. Our Society honors and values Romantic Relationships above all others. Thats why people get special rights when they get Married, and why we value 'coupling up' as one of the most important things in life and call people who haven't 'lonely spinsters'. All I feel like Romantic Relationships do is foster an atmosphere of jealousy and possession by trying to reach that standard of Co-dependency expected out of an isolated couple. Above that I feel like valuing Romantic relationships above all other forms of relationships weakens the bonds of Communities.

I would never be able to uphold my end of the 'Romantic Relationship' contract so how could I ever put that pressure on my Partner to do the same? I feel like emphasis on 'Romance' values the role I would be filling more than who I am as a person, and I want my partner to want me for who I am and not the role I play in their life.

So, I don't consider my ARomanticism a 'Lack' of anything at all. I consider myself to want things that are so much more than 'Romance' could ever provide me. I know that I will be in a loving and caring relationship someday that will be so much more than what 'Romance' has tried to promise me. It's not my fault that Society designed the box it tries to fit me in too small, but I refuse to let it try and restrain me from being more than what they wanted me to be or for wanting more than they wanted me to want.

Those are just some quick thoughts on the subject that have been burning their way through my brain recently. There are a lot of layers here and Ive just started thinking about my ARomantism as it is.

Anyways, Stay Safe xx

[ssssssssssssss123]

The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions

"Let's drink to the old faggots who were there and helped make this happen just by being there."

Written by Larry Mitchell and illustrated by Ned Astra, The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions is a poetic Queer fairytale and manifesto of love and survival. Mitchell and Astra were founding members of the Lavender Commune, outside of Ithaca, NY, during the 60's/70's and their friendship at the Commune helped to birth this manifesto. Their book was published in 1977 by Calamus Press, a publishing company they created after no one else was willing to publish their work.

This book is a mashup of a children's story and a deep piece of poetic fiction (that reminded me of Muriel Rukeysers novels and poems in that they are equally as hard for me to understand). Mitchell provides an in depth analysis of power - how it forms, how those in power maintain it, and what we would need to do to topple the current power structure.

He does this by splitting society into groups and defining them like so: the Men (those in power and who act to keep power and who are blind to beauty), Queers (those who pose as men but are gay), Faggots (those the men hate on and can not pose as Men and are beautiful), Fairies (the Friends of the Faggots), Women (those who the Men have sex with and who were in power before the Men), The Women who love Women (Those who live separately from the Men and share community with the Faggots and Fairies), and the Queens (probably the most hated by the Men and the most Harrased). All of these people live in Ramrod's Empire, an Empire in collapse "...as the men lose more and more things they never owned in the first place." pg 4

As a sad Queer who is still struggling with identity and community this book is also really powerful. Hearing the character Heavenly Blue struggle:

"It was the madness of looking inward and being afraid. There had never been enough love and warmth around him and he thought he had gradually dried up inside. He wanted out but he did not know where out was." pg 80

who then goes on to be held in his friends arms as he cries for days is incredibly powerful to read about when you are still in pain yourself.

It is also a reminder that even the deepest personal things are and can be inherently political when you live in a world that wants you to dictate all parts of who you are, not just what appears on the surface.

Admittedly the flowery language gave me a hard time. Parts of the book reminds me of how people talk about horoscopes (not a bad thing). I think its very worth a first read, and I think I will have to give it a second to truly understand the context and nuances. The only thing that really scratched my brain in a bad way was that this book tends to centers one form of Queerness, sure it mentions the Women, and the Queens, and the Women who love Women, but it centers gay men for the most part. (And I think I can go as far to say, in particular, a White 'Family Money Having' Gay-ness.) It also has an interesting take on Gender as it feels like there are more variants for what you can be (A Queen, A Faggot, A Fairy) for Men than there are for Women (A Woman and a Woman who loves Woman).

Which is fine, and a-okay, but personally bc of my identity I am really looking to pick up a book that is outrageously gay and see more than a few pages of someone like me reflected back. I might also be reading these gender defined line too strictly when they might not be meant to be.

Another important thing to note when discussing the narrative lenses of the Author is that the way you move through the world has a lot to do with how you see it and how you reflect it back in your art. So, while it is not a bad thing that this book centers mostly White Gay Men, it is important to note because a White Gay man is going to move through the world and understand power structures differently than a Black Gay Man and that is going to affect the narrative each individual tells. This book still has a lot to offer, but if you don't consider where the author came from you might miss things, or be led to believe some things are universal when they are in fact not.

I think it is important as a young Queer person to see how those before lived and were. This book is a great connector from the past to the present as 1977 was a few years before (google says) the AIDS crisis really swept over the United States and decimated our Queer elders. Considering our current situation and the ever growing tension of late stage capitalism's collapse (lol) maybe its a good time to read a book that can give you hope that there will be a revolution, and that in the in between still tells us Queers that we can survive and that we will be loved. What we need right now is a radical call of love and action, and that is what this book gives.

"The men's needs are strong and overwhelming. They need the faggots and their friends in order to know who they are not. But the faggots and their friends will no longer need the men. They can sit and produce high invisible love energy or they can do anything. But they will not need. And when the faggots and their friends cease being the faggots and their friends, the deathly dance of the men will begin to wane and a new dance will begin to emerge. Then the third revolutions will engulf us all." pg 110

Anyways, those are my thoughts. Stay Safe xx