asexualastarion - Tumblr blog

[asexualastarion]

i think the thing about intracommunity conflict over who can 'claim' certain queer figures from the ancient world (e.g., was sappho a lesbian or bisexual, was iphis a lesbian or a trans man) is that it basically never tells us anything interesting or new about the ancient material and only ever becomes an opportunity for ppl to show their worst, most vitriolic assumptions about the experiences of other queer people today.

i think this happens bc often these inquiries come from a place of wanting to see one's own identity and experience reflected exactly back in ancient material, which i don't think is harmful on it's own, although it's often a little boring because it limits our field of vision for seeing how ancient gender and sexuality could be queer in ways that don't immediately register to us -- when norms around gender and sexuality are different (which they unarguably were in many, many ways), the experiences that fall outside of those norms are also different. but this way of approaching queer history gets really nasty when it couples with a view of contemporary gender and sexuality that is, well, bogged down by any number of issues: an excessive attachment to identity as ontology ("this category terminology reflects perfectly who everybody is inherently inside"); a perception of privilege and oppression as zero-sum (aka the pokemon typing theory of structural violence); a watered down understanding of what intersectionality means (thinking only about individuals who occupy multiple marginalized positionalities rather than considering how multiple marginalizations overlap or are linked).

all of this has no effect on sappho (dead) or iphis (fictional), but it does have an effect on the queer people today who get caught in the crosshairs when ancient figures are used as cudgels and mouthpieces to lend historical authority to contemporary disputes. when really it seems like the most historiographically responsible answer to "was [ancient figure] a [queer interpretation a] or [queer interpretation b]" is "yes. and no. and original historical context matters. and the way that figure has been interpreted outside of their original historical context also matters. and that original historical context usually can't be completely reconstructed. and also we don't need the certainty of complete reconstruction to draw connections. and also ancient queerness looks a lot different than we expect. and also modern queerness looks a lot different than we expect."

[asexualastarion]

Land (and space) scapes inspired by Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series

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I'm just interesting what's gonna be the result on Tumblr

[asexualastarion]

Anyway...

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Today Willie woo and Beans😈 got to go in the garden. He looks like he's smiling for his school photo 😂

[asexualastarion]

a collection

[asexualastarion]

screaming

[asexualastarion]

[video by soupygarbagejuice. original caption: stuie]

[asexualastarion]

[asexualastarion]

when the objectively bad person has traumatic and honestly reasonable reasons for why theyre like that but it doesnt excuse their actions and only serves to make them more tragic as a character

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[asexualastarion]

🧍‍♂️

[asexualastarion]

"i'm literally tweaking" "are you restarted" "you sound acoustic right now" "this has crackhead energy" "my ex is such a narcissist" "i'm going nonverbal for an hour" "intrusive thoughts won"