#there's a lot of context there with the obvious topic here of intersectionality and having some male friends

[tigwalen]

if we're going to (rightfully) complain about the 4B movement and other forms of women's protest, could we at least provide better alternatives?

in the meantime, yes, I absolutely am cutting off interacting with most men unless it's absolutely necessary. if they want to make a world where the only man I talk to is my husband, they can have that.

[fansplaining]

A Note from Fansplaining

If you’re subscribed to Fansplaining on iTunes or another podcatcher, you’ve probably seen that we put out a short statement this week in lieu of a new episode. Because we’re committed to making all audio we release fully accessible, we’ll transcribe the clip at the bottom of this post, below the cut. But fwiw, it’s mostly just explaining what’s in this post:  

Black lives matter. We condemn white supremacy in all its forms. We believe the police should be defunded and dismantled. And we want to make sure everyone who listens to our podcast knows about ways they can contribute to this fight, and ways they can support the Black community (please note that these are U.S.-centric). We’ll be back with a new episode soon, but this is more important than anything we could say right now.

Places to donate

If you’re out of work or have lost hours in the past few months, you may not have money to spare. But even small donations—$5, $10—add up. A few organizations we recommend: 

House of GG, a Black-led organization, is fundraising to build a permanent home in Little Rock, Arkansas where trans and gender-nonconforming people can both be housed and receive leadership training.

G.L.I.T.S. is fundraising to buy two buildings to create a permanent place to house and support Black trans people in New York City, as well as sign leases for space to use in the interim.

Sista Afya, a Chicago-based organization, is fundraising to keep its therapeutic services, social events, and wellness experiences under $15 and to hold large scale events like a free arts festival.

For a larger crowdsourced list, see suggestions here.

Ways to get involved if you can’t physically or monetarily participate

If, like us, you live in New York City, here’s a great resource for actionable things you can do from home. Here’s a national list, though for more granular detail for your town/city/region, you should search social media. Some great google doc action happening right now!! 

As a reminder, when contacting elected officials: 

Always write your own email, rather than use a form. People who work or have worked in these offices strongly advise this, and report that form emails are regularly filtered out, often directly into the trash. 

Always write a postcard rather than a letter. Letters are scanned for things like anthrax and can get held up for days; postcards go straight through.

Ensure you know the official’s position on whatever you’re asking about before you call or write. If they’re already supporting or sponsoring a specific piece of legislation, call them anyway and thank them. They use constituent numbers to show that their positions have a lot of public support. 

Particularly for white and non-BIPOC: reach out to your family members, as much as you feel safe doing so, and speak with them about Black Lives Matter and the issues of the day. If you have language barriers with your family members, or just need a place to start, Letters For Black Lives is a great resource that includes material in many languages.

Stream this video—all ad revenue will go to bail funds, families of victims of racist police brutality, and other Black-led organizations.

Resources on anti-Blackness and racism in fandom

Because we are a fandom podcast, we encourage white fans in particular to continue to listen to Black fans and other fans of color when it comes to racism in fandom. If you’re new to the podcast or haven’t dug into the full back catalogue, we recommend prioritizing: 

Our pair of episodes on race and racism in fandom—especially anti-Blackness in fandom—featured eight different guests. Episodes 22A and B: “Race and Fandom Part 1” and “Race and Fandom Part 2.”

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas was one of our earliest and one of our most recent repeat guests. You can listen to her talk about race, children’s literature, and fandom in episode 7, “The Dark Fantastic” and episode 120, “Ebony Elizabeth Thomas.” Once you’ve listened to these episodes, buy or request that your library purchase a copy of her book, The Dark Fantastic.

Tanya DePass is the founder of I Need Diverse Games. In episode 42, “Fresh Out of Tokens,” she discussed fan/creator interaction and intersectionality in the context of games specifically. 

Rukmini Pande is a well-known scholar of race and fandom. She first joined us in episode 29, “Shipping and Activism,” to talk about the ways that ships intersect with politics; then, she returned in episode 89, “Rukmini Pande,” and discussed her academic work. Once you’ve listened to these episodes, buy or request that your library purchase a copy of her book, Squee From the Margins.

In episode 48, “Con or Bust,” we interviewed Diana Pho and Mark Oshiro, two board members of Con or Bust, an organization that raises money to help fans of color attend conventions.

For further reading, Fan Studies Network North America has put together a great list of resources.

Transcript

[Intro music: “Awel” by stefsax]

Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish.

FK: Welcome to not an episode of Fansplaining. Um, we almost completely canceled recording at all, but we decided that we wanted to record a short thing, because we know some people only receive us through their podcatcher or whatever and don’t ever go to our website or our social media. So it felt important that we actually record something short today.

ELM: All right. So, just off the bat, at the risk of sounding like a terrible brand black .jpg with white letters, I think it should be obvious to everybody right now but it’s always worth restating—Black Lives Matter. We strongly support everything that is happening right now. We both strongly believe that the police should be…what word are we gonna use? Dismantled?

FK: Yes.

ELM: Dismantled. Like, we, like, you know—and like, strongly condemn white supremacy, which is the foundation of our country and much of the world.

FK: Right. So… 

ELM: Very broad statement here, but like, you know, it’s definitely worth stating in explicit terms and not couching it around, you know, just to outright state support for Black people and the fight that is going on right now.

FK: Completely. And we really struggled with whether or not to record an episode because, on the one hand, there’s a lot of topics that we think would be really good to talk about that are within the purview of this podcast—stuff like the way people are using social media to organize, stuff like the entire conversation around K-pop fandom and the way that’s been going down. There’s like five things.

ELM: Spoiler, spoiler: It’s been going down poorly.

FK: Yeah.

ELM: Wait, side note: just anyone, please please please, cause I know a lot of people listen to this podcast and are in fandom but are not in K-pop fandom, if an article that you’re sharing about K-pop fans mobilizing doesn’t acknowledge the, like, rampant anti-Blackness happening within those spaces right now, they haven’t done enough research.

FK: Correct. And also, it’s both that and also if you see the narrative that K-pop fans are only bots, that’s also the other flip bad side of the coin.

ELM: Well, we should—now we’re gettin’ right into it. We’re not actually doing an episode. We’re not actually doing an episode. Yes.

FK: We’re actually gonna talk about this at some point in the future. Right now it feels like, you know, just being two white women talking about this stuff feels like not the thing to do right now? And we also don’t want to right now ask Black people to come on to our podcast and talk about things in a deeply traumatic and horrible moment. So we’re going to put a pin in the podcast and we’re gonna come back with all of those topics and a bunch of guests and basically begin to address this stuff, hopefully in a moment that’s less fraught. Is it ever gonna get less fraught? I don’t know if it’s gonna get less fraught.

ELM: That being said, let’s play it by ear! Because I could not tell you what’s gonna happen two weeks from now, but like… 

FK: [sighs] Yeah, I really don’t know either.

ELM: Just, we’ll see. So in the meantime, we are going to put a post on Tumblr so it’ll be shareable, and we are going to include resources—places to donate, in particular places that aren’t getting as much attention. More grassroots stuff that we’re seeking out right now. And also ways to be active and involved for people who don’t have the money or physical ability to be protesting right now, because I am very aware of the narrative of “You should be in the streets! And if not then you should donate!” And it’s like, well, what happens if you are unemployed and also physically unable to get out there? There are so many ways that you can really be, actively lend your support right now. 

So we’ll put those in there, and then also, we shared on Twitter a thread of great resources about anti-Blackness and racism in fandom, and since this is a fandom podcast we’ll be sharing some of those in that post as well, because it’s all connected.

FK: Absolutely. All right, everyone out there, stay safe, stay strong, if you’re in the streets stay in the streets, and we’ll be back when we can.

ELM: OK, bye Flourish!

FK: Bye, Elizabeth.

[Outro music: “Awel” by stefsax]

[serinemolecule]

Not to harp on the obvious, but the discussion feels hollow without it: the only reason some people - not all, maybe not most, but definitely some - push for "equality" and "inclusiveness" and etc. in tech is because it's seen as a desirable and powerful position. No one's been belly-aching about it back when it was fashionable to tell nerds to stop being fat and ugly and what a bunch of losers they are. It's only up for discussion now that there's something to be gained from it. It's hypocrisy.

(context: a lot of women-in-tech discourse)

I mean, I was belly-aching about it.

I like to say I was a feminist until I met other feminists. I definitely saw plenty of things nerds could be doing better for equality. But then the first time I met other feminists, they were harassing nerds and writing long essays about how nerds were even worse than average men (which still seems to me like an absolutely insane position).

That was... a really big crisis of faith there. I spent years reading feminist literature, trying to understand their point. And the crazy thing was, a lot of the principles and concepts do appeal to me. But then the way they’d apply it, talking about how privileged nerds were, or just using it as an excuse to be assholes to people, that’s always seemed wrong to me.

My approach at the time was just to try to understand it better in private, and never talk about it in public. This lasted until I read the SSC essays on social justice which I entirely agreed on, then I joined Tumblr to hit on Scott, and since then I started getting more comfortable with writing out my thoughts, but also the really bad SJ of the early 2010s just mostly faded away from the spaces I’m in. I still hear insane stories from other places (like the New York Times! wtf!) but it no longer feels like a crisis afflicting my own community, so I never wrote anything out.

Part of it’s that my community is the rats, now. SJWs may still exist here, but they don’t have a social power to turn us against each other. Whatever effect Topher’s tweet had on the rest of the world, it means he’s no longer welcome among rats anymore. We dismiss them with equanimity using the ancient proverb, “Haters gonna hate”.

Anyway, I suppose now’s as good a time as any for me to talk about what I think about feminist theory.

I get the impression that Scott is embarrassed by his old posts on gender politics, but I still endorse every word. Even the words people like to criticize the most, I endorse as an angry expression of “Why don’t you care about how many people your ideology is hurting?” That said:

Privilege theory – I remember encountering privilege theory and thinking “yes, this totally fits the model that normies are privileged and nerds are marginalized”, until I got to the part where they started talking about how privileged nerds were. I think the theory is still pretty good, and of course the practice about writing privilege checklists and using it to silence people is incredibly fucked up.

Patriarchy theory – Fortunately, no one talks about patriarchy theory anymore. It came from the radfems and it always seemed horrible to me. It's uncontroversially true that ruling class is mostly male, but patriarchy theory seems to just equivocate between that and insane conspiracy theories.

For example, “culture is built for the benefit of men at the expense of women” requires you to just dismiss everything that hurts men and helps women, to excuse that fashion policing is nearly solely perpetuated by other women, and even if it’s true, the fact that it is perpetuated by everyone means pointing the finger at a specific group will not help fix the problem. Did Kamala Harris exercise “girl power” when she kept black prisoners in jail past their release date? 

Cultural appropriation – The usual steelman I hear for this is “it sucks when white people take your culture for themselves, and yet still call it cringe when you practice your own culture” – but the only objectionable part is the latter! Stop objecting to the former part! There’s nothing wrong with culture mixing and it is in fact one of the most beautiful things in the world!

Part of it’s that I’m a first-gen immigrant, and cultural appropriation attitudes often come from insecurities second-gen immigrants have. Cultural appropriation just means I’m now an expert on your new culture and you’re not allowed to stop me from infodumping on it.

The other steelman is “misusing religious artifacts is bad” and I think to the extent that it’s bad, it’s bad whether you’re doing it to your own culture or to other cultures.

In general I think Halloween was, among other things, a great celebration of diversity that did not need to be cancelled, and I don’t think any costume was offensive to the majority of any culture.

Intersectionality – This word confused me for so long. People kept explaining it as “black women often have problems specific to their group that neither women’s groups nor black groups themselves are equipped to fight” which just seemed obviously true and didn’t seem like we needed a word for it.

Over the years, I’ve seen it be used as a reminder of “don’t forget how your activism affects other marginalized groups”, so it’s probably a useful concept to keep around.

Microaggressions – I think being oblivious to microaggressions is an autism thing, but I still think it’s insane to make them a political issue. Sure, you can vent about them, but acting like they’re on par with actual aggressions just seems like a losing cause.

On second thought, I don’t think I have a problem with making them a political issue in general. I think the whole tactic of SJWs being a hateful harassment mob makes the microaggressions thing just come off as especially petty.

I also think there’s a lot of competing access needs here. I actually really like infodumping about what kind of Asian I am to anyone willing to listen, and I think acting like the question is the root of all evil is really unfair, especially since literally everyone who’s ever asked has been happy to learn about the finer points about Chinese ethnic groups.

Isms as prejudice + power – People have mostly stopped discoursing about this, which is good. Language policing always seemed bad to me.

Objectification – SSC says everything I feel on the topic: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/17/my-objections-to-objectification/

The last time this came up in Discord, people said that objectification is more than the straw-man being criticized in this article, that it’s about people being entitled to your body or whatever. But I think the article does address that: “This is obviously a legitimate complaint. It’s just not a complaint about objectification.”

I got exposed to objectification as a criticism of hot girls in video games. And I just can’t see hot girls in video games as a bad thing.

Rape culture – [cw rape] This is an incredibly sensitive subject so I’m going to give you some time to stop reading here.

Our culture has a serious problem with rape. I think it’s important to understand that it’s usually committed by friends and family, that it’s depressingly common and has nearly definitely happened to people you know, that it’s usually committed by people who don’t think of what they’re doing as rape, and that all the discourse on it is really fucked up.

I also think that calling this “rape culture” entirely misses the point. I’m sympathetic that SSC doesn’t understand it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/19/i-do-not-understand-rape-culture/

Our problem isn’t that we glorify rape. Our problem is that we consider it a special kind of evil so bad that of course no normal person would ever do it, and this makes it easy to rationalize that whatever this normal person did couldn’t have been rape, which causes huge harms.

I don’t have answers, but I think it’s incredibly clear that calling it “rape culture” doesn’t help.

In general, I don’t think feminist activism on the topic of rape goes in the right direction. The smug “consent is like tea” video has the exact same problem. People don’t need to hear more “normal people would never rape” messaging.

[dreamworksconvict]

She-Ra: Racism Problem Pt. 1

Thanks to this post by @dyke-ra​ for inspiring me to write about this topic, I’m going to have to split this up cause there’s so much to talk about.... 

I worked a bit on my thesis today, which is about LGBTQIA+ representation in kid’s/young adult’s cartoons, and as soon as I got home I stumbled upon a post on my dash (reblogged by @highqualititty​ who has Very Good Art so check them out) and I was like!!!!! This is exactly what I was writing about with VLD and Steven Universe!!!! It reminds me a lot of this image by @racistz

So I want to point out some of the problems with She-Ra that I’ve noticed and that other people in the fandom have noticed as well, and talk about them in the context of Hollywood history, tropes/stereotypes, and well... colonialism. 

There will be spoilers for She-Ra Season 3 so be warned. I’m also writing this kinda stream-of-consciousness-esque so apologies if it’s a bit jumbled.

PART I: Character Design - 1. Catra

Ok, so let’s start with Character Design. I want to focus on Catra and Mara for this. If people want I can talk about some of the worries I have about Huntara too. 

Let’s start with Catra, and let’s do a little comparison. 

Catra and Sugilite share a startling number of design traits. Pay particular note to the fact that they’re both seen as wild, misguided characters. Neither of these characters is coded as white. I would say Sugilite is pretty obviously a racist caricature of a black woman, not that Catra doesn’t have these tropes as well, but that Sugilite’s design and character traits have been widely discussed, especially in the really excellent article “All These Black Characters and 0 Done Right — How Steven Universe Fails Its Black Fanbase, Part I“ (there is no part II, as I believe the writer, Riley H, got essentially bullied into silence). In actuality, however, both of them have a lot of similarities. I’ll be using a lot of evidence about the coding of black women in media primarily, but there are a lot of other tropes you can find about other ethnic or racial codings as well. A lot of these tropes are also defined as being in the past, but there are still clear reverberations of them in the present, as I try to show here.

Riley H notes the Jezebel stereotype in the article I mentioned, which Catra seems to fall into somewhat. The Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University says that “The descriptive words associated with this stereotype are singular in their focus: seductive, alluring, worldly, beguiling, tempting, and lewd. Historically, white women, as a category, were portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, and modesty - even sexual purity, but black women were often portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory.” While Catra’s design does not have the same obvious extreme-hourglass shape that Sugilite’s does in its emphasis of hips and chest (jesus Rebecca Sugar, what were you thinking), Catra’s chest and hips are still accentuated with triangle designs that point to those areas; Catra’s hips are also decorated with strappy belts. Her pants are also ripped at the thighs, and she doesn’t wear shoes. She also wears skin-tight clothing; compare to Adora, who gets a big baggy coat, a long-sleeved shirt, and non-ripped pants (and shoes). Catra is also wearing red, a color associated with passion; while Adora’s jacket is red, she is most often seen in white, a color associated with purity. Plus, check out Glimmer’s fantasy imagery from S2, which is supposed to be a reference to the OG She-Ra but does not take into account that THESE ARE STILL TEENAGERS???: 

Also note that Catra’s arc thus has far has focused on her losing self-control and self-respect, while Adora’s arc has focused on her gaining those traits instead. 

Two other stereotypes are important to acknowledge here: the Sapphire stereotype, which “popularly portrayed black women as sassy, emasculating and domineering. Unlike the Mammy figure, this trope depicted African American women as aggressive, loud, and angry - in direct violation of social norms,” and the black brute stereotype, which typically referred to black men but stereotyped them as “animalistic and brutish.” Catra is literally made animalistic by being part cat--if your defense is, “oh, well that’s just how she was in the original,” 1) things can you know... improve over time 2) it’s still really, really bad even if it was “used in the past series” and 3) she’s also covered in scars on her arms, which is an addition to her design that makes her seem like she gets into more fights than Adora and other Horde soldiers and/or had a rough past, making her more “brutish”/prone to fighting than the others. (Contrast to Adora’s now-revealed past where she was a Magic Baby Destined Hero from the Savior Planet.) 

Plus, she still falls into the Sapphire trope. Adora was the favorite of the Horde, while Catra was the rebel and “too outspoken.”  Catra is also punished more than others for failing to succeed in missions--Hordak even attempts to have her executed, despite the fact that most of his generals have also been failing just as much. Catra still talks back to him, and rarely is shown afraid--more often than not, she’s shown making “sassy” quips and talking down to others. Adora gets many more scenes of emotional vulnerability and growth. Both are/were members of the Horde as well and grew up traumatized, but Catra’s trauma villainizes her (although she may still get a redemption arc at some point) while Adora’s does not. 

She is also very masculinized (is that a word?? oh well) when with Adora. She even takes the role of the “male dance partner” in the ball episode when they dance together, and is wearing a suit and tie (untied, to still depict that “wild” side). Look to Riley H’s article which discusses how Garnet in SU often takes the more masculine roles in fusion dances--there are clear parallels. While this inherently isn’t a problem, it’s a common trope that PoC women characters are made to be more masculine than their white counterparts. On top of this, much like how Pearl (white-coded) is the only one who can get through to Sugilite once she’s gone “out of control” (see the episode “Coach Steven”), Adora, the white savior (I will get to this problem later), is presumed to be the only one who can “get” to Catra or influence her behavior (although Scorpia made attempts, but she is also white...). 

In summary: Catra is portrayed as animalistic, wild, prone to fights, and masculine especially in comparison to white-coded characters. Her arc thus far has made her a foil to Adora, but in doing so has followed a lot of stereotypical tropes and has heightened Adora’s position as a White Savior, especially post-S3. 

(I didn’t talk about the “evil lesbian” trope, but since there are so many queer-coded characters on both sides, I am not sure if that trope applies here. I may make another post regarding that specific trope though if people would like. Essentially we’re getting dangerously close to that potential premise.)

2. Mara

Ok, so if you haven’t heard, Mara (the previous incarnation of She-Ra) was whitewashed in the earlier seasons of the show. Let the images provide the evidence, Season 3 vs prior: 

Yikes...

I have seen an apology floating around on Tumblr from someone who worked on the show who claims they just didn’t notice this... which like, ok, maybe. There is also speculation that maybe they decided to design Mara this way last-minute. I’ve also seen some theories that She-Ra’s “form” is a white woman regardless of who wields the sword but that would be Super Yikes so let’s hope it’s not that. 

There are plenty of resources available about why whitewashing characters is bad, although it’s somewhat unusual for this to be a discussion in animation. (Typically the discussion happens when Scarlett Johansson plays a character who isn’t white or cis for the ten billionth time.) But something similar did happen with Voltron: Legendary Defender on the cover of one of their comics. Check out this nonsense:

Like how to do you mess up, that bad?!!?!?!?

In any case, I believe a reprint was issued (much) later for this particular cover, but the fact remains that this is becoming enough of a problem that people should be checking for this. This whitewashing took place in the actual She-Ra episode and wasn’t caught beforehand by editors? Suspicious, and embarrassing...

Also, this doesn’t necessarily have to do with character design or whitewashing, but I am Suspicious that Mara had to sacrifice herself to save the planet while Adora did not... remind anyone of Allura? Anyone???? There is a whole problematic history regarding that which I can get into on a separate post as well. But since we don’t know exactly what happened to Mara yet, I’m leaving that alone for now. 

----

So that’s the gist of the character design piece of the puzzle! Next I want to talk about the White Savior trope in She-Ra and how it’s really similar to Voltron and Steven Universe in that respect. 

IS this all a bit of a reach? Maybe some of it?! But I doubt that ALL of it is. (The whitewashing definitely is not.) And the fact is that there has been a ton of problems with holistic representation in cartoons, and She-Ra isn’t trying to do anything different to counteract the bad stuff that’s been done before. In fact, it’s kind of following the same pattern as its predecessors. Characters, even non-human ones like Sugilite, are coded a certain way, and those codings are based off internalized systems of how we view the world and interpret it. So if you have a writer who’s not really closely examining those beliefs and systems without challenging them, you end up with stuff that follows all these problematic tropes and stereotypes. 

I’m planning for my thesis to go over why I think this happens so often (mostly a lack of intersectionality). essentially I’m in way over my head and will have like, a 100 page thesis plus a creative piece too by the end of this and it’s due this fall cause i deferred it oooooh my gosh. Anyways! There will be more if you like. 

[bethkerring]

10 Tips on Writing Asexuality

It’s been a long, long twelve years since I first realized I was asexual.

I’m one of the fortunate ones that realized my lesser-known orientation without having to go through years of confusion, uncertainty, and experimentation (because while some might enjoy that, I can pretty much guarantee I wouldn’t have). I was fourteen when I first came across the term and thought it might apply to me, and shortly before I turned fifteen, I officially claimed it as my own.

A lot has changed since then. When I first came out, there was almost nothing out there for asexuals. There was the AVEN website, a few blog posts, and even fewer YouTube videos, but the word basically didn’t exist in common knowledge, even among people who identified as LGBTQ+. Any fiction that included ace characters was almost exclusively unconfirmed, and left up to fans to compile lists of evidence that a certain character was probably asexual—which was usually ignored by the majority of fans, who wanted to see the character in sexual situations, and often later brushed aside by the creators.

Now, asexuality is more and more recognized by the popular media and the general public. Visibility is still lacking, but we’re recognized by major LGBTQ+ organizations, represented (to a small extent) in Pride events, and increasingly represented as characters in TV shows, books, movies, etc. I’ve even found random strangers recognizing the asexual pride button on my purse—and I live in the Bible Belt.

And it’s a great feeling. Every time I see another ace character in popular media, I get a little burst of joy to see someone like me—at least in this one way, if not in others. I’m especially glad to see good representation, especially after years of representation that was questionable at best (Sherlock still comes to mind) and harmful at worst (does anyone remember that episode of House?). I’m also thrilled to see that non-asexual people are really interested in doing ace representation right and are reaching out to asexuals to get their take on what they want to see.

So I thought I would include my perspective on writing asexual characters, because frankly, everyone’s experience and viewpoint is a little difference, and I hope this conversation continues with as many diverse voices as possible.

I hope these tips are helpful and make you at least a little more confident about including ace characters in your own work!

1. Watch out for stereotypes, but don’t throw them out the window. This is almost certainly confusing, so let me explain: I often see people try so hard to avoid stereotypical traits in asexual characters that they forget that aces are incredibly diverse. Yes, not all asexuals are aromantic, but some are. Yes, not all asexuals hate close physical contact, but some do. Yes, not all asexuals are shy or socially awkward, but some are. Yes, not all asexuals have seventeen cats, but some do. Yes, not all asexuals are repulsed by sex, but some are. And the list goes on. You should absolutely be aware if a character trait you’ve chosen is stereotypical, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should avoid it, especially if you have more than one asexual character. Be aware of it, but focus on writing a well-rounded, realistic character over avoiding every stereotype in the book. No matter what trait it is, if you’re writing it well, chances are good there’s an asexual out there who will empathize with it.

2. Keep intersectionality in mind. Though, as I said, I’m absolutely thrilled to see more ace characters in media, I know there’s still a desperate need for more diverse examples of asexuality, especially those that take into account how people of different races, genders, abilities, national origins, religions, and ages—among other things—experience their asexuality. A man does not experience asexuality the same as a woman. A white person does not experience asexuality the same as people of other races—I can’t list them all here, but from what I’ve seen, every racial identity comes with stereotypes and prejudices that interact with asexuality differently. Someone’s religion might affect how they view their asexuality or how they’re viewed by their religious community, and someone’s asexuality might be brushed aside if they’re “too young,” “too old,” or have a disability. Personally, I am an able-bodied American white woman, so I can’t say a lot about this specifically, but please do your research on this aspect of their experience just like you would any other. It might not be what you’re expecting.

3. Don’t make asexuality their defining trait. Unless someone is an asexual activist (and these are valid characters!), and even if they are, they’ve probably got quite a few aspects of their life that have nothing to do with their orientation. An asexual doesn’t spend all day every day thinking about the fact that they don’t experience sexual attraction. It is, after all, the lack of an experience rather than the presence of one, and is therefore less likely to draw their attention at any given moment. Contrary to some people’s belief, asexuals don’t necessarily have “oodles of free time” since they don’t spend it thinking about sex—but they do have other things that interest them. They are full human beings, just as complex as anyone of any other orientation, and as a certain lesbian character from a TV show I’m fond of once said, “My sexuality is not the most interesting thing about me.”

4. Remember that there are many ways to “humanize” a character without giving them a love interest. This is one of those topics that isn’t exclusive to stories with asexual characters, but is still relevant to them. All too often, I’ve seen characters who seem cold, inhuman, or heartless made more “human” by falling in love, as if the ability to feel romantic and/or sexual attraction is what makes them “not a machine.” This idea goes back at least a century, to Arthur Conan Doyle stating that Sherlock Holmes was “as human as a Babbage’s calculating machine, and just as likely to fall in love.”

Let me make this very clear: a character is not inhuman because they don’t feel romantic or sexual love, and a character is not especially human simply because they do feel these things. Even if your character is not asexual, please don’t make the one thing that “humanizes” them be romantic/sexual attraction—and in the case of asexual characters, please don’t try to “humanize” them by giving them a romantic interest. Yes, asexuals can be romantic, aromantic, or anything in between, but romantic asexuals are no more human than aromantics. There are so many other ways to humanize someone: strong platonic attachment, caring for animals, passion for a social cause, love for the environment, and countless other possibilities. Obviously it’s completely okay for romantic or sexual attraction to be one of these things: but please don’t make it the only one.

5. Think about how they discovered their orientation. Even if your character has known they’re asexual for 50+ years, unless your story takes place in some great fictional society where non-straight orientations are openly welcomed and accepted as normal, how they figured out their asexuality is probably going to affect them—as well as when they figured it out. I discovered my own asexuality in my early teens, but I’ve seen people who didn’t discover the term until they were senior citizens, having felt alone and out of place their entire lives with no idea why. If they discovered it recently, especially after a long time of not understanding themself, they might still be figuring out exactly how they define their own identity.

6. Consider asexuality in the context of your character’s environment. Small-scale and large-scale. Where your character grows up and what environment they live in during the story makes a huge difference on how their asexuality is expressed, and this is true whether you’re writing historical fiction (where views of and experiences in asexuality are obviously very different) or whether you’re deciding if your character’s family is supportive. There’s an enormous spectrum of variation in this, so I won’t even try to go into the details, but keep in mind that whether your character is out, what sort of prejudice they face, and how they feel about their own orientation will all be greatly affected by the world they live in and the people they know.

7. Asexuality is not an illness—but that doesn’t mean life experiences can’t affect it. Remember the House episode I mentioned? For those that never saw it, the patient-of-the-day was an apparently ace woman, married to an apparently ace man, who goes to see Dr. House. House is convinced that no human could possibly be asexual, despite another character, Wilson, mentioning research validating the orientation. In the end, House discovers that the man has a brain tumor suppressing his sex drive and the woman has been faking her orientation to stay with her husband.

This is … extremely problematic for what I hope are obvious reasons. This led to a lot of families and friends of asexuals, who had previously been supportive, suddenly worrying that their loved ones had brain tumors. Obviously, if there is a genuine reason to suspect a medical issue (such as a sudden disappearance of sexual interest when it existed before), one should consult a doctor, but this episode presented only two cases of asexuality, one of which was “just an illness” and another of which was a lie. This led viewers to the same conclusion that House himself reached: that no healthy human being could possibly be asexual.

This is a very bad example of asexual representation, but it’s also worth mentioning that there are asexuals who view their asexuality as being affected by their life experiences, a specific diagnosis, or even a chronic illness, and as long as you do research beforehand into what sorts of experiences can contribute to someone’s identity, and don’t try to “cure” that character’s asexuality as part of your story, this is okay. Ideally, include more than one ace character as a way to make it clear to your readers that experiences differ, and that all roads to finding one’s identity are valid. Sexual orientation is unlikely to change and can never be “cured”—since it’s not an illness in itself—but that doesn’t mean the environment can’t affect it.

8. Exploration and questioning is okay. I also want to emphasize that it is completely okay to have a character that is questioning their sexuality, and either later decides that they are ace or decides that they are not ace. As long as asexuality is treated as a genuine orientation and not just a “symptom”—and again, ideally, more than one ace character is included at least briefly—a character realizing that asexuality isn’t the right identity for them, or only realizing such after exploring other identities, is fine. As mentioned above, the House episode did this very wrong, but as long as you are not “disproving” the asexuality of the only two ace characters in the show—especially when it’s disproved by a guy who believes asexuality is impossible/inhuman—and you are sensitive and respectful, I think this can be done without causing offense.

9. Remember that ace views of attraction can be different than non-ace views. Much of society (at least Western society) seems to lump all attraction into one form: sexual and romantic combined. As asexuality gained more visibility, the idea of romantic and sexual attraction existing independently became more popular. On top of this, other types of attraction got more recognition: for instance, strong platonic attraction (like a non-romantic crush), sensual attraction (the desire for non-sexual physical contact), and aesthetic attraction (the attraction to the physical appearance of a person or object, but no desire for interaction). Note that this isn’t an asexual-exclusive experience, and a story definitely doesn’t need ace characters to explore these topics: many non-aces do experience these varied types of attraction, but haven’t had as much context to recognize or explore them. Asexuality, in recognizing that there are human beings with no sexual attraction, helped open the door to these ideas, but they have always existed. And even though this doesn’t necessarily relate to ace characters, I think it will go a long way to helping asexual experiences of attraction be better accepted.

10. Asexuality is a spectrum, and it’s more than okay to write all along it! I’ve been referring to the most general idea of “asexuality” in this post—probably because I fall completely in that category—but asexuality isn’t as simple as that, and the line between “ace” and “non-ace” isn’t so cut and dry. “Grey-asexuals” are a big part of the ace community, and their experience is both similar to and different from people who just identify as “asexual.” There are also demi-sexuals, who feel sexually attracted only once a strong emotional connection has been formed—and yes, these people deal with a lot of the same issues as asexuals, though of course, many parts of their experience are also unique. Keep this spectrum in mind as you’re writing your characters, even if you do end up writing someone who just identifies as “asexual.” It’s important to remember that the spectrum exists, if only because it’s a reminder that all of us, ace, non-ace, or anywhere in between, are part of the same immensely diverse gradient, instead of simply black and white.

Original post on my website.

[glittergummicandypeach]

If wokeness is a religion, can we keep a wall of separation between it and the state?

I can’t take any credit for this idea as it comes entirely from James Lindsay. Wednesday he published his argument along these lines and it is more than 30,000 words long. So long that I’ve only read a fraction of it at this point but the gist of the argument is clear:

Critical Social Justice has already encroached deeply into our public education system and halls of government in the United States. In fact, this trend is accelerating to a pitch so extreme that complaints that schools are operating in the service of political indoctrination rather than as houses of a basic and liberal education, as they were initially conceived, are rapidly becoming plausible. The second is that a time may come in the not-distant future in which this totalizing and totalitarian worldview could be installed as the de facto state religion, even while it elides categorization as such. The state endorsement—or worse, enforcement—of any faith falls directly afoul of the protections the U.S. Constitution was written to ensure to individual citizens, and, in fact, to other systems of faith that would disagree with it. The question is, which totalizing worldviews that are not traditionally recognizable as faiths should be treated in the same way for the same reasons? While the answer to this question is not immediately clear, it must have to do with how they function in society and in the lives of those who believe them.

Therefore, to put it directly: It is my belief that the contents of the Critical Social Justice worldview should be protected as matters of private conscience only, and they should also be limited as such. That is, I want to contend that the Free-exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment apply to Critical Social Justice. It is therefore not merely a philosophical exercise to ask whether or not Critical Social Justice constitutes a religion but also a serious legal one that gets to the very core of what the American Experiment has always been about—freedom of belief and from state religion. It is my intention here to make this case as briefly as possible, which means it will still be very long.

Almost immediately, Lindsay confronts a problem with his argument: Wokeness exists in a post-modern framework, one which doesn’t rely on any metaphysical beliefs in forces outside man himself. In short, it’s a religion without a god or gods.

As a general note that was central to my preceding piece, it is crucial that one understand Critical Social Justice as a fundamentally postmodern phenomenon. As most religions that we are familiar with present in a genuinely premodern way by invoking literally believed spiritual forces that exist in a separate plane of reality or as imperceptible-but-causal “energies” and engage in worship and practice in ritualistic ways that are, in turn, recognizably holdovers from premodern liturgical contexts, it can be difficult to see a postmodern faith for what it is. In a postmodern faith, God is dead, and the forces that work in a mysterious way in the world are necessarily sociological as a result. Formalized liturgical modes have been deconstructed and replaced with something more decentralized, chaotic, and even ironic. Because the central object of interest in all postmodern thought is social power, postmodern “deities” are systems of social power and the “social” phenomena that construct them.

Lindsay’s answer to this is that religions can be described not just metaphysically but sociologically.

Religions are, in the most general description, moral communities that provide three basic types of psychosocial (combined psychological and social) needs for their adherents and participants: meaning-making, a sense of control, and the capacity to establish, police, and understand one’s place in a community of people with shared (religious) values. While the precise definition of a religion may remain fuzzy and elusive, speaking functionally, these properties seem to form an identifiable skeleton upon which the meat of the matter is organized.

It should be almost immediately obvious that the worldview of Critical Social Justice satisfies all of these criteria. Life in the community gains meaning in the (almost cosmic) battle for “liberation” against systemic oppression, and individual meaning (and agency) are defined almost entirely in terms of this struggle. The point of the struggle is obviously to achieve liberation from all systemic oppression, which can be achieved by gaining control over the machinations of society and the harms that an improperly managed society will mete out to some of its members, often the most vulnerable. A hierarchical community is set up by the doctrine of intersectionality around this view of the world, and policing of one’s status within it (as assessed under the term “positionality”) is famously vigorous within Critical Social Justice-run communities. A volume could be written on this topic, and yet even these few sentences are enough to convey the point that “Woke” communities are moral communities to most readers even passingly familiar with the ideology.

Lindsay does eventually argue that Social Justice has a kind of deity and a kind of teleology (though again not a metaphysical one):

Religious moral law positions God as Moral Lawgiver and (Moral) Judge, and if we were to follow Aquinas again, we could say something like that there is something that gives moral law and is the ultimate judge of moral wrongdoing, and this all men call God.

In this respect, though not necessarily in others and in not all regards, Critical Social Justice quite plainly has a God-concept, and it might be called (following but extending from Marx) “the Eye at the End of History,” which is something of a metaphor for that which looks back upon all of history from its end with the capacity to judge that which was on the right side of history and that which wasn’t. The Eye at the End of History will be able to tell the abolitionists from the slavers, the colonized and decolonizers from the colonizers, and the oppressed from the oppressors.

While they don’t believe this Eye of History is a metaphysical being they behave as if such a moral lawgiver exists. And in the light of this future judgment it’s possible to make all kinds of absolute judgments about good and evil in the world. And not only in the world but in the adherents themselves. Lindsay spends several thousand words comparing the Social Justice believers to the Puritans and notes how both groups have a similar fixation on sin, introspection, confession and the need for outside correction. Here’s his conclusion to the section about Social Justice as religion:

I think this does a thorough job of summarizing the case that Critical Social Justice, as an ideological worldview, is very similar to religion in most of the relevant ways. It forms a moral community that is designed to meet the same psychosocial needs as religions are, though it is decentralized and disorganized (I have previously called it “disorganized religion,” though “decentralized” might be nearer the mark). It provides a mythology, metaphysics, and moral law that binds the community and enables “divinity”-based psychosocial valuation of adherents and others, and this gives rise to clear “critical” duties of conscience in everyone the system can touch. It ontologically grounds its moral commandments against the long view from the End of History, as a kind of legacy-based moral lawgiver and adjudicator. It possesses its own epistemological framework as well—one rooted in the critical mythology of problematization and postmodern mythology of lived experience and discursive production. Since it proceeds from a mythology with its own creation myth, metaphysics, and moral law, this view is totalizing to those who adhere to it, as is typical of religious belief. This system of belief is, in fact, constructed along the same lines as how Augustine organized Christianity and Aquinas “proved” the existence of God. Finally, it gives way to fundamentalism of both types and manifests in puritanical form, which is something that, while it is not limited to religion, is very common within sects or cults that arise within religious movements and worldviews.

From there he moves on to the legal argument, i.e. if it is a religion then it should be bound by the same rules as other religions including the separation between church and state. At this point, I’ll skip ahead to his conclusion:

Given the situation we find ourselves in, in society today, this matter demands serious debate. If this argument is correct, Critical Social Justice must be protected under the Free-exercise Clause of the First Amendment, so that any who wish to hold this religious view for themselves as a matter of personal conscience must be protected in doing so. That is their fundamental right, and it shall not be infringed. In the same turn, the rest of us have fundamental rights to our own consciences as well, and Critical Social Justice has no standing upon which it can infringe upon them, or us. The Establishment Clause should remove Critical Social Justice from our schools, our administrative state, and the halls of our government, as this faith, like any other, cannot receive state endorsement or become a state religion.

It’s quite an audacious argument and I think Lindsay makes a convincing case that wokeism is a kind of alternate religion for a lot of people on the left. Whether it could be treated as such under the Constitution in an interesting question. It’s one thing to argue that it’s rational to do so but then you’ll wind up being shouted down by tens or hundreds of thousands of Social Justice Warriors who aren’t  the least bit interested in debating you on the point. It’s just not part of their game.

This content was originally published here.