#they support patriarchal standards for defining women’s being; existence

[the-feminist-philosopher]

Damn. TERFs really do see themselves as white nights fighting on behalf of black & brown women against an aggressive hoard of black and brown men. I cannot go into the #feminism tag without seeing some of the wildest takes…

Because a TERF will really get on the Internet and say some shit like,

“Trans-exclusionary ideas are globally popular ideologies” and fail to see how public discrimination against a group is maybe a symptom of the current power structures, structures like the patriarchy, white supremacy, and colonialism.

and then follow that up with,

“Because the global majority isn’t white, my activism for those women isn’t white. Also because the women fighting against the patriarchy globally aren’t majority white, my brand of feminism can’t be white,” and fail to see how this is white-night activism and an attempt to co-opt other feminist movements globally, many of which actively resist their country’s neo-colonial resource exploitation and imperialist extraction of their country. But positioned in argument alongside the take that trans-hate is globally popular, it’s also an attempt to make non-white people look uniquely or predominantly hateful compared to those within their lofty country.

Which is exemplified by the fact that when a trans person—regardless of location—shows support for any cause in the global south, the popular response is to tell that trans person the people of that country would behead them or throw them from a roof. Because in addition to believing the brown other is uniquely “backwards” and “brutish,” they also believe that any oppressed group’s “salvation” is contingent upon good behavior. Whose salvation? Theirs, of course. These people will freely repeat talking points about things that don’t happen in whatever foreign country of their picking to support their argument because the intention is to show they have credible reason to believe “those people” are not the perfect model of “(western) civility,” and as such, are in need of the TERF’s ideas, resources, and “activists.” It’s a reframing of “The White Man’s Burden” to center women.

(I’ve always found the “defenestration threat” a particularly disingenuous take. There’s the apparent racism on one hand, but clear pink washing, too. I—a gay—cannot care about the suffering of others in another country if gay rights in that country is not on par with that of its imperial oppressor? Are these trans-exclusionary radicals disagreeing with the existence of transphobia in another country? Or are they disagreeing with the purported tactics? “My enlightened policies that mass incarcerate, push children to suicide, and strip strangers of bodily autonomy; their barbaric policies that do much the same, oh, and defenestration.” They do realize that they, the trans-exclusionary radical, are more of an existential threat to me in *my own country* than a stranger half a globe away, no?)

And this worldview becomes ever so apparent when, after pointing out their attempt to co-opt feminist movements led by black and brown women, the usual comeback is to ask the person who disagrees with their take if they think that black and brown men are “too stupid” to “know” to or how to oppress women. “Do you think it’s not worse in other countries?”

Not only is this an attempt at purple washing; an attempt to benefit from purported support for women’s rights as a way to distract from the issue at hand: Western paternalism and chauvinism, this is also an attempt to turn it back around on the other. The TERF could not avoid being critiqued for supporting imperialistic ideas that downplay the significance of white supremacy and the struggles of black and brown women by arguing that because the majority of women aren’t white, any advocacy for women couldn’t possibly be racist. And they couldn’t avoid being critiqued for supporting imperialistic ideas that downplay the significance of white supremacy by deflecting with a “what-about’ism” about the state of affairs in a foreign country. And now they’re faced with the fact others may think that they think black and brown people are uniquely brutish. So, their last hope is to argue that no, actually you 🫵 are downplaying the oppression that other women in other countries face at the hands of “their men” and engaging in the “noble savage” trope.

(Of course, this ignores how such a trope refers to positioning Indigenous people as people uniquely removed from societies—when in reality they had complex societies, social structures, and politics—who live in harmony with nature. Suggesting that someone’s ideas and characterization of other peoples is influenced by Western Imperialism and white supremacy is in no way the same as suggesting there is “innate goodness, pureness, and moral superiority” among an “uncorrupted” “primitive” other, but a TERF’s ideology often depends on equivocation, usually as a means of distraction.)

But, when someone points out that this is in no way what they said; the TERF is attempting to create a strawman to argue against, the final play in the book is to literally @/ the one brown TERF they know of on this site or conclude by saying “well, my brand of feminism has had Black and Jewish thinkers, so…,” fully blind to how this is quite literally tokenism.

All this because “I can’t be racist; I’m a feminist” really isn’t the argument they think it is.

[knarme-stray]

Have u ever seen what aggression some queer femmes have towards butches, transmascs and trans men for expressing our pain about imposed, forced-on femininity?

I'm not invalidating your empowerment in reclaiming your own femininity. I myself have done that too btw, I just have intense pain from a lifetime of expectations to be round-edged, babyfaced and docile by cishet men and how they always bitch and whine about ppl like me existing and becoming "unfuckable" to them.

I love dangerous, wild femininity. I wear femininity like an elegant social armor. It's my deadly venom, it's my fangs and it's my claws. It's the claws of Lilith pushed under the surface, the rage of the drowned and forbidden.

To me this reclaimed femininity is defined by my own terms, not at odds with my gender-transgressiveness.

Why is femininity like armor to me?

Because for anyone who isn't a conventionally attractive cishet man, masculinity doesn't protect us at all. It makes people see us as clumsy, vulnerable and pathethic, while at the same time perverted and threatening. Masculinity is really soft and vulnerable for me to express bcs I'm transmasc, - it's where I invite the scorn of society for breaking out of line as a "woman". It's where I lose the protection and emotional support of the cisnormatively-tradfemme club.

People don't want to be cruel to me if I'm beautiful. Bcs my cruelty back, if I am beautiful, in the feminine elegant sense, will hurt and humiliate worse. I will shred you to pieces and wipe the floor with them.

That's the power of femininity, to dominate and to avoid being dominated, when you're assumed or expected to be a cis woman. People seen as queer / gender-transgressive women are without that protective cover. It's scary as hell.

I'm also intensely aware that I can't meet a certain standard of femininity even if I try, that femme cis women always have the ability to stab me with that painful, othering humiliation of "too clumsy and undesirable, so therefore you're hardly a person and I don't need to have any regard for your emotions or personhood".

Masculinity, for me, is a territory of softness and self-love. It's so, so scary to be masculine because I am without cover, - and in a patriarchal world masculinity is seen as inherently perverted and sexually aggressive, too. The more multiply marginalized an man is, the deadlier that assumption is.

Masculinity, to me, is soft and loving, but hiding under the fear of being seen as an emotionless threatening meatwall. It's not about superiority to femininity bcs as masculine, I actually feel softer, without my armor.

Transmasc people haven't seen a day of navigating masculinity the same as cis men have. For cis men, masculinity is imposed on them and expected of them, - whereas femininity is what invites the scorn and policing from others. For cis men, masculinity can be the social armor.

For transmascs it's the contrary because our masculinity is seen as a transgression against the patriarchy that doesn't see us as men at all. Our experiences are different from those of cis men and saying that isn't invalidating of us being men. Bcs trans people don't need cis people's "model" or "permission" to be who we are.

[hyperlexichypatia]

Y'know, one thing I honestly struggle a lot with as a disabled person is like... with certain things I experience, where do I draw the line between "there is a very literal physical set of phenomena occurring in my neurological and related bodily systems that is responsible for my experience of these physical and emotional/mental events" and "these events are being influenced or caused by external stimuli, often related to class dynamics and oppression" and even "said class dynamics and oppression are responsible for much of said physical phenonena within my bodily systems, as they are simply an interaction/reaction to said external stimuli".

To me, it's like the nuance between how "choice feminism" is used to shut down very genuine real critiques of misogyny and patriarchal beauty standards (which are so deeply rooted in racism and white supremacism), but have also been misused to ironically deny women any autonomy whatsoever, rather than striking a balance with "these systems are fucked, much of this stems from a place of coercion and misogyny, and not acknowledging that can feed into it, but as a marginalized class within that system women (and gender minorities in general) do still have the right to decide how they want to respond to that and informed consent still does matter" if that makes sense?

I feel like I'm not able to exactly address the root of the issue for myself with disability but I think it has some to do with the social model of disability, some to do with the way cartesian dualism has been used to divide the disabled community, and some to do with how I am both anti-psych and anti-phys (the institutions including the biased science as it currently exists, not say, medication or treatment).

It's like... okay I tend to look at my own disability through a mixed medical-social lens. In a "perfect" world, neither medical knowledge nor treatment would be gatekept. I'd be able to get medication for things like what are now labeled ADHD, POTS, and MCAS, including getting compounded medication without having to have an official diagnosis of MCAS (seriously, who does it hurt other than insurance company bottom lines to just make a med without corn or milk sugars/proteins or dyes as filler ingredients -_-).

I would still, however, be disabled. I do understand that that is covered under the social model's definition of "impairment", but I also take issue with the relabeling of disability. It seems oddly euphemistic in the same way that "differently abled" does - defining disability itself as only the social access barriers that cause people to be unable to live a satisfying, fulfilling life including with "impairments", to me ignores the reality of those of us with more severe symptoms and higher support needs.

As I saw someone say so well, "chronic pain is still gonna hurt." But it's also that the pain itself is still going to significantly impact my quality of life, even with full access to treatment and meds. My symptoms are still a physical reality within my body, causing distress and dysfunction, and disabling my ability to engage in certain activities - not just "impairing" said ability. It still would have a significant negative affect in my quality of life, outside of my control. And here I am referring to activities in again, a "perfect" world, where the only reason to do them is out of pure, uncoerced and uninfluenced desire.

There's also the way that rather than actually depathologizing what we label as mental illness, its ability to be profoundly disabling and its very nature as occurring physically for whatever reason has been ignored in order to be neuroableist and sanist against neurodisabled people.

I am firmly for self-labeling, and firmly against the forced labeling of any trait as "abnormal" and "unhealthy". I do think even for self-labeling, it's important to question the premise behind many labels and explore more deeply what you are actually using said labels to mean.

I have talked at length about what "demedicalizing DID", as an example, actually entails, and how it actually increases access to resources and treatment for those that want to pursue those things.

The labels themselves are social, even if they are categorizations for material experiences in many cases. The line gets blurrier with psychiatric labels, as the experience is essentially an internal abstraction of physical phenomena, and the categories themselves are significantly more arbitrary without that solidly material basis.

"Trauma" is used as a label to essentially put the onus of class oppression on marginalized people. Things like "dopamine" and "seratonin" at this point are little more than neurochemically-named horoscopes, in a discipline I already refer to as "the astrology to neurology's astronomy" - and noting here, that neurology and medicine in general are still themselves more partially social than the significantly more mathematical discipline of physics I compare them to.

I also have a reactivity to things that I perceive (or misperceive) as divorcing "mental illness" or "neurodivergence" from any kind of physical basis. It's why I think I was initially confused about your use of "pathologization" - my own bias causing me to struggle to see the difference between what ultimately are very clearly different understandings.

It was, "We should question the categorization of certain experiences as innately pathological, meaning abnormal, unhealthy, and to be suppressed," versus "Mental illnesses are diseases of an abstracted mindsoul, with no physical basis, and can therefore be 'overcome' with a minimum of effort and can never be profoundly or physically disabling".

Which, to be clear, I didn't at all think you were saying the latter. More that I struggled to recognize the former because I had not yet divorced "physical experience" from "specific pathologizing label" in my head, and ironically seeing it laid out so clearly threw such a wrench in that existing perception that I had to go in and decouple/detangle the two to get things going again.

Really, though, it seems it's once again about informed consent in a society where "choice" is so deeply and insidiously influenced by prevailing hegemonic attitudes. It's "if you're going to label yourself disordered, it is still good to question the very premise of that label".

In a world with no access barriers and oppression, I would still have some of the same physical experiences I have now. With unrestricted access to medical treatments that directly interface and alter my biochemical processes, I would still likely not be without what we now label as "symptoms". Certainly, assuming I grew up in that world, "trauma" might very well be an unrecognizable concept as to what it is considered in our reality - assuming it even existed in any meaningful way at all.

I guess it's just - where is that balance between acknowledging the extreme influence of current societal norms and ideas about disability, the way the very language we use to talk about them is steeped in those biases, misconceptions, and assumptions, and the way that a physical result is treated as the cause itself; with the existence of varied experiences of abstracted neurological phenomena, having/creating language some need to help define and understand ourselves, and those societal causes still engendering a physical result?

Is it in the connotation? Is destigmatizing the concept of disability and "disorder" (as meaning "causing distress and/or dysfunction as defined by the person experiencing it") and stopping their misapplication enough? I admit, when my disabled identity has been repeatedly denied by ableists, my instinct is to cling to the labels that say "yes, this is an experience that makes me not able to achieve my own personal desires and goals and causes me distress".

While the concept of "ab/normalcy" is deeply unhelpful and often harmful, there are times when I at least want to say "my material experience is not the same as yours despite your insistence that it is" to people who identify as abled, who have described their perception of my experience as something oppositional to my actual experience. Not abnormal, but not identical, either.

Maybe that's getting off in the weeds. I guess just... at what point does acknowledging my own experiences as a significantly overlapped venn diagram of innate physical and purely societal causes meeting at mixed causes and societal causes of physical results, cross the line into mislabeling societal forces as innate physical events.

Is it just divorcing them from the greater context of society? It is the reversal of causality? Is it the lack of acknowledgement that the way we label these experiences is inherently tied up in the social environment surrounding them? If I view some of my experiences as entirely unrelated to and uninfluenced by that social environment (at least to the extent that is possible), while still being a natural variation in neurology (or physiology) that is itself neutral overall regardless of how I experience it, is that enough?

Is viewing the things labeled as ongoing "trauma" and "mental illness" as a natural and rational response to class oppression a factor in depathologization, as long as we also acknowledge that the labels of "trauma" and "mental health" themselves carry meaning and bias and connotations that don't uphold or even contradict that belief?

I dunno. Maybe I'm just stuck in stubbornly not wanting to give up labels I've been forced to fight for because I'm scared to admit that I could have been fighting for not having them at all while still having my needs met in the first place. Maybe I am just struggling as someone who can't actually process or understand their own experiences without language to integrate a new understanding of that language into my paradigm. Maybe some parts of us are still reactively misinterpreting "question and examine how the language we use is a social construct and how that has been wielded against marginalized identities, including your own" as some sort of threat to our autonomy and in particular self-determination.

I may very well be afraid of and biased by those things, but the one thing I'm not scared of is examining that and admitting it's a possibility.

I guess I'm sending you this ask in particular precisely because you've articulated precise analyses of these subjects so clearly. I'd love to hear your thoughts, if you're willing.

Oh, this is the ask I thought I'd lost!

So, before I start, my own bodymindbrain is VERY compromised by COVID right now. I am living that physical illness affecting cognition life.

This is a great question and I'm really struggling to come up with a thoughtful response, because so much of it, I just don't know. I have no idea "how disabling" any of my disabilities would be if I lived in a society that accepted and accommodated differences, because I've never lived in a society like that and I can only vaguely imagine it. I know that part of that goal is making it so that the supports we receive (medical, social, or otherwise) aren't contingent on any particular label or any particular concept of "disorder." And also that they're never an excuse to infringe on someone's autonomy.

On the language of it all, I'm always struggling to refine my own use of language, but it's especially frustrating because any potentially radical/liberatory use of language gets co-opted and appropriated by pathologization (like "neurodiversity," "Mad," or "anti-psychiatry"). I've left so many groups that I thought were about rejecting pathologization that turned out to be about "recovery" or "healing" (which is fine for people who are interested in those things! I'm just not one of them!).

I also struggle with my own... parts of my mind/emotions that are distressing to me... and I struggle to find words for that that aren't part of the pathology paradigm like "mental health," and also aren't spiritual because that's not what I believe. I just don't know the words. I know that I have anxiety attacks and it sucks and I hate it, but I don't know good overarching terms for "The experience of having profoundly unpleasant unwanted emotional states" or "The attempt by various means to mitigate or remediate profoundly unpleasant unwanted emotional states."

Your question is better than my answer, and I'm sorry for that, but I'm glad you asked!

[songofthesibyl]

More thoughts on Tamlin as a High Lord

I recently saw an interview with David Mitchell about British kings, particularly of the Middle Ages. Early on, he says point blank:

“They were all right bastards, basically, in terms of—the standard of conduct is woefully below what we’d expect.”

When asked what makes a good king or queen, he says:

“All of the things we expect from government today, you’ve just got to ignore that. They’re not trying for any of it, they’re not trying for peace—on the contrary, they’re waging war. In terms of education and healthcare, they’re just—they’re not interested, forget about it. Um, so all you can expect is stability. That’s—the good kings provide stability. The bad kings don’t. And the stability comes from being predictable in your actions, and firm, and not having favorites. And I think that’s why the people, you know I’m—you know Henry the First was particularly good at that. He’s even-handed, he didn’t have a clique. The worst kings, the ones that caused the most trouble—Richard the Second, Edward the Second, Henry the Sixth—have favorites.”

(Is the Inner Circle a clique? Who knows.)

But this brings up a sense of confusion I get about what makes a good leader in Prythian. Lucien and Tamlin both describe how brutal Prythian is in the first book; Lucien emphasizes this again in the next two books—that High Lords are a different “breed.” We see what Rhysand is capable of—we know what the fathers are and were capable of. This is a very regressive, patriarchal, toxic society overall. Are the Courts not featured as much—Dawn, Winter, Day, and Summer—any better? From what we see of Summer, there is a class divide, Cresseida mentions their obligation to return Feyre to Tamlin. Kallias doesn’t seem that enthused about Viviane being High Lady, nor has he apparently mentioned it before. Rhysand is supposed to have basically invented feminism. No women thought to change things before, or had any support in doing so—from anyone, including the magic of the land—before Feyre became High Lady. Because this is the kind of society described in the quotes above. It is a Game of Thrones-esque, medievalist world, and women thrive only on an individual level because of partners or family members like Rhysand. Who have the wherewithal to make said changes and protect the women they make them for (in Feyre’s case, anyway).

But then all of a sudden Tamlin is, alone, an absolute monarch. He alone is a tyrant, though an absolute monarchy is inherently a tyrannical form of government. He alone adheres to tradition, he alone is “conservative,” whatever that means in this world. He alone refuses the existence of High Ladies, he alone hoards wealth. His government is regressive, and patriarchal, and toxic—not Prythian’s as a whole. He stands apart in a bad way. What he does, according to SJM, is bad even for Prythian.

And I think this has to be referring to his personal sins against Feyre of course, his mistreatment of her. But as a leader—it has to be his general instability. He is out of control, unpredictable. Before, according to Rhysand, he wasn’t enough of a bastard, he was too stubbornly Stark-like in his morals (even if he resembles Theon more in the timespan of the novels).  

Now, he isn’t upholding the contract—his role had become defined by being a provider and protector of his Court—a traditional male role, yes. But also, the very basic role of a government. Is presenting a united front, showing strength weaknesses of Tamlin’s, or simply how leadership is seen in every world, for better or worse (mocking presidents when they cry on camera, for example). I saw an  ACOTAR analysis in which Tamlin is simultaneously decried as the epitome of toxic masculinity, and mocked because the fiddle/violin is not a masculine instrument.

So Tamlin rightly has consequences for his transgressions, and it’s one of the things that makes him such an interesting character. But bad even for Prythian? A tyrant compared to the rest of the High Lords? Regressive compared to the rest of the High Lords? Unstable compared to the other High Lords?

A history:

It was a shock to everyone when Feyre was High Lady.

Rhysand felt the need to re-enact UTM in his own Court. He pulled rank with Mor regarding her father in ACOWAR. The state of Illyria and the CoN is accepted as the status quo. Its citizens can’t leave, but it’s implied most of them are monsters anyway, that Rhys has been cursed to deal with. He still has to placate them as part of his army. He does what he can for Illyria, but the culture is almost too ingrained at this point, and its citizens also part of his army. 

The people of the Spring Court (at least the nobility) did not flee when Tamlin’s father risked war with the Night Court by slaughtering its High Lord’s mate and daughter. It fled when Tamlin became High Lord. 

The people of Autumn presumably didn’t flee when its High Lord murdered his own son’s lover in front of him, forcing him to watch. 

There is no word of a rebellion in the Summer Court after its nobility left the commoners to die in the attack on Adriata.

Every Court practiced slavery, and not all fought to end it.

Even with Tamlin—Tarquin knew about Feyre being locked up shortly after it happened; so presumably Spring would have known as well. He executed the sentries who failed to protect Feyre from Mor, in public view, with Lucien begging mercy. The mass exodus didn’t happen until Feyre returned, when the whipping, along with his violence against Feyre, finally convinced everyone to leave. 

David Mitchell, on Henry the First: “What you have to do—you have to be horrible. They were all horrible, you have to be willing to kill at a moment’s notice. But if you do it with a rationale, you do it even-handedly, you don’t have favorites, and you have some notion of the stable government you want to be heading towards, then—then it can work out. And he created a very peaceful kingdom. Albeit through violence. And—and in those days, that’s sort of as good as it gets.”

Tamlin had proven to them, at that moment, that he was not to be trusted, that he had betrayed them, that he didn’t have their interests at heart. That he was not in his right mind, even. And so they abandoned him. Even if it was partly due to mind control and manipulation.

Something is fundamentally rotten with the Spring Court’s training, and yet they abandoned Tamlin when he went too far—and the CoN, the Autumn Court, remain intact.

In reading through the books, even if he doesn’t stand out in a good way as a revolutionary leader (even if he might want to be, deep down)—how does he stand out as a bad leader compared with the ones we’ve spent any time with? How is he just as bad as his father when he doesn’t support slavery? How is he bad as a leader even for Prythian? What are the standards? Other than his instability after UTM.

This is why, reading these books, I suspended disbelief and enjoyed the story, because, really, they’re all right bastards. I am not looking for crumbs, making up something that isn’t there. I get he was a bad leader from ACOMAF onward, though it wasn’t as if he fought with Hybern in the end. But I simply didn’t see how, as a High Lord, he fundamentally differed from everyone else.

People say this isn’t a Game of Thrones-esque series. It’s romantasy. So why is politics in it at all? Why are people writing essays at equal length as this with quotes from the book about what a horrible High Lord he is? Why is it relevant? And how am I expected to turn my brain off for certain parts of the story and not others? I can’t.

[feministdragon]

why men are jealous of women's power to give birth, it's because male culture uses 'ability to control' as a measure of self-worth

In fact, men often do report feeling left out of family life and other things close to the life process. As Sam Keen recounts his experience as a father, for example, the birth of his children left him feeling not only awestruck, but profoundly inadequate:

In that hour, all my accomplishments-books I had written, works of will and imagination, small monuments to my immortality-shrank into insignificance. Like men since the beginning of time I wondered: What can I ever create that will equal the magnificence of this new life? . ... She gives birth to meaning out of her body. Biology alone assures her of a destiny, of making a contribution to the ongoing drama of life. A man responds to her challenge by simulating cre-ation, by making, fabricating, and inventing artifacts. But while she creates naturally and literally, he creates only artificially and metaphorically.

Keen seems to see having babies as something that women do--like building a house or writing a book or sculpting a statue- rather than something that women experience, participate in, and become part of. Keen feels challenged to do something equally "magnificent," and inadequate and left out because he can't. He seems to believe that biology is the root of the prob-lem, but in fact it has more to do with how patriarchy encourages men to organize their lives around control. When control is at the center, it's hard to settle for merely being part of something or witnessing someone else's powerful experience.

Everything comes down to gaining or losing status awarded according to the ability to control and do. If she can do this thing and he can’t, then patriarchy offers three paths of least resistance: he can devalue what she does, he can find a way to control it, or he can feel lousy about himself. It is easiest to devalue her and what she does--by being indifferent to birth and babies--because devaluing women is a staple of patriarchal culture. Asserting control takes more effort: a man can become an obstetrician or a child-care expert, or, more simply, come into the delivery room as a "coach." But the life process is far more than the mechanical process patriarchal medicine has turned it into. It's soul and body work, and it may be the lack of this that leaves men feeling, like Keen, left out, diminished, and not up to the "challenge."

When men feel left out, it isn't because they aren't women. They feel left out because participating in patriarchy leaves them disconnected from their own sense of aliveness. We can't practice a religion of control without alienating ourselves from everything that doesn't lend itself to control. Inevitably; we also use control as a standard for measuring our worth. As Keen puts it,

When men define themselves by power . .. they are able to feel their manhood only when they have the ability to make things happen, only when they can exert control over events, over themselves, over women. Therefore they are condemned to be forever measuring themselves by something exterior to themselves, by the effects of their actions, by how much change they can implement, how much novelty they can introduce into the slowly evolving history of na-ture. I did it; I made it happen; I exist.

If men's sense that they even exist depends on having control, then it takes very little to threaten their sense of identity and worth. Almost anything can trigger this--having to say "I don't know," losing a job, not having an erection, or having to stand by and watch someone else "having" a baby. To avoid feeling threatened, men may devalue or ignore whatever doesn't support the feeling of being in control and focus instead on what does. It's no surprise that men typically seem less interested in the uncontrollable emotional aspects of life and are drawn to whatever enhances feelings of control, from sports to machines to business to carpentry to orgasms to arguing about politics to getting into the Guiness Book of Records for doing something longer or faster or more times than anyone else. It's also no surprise that men so often place a premium on presenting themselves as independent and self-sufficient in relation to women.

In Andalusia, as in Cyprus or Algeria, a man is expected to spend his free time outdoors, backslapping and glad-handing. This world is the street, the bar, the fields--public places where a man is seen. He must not give the impression of being under the spell of the home, a clinger to wife or mother.

This disconnected sense of standing alone and independent takes many forms. Men, for example, routinely diminish their connection to nature.

They often ignore their own pain and mortality by pretending they're fine when they're not and acting as though they don't need help when they do.

They put on a tough, stoic front and make a point of being able to "take it" or do it on their own. Many live as though the body and its needs are repugnant (no smelly diapers for us; as though mind, spirit, and body can be separated into neat little compartments; as though the body were merely a machine; as though a life that denies or even punishes the body is superior to a fully embodied life. Nature, the body, and women become the "other,' objects of repressed desire and longing as well as fear-"a great swamp into which men slide when they forget to maintain control. »8

For men to feel inadequate because they can't feel in control around life's great mysteries is silly, but it also makes a lot of sense in a patriarchy that encourages men to think they're supposed to control everything worth anything and to feel connected to things through controlling them. The problem is that feeling a deep sense of connection and aliveness, that we belong and matter within the mystery of life, isn't about control. On the contrary, control poisons and contradicts the inherently unpredictable and messy nature of aliveness. When life is about status, control, and competition, then everything becomes an occasion to feel vindicated or challenged (even by a woman giving birth to a child the two of you have created), to feel superior or inferior, included or excluded, chosen or rejected, elevated or diminished, "magnificent" or "insignificant." Any limitation can make men feel vulnerable by exposing them to someone else's pursuit of competitive advantage or simply to the private worry that they don't measure up."

archive.org/details/genderknotunrave0000john/page/184

[rametarin]

To properly understand this phenomenon, one needs to understand what I call, 'The Black Box Circuits' of radical feminism.

Yes, we are all familiar with the man-hating Radical Feminist, whom has an instititional Carte Blanche to hate men hand in hand with female progress. So face feminists preach "gender equality" and argue against, "patriarchal systems" (like religious institutions and cultures that demand in their society, a woman submits and becomes Player #2, and all the social and legal limitations that brings to their culture.)

And we're aware of the hypocrisy that shows in the face of supposedly good faith conversations about gender equality. The simple definition of gender equality is removing the traditions and standard that says a man gets 75% of a cake that's meant for both the man and woman, bringing it to 50% ideally, if not absolutely.

However, here's where the Black Box Circuit, the hidden operating logic, the nondescript affect comes in.

What they don't bring attention to in the conversations, is that they start from the absolutist position that classes themselves matter more than the individuals or the situation in this abstract field. The very fact that an individual is part of the conversation and happens to belong to the class of Man, a pattern of characteristics and a logical designation, and another individual is a Woman, defined by their collectives and category more than their individuality.

Radical Feminists don't see individuality, they only see instances where these two different classifications of people are interacting, and like looking at pokemon mechanics, determine that in the rules of their social game, The Man Is Oppressing The Woman, because Men Oppress Women(tm). Not as something they proactively do, but by what they are. Not by their actions, but by their existence. Not by their individual history, but determining "that is the history of Man and Woman" and therefore ALL interactions by any man and woman are the man oppressing the woman, just by virtue of it being a man and woman in the argument.

They will not bring this up for debate, and understand if they did, they'd bring into question the motivation. They use neutral, recognizable words with a double meaning specifically to confuse the issue and keep their real feelings confusingly obfuscated.

When they talk about Male Gaze, they mean in the absolute and abstract that they believe ALL OF SOCIETY is dominated and by default male owned, controlled, defined and -centrist. That all of society caters to the idea males are the central operative figures and women are support characters. So, using this logic, they posit that nothing created inside of this culture can EVER escape this judgement of motivations and pretenses. IE, someone will unironically call you a "SHEEPLE XD" for not belonging to their counter culture and write you off without knowing you as an individual or care what you have to say unless you also demonstrate you agree with their, "enlightened, disruptive, radical progressive values." To them, you're just an instinct driven patriarchal zombie carrying out the views of, "old white men, alive and dead."

So even if you are the most sapphic and female loving of females, because you grew up in, "this racist, white supremacist, male chauvinistic society," (defined as NOT being owned wholesale by a radical feminist cultured society specifically, from the HR department to the CEO board to all representation in government) then they consider you to be no different from the cigar smoking misogynistic old white men whom they say wrote the laws and made the "culture" (as if people are just followers repeating what their intelligentsia set as the leader values on a monolith for the Little People to repeat, ad nauseum) as sexist and racist as it is.

They don't CARE about individual instances disproving their absolutist ideas and views, because from their perspective, exceptions do not override the rule and, "aren't classes, so have no power." They don't CARE that most Mangaka are Asians (minorities in the US) or women anymore; Now they just focus on how Japan isn't a radical feminist society, therefore, the female mangakas that own their works and their sexuality, "simply contributeto Male Gaze and therefore support misogyny and male chauvinism."

So to correctly interpret what's going on in the heads of radical feminists that seem so sex negative, you need to understand it's only the superficial ones that complain about the sex parts in favor of the "uwu wholesome sapphic wuv and wub uwu uwu uwu uwu uwu."

The real complaint by the radfems when it comes to illustrated depictions of female sexuality, is that the work doesn't champion Radical Feminist perspectives on class, women as an oppressed class in the game of Class Struggle Theory (and thus, even in a society with laws set up to perfectly give women equality, still calling it patriarchal because it's not actively handing control over to the ideology of radical feminism) and isn't profitting foundations of radical feminism in a society that entrenches Radical Feminist interests into government and law, where they can dictate or mutate or wholesale write policy in the interests of women as a class that supersede the budget or interests of anybody else BUT women, from society.

They're mad that radical feminists don't have the right to approve of or veto a creative work featuring women based on how well it fits the mold of the "messages" (propaganda) they want to say, and lets them own illustrated depictions of female sexuality in their societal interests. And thus, just being outside this ideological tribe to them is considered to be an infraction and proof of bigotry and heinous intentions, because that's how they view the status quo.

They hide this under linguistic glib and indirect values, using neutral seeming terms to hide and act as ablative barriers to deceive, but this is about it.

Even if a man isn't making it, they consider it part of The Other if it wasn't made with their values and perspectives in mind. They don't care if the most empowered woman in real-real wrote it and it was a story about BDSM with women in power. If it isn't referencing radical feminist perspectives and bending the knee to Critical Lenses, Class Struggle Theory and the idea women are by default start this conversation no matter the material or social realities, oppressed specifically by men and "patriarchy," then they will consider it harmfully anti-feminist. They may phrase it as "anti-woman," but they'll mean, "this doesn't forwards our cause, and is therefore bad."

Once you have this rosetta stone to interpret their language and how they skirt around these feelings, suddenly what radical feminists say and think and do stops being any kind of wholesome or well meaning braying ignorance and way more sinister.

“This is pandering to the male gaze, ew!” Hon, not every bi/lesbian is a pure uwu sexless weanie beanie who doesn’t EVER think about sex or sex appeal.  A lot of us DO like that kind of thing and you only find it gross because you assume that men are the ones making these.   (Case and point, Bayonetta, made by a woman, only recently had the recently-educated stopped blaming ‘the male gaze of the male creator’ and started going “EFF yEAH” for it.)

[dekusleftsock]

Okay, this is random but you always have interesting thoughts so I decided to ask. Despite being a girl, I've always had a difficult time relating to female characters in stories. As a child I preferred male characters over girl characters, as I often found them rather annoying. There have been a few female characters over the years that I've related to and liked though, so I started to analyze why I had such a short list. I finally concluded it was because I found most female characters to be poorly written. What do you think? As a little kid, most female characters felt more like cardboard cutouts than people to me, and due to that I was often unable to relate to or become invested in their stories. I've seen people in the past wonder why ao3 tends to neglect female characters so much, in particular lesbian couples. For me at least, it was often that I did not find any of the female characters interesting enough to read/write a fanfic about them. When I talked to other girls in various fandoms, they felt the same way. However, I've also noticed that girls tend to have higher standards for female characters than they do for male characters. In my own experience, that's been fairly true. I've noticed in general that female fans often have more sympathy for male characters and their struggles, but less sympathy for female characters and their struggles. I say this both as an observation of others and of my own behavior. I'm always working to become better, but often as a child I had far less sympathy and patience for female characters, especially when they did something I disliked. I don't know exactly why this happens, but having asked others girls/women, I found this all to be generally true. Why do you think this happens?

OHHH IVE BEEN SO EXCITED TO TALK ABOUT THIS!

Couple of things I wanna establish. The male vs female gaze and the cringification of femininity/“childlike” things.

Quick cw, I do mention a quote that talks about slavery. It dips its toes into some of the horrors of it in American history so please keep that in mind.

The thing with toxic masculinity is that it doesn’t just affect men. A patriarchal society will ALWAYS RESULT in the demonization of femininity, calling things that are romantic or pretty “childlike”, “unrealistic”, or “simple”.

So when we see very simple or annoying girl characters, it’s because men only see this idea of femininity as what women are. When, in reality, women and men are complex. Fitting people into these stereotypical ideas of masculinity or femininity IS the simple silly ideas that men create and women support. So, femcells don’t exist, pick me girls are a result of men taking away women’s individuality, and women are more complicated than romance or silly makeup.

But let’s take a step back and talk about the female vs male gaze, which I think is really the main issue here. In America and the west at least, the male gaze tends to have an actual cookie cut out idea of the perfect and attractive woman. This being, a nurturing woman who is white/lighter skinned, has a small nose, semi decently sized lips, a soft but not fat jawline, etc etc the list goes on. Here’s some images within the fine art world of women made by men.

Art made by Nenad Vasic

Art made by Richard Young

And finally, art made by John Collier

All of these women out of the male artists I found on the site, barely had even slightly diverse women. It was all skinny, slightly less skinny, white women with brown or blonde hair, maybe red if you pushed it. And this is even shown in the tumblr sexy men vs tumblr sexy women!

Urban dictionary defines a tumblr sexy man as, “A male character who goes viral on Tumblr for perceived attractiveness based on an established formula. Usually white, tall, dresses fancy and is evil or has a ‘dark side.’ Though the character can be non human or non human and anthrofied to fit the said formula. Most of the time, said character isn’t really as attractive as Tumblr weirdly makes him out to be.”

Examples off the top of my head are sans, bill cypher, dr. Habit, regan, megamind, plankton, aizawa etc. For tumblr sexy WOMEN the beauty standard is much more linear. Hatsune miku, catra, bowser woman(?), sombra, etc.

When you look at fine art or of tumblr sexy men, there’s a much more… individualistic approach to the female gaze. How people view men. In fact, the standards for men are much lower than women (though still bullshit) because most of the actual beauty standards are ones made up by men in their heads. They DECIDED what women liked, not taking into account that it’s much less centralized when making the “perfect man”.

I think the shows you watched also played a part into this. A lot of it depends on where you live, so like, in the US Cartoon Network and Disney channel stuff would have been common. (Ofc pbs too)

In a lot of “older” shows in the west like teen titans, any Disney movie, or dexters laboratory, didn’t necessarily make their women.. bad? Per say? More just, simpler. They fit into set tropes a lot of the time, like Raven being the goth mean girl or Velma being the super smart short haired girl.

It’s not that any of these shows were bad either! It’s just how the gender binary works.

I also feel like part of this plays into internalized misogyny. I dealt with it for years and based on what you’ve said I’m gonna say you probably did too. I hated pink, dressed totally tomboy, stepped as far away from femininity as possible, and now I’m inching back towards it. Pink is my second favorite color.

A lot of the girl characters I used to hate were just insecure and liked pink a lot of the time.

Anyway, I tried my best not to psychoanalyze you out of nowhere odhdijdodjdidn sorry

The thing with why society hates femininity is that the binary gives women humanity. The term “female” is just, disgusting to use, but why? Why do we see this term as inherently inhuman? There’s this quote that I love from a book I’ve been planning to read. Book is called “Females”, by Andrea LongChu. Page 45, “In the United States, the man known as the father of gynecology, J. Marion Sims, built the field in the south operating on enslaved women in his backyard, often without anesthesia or, of course, consent. As C. Riley Snorton has recently documented, the distinction between biological females and women as a social category, far from a neutral scientific observation, develops precisely in order for the captive black woman to be recognized as female. Making Sims’ research applicable to his women patients and polite white society, without being granted the status of social and legal personhood. Sex was produced in the other words, precisely at the juncture where gender was denied. In this sense, a female has always been less than a person.”

As stated in the quote, this term of “female” as opposed to “woman” or “girl” has always been used as a way to dehumanize SPECIFICALLY enslaved black women. Femininity and the gender binary, no matter how much I hate it, gives people in western and white society, humanity. When you demonize the very things that define your binary, or even call them simple, stupid, or arrogant, it is feeding into the idea that womanhood and therefore your humanity, should not exist. That, is why men and society hates femininity.

You must see women as people.

[zaelous]

The noble and most ancient House of Black was both a family and a cult. A cult is a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or by its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. In the case of House of Black, this philosophy and its subsequent goals were a form of magical eugenics focused on the supremacy of so-called “pure blood.” Establishing these basic principles is important at the outset in order to demonstrate how these beliefs and the House of Black’s implementation of them are what make them not just a family of extreme beliefs but a cult whose practices affected Bellatrix’s sense of identity, self esteem, and motivations, effectively forming her personhood. 

I. PRINCIPLES BY DEFINITION

Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population, historically by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or promoting those judged to be superior. Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged; for example, the reproduction of the intelligent, the healthy, and the successful. Negative eugenics aims to eliminate, through sterilization or segregation, those deemed physically, mentally, or morally undesirable. 

Pure-blood supremacists believe that only pure-bloods were real witches and wizards, and were often inclined to consider themselves as the elite of the Magical world; a place in which they believed that Muggle-borns did not belong. More militant subscribers of this philosophy even consider themselves to be akin to royalty. Elitist pure-bloods even believed that it was a sign of weak magic to enjoy non-magical company. Those who are pure-blooded but do not ascribe to supremacist ideologies are considered to be blood traitors and are shunned. 

Shunning can be broken down into behaviours and practices that seek to accomplish either or both of two primary goals:

To modify the behaviour of a member. This approach seeks to influence, encourage, or coerce normative behaviours from members, and may seek to dissuade, provide disincentives for, or to compel avoidance of certain behaviours. Shunning may include disassociating from a member by other members of the community who are in good standing. It may include more antagonistic psychological behaviours. This approach may be seen as either corrective or punitive (or both) by the group membership or leadership, and may also be intended as a deterrent.

To remove or limit the influence of a member (or former member) over other members in a community. This approach may seek to isolate, to discredit, or otherwise dis-empower such a member, often in the context of actions or positions advocated by that member. For groups with defined membership criteria, especially based on key behaviours or ideological precepts, this approach may be seen as limiting damage to the community or its leadership. 

Concerted efforts at influence and control lie at the core of cultic groups, programs, and relationships. Many members, former members, and supporters of cults are not fully aware of the extent to which members may be manipulated, exploited, or even abused. While there is really no standardized diagnostic tool with which one can definitively say whether an organization qualifies as a cult, some social-structural, social-psychological, and interpersonal behavioral patterns can help to assess a particular group or relationship, in this instance the House of Black.

 II. PATTERNS OF CONTROL & DIVISION

 The group displays an excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader, and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law. This is a trait more difficult to illustrate than others, since there is no one individual leader of House Black; however, it is the root of the House Black philosophy that their ideologies and beliefs are passed down generationally, presumably from medieval times (given their family tapestry). We do see a lengthy history of the family’s current patriarch (whoever it is at any given time) enforcing these ideologies on other family members by excommunicating anyone whom they deem to have fallen out of line with the House of Black doctrine. The fact that excommunication from the family is even a thing that exists and that it furthermore is seen as the ultimate form of punishment emphasizes two things:

Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. There is no room in the House of Black to politely disagree or hold any sort of discourse on ideals. Even at the tender young age of sixteen, Sirius was summarily blasted off of the family tapestry and considered a traitor by the Black family for expressing his malcontent and running away to the Potters, a blood traitor family. Any member of House Black is obliged to conform to their ideologies or be expelled, which is seen as the worst possible outcome. 

The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave—or even consider leaving—the group. In a normative, healthy family situation, being formally dismissed from the group usually only occurs under dire circumstances and often even then doesn’t fully occur at all. The implementation of characters such as Sirius and Andromeda prove early on that the family’s dogmatic beliefs are non-negotiable and that deviation has consequences. 

The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and control members. Often this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. This might be considered to be a more headcanon-y than explanatory point, given I don’t readily have any examples of shame or guilt being utilized directly, but given that these other points exist and are true within the narrative, it would be impossible for those things to have occurred without the use of shame and guilt to manipulate family members, even in occasions when it isn’t intended to deliberately. The peer pressure aspect of control is an especially pointed aspect of the situation, given that they are a family, having one’s entire family ascribe to certain beliefs and practices makes it a given. 

The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (e.g., members must get permission to date, change jobs, or marry—or leaders prescribe what to wear, where to live, whether to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth). This is a point easily illustrated by again referring to the tapestry blasting incident(s), as it was up to the Black patriarch what should be done about betrayals, and he even further punished those who continued to support Sirius in violation of his ruling. However, it’s also common for House Black to arrange marriages between family members to those families whose ideologies align with their own, and if a suitable match cannot be found, to keep the blood pure by arranging marriages within the family itself. These marital practices tie in with other notable behaviors (elitism, polarization, isolation), but most importantly, they illustrate an aspect of positive eugenics, which is the practice of selective breeding. 

III. GENDER ROLES

The whole point of this excessively lengthy essay is to explain how and why selective breeding is canon and thereby explain my headcanons for Bellatrix’s relationship to her beliefs and her gender and why the two are inherently linked. The entire concept of supremacy and eugenics relies on the continuation of the genetic precepts that the supremacists view to be superior-- that is, there is an inherent obligation within these beliefs to carry on the pureblooded genes and to provide the future generation of supremacists. The brunt of this endeavor obviously falls upon women, as they bear children, but given the patrilineal and patriarchal nature of the family structure (and that of English culture in the 1950s), the implication is that rather than wanting women who can bear these children, the desire is for male heirs to carry on the family name and the family bloodline, which is their most sacred duty. 

Having been born a woman in the House of Black was to have been born with a form of original sin in that Bellatrix had already failed to be a male heir. Her only recompense for this initial transgression is to go on to provide male heirs, especially given that her mother died trying (and failing) to do so. While there is very little personal information available about Cygnus Black, we do know that his wife provided him with three daughters rather than a son, and died giving birth to Narcissa and left him to raise these daughters alone. Without a doubt, Cygnus would have viewed his failure to provide a male heir as a shortcoming, and given that his wife was dead, there was no way for him to vent his resentment on her. This is where we cross over into headcanon territory because I can’t prove anything about who Cygnus Black was as a person from the original text; however, it stands to reason giving the existing evidence and narrative structure (and how his daughters each turned out) that he was not a well man and that subsequently Bellatrix’s childhood was not a healthy or happy one as a result of that. 

As the oldest child, Bella had little in the way of protection from her father’s dictatorship, although she did her best to shield her sisters from it once she had sisters. She always took the brunt of her father’s expectations, and his wrath should those expectations fail to be met. This is why, of all the Black sisters, Bellatrix held her supremacist values and mission the closest to her heart, and why I believe she and Narcissa held such a close relationship despite the onset of Bellatrix’s very obvious descent into madness. I also believe this is the key difference between Bellatrix and Sirius: although they both came from House Black, they grew up to be polar opposites. I think it was Rowling’s intention here to illustrate that no matter where you come from, you choose your own beliefs and destiny and you can choose to be good rather than evil or some shit, but I don’t think it’s necessarily as clear as simply choosing a different set of beliefs. I think that Sirius and Bellatrix were raised in very different conditions that instilled the same beliefs differently, and therefore had a different effect. Then one might point out Andromeda, but there’s a difference there, too-- not only did she have Bella to provide a barrier between her and their father that Bellatrix did not have, but she also experienced love outside of the family, which is a whole other set of variables I won’t begin to get into. Suffice to say that falling in love is an external catalyst which can’t be accounted for, and it certainly didn’t happen to Bellatrix. 

As an adult, Bellatrix would have had a clear duty to take a pureblooded husband and provide him with male heirs. I do have a whole headcanon (which frankly deserves its own post but I digress) that she was first engaged to her Hogwarts sweetheart, but that he died early in the first war before they could be married, and as a result, her father arranged her marriage to Rodolphus Lestrange instead. This was not just to fulfill the whole get-married-have-babies mandate, but also because Bellatrix went mad with grief after her fiancé's death, and it’s really her first tangible, visible detachment from emotional stability. Her father’s solution to simply replace her fiancé might have been fine, had the couple not experienced infertility issues and been unable to produce children. 

Infertility is not so surprising when one takes into account the rampant inbreeding in both the Black and the Lestrange families. Generations of intermarriage in the name of blood purity is guaranteed to give a myriad of health issues, certainly not all of which might be cured through magical means. However, an inability to fulfill her duties as they relate to Bellatrix’s personhood would be, to her, an absolute and unmitigated failure on her part. Fertility issues are already an enormous strain without the added pressures of a bloodline to preserve, but especially given that Andromeda essentially defected from the cause, the responsibility lies solely with Bellatrix and Narcissa, and as the older daughter, the responsibility is once again heavily on Bella. Her inability to conceive disallows her from adhering to her most sacred principles, which Bellatrix views as a failure on her part and results in a definitive rift in her self esteem and identity that she could not repair. She is desperate to be good and pure by the standards in which she was raised, and to fulfill what she views as her destiny, but she is unable to, and this destroys her. 

IV. SYNTHESIS & RELEVANCE

Having been raised into these conditions, Bellatrix was conditioned into holding House Black and its doctrine at the forefront of her being. Because she held these beliefs so firmly and from such a young age, being a pure blooded witch is a part of Bellatrix’s identity and her self esteem. This is why any affront to these beliefs upsets her so much; it is a personal betrayal not just of these ideals but also of her wholly as a person. What made her turn on family members who had been burned off of the Black family tapestry was how personally she took their choice to leave. It was a personal betrayal, it was a publicly humiliating snub by someone who ought to have been on her side. Who did she have to rely on but family? The word family carries with it an expectation that they would die for the name Black and subsequently anyone who bore that name. Betraying the family was the same as a personal betrayal to Bellatrix, and was essentially spitting on everything Bella believed to be the most sacred and important obligations they held. 

These circumstances create the perfect candidate for an offshoot of the pureblood supremacy cult, the Death Eaters. In the context of the House of Black, Lord Voldemort would have been the obvious escalation and clear apotheosis of pureblood supremacist ideals. Since Bellatrix had already been raised in an environment where the ends justifies the means and violence was an acceptable and omnipresent tool (she had ancestors who literally tried to make muggle hunting a legal sport so it’s not a stretch to think that House Black implemented casual violence elsewhere), she was an ideal fit for an extension of that ideology that placed more emphasis on negative eugenics and moving into the extermination of those deemed unworthy of their society. 

V. AZKABAN

Following the conclusion of the First Wizarding War in 1981, Bellatrix was incarcerated at Azkaban at the age of 30, when she still had time to conceive a child. Her fanatical religious devotion for her cause convinced her that she would not be in prison for very long, but as she passed the decade mark, it would have been very clear to Bellatrix that if she were having fertility issues in her twenties, having aged past forty would make it very nearly impossible to get pregnant once the dark lord finally came to rescue them. Perhaps her belief in his infinite power led her to believe that Voldemort could magically fix whatever was the impediment to conception, or perhaps, having long given up on conceiving a child, Bellatrix viewed this failure as a reason to prove herself, a reason that she had to be the most dedicated, the most accomplished of his followers-- because she had failed in all other aspects and this was all she felt she had left to contribute to the pureblooded cause. 

Either way, her spent youth would have clearly marked her failure in what she viewed as perhaps the most important endeavor in life, and one might suggest that her regression to a child-like state of mind following her traumatic incarceration in Azkaban could be an unconscious response to her desire to return to her youth in order to fulfill this expectation of her; or a desire to return to a time when she was not a failure but instead could still be of value to the ideologies in which she was raised and through which she viewed her purpose in life. 

One could also surmise that Bellatrix’s recklessness in battle and her willingness (and possibly eagerness) to die for the cause of her pureblooded messiah might be due to this failure and the hope that at least if she died before the onset of menopause, it could be said that she was murdered before she could fulfill her duty, rather than being accused of having failed at it altogether. It’s also worth mentioning that her father had died while she was in Azkaban, and with his death, she lost any opportunity to finally earn his love and approval. 

[thorne1435]

Okay, I can't do all of this right now because I am busy with school work that I'm currently using this procrastinate, but I do feel the need to clear up at least one thing because all of the TERFs in the notes have been sending me anon hate about it and driving me crazy in general:

When I talked about our gender roles--I said our gender roles--I was specifically referring to western gender. The kind that any former british colony can derive their gender roles' lineage to. What I meant by that was white people justifying violence against black people tipped their hand too far regarding gender-based oppression and revealed in retrospect that gender and race are both kinda fake, aren't they? I mean if you can just define your entire beauty standard and indeed femininity itself around something that only a rich white woman would be able to achieve, specifically because it allows you dehumanize and oppress an entire group of ethnicities for your economic convenience then...well, that doesn't like it's very backed up by biology, in spite of its starting point.

The source of this information was some video essay I had watched recently at the time of writing that and I admit that that is not great as far as sources go, but I really liked that information so it seemed like a convenient time to share it. Turns out that was a really immature point that I was making that did not go over well at all.

I won't bother defending it beyond saying that I do still believe it but that I did a really poor job of conveying that I only meant western culture and also that I did not mean that gender roles didn't exist until that point because that's fucking absurd. All I meant was that it was a massive restructuring of what race and gender were and that can't happen if it's entirely natural: something about it has to be false for such arbitrarity to be possible.

I will admit, also, that the dawn of human society cross-culturally is believed to be consistently oppressive towards females as a proposed class of people, categorized into "womanhood" as a sort of "lesser personhood". I wouldn't say that means gender is inherent and I would find it weirdly supportive of that misogynist notion to be saying that sex and gender are the same thing. You can't break free of gender-based oppression if gender is real and inherent to your sex, because gender has proven itself arbitrary enough to just...redefine itself to account for the biological facts of femaleness and maleness that we discover as time goes on.

And it does! Females can go on planes now, because it isn't believed that their "vapors" or w/e render them unable to withstand higher altitudes, but we still hear people say that their hormone cycles render them useless in a job setting and that they're just biologically predisposed to staying home and taking care of the kids.

What a strange way of saying "Get back in the kitchen!" Shouldn't you be appalled by that? Isn't it a bit ridiculous that women-as-a-gender's biological tie to females-as-a-sex constantly leads to the assumption that whatever is found in the female sex is the inherently weaker version of human capability? Or that males (and by extension men) have some inherent genetic advantage that females just can't compete with??

I mean, I'm certainly bothered by that idea. The feminist in me won't allow it.

Whatever you use to define the sexes, its effects on you shouldn't be a big enough deal to warrant creating castes over it. It shouldn't define sports, or economics, or permitted social interactions, or "instincts."

Its role for humans in particular (since you have already admitted that we are cultural beings capable of making this happen) should be beginning and ending with primary and secondary sex characteristics. The gametes, if you just prefer. If you start saying that those gametes are going to make people less dominant or less physically strong or w/e, you're just giving in to patriarchal ideas that you were exposed to as a child. I don't know what else to say.

It's not really necessary for us to pretend the differences between males and females are drastic enough to deserve their own social roles anymore. In order to discard those roles, we're gonna have to start actually treating women and men equally. But that's not gonna happen if people keep saying "But think of the genita- or, I mean hormo- no wait, the chromoz--, sorry no, I meant GAMETES!"

The longer you guys hammer home what makes us slightly different, the longer it takes to achieve "female liberation." Which kinda just makes me think you either don't care. I know that isn't true. So come on. Just try. For me :)

Anyway I gotta get back to work. Sorry for the shitty response. As always, anon is on and inbox is open, so please, treat that as a complaints department.

Listen, time for wisdom:

There will never be a trans-inclusive "All-Girl" space.

Fundamentally, to define a space as "All-Female" or even "All-Women" is to define the term female or woman. Both of those things are nebulous at best, and that means they will, usually, resort to the usual take: "Woman means adult human female." And "Female means a fertile, vagina-having, motherly, She/Her cisfem." TERF shit.

The only people who would make a rule with such a premise are TERFs themselves or traumatized cis women who really do believe that the mere presence of a man is a threat to their safety. Neither of which--as you're probably already aware--are going to be very trans-inclusive.

We can talk about why people think this way another time. For now the important part is, if you want to feel safer or more socially integrated, seek out all-queer or all-trans spaces, not all-woman spaces. Queer people will understand you more than cis people ever could.

(And yes theoretically this applies to trans men as well if you replace every feminine thing with a masculine one. Gender restrictions are antithetical to trans people as a whole.)

[action]

Pride Spotlight: Corey Rae

We’re back with another Pride 2019 Spotlight. In partnership with @makerswomen, we have had the pleasure of interviewing Corey Rae (she/her). You might have heard of Corey as she was the first Transgender prom queen in the nation. We got to catch up with the model and activist about the importance and visibility of trans people.

You’re the world’s first transgender prom queen, that’s an amazing feat! Now you’re working on a movie called QUEEN. Tell us more about that.

Yes! QUEEN is a coming of age story based on my Prom victory. It’s a project I’ve been working on for three years with a friend from high school, Harry Tarre. The script we created was recently optioned by Red Crown Productions, and we are very excited to be making this into a soon-to-be seminal feature film with them.

Why is it important for us to understand the difference between non-operative and post-op transgender people?

There's a conversation happening within the transgender community right now regarding the limits of pre-operative and post-op labels. We have to consider those who don’t need or want to have top or bottom surgeries but are also trans because they identify with something other than the gender assigned to them at birth. For me, a vagina meant being a woman. But that is not the case for everyone, nor does it have to be. Contrary to popular belief, genitals do not define a man or woman—your soul-being does. It’s important for our culture to start adapting terms such as non-operative with respect to those who aren’t just “pre” or “post” surgery in their transition.

When it comes to redefining confidence, patriarchal standards can be very damaging to the trans community. What has your experience been with passing privilege?

Passing privilege is primarily based on a person’s socioeconomic and genetic makeup. I’m a transgender woman who technically never had to come out because I am "passable" or "unclockable.” In college, it was important not to disclose my true gender identity for safety reasons, but now I think passing culture is quite damaging. Transgender people don’t need to “pass,” just as we don’t need to have surgery. As transgender women, we don’t need to walk sexier, heighten our voices, or feminize our faces. Like all women, we don’t need to meet the conventional standards of beauty as deemed by society in order to be seen, validated, accepted, supported, loved, and equal.

What do you hope people in the LGBTQIA+ community take away from your story?

Anything is possible—you can become your own dream come true, with hard work and dedication. Speak, write, think, create, and manifest whatever good you want to bring into existence, and give it your entire heart and soul. Never give up. It’s all about confidence, persistence, and thoughtfulness. Also, surround yourself with positive, uplifting people.

Thank you! You can follow Corey as she continues to work on projects that support the LGBTQIA+ community and their stories. Tumblr, how do you support trans people? Use the #tumblr pride to share.

This interview has been condensed for clarity.

[calvinistwoman]

What are your thoughts on the LGBT community and would you be willing to have a discussion about said thoughts?

This isn’t a topic I’ve really written much about on this blog, and in truth, it’s something I’ve avoided. Not because I believe it’s unimportant but because 1) there are several Christians on here who have discussed this at length and I didn’t want to just repeat what they were saying, and 2) it’s a very heated topic and I don’t particularly want to deal with all the messages and anon hate I know I’m going to get. I’ve gotten questions like this before (usually from anons who just want to start something) and I haven’t answered them. The reason I’m answering now is because it came from a blog that claims both the Christian and the LGBT title and has written about this topic a lot in attempt to prove that the Bible supports the LGBT lifestyle.

Before I actually get into writing my response, I want to preface this by saying that I don’t mean to degrade or disrespect anyone from the LGBT community. My intention is to only say things that are backed up with Scripture. I understand that I don’t have a full understanding of everything LGBT related, and while I know that the things the Bible says about this topic are offensive, it is not my intention to just be an offensive and nasty person. If I misrepresent you and your viewpoint on things, please know that it’s not personal, I just can only speak from my personal knowledge on this topic. I respect you as a human being and it’s my desire that you come to a full understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Feel free to ask questions or debate me, but I will warn you that I wouldn’t be posting this if I wasn’t already convinced that this is what the Bible says. I will discuss my position, but I won’t be swayed from it. Sorry for the long intro.

 Homosexuality:

When faced with the question of whether homosexuality is wrong or right (according to the Biblical standard) we have to first understand what God’s intention was for relationships/marriage/love.

The Bible both begins and ends with a marriage. This is not accidental. The marriage in Genesis 2 is a prophetic picture of the marriage that occurs in Revelation 19. Genesis 2:24 says “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” This verse is quoted again in Ephesians 5:31, and then we see in verse 32, “This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” The church is always referred to throughout Scripture as the Bride. She is to be the wife of Christ and He will be her husband. This is how marriage was set up from the beginning. And you can make arguments that “of course it said man/woman and husband/wife because it was a heterosexual couple getting married. That doesn’t mean it HAS to be that way.” To that I’d respond by saying that there is no passage in the Bible that was intended only for the historical characters in those passages. All Scripture is for all Christians of every generation. Secondly, if this passage was really only referring to Adam and Eve, there would have been no need to mention leaving his father and mother, because he had none. Clearly this was meant not just for them, but for those who would come after them as well.

The intention of marriage was clearly defined from the very beginning of Scripture, and it was done purposefully. A man and a woman, two beings that are different, come together to form one flesh. The woman was created to be joined to her husband, just as the Church was created to be joined to Christ. These are the parameters that Scripture has laid out. This is the Biblical definition of marriage. If God, who is not bound by time and knows the future, had wanted to leave the door open for same-sex marriages, He could have simply said two people come together to be one flesh. Since He didn’t, we are not in a position to expand the definition we are given.

So how does this affect same-sex attracted people? It affects them because no matter how you try to translate or interpret the Bible, it does not legitimize a same-sex marriage.

However, I don’t want to just limit this to marriage. What does the Bible say about homosexuality in general? 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 list it among other subsets of what is considered the “unrighteous” person. This passage is clear that those who practice such unrighteousness “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Romans 1, calls it “unnatural” (being that God did not create mankind this way) and “indecent”. The whole passage from 1:21-32 compares same-sex acts with idolatry. V. 23 in the same way that they exchanged God for images and idols, v.26-27 they exchanged the natural use for men and women for the unnatural one. This continues to V. 32 where it says “those who practice such things are worthy of death”. These two passages come to the same conclusion.

Now, I don’t want to condemn people who have felt these desires but have abstained. We cannot control our feelings or desires, but we can choose to not let them dictate our actions.

 Transgender:

First, I want to say that there are no verses that directly talk about Transgenderism. However, that doesn’t mean that the Bible doesn’t deal with the issue. There are also no verses about environmentalism, gun control, or if it’s ok to speed and go through red lights.

So what does the Bible say that indicates its position on the transgender debate? Firstly, through creation we see that God made only two options: man and woman. He created them differently and with different uses. This was God’s design for humanity from the beginning.

“Dividing the human race into two genders, male and female – one or the other, not both, and not one then the other – is not the invention of Victorian prudes or patriarchal oafs. It was God’s idea.” – Kevin DeYoung

Before the fall, before sin and decay entered the world, there were two assigned genders. Again, this was purposeful.

Yes, I’ve heard the argument that sex and gender are different and that you can be male of one and yet female of the other. And I don’t want to be insensitive and try to deny the genuine feelings people have about this. Yes, there are men who believe that their sex is male and their gender is female. Those feelings may be real and come from some sort of legitimate place, but that doesn’t make them correct. God has separated us by design and has placed boundaries on what men and women should be.

1 Corinthians 1:14-15 “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her?”

Deuteronomy 22:5 “A woman shall not wear a man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”

This is totally counter-cultural, but the fact is that God is our creator and has every right to limit our uses of our bodies. He has purposefully designed us, and commands that we act in accordance with what He has made us for. This is non-negotiable for those who claim Christ: that regardless of what we feel inclined to or desire, we use our bodies for God’s purpose. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

Why are sexual sins different than other sins?

Now, there is a sense in which sin is sin. All sin, no matter how great or small, shares the same penalty. And we know that we shouldn’t judge others who have sinned “more” or “worse” because in the end, we have all fallen short of the same goal and offended God infinitely.

However, we should also remember that the Bible does speak about sexual sins (sins with our bodies) as being in a different category than other sins. 1 Corinthians 6 goes into this in great length. V. 13, says that the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord. V. 15 talks about how our bodies are members of Christ. V.18 says “Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.” Then V. 19-20 conclude the chapter by telling us that we are not our own, and we ought to glorify God with our bodies.

 Common objections to the Biblical view:

“But God says I’m beautifully and wonderfully made.” Firstly, in the context of the passage, this isn’t meant to be a “You’re perfect just the way you are” kind of verse. Rather, the writer is praising God for His creation.  Secondly, no one would take this verse to mean that EVERYTHING about us is made perfectly. Since the fall, we have cancer and broken bones and obesity and mental issues. Just because something exists within us does not mean it’s good. Which leads me to one of the most common objections…

“I was born this way.” As Christopher Yuan, author of Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story, so eloquently put it: “innateness doesn’t mean that something is permissible; being born a sinner doesn’t make sin right.” Regardless of the things that exist in your life, Christ calls us to holiness.

“God is love so he will accept me.” God is also Holy and Just and has laid out commandments that we should follow. Yes, He is Love, and it was in His love that He made a way for us to be accepted by the Father. But the ONLY way to have that acceptance is to be found in Christ. God’s love and acceptance will not be extended to anyone who is not found in Christ. (Romans 5:1-8)

Moreover, God cannot accept sin or sinners. In fact, the Bible says clearly that God HATES sinners. (Psalm 5:4-6, Psalm 11:5, Proverbs 6:16-19, Jeremiah 12:8, Hosea 9:15, Malachi 1:2-3, Romans 9:13.) (References gathered by Steven Rohn, inthelasthour.com, Does God Hate Sin and Not Sinners? Revisiting an Old Cliché)

“God wants us to be happy.” Yes, God wants us to have joy in Him, but that doesn’t mean He wants us to be happy at the expense of holiness. In fact, God calls us to do things that will potentially lead us to have difficult and depressing lives. In Luke 9:23, Christ calls us to deny ourselves and our desires to follow Him. In many places in Scripture, we are also told to die to ourselves, that we might live to Christ. (Galatians 2:20, Philippians 3:8, Ephesians 4:22-24, Galatians 5:24) So yeah, there is joy in Christ, but don’t think that just because something makes you happy means that it’s ok.

“Even if that was a part of the Old Testament Law, it doesn’t apply to modern day Christians.” This is just a blatant misunderstanding of our relationship to the law. First, the only way to be freed from the Law is to be joined to Christ through His death. (Romans 7:3-4) This means that if you have not trusted in Christ and have not been cleansed by His blood, the curse of the Law still applies to you. You ARE under obligation to keep the Law. It wasn’t vanquished when Christ died. It was merely fulfilled for those who are Christ’s. Second, just because something was stated in the OT Law doesn’t mean it no longer applies. The Law also said not to kill and steal and those are still 100% in effect. Also, you might have a better case if the same things weren’t explicitly stated in the New Testament as well.

“When the Bible was written, homosexuality didn’t exist in its modern monogamous, loving format”

First, the Bible never prefaces its condemnation of homosexuality by saying “If it’s loving and monogamous, then it’s ok.” It’s an absolute statement. Those who practice homosexuality will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Period.  

Second, this isn’t a new concept. Not in the slightest. It’s become trendy the last few years, but these things have existed for a long time. A few sources for looking into homosexuality in the ancient world would be: Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents by Prof. Thomas K Hubbard. And Plato’s Symposium.

 Now, I know that was a super long answer, and probably not the one you wanted to hear. The truth is that any attempt to pair Christianity with the LGBT community is doomed to fail because Christianity is first and foremost predicated on the truths of the Bible, and some of those truths come into stark conflict with LGBT beliefs. In recent years, I have seen a lot of people coming out as “Queer Christians”. I know these people exist and I’m not trying to deny that. But the reality is that the Bible speaks clearly on these issues and any attempt to deny that is also a denial of Christ.

What makes a Christian? Is it someone who believes in God? Or someone who believes that Jesus Saves!? 1 John gives us a clear indication of what a Christian is and is not.

1 John 2:3-4 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in Him.”

So to the people who claim both the title of Christianity and of the LGBT community, I ask this: In light of the Biblical commands to abstain from sexual immorality and homosexuality, and in light of God’s design regarding gender, are you willing to submit to God and flee from sin, or will you continue to disobey His commandments? The truth is that if God says something is wrong and you continue to do it (and try to justify is as being just fine) you are NOT a Christian. You can’t possibly be, because it is a defining characteristic of a Christian that when God commands, we obey. We can’t cling to Christ and our sin at the same time.

But, there is forgiveness to be found in Christ. It’s only by turning from sin and turning to Christ that we can be saved. We cannot have both sin and salvation.

If you are someone who genuinely believes in Christ, but has been taught that the LGBT lifestyle and Christianity are compatible, I urge you to read your scriptures and see for yourself. Christ offers us a life walked in righteousness, a life free from the slavery of sin. Don’t be deceived, but rather read your Bible. See what God had created us for, and turn to Him.

[boreal-sea]

"Dont you think that being against the idea that women are make up and dresses IS taking down the patriarchy"

Yes, it is feminist to be against patriarchal standards of beauty and being against the concepts of gender roles and gender stereotypes. No feminist thinks "women are makeup and dresses". But that's not what you actually mean here. You mean trans women.

"its insane to me how much yall want to defend and stand by LITERAL MEN"

That is a separate thought entirely from your first sentence, Feminists caring about men has lots to do with the patriarchy, sex roles/stereotypes, gender roles/expression/stereotypes, and beauty standards though, because all of those things affect both men and women. Again though, when you say "men" here, you might actually mean trans women.

"and go tell women theyre not feminists because they dont think you can “feel” or “think” like a woman."

And here's more transphobia. Yes, you can in fact feel like a woman. A lot of cis women feel like women. Shania Twain wrote a whole darn song about it. Cis women celebrate gender euphoria all the time whenever they post a selfie when they're feeling beautiful. Cis women experience gender dysphoria, too.

"Because THAT is misogynistic. Define it, what is that feeling like a woman trans women have? Feeling emotional and weak? Thinking in a more “feminine” way out of emotion rather than logic like men do?"

I cannot define how it feels to be a woman because I am not a woman. But there are plenty of women who can describe how womanhood feels to them. If you need some help, try reading Maya Angelou or bell hooks. Try reading books by Jewish feminists, who talk about how their womanhood interacts with their faith. Try reading Kimberle Crenshaw.

Believing that womanhood is weakness is misogyny. Trans women do not believe that womanhood is weakness. Feminists actually care a lot about promoting the fact that men can be emotional. And there are plenty of studies that support the fact that "gendered brains" do not exist. There is no such thing as a female/feminine brain, there is no such thing as a male/masculine brain. Which, personally, supports the existence of trans people.

"you cannot IDENTIFY as a WOMAN, women are not an identity, woman is biological sex."

Yes you can identify as a woman. Woman is not a "biological sex". Woman is a gender identity. Female is a sex. Gender and sex are not glued together. People can change both their gender and their sex.

"And if you think men can just claim to be women whenever they feel like YOU are the one letting patriarchy stay alive."

I think that not only can trans women be women whenever they feel like, I also believe that trans men can be men whenever they feel like.

I also think that the existence of trans people is a danger to the patriarchy, because we explicitly destroy the patriarchal idea that sex and gender are glued together. We destroy the idea that people are biologically inclined to behave a certain way based on their sex. If the patriarchy was right, and if people were biologically predisposed to act certain ways based on birth sex, trans people would not exist. But we do, and therefore, we prove the patriarchy is wrong. There is no such thing as sex-based behavior. There is no such thing as sex-based gender.

Your rant assumes that all trans women want to be hyperfeminine and conform to all the beauty ideals of the patriarchy, when that is very very far from the truth. You didn't talk about gender non-conforming people at all, nor did you acknowledge that trans people very often are GNC. Butch trans women exist.

But that's really a moot point, because at the end of the day, there's actually nothing wrong with a woman who wears dresses and makeup and who is feminine - whether she is trans or cis. Being a feminine woman is not "supporting the patriarchy". It's just a form of gender expression.

It's also amusing that in your entire post, you never for a single moment talked about trans men. But I'm not surprised. Transphobes like you are hyperfixated on trans women because they fit into your fake world where all "males" are evil predators and all "females" are helpless victims.

I just feel like if you're transphobic and you think it's the most important issue in feminism, maybe you should go like. Witness the Northern Lights. Or go to the middle of nowhere and look up at the night sky and see the Milky Way. Or go out onto the ocean and experience the vastness of a flat, blue horizon in all directions. Or climb a mountain and feel the altitude take away your breath and see spring come to the mountain top in late June.

I just. Go feel small. Go connect to the planet we live in, the universe we live in.

And then maybe you will see that trans people are really not a problem for you to worry about, because as a feminist, you should trust people to know who they are and what they want.

And maybe you will also realise there are more important things to fight for, like actually taking down the patriarchy and colonialism and racism and all the other power structures that exist to keep people down, so that we can exist in this world freely, so we can keep learning and yearning and reaching for the stars.

[dweemeister]

The Big City (1963, India)

By the mid-1960s, Satyajit Ray had proven himself to be one of India’s best filmmakers. He had earned the acclaim of audiences, critics, and filmmakers for the Apu trilogy (1955-1959), The Music Room (1958), and Devi (1960). But no matter the filmmakers or where they come from, a succession of films that do not connect can leave one scrapping for work. This is where Ray found himself in the early 1960s after a handful of works that could not match the lofty standard of his first films. So Ray turned, for the first time, to his native Calcutta (located in West Bengal, where Bengali is the official language; some of Ray’s previous films were partially set in Calcutta) and contemporary times for inspiration and incorporated his interest in featuring women as the center of his films. The result was The Big City – also known by its original Bengali title, Mahanagar – which reinvigorated Ray’s creative output.

Like many of Ray’s films, The Big City paints how individuals reckon with the constant cultural changes that come to their doorsteps or workplaces. But unlike the aging zamindar walled away from the world in The Music Room, The Big City depicts a modern struggle for gender equality that persists in India and the world over – a situation defying time and place. Ray’s achievement here signaled to viewers that he has more to say outside the impending march of modernity and dehumanizing urban demands on those from rural areas.

Housewife Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee) is concerned about the financial situation of her family. Living in a cramped apartment, her husband Subrata (Anil Chatterjee) and only son Pintu (Prasenjit Sarkar) are facilely supportive when she states her intentions to find a job; citing tradition, father- and mother-in-law Priyogopal (Haren Chatterjee; no relation to Anil) and Sarojini (Sefalika Devi) voice their opposition. Despite these gaggle of voices under one roof, Arati nevertheless finds and excels as a door-to-door saleswoman. In her early days of employment, Subrata is resentful of his wife, but he swallows his pride when he is laid off from his job at the bank after a bank run. With Arati now the sole worker, she will soon contend with workplace drama between her new Anglo-Indian friend and coworker Edith (Vicky Redwood) and her boss, Himangshu (Haradhan Banerjee) – the later of whom promises to help Subrata find a job.

What a simple story this is, with Ray’s screenplay adapted from Narendranath Mitra’s short story “Abataranika”. I write that not in disparagement, but awe. Few filmmakers can take such a grounded and domestic story and wrest torrents of sympathy, disappointment, and admiration for the characters within. Ray is one of those gifted few, extracting solid performances from his acting ensemble. Mukherjee, who would turn in an even more accomplished performance in Ray’s Charulata (1964), gives Arati poise, intelligence, and the moral righteousness that make it unthinkable to root against her. To play Arati as overly meek would undermine The Big City’s themes; to play Arati as an upending-the-patriarchy-and-taking-names feminist commando would rob the film of any dramatic interest (in addition to being improbable, given the circumstances). Mukherjee strikes this balance in ways that suit her character, with her best work ahead of her. Arati’s sense of justice is steadfast at the film’s climax, rendering her unsure whether her principled actions have been worth the consequences. That the film provides an uncertain, incomplete answer – despite Subrata’s counsel and attempt and reassurance – is to its credit.

Her friendship with her Anglo-Indian friend Edith marks the first instance of a Ray film commenting on racism. Anglo-Indians are those of mixed Indian and British descent. Many Anglo-Indians, if they could, attempted to pass as British so they could have more secure professional and political privileges. In The Big City, English-speaking Edith (her Bengali is limited to a few words and phrases, though it appears that Edith mostly understands Bengali) certainly could “pass” as British, but she is neither accepted in Anglo nor Indian circles. The tension between Edith and Himangshu in his racist beliefs about her character. How this situation develops is a testament to Ray’s attention to how out-group minorities in India can be treated (even if Edith, as a character, is never developed beyond the fact she is Arati’s friend), as films with clearly defined mixed-race characters are rarities across cinema. This was groundbreaking for Indian cinema in its ethnic-linguistic entirety (not just Bengali-language filmmaking, which Ray was the paragon of), especially in Ray’s intersecting of race and gender.

As one sees through Edith and Arati’s friendship, Britain’s colonial legacy was never far from the surface during the first decade of Satyajit Ray’s films. The train that entrances Apu and his sister, Durga, as they frolic among the kans grass in Pather Panchali (1955) foreshadows the Westernization of India’s urban life that Apu will encounter and struggle with as a teenager and a young adult. Actors Anil and Haren Chatterjee must contend with their characters who uphold the incompatible values of traditional gendered roles (in the sense that women should only be homemakers) and the stressors of a capitalist society. For Haren Chatterjee, as father-in-law and former schoolteacher Priyogopal, we see an elderly man not only dependent on his adult son and daughter-in-law but also his former students. He is helpless without them, but too proud to fully retract his denouncement of Arati’s professional plans. Ray and Haren Chatterjee portray Priyogopal with understanding – this old man’s guarded humiliation, no matter his opposition to his daughter-in-law’s work, is not to be celebrated. The displacement he and, to a lesser extent, his son feel reflects how, in a capitalist society, those not engaging in production are automatically excluded. Woven into the patriarchal society that Priyogopal and Subrata have been raised in and have live all their lives, these disruptive times expose their masculine insecurities – given purpose and form in earlier times, but now altered to something neither recognizes.

With no countryside to juxtapose with the urban, streetcar wire-filled landscape, what does Ray say about the promises of the big city? Often in contemporary Western cinema, the city is a vibrant, cosmopolitan place that, though potentially engendering an individual’s loneliness, is welcoming and conducive to ambition regardless of gender or race. Those promises of upward social mobility and civic harmony are not devastated by The Big City, but the film states that the transition from obsolete traditions to the cosmopolitan ideal is difficult, and unrealized in the case of Arati and her fellow female coworkers. The variant of capitalism here, to Ray, remains tied to traditional views of gendered roles at home and in the workplace, satisfying the needs of few. Ray is open to capitalism’s prescriptions and its supposed egalitarian goal, but it is a distant dream in The Big City.

With a trained eye for detail, Ray can make scenes susceptible to feeling staged feel as natural as can be. Scenes about family dinners, socializing among coworkers, and a trip to the doctor’s office contain dialogue that believably would be said in those settings, behavioral tics appropriate for certain situations, and production design that never calls attention to itself as production design. For Ray and longtime collaborator, cinematographer Subrata Mitra, the patient framework and unhurried approach to the film enliven Arati’s journey and Subrata’s and Priyogopal’s inner turmoil. Inspiration might also have emerged from Ray’s childhood – Ray never knew his father, and was raised and educated by his mother, who balanced a sizable professional workload alongside household duties. As his mother’s only son, Ray could see how difficult it could be for a widower with children in India. Those memories influenced how Apu’s mother in Aparajito (1956) was portrayed and certainly lends to Arati’s moving characterization for The Big City.

After a successful international film festival run abroad, The Big City’s first South Asian debut outside of India occurred at a Dhaka film festival (then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh) in 1964. So anticipated was the film that thousands of women lined up for tickets, which sold out quickly. A riot and police violence ensued, forcing the festival organizers to schedule ten consecutive screenings of The Big City (that’s roughly seven minutes in between showtimes). Needless to say, The Big City rejuvenated Ray’s directorial career, catapulted Madhabi Mukherjee to stardom, and praised among Bengali audiences and those, like Edith, might have trouble speaking the language.

The Big City is a film where the dramatic resolution acknowledges the limitations of the systems in which it was created and the setting of its original release. Yet in its cultural specificity, it contains universal themes of gender equality, the difficulty of appealing to human decency, and the unbelonging of mixed-race individuals. Greater examples of Ray’s auteurism exist, but The Big City demonstrates his signature artistic and humanistic daring.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, click here.

[rametarin]

“Oh no the kids found a porno mag! SOCIETY is COLLAPSING!”

Yall.

I’m seeing a lot of ignorant bullshit about both A.) pornography B.) being a child C.) being male. D.) Any combination of the above three resulting in sexual predatory behavior by the kid, as an adult.

Obviously I’m not advocating to openly just give junior pornography to go with his colorful scooter or bike. But little boys do this shit. One finds one of their dad’s porno mags, goes, “Look what I found!” and the other boys in the troup hoot and dance around it like a bunch of apes around the 2001 monolith. Because they finally hit paydirt in the destitute tiddymines that is being a male minor with a sex drive and absolutely no physical or plausible way to pursue release or even acceptable expression of it until a little before, during and after puberty.

And some are treating that like it’s some unnatural, evil thing that only exists in their, “sweet little beans uwu” because of, “that toxic masculine culture again.”

Making me a bit mad. So I’ma tl;dr.

Okay so first, I’m not one of those disgusting pedophiles, “MAPS,” or whatever you want to call them. My position here is not to support or enable the grooming of minors for sexually related things, or excuse deviant sexual behavior. of children, or adults.

But my friends. Especially, the females in the audience, you’re in wicked denial about something and trying to push your view of what a “right male mind” and “correct male sexuality” is on men and boys, and it’s every bit as damaging as those patriarchal convenience interpretations of female roles and sexuality that you hate so much. Or claim to hate, anyway.

I’ve noticed a pattern among women that are mystified by the male sex and sexuality and just have absolutely no idea how we work, and even when told otherwise, don’t want to believe it, so go on insisting their fantasies and interpretations are, “equally as true,” and then lean on, “well I’m an oppressed minority and the male is the compliment of the female and I have the right to sexual identification and expression and my expression also affects you and your healthy expression.” Like, you think you’ve found some sort of loophole that gives you the ability to matriarchally define what a male sexuality is and isn’t, what a healthy male sexuality looks like and what is deviant and risky.. Based on your convenience and what compliments your fear of men’s behavior and thoughts.

That’s not fair. You’ve put your subjective feelings about “feeling safe” into the discussion about what is proper and deviant behavior, and by extension, proper and allowed thoughts and feelings. You’ve decided through this framework you can decide what is an acceptable way to think, not just behavior and conduct, rooted in your own insecurities, hypoagency and self-interest. You’re no different when you do this, than the theocratic majority in a community pushing their standards and values on outsiders.

First thing: Pornography does not warp people. Simple, period, end of discussion. Pornography does not introduce those thoughts in young people.

I remember, quite vividly, being a little boy. Any nurse that works with children, if they’re being honest, will tell you that babies old enough to grab your hands and move them will sometimes be cheeky shits and try to make you rub their genitals. It’s especially bad after around 2, and most parents will have embarrassing and hilarious stories about their kids trying to stick their dicks into things. Or stick something in their hooha. These feelings are natural and normal. They’re part of being human. And even before you can physically successfully masturbate, the urge and desire is there. It just is.

YOU imposing rules against touching yourself, be they in the house or society’s rules and laws, does not suppress the urges. You can only punish conduct. And you can’t watch them, 24/7. If you manage to watch them 24/7, you’re going to wind up creating a sexually repressed person. You do not “keep someone innocent,” you functionally and socially retard them (used completely in the medical sense) by suppressing their sexuality. Not just if they’re gay, but if they show any form of sexuality, at all.

You aren’t suppressing a single imagined tiddy or shaking ass in the imagination of a young boy. I mean, you want that power. You really do. But you don’t have it. And you can sing all the infantilizing songs, try to distract them so they have to think about other things, but you are never, ever going to prevent little boys from imagining women in sexual situations.

You will never have control over male sexuality and imaginations. Period. That is not your domain to dictate. And the more you try to use “society” and its rules and ability to monitor, browbeat, punish and spy on men and boys for their fantasies, punish men as a SEX because sexual deviants, harassers and rapists exist, the more you’re just going to make the male suicide rate climb higher and higher and higher.

Pornography does not, “warp children’s minds.” Let you in on a little secret? Most boys in the US grew up sneaking their dad’s magazines. Naked women on dirt bikes and motorcycles, cheesecake and glamour shots. No, we didn’t, “internalize any bad things.” If you think pornography is so malicious and insidious, you’d be amazed at how many men you RESPECT also look at porn. Of all kinds.

Looking at porn does not make you a kinky sex-freak. Looking at porn does not, “makes you objectify women.” Looking at porn does not, “make you disrespect women.” You claim these things because you are inherently jealous. Of the women in the pornography being prettier than you, of the men NOT deciding to devote FULL attention to you and you alone, and you do that shit because you want to make EXCUSES.

Excuses. For the little boy that grows up to be a serial pervert, molester and rapist. “If only other boys hadn’t tempted them before their time with that evil PRONOGRAPHY!” You cry. You want so badly for that “cute boy” to not be a rapist asshole. You want that misogynistic chauvinistic son of a bitch to have been, “raised right.” Because that’s all they are to you. Maverick robots that just haven’t been programmed right. Members of a product line that haven’t taken to their instructions on what is right and wrong and so they act out due to bad programing. Or derangement, caused by bad programming. Or malfunction, caused by inherent flaws, so that justifies “fixing the problem” of an easily contaminated platform by mandating they only operate in white spaces (clean, sterile, dustless environments.)

No. Your wee bab that grows up into a rapist, or your abusive boyfriend, is just fated to be an asshole. They weren’t “twisted and corrupted” by pornography, or, “toxic masculinity,” or whatever excuse you can find to turn the problem from one of an individual doing the wrong thing into a peer-group problem.

You believe these things because you want a silver bullet solution. You desire these things because if they were just true, it’d solve so many problems. You desire these things to be the way men work, because you like this or that man or boy, but you hate how gropey and stubborn they are about respecting your personal space.

It IS them. As individuals. You’re projecting your conflicting desires of liking them and trying to pawn off their bad behavior as just, “something men do, because they were taught wrong.”

So you confer with other women and decide among them, “Yeah, the reason that cute dude in highschool was a gropey ASSHOLE is because that’s the Dark Web of masculinity. It’s men’s fault. If only we could’ve saved Doug.”

Let you in on a secret? Doug is Doug. Doug was going to grow up to be a gropey rapist asshole, and other boys probably saw signs of it when he was growing up. The same way you can often tell when some kid is going to grow up to be a thug, a thief or just a complete douchebag teenager and adult.

Doug was that kid that got caught with a porno mag while none of the other boys did, because Doug was stupid, selfish, and had no sense of stealth or subtlty. Doug was that kid that got caught peeping in the girl’s bathrooms because they’re as dim as a busted light and selfish as fuck. Doug is that kid that the boys’ peer group don’t let into the clubhouse, because he poses a security risk to their out-of-academia development to subjects and things that parents either don’t have the heart to say or socially are pressured not to, else they’ll be considered child groomers.

Some parts of life, you learn from the mouths of slightly older boys with older brothers, and that chain passes down. The things that are socially unacceptable for parents to openly and liberally teach their children, “before it’s time.” Decided based on society’s inhibitions, the conservatism of the era and rationales, and the parents’ own insecurities or indesire to arm their kid with that information. That’s a part of being a man. It’s an integral, organic, holistic, perfectly natural part of being a boy.

Intervening on this is unnatural and nothing less than an attempt to control the male sex by interrupting how it functions. By circumventing this and making it impossible via restrictions, supplantation, punishments and removal of privileges, you just damage the development of a young male. And I think some of you, being so wrapped up in, “what a society SHOULD look like,” and “what boys OUGHT to think and say,” that you don’t have a problem with this, so long as it’s, “for the GreaterGood(tm)”

A bunch of underaged kids passing around a pornographic magazine, or HAVING UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO THE INTERNET, isn’t going to corrupt “society.” If anything, given the rate of violence, sexual assaults, thefts and burglary are down across the board, it has only improved these conditions.

And why? Because all they’re going to do is go after the content that they want to see. The content that is ALREADY in their minds, the curiosity they already have.

You can be exposed to a whole bevy of hardcore porn and just NOT gel with it at all. Proof? The most extreme of extreme of porns, porn too niche and artsy for the layman to even imagine, exists available for free and distributed by the internet.

Has everybody become addicted to loli futanari shitting dicknipples and anal? No. People gravitate towards pornography starring multiple women, MILFs, naughty next door neighbors and other plebian shit. Even when presented with the entirity of Willy Wonka’s OSHA Non-Compliant Factory, people still on the whole just gravitate to what THEY personally like. And that is decidedly not rapefics, forced anal, blood, BDSM or fictional shit like vore or snuff.

Being mad some people DESIRE these things and thus being mad at pornography for advertising these things are two different things. You’re making the same logical and moral and ethical mistakes the church and religious communities and homophobes made, trying to snuff out homosexuality by treating it like a deranged pathology.

It doesn’t work any better or any more ethically when you try to treat sexuality like it’s a special privilege for Party Officials, mandated okay by bureaucratic privileges and allowances under penalty of law.

You aren’t saving a single poor defenseless and impressionable girl from being whipped or spanked or, “perpetuating cycles of abuse,” by trying to snuff those fantasies out. They are not transmitted pathologically. In people that shine to them, those are just things they like. And culture that arises around populations of people that like things is going to happen.

Look at yourselves. You’ve become the same sort of conservative, dogmatic, insecure prudes that your grandparents are or were. Worse than having a bible and never reading it in order to quote dogmatic group-think scripture at people for disagreeing with said group-think, you don’t even draw from a coherent bible or culture. You just bow your heads to whatever the peers are saying or thinking and where they’re getting their absolute platitudes about existence, mental health and reality goes unseen and unable to be challenged. In a chain of permissions and selfish, subjective whimsy that sounds good, comes from an alleged authority, reflects in like-minded people, so, “must be true.”

Guerilla morality culture. Dogmatic book-isms that you can’t even cite or argue about the wording of, because the dogmatic won’t let you look at the books. You have to join their culture and be part of their academic group and people in college will then impress ‘proper thing-ism’ down on younger people- primarily, girls, whom then try to impress that on everybody else as lower functionaries.

Treating some underaged boys passing around porno magazines like it’s the soruce of sexual deviancy occurring at all, thinking you’re slick by treating society as an objective thing with tangible consequences you can predict by your ideology, when it’s barely an abstract. Treating male sexuality like it’s something you program. Something that can be right or wrong, because, “it makes them act out.”

No. Low inhibitions and criminality make people act out on desires and drives and fantasies. An asshole personality makes people act out on things they know to be wrong. Treating Big Booty Magazine like it’s why that asshole grabs asses in public places or rapes people in private is just a way to blame men and threaten things men like.

Those magazines, that porn, doesn’t cause low inhibitions. It is drug abuse burning out those parts of the brain and the ability to judge, it’s mental illness and neurological impairment that causes that behavior. Not books, not movies, not video games, not stories on the internet, not pictures on the internet. Absolutely nothing but a persons OWN DAMAGE makes them a threat to anyone else. Their own damage, and the will to carry it out.

I’m so tired of it being acceptable to write the criteria and behavioral standards and restrictions for men because of damaged and dangerous men, whom are unarguably THE EXCEPTION AND MINORITY. The sooner that neurological science and psychology can spot these problems early on, the sooner we can have a more liberal, open, permissive and trusting species.

[padawan-historian]

The Female Game: An Analysis of the Stormborn Dragon

SPOILER warning for Season 8, Episode 1-3 and more of a SPOILER WATCH for Season 8, Episode 4 (no plot related details, but . . . a teaspoon of character and tone vibes from the episode).

Now I know we are still wrapping our heads around what we witnessed last night on Game of Thrones. But there was one discussion that caught my attention – Daenerys character development (or lack thereof) and how women are represented on the show:  

i hate that ambition in women is always used as a bad trait.

All her hard work and talk of breaking the wheel for nothing. All this talk of her being different and just and “see you for who you are” for absolutely nothing.

They should rename season 8 to “the tale of how we trashed a character’s development, made her an army of haters, just so we could make Jon Snow a hero: A study on Daenerys Targaryen.”

they really are setting up “Mad Queen” Dany and I’ll be honest, I don’t blame her at this point.

If a man acted that way it would be perfectly fine.

every single woman on game of thrones deserves better.

Ever since Game of Thrones graced the stage seven years ago, a number of fans, critics and activists have voiced concerns about the way the show portrays violence (especially sexual violence) towards female characters. However, those concerns have slowly evolved into larger conversations about the way these heroines are portrayed in comparison to power. Westeros – and most of the known world in the show – are under a patriarchal system. Men have inheritance rights, new wives join their husbands’ families and male children are given precedent over their older sisters and female relations in the line of succession (they call this primogeniture). Attempts at female rule are rare and even more rarely achieved without a healthy dose of fire and blood (search The Princess and the Queen on YouTube for more context and a juicy history lesson!).

Suspicion and hesitancy towards female rule is common in our real world (i.e. 2016 election) and is, unfortunately, not a new phenomenon. Prominent theologian, wrote in his 1558 piece, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women, that, “To promote a woman to beare rule, superioritie, dominion or empire aboue any realme, nation, or citie, is repugnant to nature, contumelie to God, a thing most contrarious to his reueled will and approued ordinance, and finallie it is the subuersion of good order, of all equitie and iustice”(Knox).  Across Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism there exist exclusionary mindsets in regards to women in power dating back to antiquity. However, there are also examples of women overcoming the restrictions and barriers of their societies, such as the prominence and elevation of women within certain patriarchal systems (including Egypt, the Tang Dynasty of China, the Mongolian Empire and beyond) . Even today, within many Native American and West African communities, femaleness is connected to spiritualism – unseen forces are often defined as female, such as goddesses and masked spirits, and are often interpreted by priestesses, prophetesses, healers, fortune tellers, and female shamans. However, the dominant culture that defines our 21st century world is, largely, patriarchal and continues to prosper through the oppression of women – and, to an extent, men. 

Power is power – and there is power in subjugation.

(Sidney Note: The glass ceiling metaphor should be viewed with some context – as should my statement above ^^ While times have changed and we now have female executives, college presidents, directors, governors, ambassadors and presidential candidates there are still inequities that exist. The metaphor implies that women and men have equal access to entry- and mid-level positions (Eagly and Carli). They do not. Rather than a ceiling to break through, women often have to struggle through a labyrinth, a maze filled with dead ends, false leads and towering walls. The labyrinth is even more suffocating for minority and marginalized women.

But back to the Game of Thrones universe . . . While most of the main characters have divided the fan base at some point in time (remember how we used to hate Cersei and then we felt bad and now . . . we kind of hate her again?) the discourse around Daenerys has been relatively consistent. While some see the Dragon Queen as an entitled, power-hungry tyrant slowly turning into the Mad Queen, others view her in a more sympathetic light. Daenerys – like many women – exist within a labyrinth. At the end is the Iron Throne. But the roads, for much of her life, were determined for her. Her (thankfully) deceased brother Viserys sold her in exchange for military support. Even after his golden death, Dany was still trapped in the maze, struggling to navigate the seemingly endless corridors. She has been raped, abandoned, deceived and . . . perhaps, most damning of all, she has been wrong.

Dany has made some questionable choices throughout her reign and while this is nothing new when it comes to GOT characters, what is new is that she is in a position of considerable power. Besides Cersei and, at one time, Grandma Olenna, Daenerys is one of the most powerful women in the series. Her dragons carry the weight of nuclear weapons and, after taking several fiery walks, hatching (or incubating) three ancient creatures an liberating a city from the chains of slavery . . . well, you can see why she thinks her destiny is to sit upon the Iron Throne.

Recently, the discourse about the portrayal of women in cinema has lit a fuse within the feminist movement. While I will say that some people tend to over analyze the actions of every character - relating them back to contemporary issues, it’s no state secret that female characters are often held to a very unhealthy set of standards:

Be strong, but not emasculating.

Be desirable, but not whorish.

Be charming, but not condescending.

Be ambitious, but not too ambitious.

The criticism about her representation in the show I think comes from a place of genuine concern. These fans want her to succeed because, seven hells, this woman has been through A LOT. And while there is a dose of sexism in the discourse, I do think that some of the backlash towards the show and creative team is unwarranted.

Daenerys Stormborn is NOT the protagonist in the traditional sense. She is a principle character who is heavily featured in both the books and Martin’s 5 novels. If you look at the charts below, people (who are more tech savvy than me) created comparison charts to help determine principle characters:

You may not like that Jon is painted as the hero or that Tyrion is featured prominently, but EVERY character has faced failures and loss in this series.

The freedom to lead is not freedom from failure.

No character is entirely good or entirely bad – Dany included. From white savior to female icon, Daenerys has been a polarizing character since season 1. She has made choices that, even when justifiable, were not . . . the most diplomatic solutions. She has a temper. She can be impulsive. But she is also affectionate with her friends. She is nurturing towards her dragons (in the books, her ancestors used whips to direct their dragons). She is also a queen . . . living in a patriarchal system that Aegon Targaryen established almost 300 years prior. She is single handedly trying to undo 300 years of patriarchal feudalism. That’s a pretty ambitious goal!

While Westerosi politics are similar to our own, they do not have cemented democratic institutions. The Night’s Watch is probably the closest example we have of a meritocracy (rule by merit or ability). The majority of the kingdom falls under the rule of one monarch who distributes semiautonomous authority through bonds of vassalage.

Change requires sacrifice . . . and compromise.

When was the last time you saw a high fantasy where, at one point, there were 5 women in positions of power? The closest moment in European history where that was a thing was when Catherine the Great of Russia, Madame de Pompadour, the Mistress of the King of France, and Empress Maria Theresa of the Holy Roman Empire combined their forces to fight against Fredrick II of Prussia during the 7 Years War (Fred was kinda a misogynist and coined the phrase The League of the Three Petticoats to describe the three women). Even in early English history, women who fought for power, like Isabella of France and Margaret of Anjou, were dubbed as she-wolves or reckless, power-hungry queens. Hmmm . . . sound familiar?

Now Dany does have a temper. But so did Robert Baratheon. She can be impulsive. She has a sense of entitlement, as do most monarchs and presidents. She is compassionate, loyal to her friends and nurturing towards her dragons (in the books, her ancestors used whips to direct their dragons). She likes to be in control, but she is also willing to listen to others. But she does get angry and she does have insecurities. She is also a human and – like most humans – she is a bundle of idiosyncrasies, conflicting ideas, blinding anxieties and soaring dreams.

Are there problems with the series? Yes.

Have female (and male) characters been portrayed in ways that are questionable? Yeah.

Would a more socially conscious director craft a different narrative or create a more dynamic story? Maybe.

Are you still gonna watch the next episode this Sunday? Most likely.

If you look for flaws, you will find flaws – because, this story was not created by you. So write your own story, whip up a fanfic or make a headcannon!

And besides, there are plenty of real world issues surrounding women that you can (and should) put your energy towards.

[rfidblocking]

i think that you follow a common pattern of sex work advocates who obtusely completely ignore common moral intuitions against sex work. you also frame sex markets (and therefore markets in general, i presume) as eternal and inevetable and i can't agree with that. basically, i don't think anti-sex-work can be reduced to just christian prudishness or something like that. but let me get something out of the way: i understand that nothing short of decriminalization can work within capitalism (1)

           but you need to stop ignoring that sex work bothers a lot of people who are otherwise progressive. i know ex sex workers, who have done both survival and bougie sex work, who found it to be particularly problematic. i myself am scared shitless that i’ll have to do sex work one day. and finally i find it strange that i always have to point out that by and large the consumers of sex work are men, which i think points to its patriarchal properties (2)

           there are concerns that sex markets share with other forms of markets, an obvious one being that it reduces the seller to a commodity in the eyes of the buyer and thus promotes moral solipsism. but i think that commodifying sex bothers many of us in particular because of how intimate it is by nature of being something that requires extensive use of our bodies and our bodies are particularly relevant to that line of work. it feels very much to some of us like that we lose control of ourselves (3)            

           there is a final point of concern i have. within sex markets, people who are more conventionally attractive or have less inhibitions about the use of their body will do better. i think that this problem is present within normal dating scenes, but it gets exacerbated when money is involved. i do not find dismissing the existence or harmfulness of sexual heirarchies to be constructive. i hope that you will take me seriously and i look forward to reading a response (4)            

           a response i often get to some of these concerns is that i am assuming personal intuitions to be universal. i do not doubt that some people don’t experience some of these concerns, but i don’t think that is a warrant to act like nobody does. also, i as i said i realize sex work is not feasibly abolish-able in present circumstances, and trying to do so even with the nordic model only hurts sex workers. i merely wish to defend the concerns many people have with it (4)            

  +   +   +  

Okay, first of all, where on earth did you get the notion that I, or any of us, think markets are eternal? You can’t just assign people random political and economic beliefs like this.

Next, define for me the exact reason why sex work is different and special as compared to any other service job that trades in intimcacy or physical labour. Because the answer people always come up with is that sex is special because it’s sex.

Next, neither I nor any of the other mods are “ignoring” that people are made uncomfortable by sex work. We simply refuse to accept the premise that sex is especially or uniquely dirty or disgusting among all forms of labour or interaction.

Next, if you eliminate capitalism, then yeah, fucking obviously you’re going to eliminate the conditions that lead people to trade sex for subsistance under duress. But you can’t just assume that no one, nowhere is going to choose to become a sex professional. Somepeople just love sex and want to get good at it.

Next, I know a shit load of middle easterns who think we should bomb the entire arabian peninsula out of existence. Them being from there doesn’t make them magically right for thinking that. Having a particular identity doesn’t make you infallible. The assumption that it does is how you get the oppression olympics that positions cam girls above strippers above softcore performers above hardcode performers above full service escorts above full service street level workers. As if all sex workers don’t work in sex, and as if laws targetting the “most oppressed” street workers don’t have knockon effects that destroy the lives of porn performers and shit.

Next, the assumption that women do not experience similar levels of sexual desire as men and don’t consume the products of sexual labour is just. Bizarre. It’s a side effect of the misogynistic belief that women are pure, which means they would never be involved in impure, filthy sex.

Next, it’s quite brazen to accuse people of ethical solipsism while you, yourself, refuse to consider that there are women in this world who might enjoy participating, whether as the buyer or seller, in sex work.

Next, sports. Acting. Physical performance of all kinds. Hands on medicine such as surgery. Physical labour such as home building and maintenance. Childcare. All of these are intensely physical jobs that require the use of ones body for the benefit of others, often in exchange for cash. Does the work of a nurse stop being physical simply because they are wearing scrubs? All the same risks people trot out about sex work certainly apply to nurses: the risk of infection, the risk of physical violence from their clients, the risk of severe physical injury, the severe underpayment leading to survival work under capitalism. And yet, the nurse’s job is noble and pure and womanly, and the sex workers job is dehumanizing and commodified. Is it because the nurse is probably wearing a shirt? Is that the difference? Because if so, then what of the artistic model who performs nude anatomy references. Is holding the same post, mid action, fighting against gravity and the human body’s need to move, not a physical job anymore? Is contorting yourself into difficult poses, naked, at the demand of others not an act of physicality? Or is the sex worker simply special, for some ill defined, ill examined reason?

Next, people who are prettier do better in every market. Women who are prettier do especially better than unattractive women. This is a well known issue among disability advocates, advocates of color, and anyone whose body is seen as imperfect based on hegemonic standards of beauty.

Next, ah, look at that, you did recognize the irony in accusing us of solipsistic morality when engaging in it yourself. How unfortunate that you elect to simply ignore that other people have other experiences and desires, and continue to pedestal your own judgement as the true, singular judgement. (For those unfamiliar with the term, ethical solipsism is the belief that there is no possible ethic outside your own; this is associated with the belief that all of existence is ultimately one’s own consciousness, because one’s perception is inextricably tied to one’s own consciousness).

Next, you assume that because anyone experiences a concern, everyone is obligated to consider their needs. But, only when those concerns match your own. When my concern is reducing the level of stigma, and thus of violence, that people who are professionals in the sex industry face, that concern is irrelevant. Because the acceptance of sex work- the workers and the job itself- is anathema to you, you cannot conceive of how it might be harmful to others to deny this acceptance. To be quite frank, I’m increasingly unsure that you actually know what ethical solipsism is.

Next, if you know full well that sex work cannot be “abolished,” and you know full well that sex workers need decrim and support to be safe, the why, in the name of everything holy on or off this forsaken earth, do you feel the need to come make a bunch of sex workers explain to you the way that your flawed and faulty rationales are harming us, without even the decency to give us a fucking tip?

Take your gish gallop and your salad of terms you barely understanding the meaning of, let alone the applications, and fuck right back off into this camp full of woke progressives who so genuinely believe that they’re sex wrokers’ allies while engaging in the very rhetoric that gets. Us. Killed.

XOXOX

💮 Yazminx 💮

PS: Do you genuinely believe that if you throw around technical terminology such as moral solipsism, we’ll just roll over and say that your faulty claims are right?

I know this is shocking, but ethicists and sociologists have the internet too, and sometimes we even have the audacity to fuck.