#then I deconstructed gender too much to the point of it not existing anymore

[jazaesis]

Hi, me again, just expressing my love for the gay asthmatic Twink. He's so me, if I wasn't trans. But I still love him

Aro appreciates all the love 🫶💕💕

He’s such a self projection of me and my co I’m so thrilled that other people are able to connect with him too

[this-is-exorsexism]

I just saw a post about how transmasc and transfem aren't labels you can "opt out of," how if you transition like this then you ARE transmasc and if you transition like that then you ARE transfem, whether you like it or not. Because it's just a "fact" about your transition, not an identity.

And it just made me so sad. I'm transneutral. Sure, my transition might look binary to an outside observer. Yeah, people might look at me now and see me as far more masculine than I was before I transitioned. But that's other people. Not me.

Does this count as exorsexism? I feel like it does but I'm also worried that they're right, and maybe my identity is offensive and maybe I AM lying for not calling myself transmasc. I don't know. I just feel really bad and insecure right now.

this is exorsexism.

through and through.

i'm assuming this post was by a trans person, because cis people tend to be less educated about trans terminology in the first place, and will often just parrot whatever is popular but not think of it any further.

a lot of trans people, even some nonbinary people, seem to be really invested in upholding the gender binary in its various forms. "these are the two options you have, and you cannot be neither" is just gender binary 2.0.

people want to group especially nonbinary people by our AGAB, because a lot of people can't handle the fact that us simply saying "i'm nonbinary" doesn't give them any information about our AGAB, about "where we came from" the way that "trans woman" or "trans man" does. never mind the fact that some intersex people who were (c)afab are trans women and some intersex people who were (c)amab are trans men, but these people usually aren't just exorsexist, they're intersexist too. if the term "trans woman" doesn't necessarily tell you what gender someone was assigned at birth anymore, apparently the term loses all its meaning, since everything hinges on AGAB... somehow. but i digress.

and people have definitely started using transmasculine and transfeminine as "acceptable" shorthands for AGAB language, whether they admit it or not. if you were afab, your only options are cis woman, trans man or transmasculine nonbinary, and if you're transmasculine nonbinary we treat you like a man anyway, and vice versa for amab folk.

bonus points if it all hinges on transition steps, i.e. if you were amab and take oestrogen, you're automatically transfem regardless of how you identify (and if you don't take enough transition steps you're basically cis anyway - their line of thinking, not mine).

because we're definitely dismantling cissexism by still acting as if hormones are inherently masculine or feminine. we're definitely deconstructing the gender binary by just changing the words from male and female to transmasc and transfem. (heavy sarcasm)

so much of it goes back to people really just upholding cissexism and the binary, probably without even realising it. by saying it's about "what we were born as" or about how we transition, people are just using the same violence on nonbinary people as cis people use on all trans people. just because cis people assume you're masculine, trans people somehow think it's what you want and do it as well.

transmasc and transfem nonbinary people obviously exist. it's part of many people's identity. others actually do just use the term as a shorthand to what they're transitioning from, where they're transitioning to, how they're transitioning, certain experiences of transmisia, etc. and that's fine - if you use it like that for yourself and don't force it onto others.

and people also love framing words that have a heavy nonbinary association as somehow offensive, dirty or otherwise bad. people will go so far to avoid saying the word "nonbinary", they hate the word "enby", in fact, they hate when we have any term that is more specific than nonbinary, and they also hate our trans- terms, be it transneutral, transandrogynous or the many others. they really hate when we're actually somewhat equal.

[seoafin]

gege fridging yuki and now tsumiki. shoko, utahime, mei mei, momo, miwa disappering from the plot and now i dont think nobara is coming back after reading the newest chapter which would mean that her death was handled horribly 💀💀💀

i genuinely dont understand whats going on in jjk anymore tbh either like i stopped reading after 208 and your blog was how i found out about the tsumiki thing ����😭 i wish gege wouldve atleast utilized her in the past chapters if the plan was to kill her because the impact just. isnt there. and like what was the point of yorozu??????? to show us that sukuna is strong?????????🤔 i will actually be surprised if gege turns all of this around but honestlyyyyyyy 😬 (1/2)

its a shame that gege doesnt know how to include female characters into the plot anymore because theyre all just interesting and have wayy too much potential.

like the idea of a character who only cares about money and could go as far to exploit their own sibling like mei mei or someone like shoko who is one of the few/only people in the world who can use rct to heal people (the fact that she was in the same class with the 2 strongest sorcerers in the world and she was never shown to be afraid of them or take their shit) or someone like yuki who was the first special grade in their generation and also an spv??? (if this had been revealed during HI arc the drama would increase tenfold...) OR TSUMIKI omg this one frustrates me so muchhh like she had SO SO SO MUCH BUILD UP AND FOR WHAT??? this girl had to get into the role of a parent for her younger brother because toji sold him and left them and her mother abandoned them and left. SHE IS ELDEST DAUGHTER CODED (so much so that her perspective and feelings during a traumatic situation are never explored because shes fine if shes hardworking and doesnt complain *cough*minari*cough*) imagine going through all of this at such a young age and having to adapt constantly and pick up the pieces alone because the have to keep living. like if megumi was too young to be going through all of that SO WAS SHE????? she deserved wayyyyyy better i could go on for hours about this but. yeah 😭😭😭 basically theyre all characters who've got their own agendas and it wouldve been so much better if already existing characters had been explored rather than 1098274 new characters being introduced. i miss plant trio. nobara balanced out fushiguro's emo angstyness by bullying him. oh well atleast we have maki 😍😍😍 (2/2)

no i agree with you 100% jjk had so much potential to have active and important female characters with agency in the beginning of the manga where akutami was still tying characters into world building. i think that made people (like me) hopeful for a deconstruction of gender norms and dynamics in the jujutsu world that would propel the female characters forward instead of letting them stay one dimensional but it looks as if that's what ended up happening anyway. once again i don't think akutami is intentionally sidelining them if that means anything i just think his planning and organization is off (not enough time given to develop characters other than megumi and yuuji) and that he bit off more than he could choose (having a large cast of characters). which is such a shame bc he could be doing so much more with them!!! like the narrative giving shoko the spotlight for like 2 seconds isn't even a step in the right direction it's the bare minimum!!! it's something we should've gotten during the shibuya arc!!!

also yes. i will die mad about yuki tsukumo and tsumiki. they could've been saved idc idc killing off one of the strongest female characters in your series is just plain WRONG. and tsumiki deserved to live my god.......NOT ANGEL. TSUMIKI. AGHHHHHHHH.

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

no because one of the assumption asks i got recently is still on my mind so i wanted to make a longer post about it.

i was raised in nondenominational (btw: that’s really just “evangelical” but with a fancier label) churches from 0 to 17. (my bio mom, with whom i have not had a relationship [by my choice] since i was 13, and her family are catholic, so i got the most basic catholic things drilled in my head early too, but that’s neither here nor there.)

i learned all the basics and i quickly became very legalistic about religion, to the point that when my first grade teacher said that cherries were tempting or something like that, i refused to eat cherries for several years because i thought that satan would get inside me if i did. (i also thought for a long time that if you committed crimes/got put in jail, you wouldn’t go to heaven, which was a separate issue.)

for a while in 2012, i was even in talks for baptism.

but starting around late 2012/early 2013, i started questioning whether god even existed at all. and i was terrified out of my mind. i didn’t tell anyone about it, but i did tell people that i didn’t want to get baptized right away anymore.

i went back and forth on the issue for a while. i searched for the divine connection that everyone around me in church and at christian summer camp seemed to have except me, and i didn’t find it. not there.

because i could no longer believe in that church, this evangelical way of living that perpetuated so much hatred and that made people feel horrible for who they were and who they loved and that supported hateful people and ideas.

and then a bunch of personal and worldwide shit that i’d honesty rather not get into happened between 2018 and 2020 and i was left asking “why??? god, why???”

so i left it altogether. or rather, i deconstructed it.

and at the same time, i missed the divine. in spite of everything, there was a part of me deep inside that still believed there was a god who was in everything, a god of supreme goodness and love who loved everyone and someday would make everything make sense and make everyone happy forever. i believed the whole world had a divine current running through it, and i—fucked-up as i was—was somehow a part of it. i still prayed under my breath and never abandoned the most core tenets of the faith in which i was raised.

i’ve been struggling to find my way back, to find my place, a place that would take me as i was: fucked-up, questioning, unconventional, wanting to go deep, living on simple love and scraps of faith and wanting to do something good for my fellow travelers of all kinds on this earth.

to love with the greatest love and to realize that everything is a miracle, that everything has a spark of god in it.

i recently found a church community very different from what i knew growing up, an episcopal community, and i instantly fell absolutely in love with it. for the first time i’ve felt truly welcomed and loved and connected in a religious community. i’ve been encouraged to ask all the questions i could ask, and been comforted that questioning and not knowing all the answers doesn’t mean i’m a bad person or bad at faith. i’ve felt close to god here. it feels like a family and i look forward to being there.

it’s incredibly inclusive: the church has a rainbow-colored sign in the lobby that has a list like “all colors, all genders, all sexualities, all abilities, all ages” and on and on are welcome there. i’ve watched them not just talk the talk but walk the walk. i went to a meeting recently where outreach efforts were being discussed, and several minutes were spent discussing details about how to plan and schedule a fundraising dinner for supporting afghan refugees so a muslim speaker wouldn’t miss their prayers. some of my best friends to this day are muslim, and even something seemingly insignificant in the grand scheme of things like that means a lot of me. and that’s one example, and not even the only one from that meeting.

i’m still unpacking my trauma and questions, and that will take a long LONG time, and i know there are some questions i have that i probably will never have answers for. but i’m slowly piecing together faith again. i’m healing. and i’m excited about what’s to come.

[painted-kneecaps]

trigger warning for vent post, topics of religious and family trauma, mental illness, existential dread. please take care of yourself. <3

being a young adult who came from a homeschooled christian upbringing is so difficult and confusing and so, so much all at once. everything feels so terrifying and contradictory, and when you’re dealing with mental illness or neurodivergency and deconstructing your religious beliefs all at the same time, it’s overwhelming to the point of grief.

i was isolated. my family was always there for me. i can’t make friends. i’m friendly to the point of being forgettable. i am not interesting enough. i am too weird. i am so angry at god. does god even exist? my mother was a conspiracy theorist. i love her so much. i spent my childhood in fear of the end times because of her. she’s getting better. i’m getting better. her trauma is not her fault. it isn’t my fault either. am i a woman? i never questioned my gender before i knew it was an option. i like being a woman. i wish i were more androgynous. i don’t want to be a man. sometimes i wish i didn’t look like a woman. do i have a gender? am i autistic? do i have adhd? why did nobody notice my ocd before it tore me apart? i’m not ready to grow up. i can’t trust myself to be alone. i have no opinions of my own. i am terrified of choosing the wrong ones. i don’t want to upset anyone. i don’t want to be a bad person. i want to curl up into a ball. i want to hide from everyone. i wish someone would see me. i can’t focus anymore. i wish i could read again. what happened to me? will i ever feel prepared? am i unloveable? are my family the only people capable of loving me? do my coworkers talk about me when i’m not there? does anyone remember me when i leave the room? why don’t i have any friends? why do i push people away? i don't know the answers to anything important. i don’t know where to begin to look for them. i said a swear word out loud for the first time. it felt anticlimactic. it should have felt like something. it should have felt bad. something is wrong with me. i don’t know how to fix myself. i’m so afraid to ask for help again. i miss my therapist. i wonder if she misses me. i just want to be happy. i don’t know how. maybe god has given up on me. maybe i’ve given up on him. i’m too angry to pray. i haven’t touched my bible in months. i am a disappointment to my mother. i love her so much. i just want her to be happy. i just want to be happy. i don’t know where to start.

[7toked]

**WHY I’VE DISABLED THE COMMENTS SECTION AND WILL NOT BE USING THIS CHANEL FOR A WHILE**

I’ve Disabled the comment section of my most recent video for a variety of reasons, and will not be using this channel till December. Here’s a conversation I had with a very belligerent man which I believe illustrates why:

Holly Lemyre:  Hi everyone! The comment section of my videos are not going to be a space for hateful declarations and close-mindedness. If you have questions or concerns, and are excited to listen to alternate perspectives, you are MORE than welcome to discuss the issues… but if you’re out here making conclusive statements like “no first world country needs feminism”, or violently using language that does not belong to your community like the word “dyke”, or bashing on other people’s religion, you have been (and will from now on be) blocked.

The comments section is a privilege. I can turn it off completely if I want to, but I’d rather hold a space for debate. Please use “I statements”, and if you don’t have something constructive to say don’t say anything at all.

If this continues to be a problem I’ll just turn off the comments on this video :)

Ps. We’re clearly going to have to have our first lesson on Feminism because y’all are (collectively) severely  misinformed.  Read more REPLY

Comment From Adam ???: 3 hours ago Holly Lemyre If you are all for debates, why do you insist on blocking others when they bring up good points and evidence to back it up? Are you advocating for echo chambers? REPLY

Holly Lemyre: 3 hours ago Adam ??? There is a massive difference between  “healthy debates” and the epistemic violence that is being reproduced by viewers on my channel. Nothing I’ve deleted has been based in fact, or grounded by “good points”. And I’m sorry, but I will not fall into the “tolerance of all ideas requires tolerance of violent ideas” paradox.

Honestly, running this channel and receiving ya’lls comments is fucking exhausting. I thought I could run a short series about rape culture, and after receiving people’s questions and concerns realized that for ANYONE on this channel to understand the systems of power, privilege, and oppression that support the structure of rape culture the series I’d be making would have to be dozens of videos long. It’s just too much.

In my real life I’m an activist and an academic, working in several classes and organizations that deal with issues of violence (including rape culture). My two majors (and currently 9 classes) are focused on topics of race, class, and gender in politics and social movements. I am not a leftist. I am not a liberal. But for me, the topic of “rape culture” isn’t a debate— it’s an active reality that I am trying to combat by joining forces with others who are deconstructing systems of power (racism, sexism, classism, etc) that allow it to exist in the first place.

MY POINT IS that until I finish my degrees in December this channel is the least of my concern. All I’ve had time for is policing the extremely violent content that I couldn’t tolerate. I am too busy to have a debate about sometime I do not consider to be debatable.

If anyone wants to talk about how we deconstruct systems of power that allow violence against women to be a leading issue in this country, or are actually ready to learn about sometime they previously thought was a “myth”, great. We can talk in December. Read more REPLY

Adam ???: 2 hours ago (edited) Holly Lemyre If you’re busy with schoolwork, I’d rather not bother you, but understand that you’ve made a lot of baseless claims with your video in question and your comment.

Nobody here, as far as I saw, was directing violence toward you. You sound a little defensive. You’ve blocked the other account for absolutely no reason at all.

Women in the developed world are cared for and are cherished members of our society. They have access to abuse shelters, receive the benefits from a divorce, they serve easier prison sentences than men for the same crime, they don’t have to serve in a war draft, and female genital mutilation is illegal.

I’ve seen your other videos of you on stage, and I’m very confused about this supposed rape culture. How can it possibly exist in the 1st world?  Convicted rapists go to prison and are looked down upon in society, even getting attacked in prison by other inmates. Even making a small rape joke is enough to get a man fired from his job. Why are you generalizing an entire society based upon the sections of a few horrible individuals? Read more REPLY

Holly Lemyre: 1 hour ago Adam ??? I’m so sorry, but there’s a big difference between “baseless claims” and not citing my sources. This video did not aim to give direct examples and description, it was an announcement about the information that was to come. And now, after realizing the level of information that I would have to disseminate, I do not have time to do so until the circumstances of my life are different.

Additionally, I need to make it very clear that I am not claiming people are directing violence at me. I’m saying that people were sharing violent ideologies that I will not host on my channel. If you care to know more about rape culture RIGHT THIS SECOND, or wish to educate yourself on the systems of oppression and levels of violence that make it possible, go look it up. I am not the only person promoting these ideas, and it’s not my job to give you facts on demand. But just to prove my point..

In 2016, U.S. Department of Justice reports that 17,700,000 women have been raped in the United States since 1998. 1 in 5 women experience attempted rape. Women are 2X as likely to be raped than they are to get breast cancer, and nearly 13% of women in the U.S. get breast cancer…

Women in the military are 4x more likely to be raped than a civilian. 3% of male civilians have been raped, but 1 in 7 people in the military (a majority male institution) have experienced rape or sexual assault. Women with disabilities are 2X more likely to be raped than able bodied people. 64% of trans folx experience rape or sexual assault in their life time.

The great majority of rape cases go unreported, and only 2-10% of rape accusations are false. Almost none of those have ever lead to conviction. The U.S. justice department also reports that 99% of the perpetrators of reported rapes walk free, and 89% never face criminal charges.

These are statistics from the United States Government in 2016. These are the bases of my claims. This is rape culture. Read more REPLY

Adam ???: 53 minutes ago Holly Lemyre If i were to present you various sources and videos from women, would you be willing to look into the matter? REPLY

Adam ??? 47 minutes ago Holly Lemyre I would like citations for these claims. And furthermore, why are supposed rape from twenty years ago evidence that we live in a rape culture today? That’s like saying Europe is still under threat from Adolf Hitler. Also no one here is presenting anything violent toward you. You’d have to posses a victim complex to see that. And technically men experience rape more, it’s just that society doesn’t care. It was feminists that protested and eventually shut down a potential home for abused men.

If we live in a rape culture, exactly how does modern society advocate these actions? They don’t, that’s why we aren’t living in a rape culture. You’re thinking of the Congo Republic in Africa. Read more REPLY

Holly Lemyre 45 minutes ago Adam ??? You don’t seem to understand, I’ve already looked into the matter. I’ve spent the last 5 years of my life studying this issue (and others) from multiple angles, and this is the conclusion I’ve come to. Furthermore, the fact that you can look at those statistics and still not see the systemic issue of rape in this country shows me that you are part of the problem. You are more willing to convince yourself of false realities by grasping at the exceptions instead of doing the work it takes to confront the issue we have in this country: violence against women and female identified folx is a huge problem.

THIS is the reason I can’t run this channel anymore. I did not open this forum to debate rape culture, I opened this a space to share ideas that can help us better understand what rape culture looks like so that we can fight it.

But THIS, this right here, the conversation WE ARE HAVING is a perfect example of rape culture: you are being presented with facts from THE US GOVERNMENT that says roughly 20% of our society experiences rape with almost nobody being convicted, and STILL want to deny that rape is an overwhelming issue in this nation based on your notion that we’re “first world”. That level of crazy denial is what MAKES RAPE CULTURE POSSIBLE.

I think I’ll just disable the comments on these videos until I want to use this channel again because y’all are too much. Read more REPLY

Adam ??? 39 minutes ago Holly Lemyre How do you know that most rapes go unreported if they were never reported?

Where are you getting the citation that 2% of rapes are false?

If these women were raped, why didn’t they report it to the police?

Have you any idea how easy it is for a woman to lie and get her spouse arrested and imprisoned for a crime they did not commit? It’s happening more and more often, and these women often face  only a few months in prison, meanwhile the accused men resort to suicide after having their reputations tarnished, sometimes even their mothers. Give me a break already.  You are fighting an imaginary war. Read more REPLY

Adam ??? 32 minutes ago Holly Lemyre You can spend a million years convincing me that the moon is made of cheese, it won’t make it so. You haven’t substantiated any of your claims, nor have you provided any links whatsoever. People like you reduce that meaning and actions of rape into nothing by constantly banging on about it. How am I a part of a non existent issue when I’ve brought into attention countless times that rape is taken very seriously in the United States? You spread cliche feminist myths that even women are starting to debunk. You constantly see yourself as the victim and anybody else who dare think different is automatically the problem. You are a perfect example of how far feminism has fallen since its inception. What, you think you can just share your beliefs online, publicly, and not expect any disagreements? I’ve spoken to you in a respectful manner, and now you’re resorting to acting like a child that didn’t get their way.

I thought you were different, Holly. I thought you had some decency.

Don’t even bother speaking to me again. Go back to Tumblr and continue punching at shadows. Show less REPLY

—End of Conversation–

I just want to highlight the fact that I did cite my source (A United States Justice Department Report on Sexual Assault, Published in 2016).

I’m not going to take the time to pick apart “Adam’s” final reply, because I don’t have the time or energy for it. But this type of denial and dilution is not what I signed up for when I reopen my channel.

Additionally, everything I’ve said within that conversation stands true: I was not here to debate, I was here to inform open minds. And while I always encourage healthy dialogue, there’s no hope in convincing someone that US Government stats are equivalent to claims that the “moon is made of cheese”.

Instead of focusing on this channel, as much as I would have liked to,I’m going to focus on organizing with people in the real world and getting through the last semester of my Bachelors degrees.

Oh, and Adam, you don’t need to worry– I will not talk to you again. In fact, you were the only person trying to have this conversation in the first place. But you know that, and I trust that I don’t have to post all the other pathetic comments you tried to bait me with. Xo

[frederickpoland]

Smile: Subjectivity Politics

I realized today how different the life is that I’m living from the life I’d like to live. The problem (and the cliché) with saying that kind of thing is that it gets immediately reduced to an individual decision or choice. Do something different. Pursue your dreams. Change your life. Be the change you want to see in the world. Strive. Innovate. Pursue. Devote. Sacrifice.  What really hit today--and for personal reasons around systems of oppression within which my immediate family is embedded and benefits from--is how deeply we’re invested in these systems until they rub us the wrong way, at which point we seek to flee them into even more striated systems of oppression.  One you see *ALL THE TIME* is how white folks talk about public education. Even in the crunchiest of crunchy white urban & suburban public schools, if a parent isn’t getting the results they seek for their kid, what do they do? Pull them out and send them off to private school. The privilegest of the privileged. And what are they gonna say? “I believe in public schools in theory, but in practice it isn’t working for my kid.”  GTFO. And that’s how we gotta be about this a whole bunch more, not just white folks, but everyone who is opening their eyes up to the reality of class oppression and exploitation in the United States, which is extremely significantly--*but not exclusively*--rooted in racial oppression and exploitation. When are we gonna rally around some kind of new ways of being with each other to say *WE* aren’t going to have it anymore and demand a voice in the process? I just don’t see it. Even with all of the energy surrounding anti-Trump “progressive politics” in 2018 leading to a Blue Wave (which I most definitely hope to see), we don’t have anything close to a consciousness of a collective subject emerging to take the reigns of government in this country (and beyond). We are empty and weak when it comes to collective imagination. I believe that identity politics has its role and power in our country today, but this is the deep insufficiency of identity politics. We need a *subjectivity politics* where we are experimenting with something new to bind us together, without losing sight of the identifications that have been used to discriminate against, divide, and oppress. We can have difference and still wrestle with inequality in the process of forging new collective subjects for social change. Maybe it’s not just class. Maybe it’s not just race. Maybe it’s not just gender. Maybe it’s not just disability. That’s not to discount the great significance of all of these interlocking forms of systemic, bodily oppression, exploitation, and exclusion that governs people’s existences from before the time they can even talk.  But it is to say that “we” need to move from being identified subjects to even beyond subjects who take control of that position as subjects and demand recognition. We need to construct new subjectivities. We need to wrestle away that position from people like myself (straight white men) and create a new structure of enunciation, narration, identification (Is “identity” really even desirable?), solidarity, commitment, accountability that stretches not only across the old gender/racial/national/ethnic/sexuality categorizations and divides, but actively constructs new collective ways of being together. They don’t have to be hard and fast. They can break down and start anew. Let yourself break down. Let yourself be broken to the point of needing another, someone who is entirely different from you. see what you can create, how you can co-inhabit the earth. Lodge yourselves into hinged selves that articulate with one another and with other one anothers into multiple selves. Laugh at your nationality, your race, your gender, your class, your sexuality, your “abilities,” your...nothing anymore. Get rid of individual possessions at the level of identity, but don’t float freely. Commit. Who are you holding onto. Who can hold onto you. When you ask that question, look around and beyond to think of you you have. Who are your people. Are they the same class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality as yourself? If so, it’s time to change your life, and not for yourself. Do not innovate or strive or devote or sacrifice or any of that fucking bullshit. Let that be seen as the managerial ideology that it is. Break loose. Become other. Become together with others to forge new selves, new subjects capable of entirely new forms of action and everyday life. That’s what I need to do as much as anyone. I’ve gotten so far away from organizing and it fucking kills me, since I can always say that I have too much shit to do, and that the union is annoying, and that I need to remain committed to this bourgeois life that I have in order to remain connected up with my wife and son.  But what if I can’t anymore? Not to leave my family (that’s not on the table at all, and it’s overwhelmingly because I don’t desire to), but to perhaps try to organize them into modes of life that I feel are far more in tune with what a non-oppressive, non-imperialist way of living together might be. That’s my striving, although I still don’t want to use that word. I’m not trying to “succeed.” We need to rid ourselves of that concept. We need to think about what is a desirable life together on this rotten skin on top of a hot, wet fruit for the time being. I’m here for that. That’s what we’re gonna do. Commitment and devotion and sacrifice and all that isn’t bad, but I want something different: experimentation (with the essential risk of failure), curiosity, creativity, construction, deconstruction, struggle,...I want all of that. I need to put myself in it to get there. This is helping me break down those walls that are blocking my perception... https://soundcloud.com/rottingsky/smile

[averyxadeline]

I once saw a shirt that said “If you’re reading this, raise girls and boys the same way”. I googled that sentence today and all of the above were the only results I found.

If you’re reading this wear black or wear nothing. If you’re reading this I fucked your girl for some honeybuns. If you’re reading this you look like a muhfuckin uuuuuuuh. If you’re reading this give me head. If youre reading this thick thighs r life. If you’re reading this fuck you. 

if youre reading this wear black or wear nothing if youre reading this I fucked your girl for some honeybuns if you’re reading this you look like a muhfuckin uuuuuuuh if you’re reading this give me head if youre reading this thick thighs r life if youre reading this fuck you 

ifyourereadingthiswearblackorwearnothingIfyourereadingthisIfuckedyourgirlforsomehoneybunsIfyourereadingthisyoulooklikeamuhfuckinuuuuuuuhIfyourereadingthisgivemeheadIfyourereadingthisthickthighsrlifeIfyourereadingthisfuckyou

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IFYOUREREADINGTHISWEARBLACKORWEARNOTHING

The girl is an idealistic, one that thrives in the atmosphere of the insulated and secure. Black is her soul but she has embraced it; dark lipstick, brazen hair, nose rings and brave words, sisters chant the war cry of a new era of gender triumph. But is there really equality on an island only populated by girls? The island is buried in a thick fog of ignorance of the mainland. Our cries are loud unto ourselves but are we really heard? If we do a rain dance and the storm does not hit, do we really suffer? Perhaps the world I’ve lived in thus far has been a utopia because I’ve surrounded myself with boys and girls alike who’ve shared my world views and my voice against a very hypothetical form of bigotry. When I am only hearing these loud cries, it is easy to assume everyone is shouting in unison, but in the dead of silence, the nefarious whispers begin to creep down your spin and flood into your veins like an old heart attack. Maybe I’ve overestimated boys I thought were my friends, boys who I assumed saw me as their equal, boys that I thought respected me. Because no friend tells another that she is any less because of her gender, because of her looks, because the course of study she has embarked on is all “floozy” and “feminized”. “What’s the point of studying Literature and the arts? You can’t fix anything!” I study Literature precisely because I am self-aware that I live in a world that is ignorant to the nuanced sphere of human emotions, I and many others am attempting to fix what you do not see. Yes, engineering, sciences, mathematics and computing have their value in fixing society, but the arts do not fix, they reconcile, they heal and they protect, specifically from the brutality of a mechanical world where everything has become entirely utilitarian (cue locomotive noise and let this aural discordance upset musical souls!). The thing is, yes, we won’t earn much and maybe we won’t even be employed easily, but that is not our agenda, we don’t have an agenda, it’s not about the money but a wholesome livid life. Yes, let’s laugh about how the FASS student cannot fix a sink,  or call her a “scrub” for not being able to understand mathematics well. But darling, I’d like to see you patch up those little holes of emptiness in your chest with a hammer and nails.

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There is a humming in my ears and red strings bind my hands to his, but neither of us tied them. Ownership is a funny concept; I own this shirt because I bought it, I own this dog because I adopted her, I own this person because I love him/her. Because I love a boy, and because he loves me, the stars have aligned and we implicitly owe certain things to each other! The glittery pigments on my eyes are there akin to worship of him, the glorious tears that fall do so in his name, the slickness between my thighs are nothing but an ode to him. My body nothing but enslaved to him my idol? When he kisses my cheek, should it feel like a branding mark or love? Or both? Because I know in his eyes, it is love, but he has become the unknowing owner of this empty house and it is the world that deconstructs love with the politics of ownership that continues to build up walls. “How does your man let you out of the house wearing that? What does he think of that top? Did you dress of for him?” My body is no longer my own not because he demanded it, but because by the World’s gaze, love has become the defining mechanism of consent. That’s why marital rape isn’t “a real thing”, that why girls/boys who are raped by their significant other are assumed to have wanted it because they have before. So when I splurge my money on a 100 different lipsticks, it is so he might notice each and every colour. When I choose a pair of shoes, it’s not about convenience but whether they will risk making me taller than him. And when I wax it’s fully because he must believe that I am a hairless cat with the innocence unknown to all forms of natural female sexuality! Razors and too many variations of smudged red lipsticks have become the aesthetic of feminine ownership and I know that he does not expect me to shave for him or dress up for him, but what does is that everyone else does. “Your girl” has had her honeybuns stolen in the name of love and all its irony!

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I look in the mirror, the depth of self-reflection spits back at me in horror. This face has become unknown territory; the nose ring I thought would express an edgy part of myself has deemed me a “bad girl”, the makeup caked on my face as an empowering attempt of feeling myself has labelled me as insecure, my natural chest and cleavage should not be exposed, and yet I am also not ‘womanly’ without it. The male gaze tastes like metal; the angry sort of tang you get from licking a rusty spoon, it spoils the flavor of anything you eat. I am the most stereotypical girl; I am everything you’d expect. I love clothes, makeup and arts, but most importantly I loved that I was comfortable loving these things. But when a boy insists that, “all girls only dress up for boys” and my own mother tells me that I shouldn’t wear certain things because I’ll, “scare boys off and look ugly to them“, I start tasting metal. The new metallic highlighter that I bought to compliment my skin tone disgusts me with its new ironized significance, I’m subtly afraid of wearing culottes in front of a guy who likes girls who wear them because I don’t want him to assume that I’m doing so for him and when I feel more self-conscious than confident when wearing red lipstick because I know someone is going to sexualize my libertarian choices and assume that I’m “trying hard”. Don’t get me wrong, boys are not the singular villain in this treachery, girls too ingest this patriarchal logic; they swallow it and spit it out at each other in the brazen tussle of femininity until it consumes everyone. Wave upon wave, femininity has indeed become a competition of who adheres most the hegemonic master text of what a girl must be. I look in the mirror and light pink is so drab against my lips but maybe boys will think I’m innocent! I look in the mirror and see a neon sign that screams, “YES” where my cleavage used to be. I look in the mirror and I realize that my eyes don’t work anymore, I am looking through someone else’s. I look in the mirror and I do not recognize myself.

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Let me tell you a story about a young 14-year-old girl who did not understand love and suffered for it. A girl who just wanted to be loved by a boy at the wrong time and place and suffered because no one taught her better. A girl who liked a boy who convinced her that sending nudes was the only way he’d like her back. A girl who figured that this must be the natural path that romance takes because not one, but two boys demanded this from her. A girl who recognised harassment as a romantic pursuit because that’s what happens in movies. A girl who felt ashamed of her own body and responsible for a violation she had no control over. A girl who was afraid of talking to boys until she was 17 because at the back of her head, she assumed that this was the main agenda of all boys who befriended her. A girl who was wrong because someone set the wrong precedent. A girl who was given a second chance at love and realized that not all boys are sexual animals, but they still exist and sometimes we fall prey. I am an example, but I am not the whole story. Girls are getting touched and raped before they’re old enough to make sense of their own bodies, and it’s not just about rape but sexual harassment that has become normalized within a pop culture that begs one to, “send nudes” and makes memes out of it instead of addressing its travesty. America is seeing an epidemic of rape culture across college campuses and they’re still asking why. The infamous Dehli rape of Jyoti Singh was successful in raising awareness against rape culture but only because she was elevated as the “Nirbhaya”, the pure and fearless, only because her body was worthy in purity. But what about every other body? What every body from young rape victims to sex workers who face violence in the industry? The thing is, to not be seen as a sexual object, a girl has to be pure. But when she’s too pure, she’s a prude. The spaces that liberate female sexuality are growing smaller and smaller alongside the proliferation of this culture and these mindsets. A girl, like me, cannot survive a world like this.

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Dear boy who once tried to come off as the ‘nice guy’ by telling me you dance with fat girls in the club out of pity, did you think you owed her anything? Did you assume that her body that you deemed inferior was meant to be denigrated? Did you think that you did her a favour with your attention? Did you think she was in a club to validate her body? When the lights go down and the music is turned up, I bet you inched across that dance floor looking for someone to impress and you assumed that the fat girls would give you the time of the day because they have no better option? Check yourself. The girl is abundant, she is a blossom through which life flows, her body is a vessel to be celebrated for every curve and inch that is not yours to explore. It is not your place to deconstruct her colors and shapes. She is not yours to dismantle. The shape of her body does not define her self-worth, confidence and ability until it ‘becomes’ so in your eyes! The Kardashians will go on about thick thighs and body positivity, until anyone has thicker thighs than them. Rappers will sing of a woman’s curves unless they are on her waist and not her chest or butt. And boys will say that they’re accepting or any body shape until she threatens their ideal of beauty. Don’t get me wrong, yes some boys are perfectly accepting of a curvier woman, but that’s because their beauty ideals aren’t as narrow. But the real problem is not what men’s ideal women look like, but the fact that men still think it’s their place to validate a woman’s body or deconstruct it. Beauty can no longer be in the eyes of the beholder when that beholder is not worthy. When the lights go down and the music is turned up, let it be a celebration of every body on that dance floor in the perfect amalgamation of size, colour and gender.

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I have described at least 5 instances of sexism, some more personal than others but all of equal exigency. But the final instance is the most potent and deadly. It is the instance that has yet to come. It is the rebirth of all the above even after being educated and made aware of the very real genderized travesties that still exist today. The last instance is the ignorance of now. It is the blind eye that scoffs at this as another extremist liberal irrationality and continues to deny the silence the voice that they are screaming for. It is when we assume that in our own peaceful and idyllic contexts, we are untouchable and share no part in this fight. Don’t get me wrong, tis a battle but not one of a gender binary. It is not about boys against girls and vice versa, but collective humanity against a toxic mindset and culture. We can no longer be impartial; you have read this, you are reading this, now you know. Now you have no excuse. So I suppose that the real slogan of the t-shirt should be, “IF YOU’RE READING THIS AND YOU STILL DON’T CARE,

FUCK YOU.“

If You’re Reading This I once saw a shirt that said "If you're reading this, raise girls and boys the same way".

[dragimal]

Sexuality is not Sustainable

I can guarantee I’m prolly not the first person to bring this up, but I have yet to come across anything explicitly addressing this issue myself (sidenote-- if anyone knows of a source handling this topic better than I ever could, plz feel free to send it my way!)

anyways, the interesting thing abt the concept of sexuality, at this point, is that it seems to be evolving much more slowly than the concept of gender. what I mean is that discourse around gender has shifted from (as this delightful post puts it), “all genders are valid and no gender is fake,” to, “all genders are fake and have no inherent validity.”

this is fantastic for gender-- we ABSOLUTELY need to shift our society more towards the assumption that gender is more-or-less bullshit and should have no effect on our ideas of self-image and worth

but where does this leave sexuality? as the concept of gender is questioned and deconstructed, it seems like ppl are forgetting to address this other social concept that is just as heavily structured on the idea of gender. sexuality can’t stay the same while gender shuffles and (hopefully eventually) falls apart, it just can’t work

think of it like this: if we are to assume that gender has no bearing on how someone talks, acts, or otherwise presents themselves (which is a valid assumption to make), then how can anyone “guess” another person’s gender if there are no inherent signals for gender?

so here we come to a dilemma that I will illustrate using an example: assume person A is only attracted to girls. A is put in a group of random ppl and told to find someone they’re attracted to. if we’re to assume the “typical” idea of sexuality, then A would prolly pick out someone who is wearing “feminine” clothing, or has an otherwise “feminine” appearance (we’ll call this “feminine” individual person B). but how is A to know that B is ACTUALLY a girl? B could easily be a girl, guy, neither, or both! and if B isn’t a girl, then is A expected to not be attracted to B anymore? because if A is expected to ONLY be attracted to girls, then allowing themself to be attracted to B could invalidate that B’s gender identity, right? but what if A suddenly ISN’T attracted to B anymore after learning they aren’t a girl? wouldn’t that just be considered incredibly shallow, for A to reject someone they were otherwise attracted to purely based on gender? what if A just bypasses all this and hollers at the crowd, “HEY, ALL THE GIRLS CAN STAY, EVERYONE ELSE CAN LEAVE.” wouldn’t that be just as shallow-- A didn’t use any personal traits like shared interests or physically attractive appearances to narrow down their decisions, they simply narrowed their starting options using an arbitrary label

when we break down sexuality like this, then what even IS sexuality in the first place? how can sexuality survive in the face of gender evolution?

the answer, as far as I can tell, is that sexuality can’t survive

just as gender is slowly being revealed as a defunct concept, sexuality too will be a useless ideal of the past

now none of this is to say that we need to drop sexuality cold turkey-- sexuality will be useless in the future, but it’s certainly not useless now! I’ll certainly still id as ace/pan until sexuality is dead or those labels don’t fit me anymore!

as LGBTQA+ rights and lives are threatened, we need labels to stand behind and fight for, because we can’t stand behind a concept without a name (at least as far as a highly language-oriented species like us is concerned). labels create shared meaning, and help us better understand one another without having to rattle out a rambling definition. that’s kind of the purpose of language in general

a sad (yet inevitable) drawback of labels is that they eventually constrict from a freeing form of understanding into a tightly-bordered construct. this is the other main point I wanted to get to-- how restrictive these labels for sexuality have become

while not all of these labels were originally made for our benefit, we’ve reclaimed many, and developed many more to help us understand ourselves. these labels were meant to free us from things like compulsory heterosexuality, yet I still see so much gatekeeping over who’s allowed “in” to certain sexualities: oh, you kind of liked that one boy? you can’t POSSIBLY be lesbian! oh, you kind of liked sex with that one person? you can’t POSSIBLY be ace! oh, you’ve only dated one girl but 5 guys? you can’t POSSIBLY be bi!

I see shit like this far. too. often.

and y’know, I get it-- wlw/mlm are afraid of straight ppl coming into their spaces and fetishizing their sexuality. homosexual folks don’t want their sexuality painted as “hypersexual” if aces are considered queer. I get it, we’ve all got a lot of vicious shit to be afraid of

but there’s a difference between defending your sexuality, and pushing away a young, confused queer person because, “they’re not [x sexuality] enough.” there’s a difference between protecting fellow queer ppl, and rejecting affiliation with someone who’s beginning to realize that a certain label doesn’t fit them quite right anymore. there’s a difference between defining your sexuality, and invalidating another person’s sexuality because the borders of their definition don’t neatly fit into yours

like, it just boggles my goddamn mind to think that ppl are arguing over shit like this and don’t realize how fuckin pointless it is! sexuality means nothing! sexuality doesn’t even exist!! why are y’all givin ppl so much grief over this!!! fuck!!!!

idk, maybe it’s b/c I identify as some pan/ace hybrid that I don’t understand this. I don’t have personal experience to tell me what it’s like to only be attracted to certain genders, and how strictly that holds true in any given situation. I’ll admit it-- I just don’t know

what I do know is this-- we are inherently restricted by human language. as of yet, we have not come up w/ a way to utter a single sound or gesture that conveys the EXACT meaning we’re trying to convey. I can’t say, “I’m sad,” and have you experience the exact form and level of sadness I could be feeling at that exact moment

language is restrictive. what we feel is not. labels can’t POSSIBLY capture the depth and fluidity of our attraction in any meaningful way. labels are our tools for communication and connection, but don’t let them tie you down to a concept that could never capture your feelings