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elipheleh · 1 year ago

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The truth is every queer person has the right to come out on their own terms, and on their own timeline. They also have the right to choose not to come out at all. The forced conformity of the closet can not be answered with the forced conformity in coming out of it.

-Alex, Red White & Royal Blue (2023)

i want to talk about this quote. full disclosure, it’s because i keep seeing some really frustrating takes (some of which veer into queerphobia) and i am getting a bit annoyed with people and rather than directly addressing it with them & appear to be picking a fight im going to make an analysis post in my space. (tbf. its mostly on twitter and i have a priv account so that limits me)

disclaimer; this is my interpretation, im not saying its the only interpretation just something to consider. i am queer & cognitively disabled - don’t assume malice and dont be cruel. i will ignore and block freely.

tl;dr/very simplified summary: it doesn’t mean “dont ever speculate about other people’s sexuality” but rather that ‘coming out’ in the way society understands it shouldn’t be a necessity for queer people to exist openly as queer. full context under the cut & self-exploration questions at the end.

so lets start with the context. alex is talking at a point in time when the world has read their emails and so knows both are queer (bi & gay, specifically), but neither alex/the white house or henry/the palace have commented. so more simply - alex and henry are known to be queer, but have not come out. alex uses the speech to come out as bi, and as being in love with henry. he also uses it to imply that he & henry should have the right to choose not to do this formal coming out alex is doing.

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okay. lets get into the quote analysis.

The truth is every queer person has the right to come out on their own terms, and on their own timeline.

reasonably self explanatory. each queer person gets to decide their own timing for coming out, and the way that they want to address their sexuality.

They also have the right to choose not to come out at all.

this is where problems with interpretation have started to appear. fundamentally yes, this means people are allowed to not be openly queer/‘out’ if that is what their decision is. but it also means that they can be visibly queer - for example being in a visibly queer relationship; signalling with their aesthetic (e.g. someone being butch, someone who wears only ‘girl’ clothes despite that being at odds to their assigned gender); casually posting about queer things on social media etc - without addressing their own sexuality to others.

it does not mean that you should assume everyone is straight until they explicitly tell you otherwise. and quite frankly insisting that it does mean that is veering into homo-/bi-/queer-phobia because you are insinuating that being not-straight is a negative thing.

The forced conformity of the closet can not be answered with the forced conformity in coming out of it.

some people seem to be interpreting this as ‘you shouldnt force people out of the closet’ and i don’t think thats quite to the nuance of what it means. yes, i do think that is part of it - in much the same way as the previous sentence - but it is not really the whole of it. in my opinion this is actually addressing - at least to some degree - the concept of ‘we should assume people are straight until they explicitly say otherwise’.

the ‘forced conformity of coming out’ addresses the idea that to be “out” you have to follow these steps; that you have to make a public statement that ‘this is my sexuality and i am [queer/bi/gay/pan/ace/etc]’. you are conforming to this precedent of “how to come out” that countless queer people have followed. there’s nothing inherently wrong with doing so, but actually there are different ways to be queer - and even being “out” as queer - that don’t involve following that playbook.

here’s a hypothetical to demonstrate my point. two men, who have never dated any women, live together & spend basically all their time together over 5-10 years. they holiday with each other’s family, they’re always together at events (e.g. weddings of non-mutual friends), but they’ve never told you/the public that they’re queer and/or dating each other. at what point does one start to assume they’re together? and does the answer change if its a man & a woman rather than two men? if a man & a woman did that, people would assume pretty early on they’re probably dating. but yet when it’s two men suddenly it’s invasive to speculate. this is where this concept of the forced conformity of coming out comes in - along with the veering into homophobia i referenced earlier - why must they say the words “i am gay” for it to then be ‘okay’ to consider that they’re together? (the homophobia comes into play because if you think being gay is morally neutral (which it is) then you shouldn’t have any issue with the speculation about people being together regardless of their genders.) the idea that straight is the default is where this forced conformity starts to really kick in.

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i guess the main things i want people to ask themselves are these (and i have been asking myself these questions, there is no judgement or censure just self examination):

1. do you think people can be openly queer publicly without explicitly sharing that they are queer? (by this i mean in an announcement or in casual conversation. can you be openly queer without ever addressing it explicitly?)

2. if you do, why do you think that talking about the possibility someone is queer is something that should be hushed up? is it because there is an internalised concept that being queer is something abnormal and/or negative? if it was a straight couple would you feel the same way?

3. what does “coming out” mean to you? why does it mean that, what have you internalised to get to that conclusion & is it something that always works or are there other ways to be openly queer (or ‘out’ if you prefer)?

4. is it possible that there are queer people living openly and happily as themselves without explicitly addressing their sexuality to the wider world, who don’t want to address it publicly? does this make them closeted or ‘less’ queer to you? if so, what makes you think that?

#dont @ me ab the summary till youve read the post its simplified #rwrb #red white and royal blue #rwrb movie #elio’s meta #elio’s #rwrb meta #this is a sideblog so all replies/asks will be done publicly. if you want it to be private send a dm #i do have a degree in lit analysis so. yeh. but im happy to discuss this civilly if you disagree #key word being civilly if youre angry at me save your breath i will ignore you #i choose not to talk explicitly on my blog about the topic people are using the quote about #if you want to talk about it dm me thats fine. but i am uncomfortable talking about it where i cant control who sees it #i have been.. grumbling about this vaguely its tagged in my negative feelings tag but ive got to a point now #where this quite interpretation is really annoying me #and i cant stop myself #*this quote interpretation - ofc id typo in the tags on my phone where i cant edit it #my punctuation might be terrible i lost track of what i was doing with apostrophes #ive edited this to death procrastinating posting it so im just gonna post it #who cares anymore

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demoisverysexy · 1 year ago

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I'm sorry but "Warnings for ... anti-Mormonism" The Mormon religion is a fucking cult and countless ex Mormons have come out to say as much. It's abusive, controlling, and horrifying. Don't you dare act like being against a cult deserves to be in the same warning as ableism.

Putting aside the fact that this ask implies that you have been searching through my blog for dirt on me, I have some thoughts. You say there are "countless" ex-Mormons who say that Mormonism is a cult. How many exmos is that? I know ex-Mormons who say it isn't a cult. They left because of legitimate grievances they have with the church, grievances which I largely agree with, but they insist it isn't a cult despite those issues they have. Which ex-Mormons should I be listening to? The ones who agree with you or the ones that agree with me?

My issue with this ask is how deeply uncurious and unserious it is. I have talked about why Mormonism isn't a cult before at length. I have talked about my issues with the religion, and have criticized aspects of it publicly. I have engaged publicly in interrogating and living my life in a way that neither betrays my principles nor Mormonism. How well I have done in that regard is not for me to say. But what I can be sure of is that you don't care about that. You're here because you're mad because I chewed you out about your bad take about Brandon Sanderson, as you demonstrated in your second ask:

There are a few things of note here. First of all, in the first sentence alone you made it obvious that your concern about me being Mormon isn't real. You're concern trolling me. You care far more that I dared to disagree with your weird take on the quality of Brandon Sanderson's writing than you care to actually bring up anything meaningful about the harm Mormonism has caused in the world as an institution. You're attempting here to sabotage my character and not actually address my beliefs and positions. You don't care, and that is why you move the goalposts both for your statement about my beliefs on Mormonism (me believing Mormonism isn't a cult becomes me "acting like anti-cult is bad"), and your shifting of your own position.

Let's talk about your original post for a moment, shall we. When you, the curator of a sideblog centered around A Song of Ice and Fire (hereafter referred to as ASoIAF), decide to make a post making fun of fans of Brandon Sanderson's books, how are we supposed to interpret this? Typically online when we make fun of the fans media online, we are not merely passing judgement on the fans themselves, we are implying that the fact that they enjoy the specific media they are fans of is an indicator of their stupidity in some way (e.g. Marvel fans, Swifties, etc). So while, in your initial post, it is true you said nothing textually about the quality of Sanderson's writing, by throwing Sanderson's fans under the bus, you were implying that Sanderson himself has done something to incur our ire as well. Then on top of that when I said in response to your post with "Question: why the fuck are we dragging Sanderson in all this? Not everything has to be game of thrones dude," you replied hyperbolically that you were going to break into every fan of Sanderson's writing and replace their copies of the Stormlight Archive with a box set of ASoIAF. Which implies much more strongly that you have a negative perception of Sanderson's writing compared to Martin's. The fact that after I responded with my post dressing you down, you went on to tag me in the notes of your own post passive aggressively, and then send me two anons vagueing me about my takes on Mormonism that you never bring up specifically indicates to me that you don't have an argument, not really. You're just mad, and you want an excuse to not like me. It's been a full day since I reblogged your post, and you decided to send me these asks. Don't you have anything better to do?

At the end of the day, a lot of the anti-Mormon sentiments (bigoted sentiments, as opposed to sentiments merely critical of actual problems within the church) comes down to laziness. When someone hates someone or something, there is a strong temptation to no longer think of the object of their hatred as worthy of study or speculation or even scrutiny. Any bad thing that is said about the object of one's hatred can be accepted and not questioned. It's useful in affirming your hatred, after all. And because of that, Mormonism itself is cast as a reason to dislike someone, as opposed to their actual bad actions.

I have done bad things in the past on tumblr. Publicly too. I'm sure you could find them if you went digging. But if you were to do that, I don't think you would be doing yourself, or me for that matter, any good. You would be no closer to seeing me, to hearing me, to understanding my way of seeing things and what makes me tick. When you view me merely as an opponent, as an obstacle in your story as opposed to somebody with a rich and complicated life, you impoverish your own experience and it becomes impossible for you to change me in a way that matters. If I am wrong to be Mormon, your attitude is the last thing I need. If you can't respect my human decency, please at least leave me alone. You have nothing to gain in obsessing over me because I disagreed with you about fantasy novels.

#mormonism #religion #queerstake #demo speaks #demo answers #asks #cw antimo

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lifeonthemurdersim · 3 months ago

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The Darkness Within Fandom/Universe: We Happy Few (my sideblog for that is actually @hazelnutjoy but I'm trying to keep everything in one place so I'll just rb this there) Characters/Pairing: OC x OC AO3 Link(full tags, warnings etc here) Word count: 2,134 words Synopsis: Ruby's finally getting what she wants. But can she hold back what she really is? Author's Note: OK I'm going to admit that this barely relates to WHF itself because it's more of a random thought I had that fit my OCs for it. I hope to write more for them eventually though. More about Gorekinktober on my pinned post here! Kinktober prompt(s) used: Roleplay Goretober prompt used: Painful Transformation

Julie had the sweetest kiss.

Ruby should know, she'd been lost in it entirely for a while now, and it was wonderful. Soft, warm, she tasted floral, like the scent of roses. The problem, however, was how to take things further.

She had to be careful, with the way her girlfriend's mind was. It didn't seem right to make love to a girl whose head was so far up in the clouds it was hard to know if she was truly in the moment or not. But she'd said she wanted to, and Ruby knew she meant it. God knows it was all she wanted right now. They both knew tonight was supposed to be The Night. Julie had got all dressed up and everything. Ruby herself had already taken her trousers off and was in her blouse and underwear.

The only thing was... as someone who was too young to publicly exist in Wellington Wells until she was old enough to bluff being older, Ruby had lived a rather sheltered existence. She'd never actually done this before. With anyone. The only other person she was close to who she knew for a fact had done anything like this was her own mother, and she was hardly going to ask her. She slid one hand into Iuliana's dark curls and started moving her other down her side, enjoying the soft curves of her warm body as the excitement in her began to pick up, but as she reached her hip, Julie let out a light giggle into the kiss. Not exactly what she was going for, and it made her hold back again.

Thinking about it, it probably wasn't surprising it was hard to make this jump. She'd spent well over a year holding back her true desires when they were friends. Some habits were hard to break. She pulled back from the kiss slightly. "Listen, Jules, um..." she began. "Are you... nervous at all?"

Julie thought for a moment. "I don't know, perhaps a little bit." she admitted as she fiddled with the hem of her nightie. "I was only ever... with Terrance, you know? And I... I don't really recall..." She swallowed. "Things are a little hazy now. Including the night we... deflowered each other."

"Don't have to use phrases like that, Jules." Ruby said with a nervous laugh, scratching the back of her neck at the awkward jealousy that left her with. "You know I... sometimes wish I could... could... do that for you."

"Do what?" Julie asked, cocking her head to one side.

"Well you know... be... a boy. For you." She looked to the side thoughtfully. "Maybe... maybe not just for you."

"Isn't that what Lemon Joy is for?" her partner asked a little absent-mindedly. "The... the clear yellow one?"

"I um... I think so." Ruby replied thoughtfully. "But... I don't want to go back to taking any sort of Joy." she says firmly. "Besides, I... I don't..." she shook her head. "It's really hard to explain, Jules. I don't want to be a boy all the time, I just... wish I could... sometimes...? I know it makes no sense."

Julie thought for a moment. "Maybe not." she agreed. "But I love you whoever you are, my darling." She gave Ruby a soft smile, leaning over for another peck of her lips. "As a girl, as a boy... even if you were the... the monster." Ruby looks at her, confused.

"What... monster?" she asks curiously, worrying about whether it's another of the delusions Julie's been stuck with ever since the Coconut Joy.

"Ever since the... the incident..." Julie began. Ruby didn't actually know her before then. But Terry had spoken of how much it changed her. He wasn't truly his fiance anymore after that, but he was indebted to stand by her side. Ruby respected him for it. But now he had a new partner, and Ruby and Julie had each other, and everyone involved was so blissfully happy that it didn't even need to be fretted about. "I've had these nightmares. There's this... dark force following me. This monster, and... and if it catches me..." She drew a sharp intake of breath. "I wake up."

"Oh love, don't upset yourself." Ruby said sadly, trying to intervene as quickly as possible. "Let's just enjoy where we are, yeah?"

"Oh, no no!" Julie replied. "It's not upsetting, Ruby, it's exhilarating, it's... it's thrilling!"

"What?" her girlfriend questioned with a frown. "You... want it to catch you?"

"Well... maybe...?" Julie attempted to explain. "I know it's... it's not right, but..." she pauses, biting at her lip a little. Ruby recognises a certain... passion to it. "I sometimes wish I could know what it was like to be captured." Ruby can see that recalling this dream has affected Julie deeply. It's brought her to the kind of excitement she's hoping to induce. Maybe in a different way, but the two could very well be introduced to each other.

"Jules... what if... the monster was me?" she asked slowly. Julie looked at her with confusion.

"I'm sorry, I'm unsure what you mean." she replies. "You... think you're the monster?:

"Well..." Ruby began. "What I'm saying is, what if I pretended to be the monster? And we... we could play out what I'd do if I caught you." She reached out a hand to rest on Julie's thigh. "We could... make it... fun." she suggested.

"Like... the same fun we were... planning to have...?" Julie asked with a coy smile.

"Yeah." Ruby confirmed, glancing away. "If that's not... y'know... really strange."

"Yes!" Julie insisted rather emphatically, shuffling closer to her. "It's not sttange, I think... I do think that would be fun." Ruby looked back at her. Her smile was genuine. Then again, with Julie it usually always was.

"Well..." she responded, a little smirk growing across her face. "I'm sorry to tell you, Miss. Loveridge, but the monster has in fact-" She shifted her free hand to Julie's shoulder, going to push her softly onto the bed, her face hovering right over the other woman's. "-caught you." She leant down and kissed her again, and whether it was the change of pace or the recreating of her dream, she could feel that Julie was kissing her back a little more vigorously, a hand sliding to Ruby's back.

OK, she really liked this. Now Ruby had to just stop overthinking it. She managed to sink herself into the kiss and switch her brain off for a minute, let her feelings take hold of her as she slipped her tongue into Julie's mouth, the other responding with a soft moan, that hand at her back pulling her in closer.

As she began to relax more though, she felt an odd pain gripping at her stomach. She pulled back from the kiss rather abruptly. Julie looked at her in confusion. "Are you OK, Rubes?" she checked.

"I... don't know..." she said honestly. "I feel a bit... um... weird?" she admitted, not wanting to keep anything from Julie.

Julie nodded, although she looked a little disappointed. "Do you... want to stop?" she checked.

"No! No no no, I... I want to keep going Jules, please." she insisted, not wanting to let go now they were finally making progress. But she couldn't deny that it was starting to really hurt. Still, she ignored it, slipping the fragile straps of Julie's nightie off her shoulders, reaching a hand over her breasts and caressing them gently through the satin, feeling Julie's nipples standing to attention as she moaned out softly.

Ruby was finally getting what she wanted, she'd wanted this for so long, so why did her whole body feel like it was on fire? Was that arousal? Was arousal supposed to feel like it was ripping your entire being open? For all she knew it was, so she ignored it, pushing onward. "I-if I'm the monster." she suggested. "I should probably..." She dug a finger at Iuliana's neckline, and dragged downwards, suddenly strong enough to rip through the middle of the fabric, tearing right through the dress.

She pulled the whole thing open so she could finally see her lover's chest unveiled, her breathing growing deep and shaky. Julie smiled and slipped the garment off her shoulders, not seeming to care that Ruby ripped it. Ruby ran a hand over the sudden expense of Julie's soft, brown skin, cupping one of her breasts. She stroked her other hand down Julie's waist and over the frills of her lacey knickers, her own growing extremely damp now. Julie locked eyes with her, then reached up and began to undo the buttons of Ruby's shirt, eyes fixed on her. Ruby allowed her to do it, biting at her lip in anticipation, before slipping the blouse off her shoulders.

She lowered her body on top of her partner's, the other woman spreading her legs to give her space, and as their bare chests slipped against each other, that burning feeling grows; she wanted her, she wanted her now, the lust within her couldn't wait any longer. She leant across and began to kiss at her neck, but simultaneously she ran a finger along the top of Julie's underwear before slipping her hand in. She brushed past a forest of soft but wiry hair, underneath which was unsurprisingly genetalia much like her own. She knew what felt nice to touch. She could do this. As she began to rub softly at the protruding nub in Julie's knickers, her girlfriend let out a high, rough moan, before settling into softer moans as Ruby continued to touch her.

"Ruby..." she gasped, spurring her on to rub harder. "This... feels... so... nice!" She was no longer playing the monster, she was doing this herself, she had become one with the monster, but now, now the pain was growing; ripping, stretching, breaking her.

"Jules..." she whimpered back, as the awful pain of it began to burn and twist her. "Jules..." Julie is enjoying it too much to really realise though, can't she see it? Ruby's skin is literally tearing from her body, replaced by something dark, twisted, formless.

She could no longer touch. She could no longer even see, really. She had burst, split open, become what she really was. What she'd always had been. An abomination. A monster. She tried to call Julie's name again but she only let out a pained roar.

"Ruby?" Julie asked, looking at her as if nothing had changed, just with a tiny hint of worry. Could she not see the monster Ruby had become? Did she not even realise? "Ruby?" she asked. "Ruby? Are you alright? Ruby?"

Ruby jolted awake with a significant gasp of breath, panting hard. "Oh." she said, feeling and sounding dazed. She realised those last checks by Julie were real. "Yeah... yeah I... what's... going on?"

"Um... I think you fell asleep." Julie said in her usual, slightly absent way, but with a thread of sympathy. "I'm really sorry if I bored you... I think I was talking about the wedding flowers too much."

"No, no Jules, it's not that, I promise!" Ruby assured her. "I just... I haven't been sleeping that well recently is all."

"Oh, oh my dear, I'm so sorry to hear it!" Iuliana replied sympathetically, reaching out to stroke Ruby's arm. Ruby looked at her as every nerve end where she was touching tingled. "Would... would you like to sleep in my bed?" she asked, gesturing to it in the corner.

"No!" Ruby replied abruptly, and then realised how odd it sounded and corrected herself. "It's... it's just, I was having this right odd dream and... if I kip here I don't doubt I'll find myself right back in it."

"Oh." Iuliana said softly. "I do so like dreams. But it sounds like you might have had a nightmare."

"Y-yeah, it was, I mean... it was nice... at... at first, but then... well one thing led to another and I... started turning into a... a monster." she shook her head. "It felt... so... so real." Julie nodded softly.

"I see." she replied, thinking for a moment, then continuing in her happy, breezy tone. "Well... you're not a monster." she mused softly. Ruby looked at her uncertainly. "Maybe... if it happens again, you can just... remind yourself you're not a monster." She smiled and then pulled Ruby into a hug.

Ruby relaxed into being held, resting her head on Iuliana's shoulder tentatively, entranced by the warm embrace of her friend. Her friend who she loved desperately. Her friend whose affection kept her happy, kept her going no matter what. Her friend who was getting married, to her other dear friend no less, in a matter of months.

"Yeah." she lied. "I can do that."

I feel like I'm going to be so judged whenever I do 'it was a dream' type stuff because this is the second I've done in th3 last few months, but dreams and nightmares and fantasies run through a lot of what I do so I honestly don't think it's that bad 😅

Btw Iuliana is tumblr monsterfucker ERPer trapped in AU 60s confirmed. Ruby is she/he nonbinary trapped in AU 60s confirmed.