#yes those women who alter themselves in that way are victims of patriarchy

[kvetcher2]

by getting botox and fillers and cosmetic surgeries you are actively participating in making the world a more hostile place for the women who choose not to do those things. you are actively applying pressure on those women. you are creating a world where women who don’t do those things are told they are “aging like milk” because no one knows what a normal, unaltered female face looks like anymore.

[cotton-candy-in-a-thong]

Noncon stories, Fantasy vs. Reality, and more. fucking. issues.

Recently, I’ve been hit with some drama as to why I’m a “bad person” by various, anonymous users in this fandom. I thought I’d try to address the claim, address my stance on fics that involve noncon, and what I think about the “Tumblr mentality” after everything I’ve seen of this place. I should also note that I’m going to use the specific words and phrases I’ve been forced to constantly repeat as explaining my stance has been very difficult for me, as I’m a person who’s apparently challenging to understand.

This is going to be a long post, with subjects that's obviously going to trigger people so here's a warning right now..

That being said, I’m going to dive into this with some shit I’ve definitely said before:

“Consensual Noncon” Kink

The Appeal of this Theme in Fanfiction:

I don't think calling fics that involve noncon "rape fics" and those who enjoy it "getting off to rape" is a very good way to put it. Many engaging and well done media pieces often involve some very dark themes. Again, Monster by Meg and Dia is a song that features the main character sexually abusing a girl he met. You COULD call this a "rape song", but acting as if the rape is the only thing that matters in this story would be pretty..naive. The story has to do with an emotionally, and physically neglected/abused boy, who grows up and becomes an attention/love starved monster who's SO starving for validation, that he believes forcing himself upon a girl he knew would "prove" to himself that he's capable of being touched and loved. Of course, the main character eventually realizes that rape is not love, that what he did was wrong, and later kills himself in his own bathtub with kerosene and a match.

However, the assault aspect of this song is still a meaningful and alluring part because it talks about how emotional and physical abuse can warp someone's perspective on reality, to the point where they think forcing someone to "stay" with them is how to create a healthy relationship. That's the same energy I have for noncon fics, especially in the slasher fandom. Many slasher fics that contain noncon often have to do with the slasher preying on the reader because of their own fucked up mind. It's intriguing because, let's be honest, pretty much none of the slashers are in a pretty good mental space lmao. Thus, noncon actually falls more in line with how slashers would go about what they believe is a "good relationship" more often than quite a bit of fans here seem to believe. Again, Michael got boners, Jason chained someone up, Fredddy smooches people against their will, Billy Lenz is a sex offender, Chromeskull makes snuff, yada yada yada, you know the drill. That being said, it's interesting to see noncon being expressed with these characters because it gives us a new perspective on how fucked up they'd likely be if the world of sex and relationships was introduced to these characters.

Now why would some people become sexually aroused by the events of the story? First of all, how does “Consensual Noncon” kink work?

u/Jumbledcode. (2015). ‘Can anyone comment on why people (someone like me) enjoy rape/non-con story lines?’. r/TwoXChromosomes.

“I'd suggest that there are several factors that make up the appeal of non-con fantasies.

Guilt/Self-image: For many people, their sexual/relationship desires don't necessarily match their image of themselves, or alternatively they feel guilt over others' perceptions of those desires. Rape fantasies allow them to mantain some illusion of denial over their desires while still indulging in the idea of them.

Responsibility/Laziness: The appeal of abdicating control isn't limited to avoiding guilt; it's very tempting to want a scenario where you have no responsibility for maintaining your lifestyle/happiness. Similarly to before, it's the appeal of being given what you secretly want without even having to choose it.

Transgressiveness: A rape scenario has overtones of danger and taboo-breaking. These can easily be exciting and can therefore be a turn-on.

Desire: Being wanted is often a huge turn-on, and the idea of someone desiring you enough to break laws and disregard everything to have you plays into this feeling.

To me, it seems that most people who fantasize about being the subject of rape do so due to some mix of these motivations I've mentioned. Of course, there are also those who have experiences which have taught them to associate non-consent with their sexuality, but that's a separate issue”.

What if the Fanfic Only Involves the Act though? Wouldn’t it Encourage Actual Rape?

Let’s differentiate fantasy and reality. Towards those with the noncon kink: it offers arousal because of the ideas listed above (the idea of the reader not having to make any moves and the character doing the “intimate work” FOR them, the excitement of such a taboo sexual encounter, and the feeling to be desired through an altered, brutish encounter). Rape is the use of sex to remove control over the victim’s mind and body. The readers DO have control over whether or not they get to “encounter” (the choice to even read) this fantasy, so right away consent is present in reality, and no actual rape is being done.

Now does this mean that the kinkers are getting off on the idea of rape? Not really.

The thing with self-inserts is that it allows you to be connected to the story. That way, even if the story has you bruised up and begging for mercy, a part of you-you (if you’re a kinker) wants to keep reading it as you find it exciting. That way, as you and story-you are connected, what you really want in such a fantasy is for it to keep going despite the brutish, possessive, however yet desired nature of the character you’re dreaming about dealing with. (repeat: the idea of the reader not having to make any moves and the character doing the “intimate work” FOR them, the excitement of such a taboo sexual encounter, and the feeling to be desired through an altered, brutish encounter). That being said, it’s still entirely possible for kinkers to have their personal space and wishes crossed, and ultimately assaulted. Us enjoying the fantasy of such a reverie sexual encounter does not spell out to real life because (in reality) we’re not horny all the time, we would still like our bodies to be respected when we find it necessary, and we still have feelings as we’re still human.

“Fantasy (including video games) leads to violence” fallacy.

It would be like assuming that shooters in games like GTA fantacise about murder, encourage it, and would do it in real life. Taking fabricated anger out on virtual bodies or NPCs is quite different from the weight of murder (the killing of another human being). One can play video games with lots of violence towards such fabricated characters, while discouraging violence towards human beings. The act of using a game controller to beat up Donkey Kong in Smash, to shoot Nazi zombies in a Black Ops game, or to kill a Geisha in Little Nightmares is incredibly, and immensely different from completely eradicating the life of a person on Earth, and to assume that everyone who plays violent video games would spill out to violence in reality would be to participate in a ridiculous fallacy. Yes, there are outliers who are feeble minded enough to let their fantasies influence their actions towards actual people, but I must repeat that there are also people who utilize these fantasies for their personal satisfaction, while understanding the weight of the real world around them (and choosing not to act so detrimentally). Therefore, it wouldn’t be fair as it would be unnecessary to blatantly say that all fantasies are horrible and should be entirely eradicated if there ARE many people who ARE aware enough to understand that some thoughts are better off staying in fiction.

Now is the time to address what’s been said:

...Firstly, I think it’s very disgusting that random users, on Tumblr of all places, are trying to manipuate random victims of sexual assault into hating something or someone just because these users FEEL like “it’s the right thing to do”.. People, victims of sexual assault aren’t your fucking dogs. They’re not carriage horses, they’re not your work mules, they’re not your guns and swords...they’re just people who normally wanna be left the fuck alone like everyone else. Plus, there ARE people who have experienced sexual assault who take joy in reading such dark storylines. What would these users have to say to them? That they’re not “real” victims? That what they’ve experienced “never happened”? That they’re “just like” their own perpetrators for using the consensual nonconsent to miraculously help them overcome their trauma? Should they really abandon their coping mechanism just because there are other victims who cope in different ways?

..If you seriously believe that all people who have gone through a traumatic event are gonna cope in the exact same fucking way, you literally don’t even know enough about PTSD to even be making a bold statement about cope.

This is the part where I finally realized that people, and especially those on Tumblr, don’t actually care about rape victims as much as they may claim. Many users on here, on this platform and in this fandom, don’t truly give a flying monkey shit about rape victims as people, nor what they have to say about the subject. Rape victims..on this place..seem to be used mainly as a means of figurative weaponry for a group’s subjective morality.

I find the similarity close to radical feminism. Radical feminists often believe that women, from near and far, have to do everything in their power to “destroy” the patriarchy. This would mean disobeying the societal expectation of women, even if there are some women who take joyment in engaging in some societal standards for their personal liking. An example would be sex work. Radical feminists acknowledge the flaws in performing sex work, but believe that NO woman should EVER partake even if the woman wants to do it out of her own free will. In demonizing and ostracizing any woman who doesn’t fall into the radical feminist agenda, radical feminists actually contradict their purpose to “let women be free”. At this point, you realize that radical feminists often don’t actually give a fuck about what any woman wants for herself. Instead, radical feminists want to utilize any woman they can find just to flip off men as a group.

In Tumblr users trying to “stand up” for rape victims for their personal “holier-than-thou” ego, they fail to care enough about the very people they defend to understand the dynamics of some of their coping mechanisms, thus begin to bully some members of the group they claim to protect because of the very narcissism, misunderstanding, and controlling nature going on behind their own “activism”. So now that some users have found something to hate, in this case being noncon stories, they attempt to manipulate victims of rape into ostraciszing and demonizing fantasies and other victims of rape just because the “activists” themsleves don’t like it. Even trying to argue that rape victims have a “duty” to agree with everything these “activists” try to do for them.

Sounds awfully familiar to the attitude democrats have towards any minority when it’s time to vote. “I care about you...but you have to agree with everything I say and believe because I want what I think is best for you. If you disagree with me, you’re ungrateful and a traitor”.

Now...a little about myself.

I’m not sure of everyone else who’s into the noncon type of story, but I use it to get away from my past. In noncon stories, I want to read what happens in the chapters. I want to imagine them for morbid curiosity and arousal I feel at the time being. In reality, my attackers didn’t care when I wasn’t in the mood, and never gave me a choice. In noncon stories, I get to choose the character I want to encounter in the fantasy and NOT have it picked FOR me. In real life, I didn’t get to choose who did some things to me. In noncon stories, I get to stop reading them and do something else whenever I’m not feeling it anymore. In reality? My attackers kept going because, in the situation, it was no longer up to me. After noncon stories, my body doesn’t walk away with bruises, bite marks, and physical reminders every time I take my clothes off or try to masturbate. In real life...that shit can mark you, disease you, and then traumatize you. With the stories, I get to delete my search history, join another fandom, and act like nothing ever happened. For reality? Your own body is a reminder of what happened because it was real. In reality, I’m NEVER gonna fucking forget what happened. I’ll be lucky if my own mind and body doesn’t haunt me for at least one day..

So seeing that someone, and probably multiple people not only tried to use victims of sexual assault for their own “go get em” dogs, but to try and phrase me as someone who loves and encourages such an assault on human beings? After the things I felt? After the things I tasted? After pathetically searching for the support of relatives, just to get shut down with “you’re lying”?..

...All the times I've been held down..threatened..clothes getting snagged off..parts being opened and touched after I've fought to just get the fuck away from certain people...

According to this anon..."she likes rape".

...I guess I just fucking LOVED EVERYTHING THEN.

You know...all my life I’ve been misunderstood by many people. It’s honestly really disappointing that even now when I’m better at explaining myself than ever, I’m STILL being phrased as a “psychopath” by random people who haven’t even taken the time to even know me. Not even from a minute-long conversation through a damn computer screen. And you wanna know the funny thing? I’m probably being laughed at as this is being read. Some of these users, these internet stalkers, are probably giggling, smiling, and saying “Haha YES we GOT the bitch!! Cry you piece of shit SLUT!!”. So maybe explaining my past experiences to help everyone understand why some people may use noncon stories to their fantasy advantage is gonna land me messages going: “You haven’t been raped you lying bitch”, “Maybe you should get raped again”, “You definitely enjoyed it”, and the overused, yet strong “Kill yourself”.

So how am I gonna end this message? With me saying that many of you, who THINK you’re doing the right thing by justifying harassment and trying to manipulate others into joining your little crusade to bully people away from the fandom (over extremely mundane fucking things)...aren’t really good people. At best, in this case...you’re fucking stupid. You will never truly speak for any of the marginalized groups you claim to know like the back of your hand. Simply, you will never. be. a hero.

If by chance, by an astrological chance..that any random user wants to come up and apologize out of the blue for talking such shit and for saying such things..I don't even wanna hear it...just get the fuck out of my face..

[savedfromsalvation]

The 12 Worst Ideas Organized Religion Has Unleashed On the World

These dubious concepts advocate conflict, cruelty and suffering.

By Valerie Tarico / AlterNet

April 30, 2018, 10:34 PM GMT

Some of humanity’s technological innovations are things we would have been better off without: the medieval rack, the atomic bomb and powdered lead potions come to mind. Religions tend to invent ideas or concepts rather than technologies, but like every other creative human enterprise, they produce some really bad ones along with the good.

I've previously highlighted some of humanity’s best moral and spiritual concepts, our shared moral core. Here, by way of contrast, are some of the worst. These twelve dubious concepts promote conflict, cruelty, suffering and death rather than love and peace. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, they belong in the dustbin of history just as soon as we can get them there.

1. Chosen People –The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept. The New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones. Calvinists talk about “God’s elect,” believing that they themselves are the special few who were chosen before the beginning of time. Jehovah’s witnesses believe that 144,000 souls will get a special place in the afterlife. In many cultures certain privileged and powerful bloodlines were thought to be descended directly from gods (in contrast to everyone else).

Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer. “Gang symbols” like special haircuts, attire, hand signals and jargon differentiate insiders from outsiders and subtly (or not so subtly) convey to both that insiders are inherently superior.

2. Heretics – Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human. In the Torah, slaves taken from among outsiders don’t merit the same protections as Hebrew slaves. Those who don’t believe in a god are corrupt, doers of abominable deeds. “There is none [among them] who does good,” says the Psalmist.

Islam teaches the concept of “dhimmitude” and provides special rules for the subjugation of religious minorities, with monotheists getting better treatment than polytheists. Christianity blurs together the concepts of unbeliever and evildoer. Ultimately, heretics are a threat that needs to be neutralized by conversion, conquest, isolation, domination, or—in worst cases—mass murder.

3. Holy War – If war can be holy, anything goes. The medieval Roman Catholic Church conducted a twenty year campaign of extermination against heretical Cathar Christians in the south of France, promising their land and possessions to real Christians who signed on as crusaders. Sunni and Shia Muslims have slaughtered each other for centuries. The Hebrew scriptures recount battle after battle in which their war God, Yahweh, helps them to not only defeat but also exterminate the shepherding cultures that occupy their “Promised Land.” As in later holy wars, like the modern rise of ISIS, divine sanction let them kill the elderly and children, burn orchards, and take virgin females as sexual slaves—all while retaining a sense of moral superiority.

4. Blasphemy – Blasphemy is the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even question. By definition, criticism of these ideas is an outrage, and it is precisely this emotion–outrage–that the crime of blasphemy evokes in believers. The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers; the Quran does not, but death-to-blasphemers became part of Shariah during medieval times.

The idea that blasphemy must be prevented or avenged has caused millions of murders over the centuries and countless other horrors. As I write, blogger Raif Badawi awaits round after round of flogging in Saudi Arabia—1000 lashes in batches of 50—while his wife and children plead from Canada for the international community to do something.

5. Glorified suffering – Picture secret societies of monks flogging their own backs. The image that comes to mind is probably from Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, but the idea isn’t one he made up. A core premise of Christianity is that righteous torture—if it’s just intense and prolonged enough–can somehow fix the damage done by evil, sinful behavior. Millions of crucifixes litter the world as testaments to this belief. Shia Muslims beat themselves with lashes and chains during Aashura, a form of sanctified suffering called Matam that commemorates the death of the martyr Hussein. Self-denial in the form of asceticism and fasting is a part of both Eastern and Western religions, not only because deprivation induces altered states but also because people believe suffering somehow brings us closer to divinity.

Our ancestors lived in a world in which pain came unbidden, and people had very little power to control it. An aspirin or heating pad would have been a miracle to the writers of the Bible, Quran, or Gita. Faced with uncontrollable suffering, the best advice religion could offer was to lean in or make meaning of it. The problem, of course is that glorifying suffering—turning it into a spiritual good—has made people more willing to inflict it on not only themselves and their enemies but also those who are helpless, including the ill or dying (as in the case of Mother Teresa and the American Bishops) and children (as in the child beating Patriarchy movement).

6. Genital mutilation – Primitive people have used scarification and other body modifications to define tribal membership for as long as history records. But genital mutilation allowed our ancestors several additional perks—if you want to call them that. Infant circumcision in Judaism serves as a sign of tribal membership, but circumcision also serves to test the commitment of adult converts. In one Bible story, a chieftain agrees to convert and submit his clan to the procedure as a show of commitment to a peace treaty. (While the men lie incapacitated, the whole town is then slain by the Israelites.)

In Islam, painful male circumcision serves as a rite of passage into manhood, initiation into a powerful club. By contrast, in some Muslim cultures cutting away or burning the female clitoris and labia ritually establishes the submission of women by reducing sexual arousal and agency. An estimated 2 million girls annually are subjected to the procedure, with consequences including hemorrhage, infection, painful urination and death. – In the list of religion’s worst ideas, this is the only one that appears to be in its final stages. Only some Hindus (, goddess of power) and some Muslims (, Feast of the Sacrifice) continue to ritually slaughter sacrificial animals on a mass scale. Hindu scriptures including the Gita and Puranas forbid ritual killing, and most Hindus now eschew the practice based on the principle of ahimsa, but it persists as a residual of folk religion.

7. Blood sacrifice – In the list of religion’s worst ideas, this is the only one that appears to be in its final stages. Only some Hindus (during the Festival of Gadhimai, goddess of power) and some Muslims (during Eid al Adha, Feast of the Sacrifice) continue to ritually slaughter sacrificial animals on a mass scale. Hindu scriptures including the Gita and Puranas forbid ritual killing, and most Hindus now eschew the practice based on the principle of ahimsa, but it persists as a residual of folk religion.

When our ancient ancestors slit the throats of humans and animals or cut out their hearts or sent the smoke of sacrifices heavenward, many believed they were literally feeding supernatural beings. In time, in most religions, the rationale changed—the gods didn’t need feeding so much as signs of devotion and penance. The residual child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible (yes, it is there) typically has this function. Christianity’s persistent focus on blood atonement—the notion of Jesus as the be-all-end-all lamb without blemish, the final “propitiation” for human sin—is hopefully the last iteration of humanity’s long fascination with blood sacrifice.

8. Hell – Whether we are talking about Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, an afterlife filled with demons, monsters, and eternal torture was the worst suffering the Iron Age minds could conceive and medieval minds could elaborate. Invented, perhaps, as a means to satisfy the human desire for justice, the concept of Hell quickly devolved into a tool for coercing behavior and belief.

Most Buddhists see hell as a metaphor, a journey into the evil inside the self, but the descriptions of torturing monsters  and levels of hell can be quite explicit. Likewise, many Muslims and Christians hasten to assure that it is a real place, full of fire and the anguish of non-believers. Some Christians have gone so far as to insist that the screams of the damned can be heard from the center of the Earth or that observing their anguish from afar will be one of the pleasures of paradise.

9. Karma – Like hell, the concept of karma offers a selfish incentive for good behavior—it’ll come back at you later—but it has enormous costs. Chief among these is a tremendous weight of cultural passivity in the face of harm and suffering. Secondarily, the idea of karmasanctifies the broad human practice of blaming the victim. If what goes around comes around, then the disabled child or cancer patient or untouchable poor (or the hungry rabbit or mangy dog) must have done something in either this life or a past one to bring their position on themselves.

10. Eternal Life – To our weary and unwashed ancestors, the idea of gem encrusted walls, streets of gold, the fountain of youth, or an eternity of angelic chorus (or sex with virgins) may have seemed like sheer bliss. But it doesn’t take much analysis to realize how quickly eternal paradise would become hellish—an endless repetition of never changing groundhog days (because how could they change if they were perfect).

The real reason that the notion of eternal life is such a bad invention, though, is the degree to which it diminishes and degrades existence on this earthly plane. With eyes lifted heavenward, we can’t see the intricate beauty beneath our feet. Devout believers put their spiritual energy into preparing for a world to come rather than cherishing and stewarding the one wild and precious world we have been given.

11. Male Ownership of Female Fertility – The notion of women as brood mares or children as assets likely didn’t originate with religion, but the idea that women were created for this purpose, that if a woman should die of childbearing “she was made to do it,” most certainly did. Traditional religions variously assert that men have a god-ordained right to give women in marriage, take them in war, exclude them from heaven, and kill them if the origins of their offspring can’t be assured. Hence Catholicism’s maniacal obsession with the virginity of Mary and female martyrs.

As we approach the limits of our planetary life support system and stare dystopia in the face, defining women as breeders and children as assets becomes ever more costly. We now know that resource scarcity is a conflict trigger and that demand for water and arable land is growing even as both resources decline. And yet, a pope who claims to care about the desperate poor lectures them against contraceptionwhile Muslim leaders ban vasectomies in a drive to outbreed their enemies.

12. Bibliolatry (aka Book Worship) – Preliterate people handed down their best guesses about gods and goodness by way of oral tradition, and they made objects of stone and wood, idols, to channel their devotion. Their notions of what was good and what was Real and how to live in moral community with each other were free to evolve as culture and technology changed. But the advent of the written word changed that. As our Iron Age ancestors recorded and compiled their ideas into sacred texts, these texts allowed their understanding of gods and goodness to become static. The sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam forbid idol worship, but over time the texts themselves became idols, and many modern believers practice—essentially—book worship, also known as bibliolatry.

“Because the faith of Islam is perfect, it does not allow for any innovations to the religion,” says one young Muslim explaining his faith online. His statement betrays a naïve lack of information about the origins of his own dogmas. But more broadly, it sums up the challenge all religions face moving forward. Imagine if a physicist said, “Because our understanding of physics is perfect, it does not allow for any innovations to the field.”

 Adherents who think their faith is perfect, are not just naïve or ill informed. They are developmentally arrested, and in the case of the world’s major religions, they are anchored to the Iron Age, a time of violence, slavery, desperation and early death.

Ironically, the mindset that our sacred texts are perfect betrays the very quest that drove our ancestors to write those texts. Each of the men who wrote part of the Bible, Quran, or Gita took his received tradition, revised it, and offered his own best articulation of what is good and real. We can honor the quest of our spiritual ancestors, or we can honor their answers, but we cannot do both.

Religious apologists often try to deny, minimize, or explain away the sins of scripture and the evils of religious history. “It wasn’t really slavery.” “That’s just the Old Testament.” “He didn’t mean it that way.” “You have to understand how bad their enemies were.” “Those people who did harm in the name of God weren’t real [Christians/Jews/Muslims].” Such platitudes may offer comfort, but denying problems doesn’t solve them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Change comes with introspection and insight, a willingness to acknowledge our faults and flaws while still embracing our strengths and potential for growth.

In a world that is teeming with humanity, armed with pipe bombs and machine guns and nuclear weapons and drones, we don’t need defenders of religion’s status quo—we need real reformation, as radical as that of the 16th Century and much, much broader. It is only by acknowledging religion’s worst ideas that we have any hope of embracing the best.

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington, and the founder of Wisdom Commons. She is the author of "Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light" and "Deas and Other Imaginings." Her articles can be found at valerietarico.com.

[beforeiselfdestruct88-blog]

LGB no T.

I am so sick of this. The black community has worshipped dick and centered black men in everything since day 1. Now silly handmaidens and black men who 'identify' as black women want to speak over actual black women to prop themselves up. How dare you disrespect our existence and use patriarchy in a dress to make yourselves the focal point of female oppression. It's called SEXISM not genderism for a reason. Being female has been the sole basis of our abuse and you have the nerve to pretend all of that can be redirected to being about your "mentality". Get the hell outta here. You don't get to redefine things to suit your agenda. Now you're out here peddling the lie that "black trans women" face the highest level of violence. Bull fucking shit. Black women have experienced more violence than ANYONE ever, especially if we are dark skinned. Black people have been enslaved by other black people, whites, arabs and Natives, all of whom raped black women . Some even forced us to breed in astronomical numbers and take care of all the children regardless of color because all we were good for was production. Black women have suffered FGM, have been forced into marriages as children, our bodies have been placed in human zoos for people to gawk at our 'unusual' figures, our bodies have been used against our will to advance science. Present day black women carry those scars with us because trauma against our humanity for daring to exist while black and female is generational. Not only are we missing and trafficked at ridiculous rates but we are also raped, assaulted and killed under the radar. We have become the punchline for black 'entertainers' and black men everywhere from our skin tone to our character to our mannerisms to our genitalia to our diction. We get cervical cancer more than anyone but we better not say it because "not all women have a cervix." 😑 We are the poster children for everything wrong in society. When society talks about welfare queens and single motherhood, they're not thinking of 'trans' black women. When we get blamed for "destroying the black community with our feminism", they're not thinking of 'trans' black women. When society talks about black women being ugly and ghetto they're not thinking of 'trans' black women. When people approriate our culture and style to give themselves an edge, they're not taking it from 'trans' black women. Black women have attitude. Black women are fat. Black women are raising thugs. They're not talking about 'trans' black women. Day in and out, black women are society's scapegoat while all you care about is being able to use the bathroom you prefer and being able to date straight men without opposition. That is what we call a First World Problem. Your identity crisis and the elective surgeries you get to appease it do not take precedent over the global and never ending disrespect of black women. We didn't have to alter ourselves and go out of our way to be oppressed like you. Just by existing as is, the world has told us that is enough reason to take endless craps on us. Stop acting like black men haven't always found it ok to fight black women like men because our blackness allegedly discounts our womanhood. Stop acting like black men haven't embedded it in their mind that black women are not human but their mules to take care of them when life is hard, only to be discarded when they become successful. Stop acting like black girls aren't constantly robbed of our innocence with assault and dubbed 'fast' so our pain is overlooked and our fault. Stop acting like people haven't always called black women, men because we are the antithesis of white beauty standards. Stop acting like every woman doesn't get an ego boost on our backs. We are woman enough to be raped, trafficked, called bitches and hoes but too 'manly' to reap the finances, protection and reverence patriarchal society's claim to give women. Stop acting like black women are not abused physically, psychologically, emotionally and financially and haven't always been by white society, black society and everyone in between. Acting like you have it so hard when we have always been treated like an other just for being born. "The most disrespected and least protected person on the planet is the black woman." - Malcolm X He said black woman. Not black 'trans' woman. Cis privilege my ass. You think because you've been feeling for the last year what black women have been feeling since FOREVER, that you have it worse? You are only experiencing a sliver of what we get anyway. It's just that typical fragile masculinity you were born into that has you thinking you are the peak of oppression. You went your whole lives ignoring and/or capitalizing on the degradation of black women because your maleness allowed you to put it on the back burner. Your internal issues with gender did not negate the external privilege you received. But now that you 'identify' as one of us, we need to make you a priority or you slander us with poor reverse psychology. How narcissistic can you get? Womens rights are only worthy of attention when you are involved? "TERF" is not a thing btw. Stop using racism, sexism and homophobia to make yourself valid. You cannot compare white privilege, male privilege and straight privilege to this nonsense. Women have never had privilege. Or do you just wanna ignore the last thousands of years? You were born on the side of privilege and into the dominant oppressing class. Now you want access to a marginalized group with no questions and throw tantrums when we say no. It's almost like your male privilege conditioned you to force yourself onto women at any cost and taught you how to play victim when women don't fall for your shit. You want equal footing in womanhood but won't hesitate to remind us you "have it worse". You want to call lesbians bigots if they exclusively like women and vagina... because hey, how dare some women not want penis in any way, shape or form. Blasphemy! You have no concern for women in shelters fleeing abusive men. You invade their spaces and tell them to suck it up if they don't like your dick and masculine energy. You say nothing when born males use their advantages to dominate female sports. But you're the victim, right? I will say it again. It's called SEXISM, not genderism for a reason. You don't get to keep playing the "being born in the wrong body is not a privilege" card to ignore your advantages and complicity at our expense. Gender identity issues are low priority in comparison to everything else. Every day black women leave our homes, we are subjected to antiblackness and misogyny just for being ourselves. Doesn't matter how we dress or speak, it is hurled our way just for being in a female body via a black package. It will be a cold day in hell before those born male and their delusions get to define womanhood but those of us born female and our realities that came with it don't. Yes, we are the arbiters and gatekeepers of womanhood and it pisses you off there's nothing you can do about it except rally your naive liberal handmaidens and scream TERF. Interestingly enough, there are countless instances of 'trans women' raping, assaulting and killing women but not ONE woman has done that to you. Yet here you all come... into our spaces IRL and on the internet to force yourselves onto us. Why don't you go after the men who fuck you in private but don't want to publicly be seen with you and take your lives with the same gusto? Is it because you have no privilege over them and instead, it's easier to gang up on the 'weaker sex'? It's almost like you devalue women so much, you wanna speak over, redefine and attack us all while blaming our words for violence against you... well what do you know, patriarchy strikes again. We will not give into your demands. We don't negotiate with terrorists. (If misgendering you is 'violence', well propagating existent violence against us is indeed terrorism.) 😊

#blackfeminism #feminism #womanism #womenfirst #saynotopatriarchyinadress

[leviathangourmet]

The Pathologized Male

The American Psychological Association’s summary of its first-ever guide to treating boys and men begins with an apology. Men, according to the author Stephanie Pappas, especially white men, have been the subject of psychology and psychiatry forever. Why bother now to treat them separately at all?

After that somewhat defensive and dismissive start, the answer is that men, when they follow what the APA called “traditional masculine ideology,” hurt themselves and others, and this is a problem for men and everyone. Hence the need for psychological intervention. And we quickly arrive at this statement: “Traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.” Men should presumably learn to be the opposite: emotionally inconstant, collaborative, submissive, and passive. If that’s the kind of man you want to be — much more like a sexist stereotype of a woman — an army of psychologists is ready to help you.

Men and women, for the APA, are not intrinsically or naturally different: “When researchers strip away stereotypes and expectations, there isn’t much difference in the basic behaviors of men and women.” As you keep reading, you begin to realize just how saturated psychology has now become with critical gender theory, and its profound rejection of anything we might call “nature.” Because biology has no influence on sex and gender at all, and testosterone is thereby irrelevant in understanding the psychological nature of men (it is never mentioned in the report), everything is a social construct, and social constructs — a function of patriarchy and white supremacy — can be changed. “If we can change men,” one psychologist tellingly admits, “we can change the world.” If this sounds more like a political project than a guide to therapy, you’re not wrong.

At the very start of the document, for example, this “traditional masculinity ideology” (TMI) is deemed the reason why men commit 90 percent of murders (and always have in every culture and every moment in history). That’s an extraordinary claim, and presumably requires urgent intervention. If a terrorist group, defined as adhering to an ideology, were to kill more than 15,000 Americans a year (the total number of murders committed by men in the U.S. in 2017), we would surely respond with a deep sense of urgency.

What is TMI? The definition varies throughout the document, as it flings various slurs at half the human race. Here’s one such definition: “anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence.” Just weigh that list for a minute — and how expansive it is. Men are exhibiting a dangerous ideology when they seek to “achieve” things, when they risk their lives or fortunes, when they explore unfamiliar territory — and these character traits are interchangeable with violence. As you read the guidelines, you realize that the APA believes that psychologists should be informing men that what they might think is their nature is actually just a set of social constructs that hurt them, murders thousands, and deeply wounds the society as a whole.

TMI ideology tends to “limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict, and negatively influence mental health and physical health.” TMI is also bound up in white supremacy: “It was historically predicated on the exclusion of men who were not White, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied, and privileged.”

The role of psychology? So far as I can tell, it’s indoctrination in critical gender theory: “Psychologists can help clients develop awareness of systems that assume cisgender masculinity expression is the expected norm, and identify how they have been harmed by discrimination against those who are gender nonconforming. Given the connections between sexism and other forms of prejudice, psychologists may find it useful to link oppressions as a pedagogical strategy, especially when working with boys and men in groups.” Good luck with that.

And, yes, the ideological misandry is unmistakable. Check out the equivalent guidelines for women and girls, issued in 2007. Where stoicism is a bad thing for men, especially black men, here’s how it works for women: “In therapy, teaching, research, and supervision, psychologists are encouraged to become aware not only of the challenges that women and girls have faced, but of the resiliency and strength that women and girls have shown in response.” For men, “assertiveness” is part of a pathology; for women, it is a virtue.

Although biology is absent in the guidelines for men, and minimized in the guidelines for women (women are understood primarily as victims of patriarchy/racism/sexism, etc.), there is some concession to the idea that the female body is actually different: The psychological response to menarche is included in a way that a psychological response to puberty for boys is absent. More to the point, where the guidelines for men take it for granted that TMI is a problem, with women, psychologists should “strive to make unbiased, appropriate assessments and diagnoses by considering multiple relevant aspects of the experiences of girls and women.”

I could go on. So many of the humanities have surrendered to critical race and gender theory, erasing the individual and denying any natural differences between the sexes, that it might seem foolish to expect psychologists to be any better. But for those of us who strongly believe in the importance of psychotherapy, and think that many men are far too reluctant to seek help and support, the decision by the APA to pathologize half of humanity is terrible news. There are indeed issues that men today need a help with, and emotional repression is definitely part of it. Aspects of maleness — aggression without virtue, glorification of violence, difficulties with communication and collaboration — are worth understanding better if men are to grapple with an economic and social environment where they are increasingly being left behind.

But this? It felt demeaning to read. To tell you the truth, it reminded me of the way psychologists used to treat gay men: as pathological, dangerous, and in need of reparative and conversion therapy. As homosexuals, we learned for a long time to be very wary of psychologists and psychiatrists because they routinely saw us as individuals whose nature and behavior needed to be fundamentally altered — for our sake and for others’. What once was used against gay men, is now being used against all men. If this document were designed to encourage men to seek psychotherapy, it is a catastrophe.

[evilmarrypopins]

via Stamp Zine

The Power of Feminist Political Imagination by Vivian Dixon

To unburden women from the yoke of patriarchy, we must understand who we are as humans and how to change ourselves. Everything we know, everything we see and do, is governed by the clumsy yet elegant mind that nature has gifted us. We all share the same material reality, but none of us react to it dispassionately or without bias.

All of us are swept away by our imaginations, enchanted by our fancies, taken in completely by the glamour of our perceptions and interpretations. Even in our most earnest efforts to be serious about reality, we cannot help but be tantalized by the possibilities and uncertainties lingering just beyond our immediate grasp, and we cannot help but be swayed by the way our biased gleanings color the world around is.

So we are capriciously buffeted by our imaginations, as humans, and this is both joyous and horrible. Our imaginations can become a cage, shackling us to fear and rage, or conversely it can uncage our worst desires. Processes of socialization can unleash terrors, inculcate in us a deep-seated belief in our own superiority and demonically tempt us to selfishly become the tormentors of others. And imagination can delude us every step of the way that our actions are just, and good, and correct.

Women have suffered a great deal at the hands of men because of this.

Imagination can become a limitation. We may imagine that, if our world is intolerable, that another world is not possible. This is how it is, it can’t be any other way, we may as well get used to it: these are dangerous falsehoods, but how frequently we imagine they are true. Women are taught to imagine it so.

Yes, there are all kinds of imaginations. To name a few, hopeful imagination, a despairing imagination, a racist imagination, an imperialist imagination, a capitalist imagination, a patriarchal imagination.

And a revolutionary imagination.

The revolutionary imagination arises from revulsion at an existing state of affairs and is nurtured by the notion that shared efforts might be made to change that state. Patriarchy has existed since the dawning days of settled human living, and while it is starkly real and not imaginary it gnarls the imagination in accordance with its dictates. As John Berger points out in “Ways of Seeing”, patriarchy socializes men to observe women, alter them and treat them according to their desires and whims. Accordingly, patriarchy takes up residency in the imaginations of women, and perform careful surveillance on themselves in order to adhere to the expectations of men. To preserve this arrangement, violence has never been off the table, and where violence is not overtly used, psychological controls are prevalent.

In revolt against these circumstances, women have weaponized their imaginations for millennia. Even where revolution could not yet take material form, these acts of imagination were never irrelevant symbolism. How could it be irrelevant that Artemisia Gentileschi fought tooth and nail to secure her place in the suffocating chauvinism of the Renaissance art world, survived sexual assault and lived to pass on an artistic statement of defiant rage in the form of her “Judith and Holofernes”? Can we deceive ourselves that myth-making, be it Joan of Arc’s martial gender nonconformity, or the divine abortions performed by St. Brigit of Kildare, has not inspired countless women? Has it not awakened us to the truth that the world can be made so much more wonderful when we dispose of patriarchal traditions?

Even the smallest bit of hope can set our whole imaginations aflame, illuminating new possibilities for the future. It is beyond our capacity to count the number of women, raised in a heteronormative society, who discovered themselves as lesbians reading bleak tales of lesbian tragedy when nothing else could be found. Author Lillian Faderman noted this pattern in her study of 20th-century lesbian life in America, with interviewees and written archives describing the importance of Radclyffe Hall’s “The Well of Loneliness” or any number of dime store novels depicting the woeful wages of lesbian “sin” in the 1940s and 1950s. Even these torturous condemnations allowed for the realization that to be lesbian was possible, and if it was possible to be a lesbian, maybe it was possible to meet other lesbians.

Perhaps it is Edythe Eyde, writing as “Lisa Ben” who might best exemplify the awe-inspiring power of feminist political imagination in enabling lesbian life to become a reality. In the staid, heterosexist 1950s, in her idle hours as a secretary in LA, she furtively created the all-time first lesbian zine, “Vice Versa”. She combed fervently through the dross of popular culture and literature to find those irreplaceably precious glimmers of lesbian possibility and share them with an audience of a few dozen people per issue. In time, her social horizon widened, from a few clandestine evenings in the LA lesbian bar scene, to a populous group of lesbian friends and acquaintances. The possibilities became less and less limited. Pop culture analysis gave way to activism in the mainstream. A small audience for Vice Versa became a wider audience for pioneering lesbian magazine “The Ladder”. Such activism opened up the possibilities of imagination in more and more minds, and as decades passed ideas of new possibility became material realities. And although the fight is not over, major victories have been secured in the push to make the planet safe for lesbian existence.

So with these anecdotes in mind, let’s seriously ask ourselves. What is intolerable about the existing world for women? Do we have a culture that teaches women that their only worth comes in objectifying themselves for men? Does compulsory heterosexuality persist, are women pressured with shame and with violence against being gay in many parts of the world? Could there be persistent forces of socialization that tacitly condone sexual abuse and rape, could the justice system give a pass to perpetrators and abandon survivors? At great personal cost we endure a political mainstream which restricts women’s bodily autonomy, an ongoing history of imperialism which continues to victimize women to the greatest extent, an economy where women are financially immiserated and even have their sexual autonomy robbed from them because of it. These realities compel decisive action, but we will only take that leap if we believe with every fiber of our being that such action is possible and meaningful.

Let us remember that, out of millennia of abuse, of domestic confinement and every kind of restriction and violation, feminism became possible and then became real because women imagined that things could be different and collectivized that imagination. Let us remember that every victory for women has opened up new horizons of possibility for countless other women, let us remember that every material change that allowed women to bond with one another, to share hopes and grievances, to build community and solidarity, allowed new peaks of imagination to be realized and vault our material gains ever further and further.

In keeping with that, let us dramatically re-imagine the world before us. A world with no confinements for the possibilities of womanhood, with no “place” or “role” or “duty” to restrict women to. A world where women are not brutalized by countless hidden cruelties, where acts of sexual violation are unthinkable and never tolerated, where women are not subject to insidious racism, or homophobic bigotry, or treated as chattel, where women are never dispossessed and there are no “lower classes” to dispossess them into.

Let our art reflect this unfettered imagination. Let it be not meek and timid, let it spur us to combination, to collectivize, to articulate demands and never back down from them. Less passive political detachment. More “Red Detachment of Women”.

A world after patriarchy, and all its attendant oppressions, is plausible. We have seen glimpses of it in every advancement made by women and by feminism, be it revolutionary Russian women smashing the feudal myth of “men’s work” or lesbianism breaking apart the confines of the closet. If the world isn’t where we want it to be, that just means our work is incomplete. Together, let us finish it and rebuild the world in a new and better image.

Vivian Dixon is a freelance writer and weekly podcast host currently living and working in Massachusetts. In her free time she enjoys archive digging and crafting. Accompanying artwork by Paige Colwell @evilmarrypopins 

[stampzine]

The Power of Feminist Political Imagination by Vivian Dixon

To unburden women from the yoke of patriarchy, we must understand who we are as humans and how to change ourselves. Everything we know, everything we see and do, is governed by the clumsy yet elegant mind that nature has gifted us. We all share the same material reality, but none of us react to it dispassionately or without bias.

All of us are swept away by our imaginations, enchanted by our fancies, taken in completely by the glamour of our perceptions and interpretations. Even in our most earnest efforts to be serious about reality, we cannot help but be tantalized by the possibilities and uncertainties lingering just beyond our immediate grasp, and we cannot help but be swayed by the way our biased gleanings color the world around is.

So we are capriciously buffeted by our imaginations, as humans, and this is both joyous and horrible. Our imaginations can become a cage, shackling us to fear and rage, or conversely it can uncage our worst desires. Processes of socialization can unleash terrors, inculcate in us a deep-seated belief in our own superiority and demonically tempt us to selfishly become the tormentors of others. And imagination can delude us every step of the way that our actions are just, and good, and correct.

Women have suffered a great deal at the hands of men because of this.

Imagination can become a limitation. We may imagine that, if our world is intolerable, that another world is not possible. This is how it is, it can’t be any other way, we may as well get used to it: these are dangerous falsehoods, but how frequently we imagine they are true. Women are taught to imagine it so.

Yes, there are all kinds of imaginations. To name a few, hopeful imagination, a despairing imagination, a racist imagination, an imperialist imagination, a capitalist imagination, a patriarchal imagination.

And a revolutionary imagination.

The revolutionary imagination arises from revulsion at an existing state of affairs and is nurtured by the notion that shared efforts might be made to change that state. Patriarchy has existed since the dawning days of settled human living, and while it is starkly real and not imaginary it gnarls the imagination in accordance with its dictates. As John Berger points out in “Ways of Seeing”, patriarchy socializes men to observe women, alter them and treat them according to their desires and whims. Accordingly, patriarchy takes up residency in the imaginations of women, and perform careful surveillance on themselves in order to adhere to the expectations of men. To preserve this arrangement, violence has never been off the table, and where violence is not overtly used, psychological controls are prevalent.

In revolt against these circumstances, women have weaponized their imaginations for millennia. Even where revolution could not yet take material form, these acts of imagination were never irrelevant symbolism. How could it be irrelevant that Artemisia Gentileschi fought tooth and nail to secure her place in the suffocating chauvinism of the Renaissance art world, survived sexual assault and lived to pass on an artistic statement of defiant rage in the form of her “Judith and Holofernes”? Can we deceive ourselves that myth-making, be it Joan of Arc’s martial gender nonconformity, or the divine abortions performed by St. Brigit of Kildare, has not inspired countless women? Has it not awakened us to the truth that the world can be made so much more wonderful when we dispose of patriarchal traditions?

Even the smallest bit of hope can set our whole imaginations aflame, illuminating new possibilities for the future. It is beyond our capacity to count the number of women, raised in a heteronormative society, who discovered themselves as lesbians reading bleak tales of lesbian tragedy when nothing else could be found. Author Lillian Faderman noted this pattern in her study of 20th-century lesbian life in America, with interviewees and written archives describing the importance of Radclyffe Hall’s “The Well of Loneliness” or any number of dime store novels depicting the woeful wages of lesbian “sin” in the 1940s and 1950s. Even these torturous condemnations allowed for the realization that to be lesbian was possible, and if it was possible to be a lesbian, maybe it was possible to meet other lesbians.

Perhaps it is Edythe Eyde, writing as “Lisa Ben” who might best exemplify the awe-inspiring power of feminist political imagination in enabling lesbian life to become a reality. In the staid, heterosexist 1950s, in her idle hours as a secretary in LA, she furtively created the all-time first lesbian zine, “Vice Versa”. She combed fervently through the dross of popular culture and literature to find those irreplaceably precious glimmers of lesbian possibility and share them with an audience of a few dozen people per issue. In time, her social horizon widened, from a few clandestine evenings in the LA lesbian bar scene, to a populous group of lesbian friends and acquaintances. The possibilities became less and less limited. Pop culture analysis gave way to activism in the mainstream. A small audience for Vice Versa became a wider audience for pioneering lesbian magazine “The Ladder”. Such activism opened up the possibilities of imagination in more and more minds, and as decades passed ideas of new possibility became material realities. And although the fight is not over, major victories have been secured in the push to make the planet safe for lesbian existence.

So with these anecdotes in mind, let’s seriously ask ourselves. What is intolerable about the existing world for women? Do we have a culture that teaches women that their only worth comes in objectifying themselves for men? Does compulsory heterosexuality persist, are women pressured with shame and with violence against being gay in many parts of the world? Could there be persistent forces of socialization that tacitly condone sexual abuse and rape, could the justice system give a pass to perpetrators and abandon survivors? At great personal cost we endure a political mainstream which restricts women’s bodily autonomy, an ongoing history of imperialism which continues to victimize women to the greatest extent, an economy where women are financially immiserated and even have their sexual autonomy robbed from them because of it. These realities compel decisive action, but we will only take that leap if we believe with every fiber of our being that such action is possible and meaningful.

Let us remember that, out of millennia of abuse, of domestic confinement and every kind of restriction and violation, feminism became possible and then became real because women imagined that things could be different and collectivized that imagination. Let us remember that every victory for women has opened up new horizons of possibility for countless other women, let us remember that every material change that allowed women to bond with one another, to share hopes and grievances, to build community and solidarity, allowed new peaks of imagination to be realized and vault our material gains ever further and further.

In keeping with that, let us dramatically re-imagine the world before us. A world with no confinements for the possibilities of womanhood, with no “place” or “role” or “duty” to restrict women to. A world where women are not brutalized by countless hidden cruelties, where acts of sexual violation are unthinkable and never tolerated, where women are not subject to insidious racism, or homophobic bigotry, or treated as chattel, where women are never dispossessed and there are no “lower classes” to dispossess them into.

Let our art reflect this unfettered imagination. Let it be not meek and timid, let it spur us to combination, to collectivize, to articulate demands and never back down from them. Less passive political detachment. More “Red Detachment of Women”.

A world after patriarchy, and all its attendant oppressions, is plausible. We have seen glimpses of it in every advancement made by women and by feminism, be it revolutionary Russian women smashing the feudal myth of “men’s work” or lesbianism breaking apart the confines of the closet. If the world isn’t where we want it to be, that just means our work is incomplete. Together, let us finish it and rebuild the world in a new and better image.

Vivian Dixon is a freelance writer and weekly podcast host currently living and working in Massachusetts. In her free time she enjoys archive digging and crafting. Accompanying artwork by Paige Colwell @evilmarrypopins