#that is a basic male fantasy. men fantasize about being those kinds of men which is why they love super heroes DUUH! who knew?

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

I dislike it when Anakin stans try to defend the PT and Anakin specially by crapping on masculinity and calling it “toxic”. That’s not it.

[kontextmaschine]

Folk understandings of sexuality my experience of turning bi awkwardly accords with

So, this spring, as the apparent culmination of some personality changes I had noticed setting in after I heimliched myself the previous year crossed with what seemed to be an increasingly irregular bipolar cycle, I was mentally unstable for a few weeks and when I rebalanced afterwards it was with a slightly different set of basic drives – anxiety and inhibition were appreciably reduced, and though long straight I was now bisexual.

This was, basically, ridiculous, I had written off those "your sexuality may change over the course of life" lines as excuses for the shy to come out after long covering, but if it was happening I might at least harvest the insight of having seen things from different angles. And on reflection, a lot of it fits with a kind of folk mechanics of sexuality I had maybe been dismissing as too vulgar, but well let's think about that

Bisexuality as "Anything That Walks" low standards

I can't help but notice that the same personality change strongly limited my anxiety and muted my inhibition, making me more outgoing and chatty and simultaneously expanding the boundaries of women I'd consider as sexual/romantic partners, both body- and -personality-wise. Being open to more sex partners is, in fact, related to being open to more sex partners. Probably related to how everyone's bisexual on enough cocaine (the definition of "enough" cocaine)

Autogynephilia/MTF as extreme heterosexuality

I identified as female for part of adolescence. That's long stopped, I'm a boy, but part of what I'm struck by so much in coming to sexually appreciate men and male sexuality is that includes my own, which even aside from direct coming-to-orgasm matters just makes my maleness so much more satisfying to inhabit. And I do wonder how much womanhood being the only thing to appeal to me accounted for wanting to see myself in those terms as a way to recognize and enjoy myself as valid.

Homosexual desire as narcissistic

I guess this is the flip side of that "I can now appreciate things in my male self" thing above. One of the ways I've been putting it is I don't have to jerk off about anything anymore, because "a man's hand jacking me to orgasm", "a hard dick in my hand" and "the idea of a guy masturbating" are all hot to me in their own right.

And being into my own body means it's more rewarding to develop it so I can admire it. For one this makes Ancient Greece suddenly click much harder, for two gay gym culture, and I can see how that gets ridiculous if all your social circle is hot boys who do that, see each other, and then update their sense of normal accordingly. Hopefully the connection with women will keep me from such extreme vicious circles as those guys who were so into Tom of Finland they killed a few of themselves injecting fillers into their balls.

Bisexuals as untrustworthy

For one, shortly into the change I thought about those old "religious right" patriarchs fulminating against homosexuality who turned out to have male lovers, and we'd laugh about repressed homosexuality. But "upright-preaching man has side piece" is dog bites man, and "married man who valorizes male-female coupling as the foundation of society enjoys sex with men" honestly makes more sense as bisexual.

And maybe not so dramatic, but like, I spent several decades expecting my personal and social life to be tied up with relationships with women, with an upbringing that had stronger expectations (and a self-understanding this was a relaxation of stronger expectations still). I'm honestly fine with that – for someone who might be counted as part of some queer coalition I am quite comfortable with quite a bit of heteronormativity, and honestly feel more at home there than in many queerer scenes.

For two, going back to the first point above, this came as part of a package deal of becoming less inhibited and more social, which included talking my way into bed with girls when I didn't even realize that's what was going on, more instinctively operating to an "emotional" register of talking where the content is a meaningless substrate for evoking, reflecting, and amplifying sensibilities to make a connection, with a "gift of the gab" that doesn't know where it's going until it comes out of my mouth

And I haven't been in a relationship since this happened, and I think I've got a bit better handle on it now using the habits of mind I developed over several more neurotic decades, but I'm just saying there may be a type of person that's more likely to unthinkingly seduce random people they come across independent of any logical calculation such as "is this in conflict with my exclusive relationship with someone else" and bisexuality may be an indicator.

Bisexuality/pansexuality distinction

I'm told this is a big Discourse but it's all worthless so I've never bothered to see what it's about but I'll guess, knowing that if I misrepresent them they don't matter. When I was straight I was prepared to politely aver that no thanks, I had a cis fetish. In that trans women did not particularly do it for me

(I mean 4chan-type "traps" were defined by appealing to straight male sensibilities, but that wasn't particularly my thing and the things that were featured chicks without dicks)

and maybe trans men but I doubt I'd be appreciating them as men. Which given the ubiquity of the "fuck my pussy like a girl" thing might even work I suppose (which you can account for as a fujoshi-on-T fantasy without bringing gender into it, on the other "pretend I'm a girl and give me your str8 load" is a pretty classic gay guy pitch)…

By now, I mean I'm sure someone's constructed a gender identity that definitionally doesn't appeal to me, or at least they will now that I've tempted them, but it's not so much a thing. I do think of myself as "bi" over "pan" part simply because I established my sense of what sexuality is in the 90s. But part it's I suspect I'm not valuing the luvvies as they're identifying but as some varying admixtures of boy and girl which work for me in any proportion. It's just not terribly important to me what someone really is anymore because I don't have a major personality feature keying off that

Heterosexuality is really like that

…but I am intimately aware from memory that many people do. Originally I thought of this as "bisexuality is really like that" like, all of a sudden men were not just eligible for sexual ideation but heartwarmingly imagining relationships with. But to flip it around, yeah, until then it was only women that worked with and men were just blank.

Like when I was younger I tried to bihack myself, and I think dismissed any sort of distaste with the idea, and thought I was at least Kinsey 2 (I wasn't) and even tried hooking up with some guy. I felt his tongue and I'm sure the guy knew his way around a dick but there was no spark to it, other way around it wasn't degrading but just an unrewarding bother, like giving someone a massage with your mouth while they choke you. So I realized that the fact I never fantasized about men was a good sign I was straight.

So, uh, cut straights the same slack as everyone else, it's not like they have bad ideas they're just like that. Gays and lesbians too. including that the boundaries of their attraction won't necessarily be where you want to carve gender up for your own reasons. Not bad ideas, they're just like that.

[dropintomanga]

Fragile Chainsaw Masculinity

Note: This post covers up to Chapter 84. So regarding huge spoilers, I’m only going to hint at certain elements.

If there’s one manga I find to be summed up as 2020 in a nutshell for a lot of people, it has to be Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man. It’s a very refreshing Shonen Jump manga where anything goes in a dystopian world where devils and humans have to coexist in order for society to not crumble even further. Every character in this series is flawed and isn’t touted to be some kind of saint. I find the main character, Denji, to be a very good example of how certain aspects of masculinity hurt young men like him.

In Chainsaw Man, Denji becomes a half-man/half-chainsaw being thanks to his Chainsaw Devil pet, Pochita, merging with him. After killing a group of gangsters that have been using him for their own purposes, he then joins an organization of devil hunters who help protect the public. Denji doesn’t have any noble reasons to save the world; he fights to live a simple life and feel safe doing so. However, due to the nature of his power, Denji is the target of many as the Chainsaw Devil inside him can possibly change the world for better or worse.

There was a line I heard from a podcast about masculinity and it was from a young boy who wanted to express himself emotionally. He said “You know, it might be nice to be a girl because I wouldn't have to be so emotionless.” Many young men caught up in how to be masculine arguably feel that way. Being emotionless sums up Denji to a huge degree. Prior to the events of the first chapter of the series, Denji was living under severe debt and forced to do devil-killing jobs in order to pay it off. He never got opportunities to explore his own sense of self as he shut off his emotions out of the fear of scarcity. Denji is a young man lacking a set of core values and purpose in life. 

His chainsaw powers leads him down a path where he is surrounded by death every time he pulls the cord. Masculinity ideology promotes the idea of violence as a way to be strong. While Denji does get his moments of joy, he is encouraged to be violent without much regard to his own feelings. Denji is used as a pawn by the devil hunters to get rid of potential threats. He doesn’t seem to mind at first. But after recent events that involved tackling what’s considered to be the greatest threat to Japan, Denji goes through a grieving process which leads him to wish that he stopped thinking for himself after repeated losses in his life.

Grief? Complicated emotions? No, you’re too manly to think about that. You got better things to do. Just get on with it. This is what we’re all taught in general, but those ideas are drilled harder into men more than women.

Now onto another thing that Chainsaw Man tackles regarding masculinity - achievement in the form of getting women to flock to you.

One of anime/manga’s most popular tropes is having a young male character (usually the hero) surrounded by a good amount of female characters that want him. This also ties into a larger cultural trope where young men are normalized to fantasize about having sexual relations with any woman they deem attractive. Of course, fantasy isn’t reality as women are individuals who aren’t supposed to comply with men’s wishes all the time. 

In Chainsaw Man, Denji meets a number of women (besides Makima) who he falls in love or has somewhat intimate moments with. He once rescued his female devil hunter partner and fellow Devil herself, Power, from a devil just so he could touch her breasts. Power allowed Denji to do so as his reward, but Denji felt it was lacking. There was a notable incident with Power in Chapter 71 where he takes a shower with Power and tries to comfort her after a horrific experience in Hell left her traumatized. Denji dotes to himself that his moment with Power wasn’t what he pictured in his mind. He was unable to see the point of what intimacy truly is - sharing both physical and emotional vulnerabilities and taking comfort in being accepted for them.

Denji starts to realize over time that all he wants is meaningful relationships with people who don’t end up dying. Yet he tries hard to ignore his own desires much to his detriment. He represents the complexity of masculinity in troubling times. When is it a good time to express it? When is it better to be emotional for a man? What counts as being a man in ways that aren’t defined by cultural/societal standards? 

I wonder those questions myself because men are far more likely to kill themselves than women. What masculinity ideology sometimes promotes (risk, violence, “lone wolf” mentality, etc.) are huge factors in increasing the risk of suicide. Men are conditioned to not value friendships as much as women do and are more likely to feel burdened by actions that make them feel worthless. Denji’s “growth” heavily revolves around the feeling of not being alone and the desire to not feel like a failure at any costs.

Chainsaw Man hits home on how the bad parts of masculinity can ruin men like Denji. Which is probably one of the big reasons why I love this series besides the sheer unpredictability of what will happen next in every chapter. There have been times where I realized that some male cultural ideals were hurting me somehow. I know it’s hard to empathize with men these days, but I’m not sure shaming them will encourage them to be better. I once said that bullies are also victims and it’s far better to blame systemic issues (since they create bullies) than bullies themselves.

Chainsaw Man is basically telling us to not pull the cord on men any further than it needs to be because we already have too many devils to begin with.

[cowboyjen68]

Wow,I've just read your answer to that girl," I never wanted to think of another woman as “sexual” because it was without their permission. "It basically sums up how I feel. Not only sexually but romantically as well, I mean, it feels like a betrayal. This lesbian might be taken and doesnt want to be in someone else's mind...However,I asked one lesbian here once about it and she told that its okay as long as you dont tell them that you are thinking of them and not being a creep(like most men do)

“Meaning that we dont have to feel like predators because our attraction doesnt compare to male gaze. Because unlike men we respect women even in our fantasies. Anyway,I like your response even better than hers! Its true that if you imagine someone then its just a character in your head, and there is nothing wrong with doing this its natural most people do these(i guess😅,probably) because most people feel attraction to someone at some point”

We are naturally sexual beings.. we feel pleasure in our brains and our body when we find another person attractive… even more if they return that feeling. BUT we are not to be faulted for allowing ourselves to feel good by fantasizing about women, even women we know on a personal level. This is completely normal behavior that most humans experience. It is one way we “teach” ourselves what we enjoy or don’t, what kind of person we want a relationship, or don’t. It allows us to learn about ourselves before involving another person. I even helps us understand what feel okay and what feels “not okay” as we explore our sexuality in our own head. 

We are doing the other person absolutely no harm IF they don’t know..There is no need for them to know you think about them UNLESS you want to pursue a real relationship… in which case it is also appropriate not to reveal sexual fantasies, those can remain personal and private.

The “male gaze” it the active stare of a male onto a woman, often with the intention of causing intimidation or showing a display of (sexual) power over women. Women rarely do similar behavior towards each other. There is a reason why “”female gaze” is not a thing.  

Women often  understand the nuances of what feels “creepy” and what is a compliment because we have been there on the receiving end or have probably witnessed it happening to one or more friends. We KNOW the difference. I don’t think we are born with more “awareness”or empathy, but socialization and experience teaches it. That means we can fantasize and not feel the need to present that information to the woman we are thinking about.. because the last thing we want to do is make someone we are attracted to feel badly or strange. 

I think men are capable of the same process IF they pay attention to the cues of women they are exposed to rather than the BS spread by men trying to “one up” each other. Men are not damned to creepiness. It is a choice they have to make…

So don’t be afraid to let your brain do a little exploring. It is normal and healthy.

[jonginsboyfriend]

Reducing any form of gay support or acknowledgement to just a fangirl getting off on 'a yaoi fantasy' is actually a lot more harmful than thinking that there might be something real between two women or men.It says a lot about the people who resort to these types of attacks :

First of all the term 'yaoi' is used predominantly in the anime community to describe any relationship between two male characters. This term I have never seen being used to refer to a relationship between two real men,until I got into kpop. I know some people think that kpop is just an extension of anime where the 'hot asian guys came to life' but let's get one thing clear. It is NEVER okay to refer to a relationship or potential relationship between two gay men as yaoi. By doing this you only transform real people into characters ! And you basically reduce them to characters in some imaginary scenario (the one that you made up in your head already ) and not REAL people.

Which brings me to the second point: believing that anything that has to do with gay men or people in general is just a fantasy that fetishizes them.The term 'fantasy' in itself is problematic because it implies that a relationship between two men cannot occur in the real world and so it becomes only a pleasant dream and nothing else. Gay men do in fact exist in the real world and yes even in South Korea as well because even if it's a taboo even if it's not legal to get married , it's not illegal to be gay and underground gay communities exist.Get this idea that people can't be gay because it is frowned upon on.You can't choose who you are and who you fall in love.Laws can't prevent that.So yes they may not exist publicly for sure they are not a fantasy either.

I have seen people say that Kaisoo is just a good fantasy to enjoy and read fics about but it can never be possibly real.Whether you think it might or might not be this kind of thinking fetishizes them a lot more than people who genuinely believe there might be something.By saying that it's a good fantasy to make fanart from , write or read fics about you actually transform them into an object of your immediate pleasure.They cease to become subjects and are only objects that satisfy your fleeting interests,for you to look at them through various modifications.

The fetishization discourse also comes in play because it assumes that any form of appreciation for a gay relationships means using them as a tool to satisfy one's sexual needs.Why do people automatically assume that? Because they view any kind of gay relationship as a purely a sexual one and eliminate any kind of romantic feeling. This is being done by a large number of people, even subconsciously. When they hear about a gay relationship their train of thought only goes to their sexual affairs and bedroom activities,any kind of 'normal' and romantic affiliation is erased.This is why people assume that you're only here for the sexual release because they subconsciously think about gay men or women in sexual affiliations.

Why don't they do it for heterosexual ships? Why don't people accuse their shippers of fetishization? It's because of the fact that any het relationship is viewed through romantic affiliation so obviously people cannot fetishize that.How many times have you heard about a het couple that they are so in love, so enamoured with each other but about a gay couple only the discourse of top/bottom?

But it is a fact that anything,anyone can be fetishized !! Love can be fantasized about,in fact it's one of the biggest things people dream about.A het couple can be fetishized.People can make fantasies about them and live through their lives.It is actually more easy to fantasize and make people objects in het relationship because one can easily take the place of the man or the woman and just project their suppressed sexual and romantic frustrations.It happens a lot with kpop het couples and I have never seen in any other community people attaching themselves to couples so much and depending and living through their lives.

Anyway the conclusion is that no, gay people aren't only just a fantasy to be enjoyed they are actually real people and you negating that but still going on about how cute they are and how much you enjoy fanfics or fanarts of them and excluding any possibility of any of it being real actually fetishizes them more than people who enjoy all of those things but are aware that they are not looking at characters of a story or of a fantasy.

[darklightsworld]

Hi, I saw a defintion of fujoshi as "For anyone confused, a Fujoshi is a yaoi fangirl who basically sexualizes gay relationships to a high degree. Aka "Omg my sinners!!1!" Or "Omg yaoi" when they see a gay couple irl or in media, which is HIGHLY homophobic." I was wondering, if a girl (it's always a girl somehow, they never mention fudanshis) doesn't sexualise m/m relationships in the media(media? or just japanese media?) I presume they are not fujoshis?

Oh and I guess it’s always presumed the fujoshi will scream YAOI! and ‘uke/seme’ when talking about m/m which does walk the line of being a weeaboo. Are people just mad about 2000’s yaoi con weeaboos with yaoi paddles? Does shipping a pairing from any japanese media mean you are fujoshi? Does their gender and sexual orientation affect the criteria of being a fujoshi? Sorry if this is worded weirdly.

Ahh sorry for the bother. I have just come to the conclusion people are angry about (mostly) girls calling themselves fujoshis and generally being obnoxious about it e.g. hating a woman character for breaking up their OTP, seeing two men holding hands and squealing about it etc. It’s more about their behaviour huh. I guess because some of them declared themselves as fujoshis everyone seems to think all fujoshis are like that. Just like how extreme fans of Naruto are called Narut*rds.

Yes, I think you are right. Those who define fujoshi the way you wrote in the beginning screams hatred for those who “dare” to ship something that the speaker does not, gross overgeneralization, imaginary moral superiority over what they believe fujoshi are, with a hint of misogyny - the usual mix, I would say.

As usual I can only talk about what I know about the Japanese situation, but it is quite similar and very different at the same time. The first and foremost difference is, fujoshi is mostly related to manga/anime/games, to a lesser degree to fictional live-action content and almost never to real life people! Even among fujoshi shipping live-action characters can be considered weird, and those who ship real life men are literally shunned within the community!

Also, being a fujoshi is not related to sexuality, sexual minorities in any way - it works as a dreamworld fantasy only. As opposed to the US where many immediately link things to LGBT, in Japan there’s no connection at all. Of course there are queer fujoshi, but the two may or may not be related at all. In general for most fujoshi it’s just fiction, shipping and dreams, and they don’t link their m/m content to real gay people, so it won’t really happen that fujoshi squeal at the sight of real gay men holding hands - they will most likely not care at all, and sad but some will be disgusted.

Another difference is, that fujoshi in Japan prefer to lay low as opposed to the loud (probably teenage) girls you mentioned. Here people would not out themselves as fujoshi, they keep their hobbies a secret from their families (I’m talking about adult women with children here!), and they generally dislike it, when the eyes of society are suddenly directed at them - for example due to someone famous outing themselves as fujoshi (who will definitely be flamed afterwards) or overly big media campaigns for a BL movie and such. It works most probably like: if you keep quiet you are left alone to do whatever you want, no one will judge you, try to regulate you etc. There is also the problem that the word fujoshi is often misused for every female manga/anime fan even in Japan (of course by those not involved in the subculture), and those who are not fujoshi feel uncomfortable by that.

As for the similarities, fujoshi is always tied to shipping (thus doujinshi and other derivative works), and obviously the shipping happens in non-BL manga and anime, that’s how is has been since the beginning. And this is where male otaku (and to a lesser degree m/m hating female otaku) come in and hate upon fujoshi, because they dare to ship two male characters, something that’s not canon, and they defile the holy original material. Well, shipping _is_ about fantasizing the way you like, so that argument about canon absolutely doesn’t make any sense. I’m also calling double standards, because male otaku obviously ship non-canon hetero pairings and enjoy non-canon porn doujinshi, not to mention non-canon yuri pairings, so they are just the same, really.

The next step that made male otaku butt-hurt was when non-BL contents started to cater to fujoshi, like making boys more attractive and “easier to ship“ for example in Shounen Jump many years ago or more recently in anime. Content-makers obviously realized the financial possibilities of the fujoshi crowd, so it’s no surprise they try to utilize it, there’s no helping it. Also, it’s not like Shounen Jumpmanga cannot be enjoyed like before (or that there’s less male-oriented fanservice in it): there are many readers who don’t care about this, and many don’t even notice that boys are easy to ship - it’s something you only notice when you know what to look for.

In any case fujoshi get a lot of hate on the Japanese net from mostly male otaku for shipping male characters (calling them 腐豚, where豚 means pig - kind of equivalent to fujoshit). And Japanese fujoshi are not even loud about their preferences, so I guess there would most probably be hate in the US even if there were no obnoxious fans. Obviously the doujinshi world is based on m/m pairings, but that’s how is has been since the very first Comiket, and there are obviously m/m fanarts for example on pixiv, but these are tagged as such, so it’s not like they cannot be avoided. And if someone posts m/m content on their own social media that’s their own business, nobody has the right to police them for their fantasies. All in all, be it in Japan or the US, if someone doesn’t want to see m/m content about their favorite anime, they don’t have to, but it’s easier to call names on the internet, just because someone dares to enjoy a story in a different way they do - when in reality manga and anime _are_ about multiple readings.

[lesbiannoyed]

Common experiences of lesbians who don’t know they’re lesbians yet, AMAB edition

There’s an excellent post from @thatdiabolicalfeminist on common experiences of lesbians making the rounds, and I’ve tried to come up with a starting point for AMAB lesbians as well. Thanks to @androxibot​ for the idea for this and the encouragement! 

There’s obviously a fair amount of overlap, plus some things in the original which already were particular to AMAB lesbians, so I’ve kept those in.

This is definitely only a starting point -- I’ve included my own experiences as well as ones that I know I’ve talked with other folks about, but that’s obviously a quite limited set. So feel free to add your own!

I’ve also divided this up into pre- and post- transition sections, because that’s what made the most sense to me. Please don’t take this as any judgement of the validity of people who cannot or choose not to transition.

Last bit of preamble -- please note that I’m an olds and a rather late transitioner. Some of my experiences are influenced by being born in 1971, and growing up in a conservative Catholic military household. I didn’t know about gay men and lesbians until I was a teenager. I didn’t even hear about being transgender as a “thing” other than as a gross joke (thank you Ace Ventura) until sometime in my 20s, but I resolved to be “normal” instead. My mom was severely depressed in an era where there were poor treatment options, and my dad was home usually one weekend a month or so. So, for most of my childhood, I was effectively un-parented. Overall, this means I’m probably weird and my experiences may not be relevant to yours!

Pre-transition

Knowing you’re gay, but experiencing a lot of the symptoms of comp het when you try to interact with men romantically/sexually, and only later realizing you’re a trans lesbian and not a gay man

Dating gay men because that’s who “real” women date men and while maybe these are gay or bi men, at least you’re dating men.

With men, being really inexplicably emotionally upset with receiving anal sex and not super interested in giving oral, although you try. Avoiding receiving oral.

Deciding which guys to be attracted to – not to date, but to be attracted to – based on how well they match a mental list of attractive qualities

Choosing to be attracted to a guy at all, not just choosing to act on it but flipping your attraction on like a switch

Picking a guy at random to be attracted to

Only/mostly being into guys who are gnc in some way

Using sex with men as a form of self-harm

Reading a lot of hetero romance, or urban fantasy or similar genre, putting yourself in the place of the woman and trying like hell to internalize her feelings about her lovers. (this can be post-transition too)

Settling on identifying as bi or pan because you can’t give up on your attraction to women even though you know you “should” like men.

Knowing you’re attracted to women, but feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable trying to interact with them as a straight man, and only later realizing you’re actually a trans lesbian

With women, trying to avoid PIV as much as possible, as well as avoiding receiving oral sex. Basically, trying to just give oral sex only for anything beyond making out.

Learning how to fake an orgasm when you do feel unavoidably obligated to perform PIV.

Not realizing you can set boundaries around what kind of sex you are willing to have.

Being utterly fascinated by any lesbians you know/see in media and thinking they’re all ultra cool people

Fantasizing about how much fun it would be to be a lesbian and just be with women/a specific woman, but thinking that can’t be for you

Having your favourite character in every show be that one gay-coded or butch-looking woman (like Shego from Kim Possible or Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica)

Post-transition

“Now that I’m on HRT I expect my attraction to men to really spark. It didn’t work with gay men for obvious reasons, but now that straight men will perceive me correctly as a woman, it will take off”

“My attraction to women will drop off now that I don’t have to perform male socialization”

Flirting with unattainable men (online with men who live in distant cities, etc).

Feeling really flattered when men buy you a drink or flirt with you, but never following through with them.

Being repulsed by the dynamics of most/all real life m/f relationships you’ve seen and/or regularly feeling like “maybe it works for them but I never want my relationship to be like that”

Only having online relationships with guys; preferring not to look at the guys you’re interacting with online; choosing not to meet up with a guy even if you seem very into him and he reciprocates and meeting up is totally realistic

Using sex with men as a form of self-harm

Having sex not out of desire for the physical pleasure or emotional closeness but because you like feeling wanted

OR: preferring to ‘be a tease’ to feel wanted but feeling like following through is a chore

Only being comfortable with sex with men if there’s an extreme power imbalance and your desires aren��t centered, and/or when they are fetishizing you.

Feeling numb or dissociating or crying during/after sex with men (even if you don’t understand that reaction and think you’re fine and crying etc for no reason)

Never/rarely having sexual fantasies about specific men, preferring to leave them as undetailed as possible or not thinking about men at all while fantasizing

Having to make a concerted effort to fantasize about the guy you’re “attracted” to

Not being able to distinguish between wanting to embody the qualities you see in a particular woman and being attracted to her.

Being unusually competitive, shy, or eager to impress specific women when you’re not that way with anyone else

Having had strong and abiding feelings of admiration for a specific female teacher, actor, etc., growing up that were deep and reverent

Being utterly fascinated by any lesbians you know/see in media and thinking they’re all ultra cool people but now with the addition of being terrified of socializing in lesbian spaces because you’ve heard about TERFs and how all cis lesbians hate trans women.

Thinking you couldn’t be a lesbian because you’re not attractive enough, cool enough, or otherwise in the same league as most of the women you know

Being dysphoric about the parts of you that make straight men think your body is owed to them, having to figure out what that dysphoria means for/to you, especially if the way those parts of your body have changed due to transition has mitigated an entirely different form of dysphoria for you.

Worrying that some of your past attraction to men was actually real so you can’t be a lesbian

Worrying that you only want to be a lesbian because of trauma and that means your lesbianness would be Fake

Worrying that trauma-induced complications in how you experience sex (e.g., a habit of self-harming via sex w men or a fear of any sex at all) mean you’re not a Real Lesbian

Worrying that being attracted to women means you’re really a straight man and not a real trans woman, this is the big one.

[tinnefoil]

Some thoughts on the fixxer upper concept

A while ago somebody posted an article that complained about Karamel following a fixxer-upper storyline structure and those are creepy and pretty sexist. 

Now, I actually do agree with many of these concepts. 

But what struck me about the argument was that I personally differentiate between: 

1.) Fixxer Upper

2.) Lovable oaf

3.) Badboy redeemed

(and lovable/angsty badboy)

For example, I don’t see Homer Simpson and most of the “Sitcom where the wife is attractive and the husband is not” as fixxer uppers. Because I don’t think that the Homer is ever going to change. The implication to me is more that Homer has a (in his case huuuuuuge) set of unappealing and awful traits, but he has some traits that Marge likes and that in her hand make up for it. [or: Homer “changes” mostly in such that the writers sometimes throw in a nicer episode because they worry the watchers will get sick of it, note, I haven’t watched the Simpsons regularly anymore for ages, maybe my info is outdated]

The “friendly” version lovable idiot is probably something like “accept people who they are” or “we are all flawed” etc. 

As for the difference between fixxer upper and badboy redeemed. I guess I would say the gravity of the crimes? And that badboy redeemed maybe has a bigger focus on paying for your sins versus changing? Or a bigger focus on “only she understands his real pain”. 

I actually find most of these elements are at least so far relatively absent in Karamel and if they exist, they are not a huge focus. (like Kara doesn’t spend a ton of time trying to understand Mon-El’s manpain and cuddling him over it, or at least not on screen)

Anyway, I think one aspect is the different treatment of crimes versus habits. In society if you commit a murder you are expected to go to jail. We can talk very long and detail about the philosophy of jail, but let’s agree that in the public consciousness this is often thought of as “paying” for you crime. (in fandom paying usually comes in a bunch of different forms, having bad things happen to you and suffering (karma justice/paying in pain, sometimes bleeding over bad childhood as both payment and excuse), trying to do good things to “make up for it”, direct compensation to the people who you have hurt, forgiveness from the people you have hurt) 

But you don’t “pay” for chewing with your mouth open (well at least I hope you don’t). You just either learn to stop it or you don’t.   

The other thing about fixxer upper, or rather what I picture under fixxer upper is that: 

1.) Fixxer uppers are imo relatively frequent in real life

2.) Fixxer uppers are by comparison imo relatively rare in fiction

3.) I personally believe the main reason for 2 is because men really hate fixxer upper as a concept 

Again, I do think that fixxer upper as a concept are is based on sexist ideas about roles. I think it is best personified by the saying “Women marry a guy hoping they can change him, men marry a woman hoping that she will never change” (ie never gain weight, never get a better job, never want less sex than before, never have less time for him) 

It’s this whole idea that women have to do all the impressing work upfront or that relationships are more front loaded for men (ie the good parts are the beginning and it goes downhill from there). Excluding the idea that there for example might be non-domestic women or men who really do get something out of domesticity. 

I think the male perspective on the fixxer upper is the vision of the nagging shrew who always tries to push you into things you don’t want and can’t just let you live in peace and accept you who you are. I think we see a slightly sanitized version of this in the various “men who never want to grow up” comedies, where the women are portrayed as spoilsports but maybe with some underlying “okay, maybe she is kinda sorta right in principle, I have to grow up eventually”. 

In real life the fixxer upper relationships I’ve seen usually centered around: 

1.) Losing weight

2.) Eating more healthy

3.) Dressing better

4.) Getting rid of sucky friends

5.) Getting a job

6.) Asking for a promotion 

(so this is what I’m picturing when somebody says fixxer upper, more like the slobby guy, the “well he is not as fit or well dressed or rich as I would like him to be, but those things I can fix”, and not the wifebeater/drug addict/5th stint in jail guy and his handwringing long suffering wife)

I can’t say how happy or unhappy these real life fixxer uppers are, though a decent amount of them seem to last a decent amount of time, and at least some women come off almost if they are bragging about it, almost like it is some kind of hobby. 

In real life I always kind of fascinating because in real life the joke on this is often that men have to be molded/have no will of their own (like jokes that one has to unlearn him any bad habits that his mother or last girlfriend taught him or jokes that the previous girlfriend did a good job in breaking him in). Which again I think is the reason why men don’t really care for seeing this portrayed in fiction. 

So the female negative perspective on Fixxer Upper is that it means that good women have to marry slobs and improve them because men are not taught to fix themselves up for relationships to the same extent as women are and the male perspective is something like that women are shrews who care about the wrong things, don’t accept you for who you are, and always try to push you into a direction you don’t want. 

In real life I suspect men go into this because well, most of these things are usually can be argued to have some sort of benefit or are not too end of the world awful. 

I’m guessing the romanticized version of fixxer upper from the women’s side is that she isn’t really forcing him into it, that he has this inner need anyway. 

And I guess the romanticized version from the man’s POV is supposed to be that somebody saw their true potential and supported them all the way through. (kind of like a slightly more down to earth “chosen one” narrative, based on this idea that most normal people probably at least sometimes feel that they are wasting their potential, but procrastination or maybe even self confidence is a hard thing to shake). 

Which brings me to another aspect, namely that fixxer upper as a construct is like really taboo in real life when it goes into the other direction. A woman wanting her boyfriend to lose weight is her caring about his health. A man wanting his girlfriend to lose weight makes him an horrible shallow person. Because we trust women to not just be superficial and visually oriented and to be nurturing, but we don’t trust men to be the same. Because for a woman to be beautiful has a very different meaning and value in a social context than it has for a man. And because for a long time the tools men had to try to affect their spouse’s life were very different than the other way around (like the man having the right to decide whether the woman can have a job or a bank account). 

The original article also talked about, what about the other side. What about female fixxer uppers? 

I think there are male fantasy versions that are kind of related to this concept. I think the male version of fixxer upper/badboy redeemed tends to bleed over more into a hero fantasy. It’s basically “the girl with ‘issues’”. Falling for the drug addict girl and trying to get her to come clean. Falling for the girl whose boyfriend beats her and always goes back to him (bleeding into nice guy (tm) and “if she only came to her senses and saw that I’m so much better for her”).

So back to fixxer upper versus lovable oaf versus angsty badboy. Now I do think that there’s a reason why they tend to bleed over into each other. Because I’m sure a lot of characters are a mix between them. 

Like, most redeeming badboys probably also suffers from habits that need fixing that were responsible for him doing the crimes in the first place (I guess maybe there are some exceptions where it’s more like “basically good guy in character who did bad things in the past that he feels guilty over”, but I would put that more under “goodguy with a dark and tragic past” rather than “badboy redeemed”). So he needs to do both, unlearn the old habits and pay for the crimes. Or it might be decided that it’s wrong for the woman to try to fix a guy or at least to try and fix all habits, so in regards to those habits he turns into the lovable oaf. He still retains some bad habits, but he’s still lovable due to other traits.  

Btw, it gets further complicated that what fandom considers crimes doesn’t necessarily overlap 100% with actual crimes, like fandom tends to see cheating as a crime-crime and is much more likely to make excuses for “I was violent/murdered somebody to protect my loves ones”. It creates some interesting situations when for example cheating gets treated more like a crime that you pay for (like by being beaten up and crying a lot) rather than habit you have to fight/get rid of, with like psychological help. 

One last thing, I think both fixxer upper and badboy redeemed are often a type of power fantasy. Now this doesn’t mean that it’s good or healthy (like one can argue that this power fantasy is attractive because it comes from a person of powerless or otherwise one wouldn’t have to fantasize about it), it just means that that is what it feels like to the people who like it. Because to shape a person or to deeply affect their lives, are examples of having power over a person. 

The other example of course is people who like badboy redeemed from the perspective of the angsty badboy. I think this blends into the fantasy of the chosen one, of we know we suck/are less than our perfect selves, but then somebody comes and sees our potential and helps us develop it. It makes me wonder if this is related the other version, the one with the fixxer upper girl, being so taboo in society. That outside of some teacher/mentor relationships, the true equivalent of badboy redeemed, where the person is really shit, has give into her feelings, be rebuilt, see that they are shit and strive to become better is considered much more creepy with the genders reversed. Because we assume men are more controlling, because the mental image of a girl running to gain a guy’s approval is much more scary to us, because the push for women to take care of the changing without prompting is bigger/the criticism on fictional relationships like that would be harsher. Or maybe seeing it with a girl as the one to redeemed hits too close to home, so it is “safer” to project those feelings on a guy. 

To get back to the original topic: I think Kara/Mon-El so far shares the most traits with Fixxer Upper and fewer traits with traditional badboy redeemed. We might end up with some elements of lovable oaf, but it’s too soon to tell. 

[notallwineandroses]

What Up, I’m Meredith, I’m 20, and BDSM Makes Me Feel Like a Bad Feminist

I have been – generally – lucky in my experiences with partners in the world of BDSM: lucky that they have respected my boundaries, lucky that they have worked with me to help me understand my own body and desires in a more honest manner, lucky that they have appreciated me in ways that no others have or will. But even when I reminisce on the most positive experiences that I have shared with partners, I wonder about the way in which those experiences have been informed, or even defined, by the patriarchal societal structures that still exist around us. In a society that seems to be more accepting of women’s sexual liberation than it once was, have men used that changing narrative in order to maximize their own sexual gain (Freitas 2013)? This disconcerting thought leads me to raise a number of questions, questions that I’m not sure if I will ever be able to answer. At times, I wonder if I truly want the answers.

When I “submit” to a partner, is the patriarchy simply pacifying me, telling me that I am living out my own deepest sexual fantasies, knowing that it has taught me to fantasize about serving men the way that they want to be served? Have they finally played the ultimate trick on me, allowing me to believe that I am sexually liberated while, in actuality, I have just succumbed to the traditional gender role that I have always implicitly been assigned? Am I providing the men in my life with a real-life pornographic dream, a woman who is willing to do anything for them (Freitas 2013)? Do they love making me say “yes” in the bedroom because they know that it is no longer socially acceptable to make me say “yes” anywhere outside of it?

I struggle with this a lot, especially because I feel the weight of the patriarchy all around me outside of my bedroom. Even in sunny, progressive San Francisco and rainy, liberal Portland, I notice the ways in which my woman-ness prevents me from achieving or doing certain things that man-ness would not. Even as I present myself to the world in all of my woman-ness, I still carry myself and act in ways that have traditionally been coded as “male.” For example, in my everyday life, I am strong, independent, and tend to take charge. I regularly take leadership roles within my friend group, classroom, extracurricular activities, and workplace. In doing so, I often face pushback from the men that occupy those same spaces, questioning my authority in the space or my capability to carry out the tasks required of me by the role I take on. Though I do not face that as often as other women who do not have the privilege that comes with being white and straight as I do, it can still be exhausting to have to constantly defend myself and my right to exist as a capable, professional, even powerful woman.

At home, in the comfort and safety of my own home, I am allowed to let down my guard. I wouldn’t say that my professional self is a façade, because it very much is one aspect of the entire person that I am. However, when I come home to a partner, I do not want to keep up that wall, the one that separates me from the rest of the world. My partner should be my biggest supporter, and there are times when that support is best given to me in the form of them allowing me to relax from holding all the power and control in the room. Engaging in this kind of exchange is freeing to me, and it is something I regularly seek out from my partner. However, I recognize that when I do so, I am asking them to step right into that age-old role saved for men: the leader. And in some way, I am asking for them to do this for me because I am incapable of doing it for myself, at least in the very moment. I worry that I am sending conflict messages, being a loud and proud feminist in every room except for my own.

Even after years engaging with partners in this way, these kinds of thoughts continue to plague me. Especially in the kinds of classes required by the gender and women’s studies department here, I have found that reasonable people disagree regarding this subject. But I have settled on what I believe to be my truly feminist position: that if I am enjoying myself, getting what I need from the arrangement, and requiring that my boundaries and humanity are being respected by my partner, then I am in the clear. It is not “bad feminism” for me to enjoy the kinds of sexual practices that I do, as long as I continue to have serious conversations with my partner regarding mutual respect for one another in our entirety. And it does me good to remind myself of this fact every once in a while. Consider this my periodic reminder.

Red

Freitas, Donna. “Learning to Play the Part (of Porn Star): The Sexualization of College Girls.” In The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy, 90-91. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2013.

[monosylla-blog]

I sent Josh a friend request on Facebook when I was drunk at a party many months ago, and then deleted the request a few months later. I don’t know what I expected him to do. I wondered if he’d googled my area code from when I texted him, if he knew where I was from. I wondered if he would find me attractive, if he would date me, now that I am not only older than Olivia was, but also better read and more experienced. I wondered how he feels about what I did, if he ever thinks about me. I wondered if he talked to his friends about me, and what they thought. I wondered if he had ever written anything about me. I wondered if he took a break from online dating. I wondered if he is as disappointing as the other mid-twenties dudes I know and have fucked. Would the sex have been good? Would we still be in love? If I were Josh’s Olivia, would he even have been what I want?

When I created the fake okCupid profile, my intentions were unclear. I told my friends, who were all older than I was, that I was using the profile as a sort of litmus test to see what the social scene was like in the various cities I was considering going to college in. This was partly true. This was the excuse I initially told myself. But it also was not the first time I had an internet relationship, although it would be the last.

Having been around 16 at the time, and fat, and probably understandably angsty and weird, and generally unattractive to every boy I interacted with, or at least not attractive enough to warrant letting me know I was not hideous, I was getting pretty annoyed by my lack of romantic prospects. I was desperate for romance. It was the summer before my senior year of high school and I recently left a megachurch I had happily committed most of my time to for three years. I sought to catch myself up with my peers somehow, I suppose. While I was attending youth band practice and taking care of church members’ children every Sunday morning, my classmates were out experimenting and getting good at all the stuff I had only ever read and fantasized about.

I spent a lot of my time fantasizing about what my life in college would look like. I would to go to parties all the time, and I would sleep with so many dudes, I would read so many books, and finally, FINALLY, I would get a boyfriend. I spent so much time split between worrying no one would ever love me in that way, and wondering what my life would be like once someone finally did. Would the men at school actually appreciate all the Bukowski I read in a misguided attempt to seem interesting? Would they be into the kinky, dom/sub sex I kept reading about on Tumblr all summer?

The pictures I used for the profile were of a model I found on Tumblr. She was incredibly beautiful, almost ethereally so. She wore a long, straight weave and was model thin, with Victoria’s Secret model proportions. She was not a girl next door by any means. I imagined, by the time I start college, I could totally look vaguely like this girl. I gave myself the name Olivia and I picked the age 19, which felt like the age I should have been at the time anyway. I set my location to Pittsburgh, where I thought I might attend Pitt.

I talked to several men with this fake profile. I felt vaguely guilty the whole time, but also wildly powerful. Most men got frustrated when I evaded their questions about Pittsburgh, or about why I was unwilling to meet them, or about why I could not tell them about my favorite bookstore in the city, even though I claimed to love books so much. There was one man in particular I felt compelled to be honest with, and he chastised me for Catfishing, even though I explained I had no intention for it to be long term or, you know, misleading. I tried not to make up details about my life for the most part, and was honest in my interactions, save my name and appearance, so I started calling it a social experiment.

I do not know what Josh’s first message to me read. I am sure it was something eloquent and boozy. Having spent a summer building myself, pretending to like all the male writers and musicians I thought I should like to be the kind of girl I thought I should be to land the kind of relationships with men I thought I wanted, we bonded over our mutual interests in vinyl and literature. I avoided telling him the only Fitzgerald I had actually been exposed to had been against my own will in the 11th grade. I did not tell him the only records I owned were the ones my brother had bought me for Christmas at my request, Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience parts 1 and 2. But the lies felt less like lies and more like truths about my future self. I was not necessarily wrong, I would probably resemble Olivia eventually.

Josh was 25 at the time, in a band that was actually good, a writer, and genuinely hilarious. I imagined myself on tour with him. We messaged all day for several days, leaving me constantly dazzled by promises of road trips where we would shoot off fireworks in parking lots and make love in his car. I woke up to messages from him and fell asleep talking to him. He told me he absolutely loved the name Olivia, so I wished to exist in the alternate universe where my name really was Olivia. I began to understand things had already gone too far when I started trying to come up with lies to avoid meeting him. I wanted to freeze this reality; I wanted to encase this constant but limited attention in a shadowbox. Mostly, I did not want his opinion to change of me. He had fallen for me after all. Just like, the very best possible version of myself.

Josh revealed himself to me in ways in which I never asked him to, or reciprocated. He told me about his battle with body image issues, and how he used to be fat. I told him I also used to be fat. I omitted the part about still being fat. Josh felt understood; I felt further away from myself than I had ever felt before. The sweeter he was, the more I hated myself, and the more I needed to keep talking to him. I disappeared from the world for a week.

My excuses became increasingly erratic and concerning. I told Josh my grandmother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and that I had to move to Tanzania to help take care of her. Josh suggested we write letters to each other while I was out of the country, until we could be together. He told me when he imagined his future, he couldn’t see one without his Olivia. I didn’t know which was more alarming - my lie, or his response to it.

Finally, wrecked with guilt and sadness, the once-dull ache of my constant and overwhelming fucking physical desire reaching a peak, I took a deep breath and told Josh the truth. Or rather, the truth packed its bags and flung itself out of my body through my mouth, exhausted from living in such a hostile and guilt-ridden environment. I told him I was 16, going on 17. I told him the pictures were not of me. I told him why I had created the account in the first place, and that I felt awash with guilt over how in over my head I had gotten. Josh’s response displayed essentially the entire spectrum of grief in one message. He refused to believe me at first, and was convinced I felt bad about having to move to Tanzania to take care of my fake grandmother with ovarian cancer. He begged me to tell the truth. I did not know what to say to him, so instead I tried to convince him we could be friends until I turned 18. At this point, he became angry, expressed his fear of our online tryst being illegal, and told me to delete my account. Before deleting Olivia, I screenshotted his most meaningful messages.  

One of those screenshots captured a message with Josh’s phone number. I helped myself to a vodka cranberry c/o my parents’ liquor cabinet, which really only ever contains about half a bottle of vodka. It was my first taste of alcohol since 7th grade, when I took a shot of whiskey prior to taking a standardized test I was unprepared for. Saddled with some liquid courage, I began to draft a text to Josh. The vodka cranberry was basically 4 oz of vodka to one teaspoon of cranberry, so I stumbled around my room trying to figure out what I could say to salvage the relationship. It was a desperate drunkenness, a kind I haven’t succumbed to since. I didn’t like the kinds of things this drunkenness made me say and do. I texted Josh and essentially begged him to forgive me. I suggested we write letters to each other until I became legal. I felt myself being pulled apart by a fantasy life I accidentally created and wanted so badly to recreate.

Eventually, I stopped fantasizing about being with him as myself. I learned not to fantasize because I am incredibly pain-avoidant and It hurt to know I was capable of such an intricate lie. I started to joke about it vaguely with friends. “Have I ever told you about the time I catfished a dude? No? Eh, I’ll tell you about it later.”

At the tender age of 17, I had experienced an inordinate amount of trauma and passion, still having never being kissed. I imagined my quasi-relationship with Josh had been more serious than any real relationships any of my classmates had ever experienced, and I was still a virgin. I grew extremely depressed and frustrated. When I expressed my frustration to my childhood best friend, she advised me to lower my standards. “That’s what I did,” she shrugged, looking sort of sorry I was just realizing everything is bullshit.