#SEX AND FORM

[chaneilkular]

CHANEIL KULAR as Anwar Bakshi Sex Education 2x06

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

...Turns out gay sex actually was the solution.

(This is basically a redraw, come read the real deal over at Tiger Tiger)

[thoodleoo]

something very sensual about reading an ancient text that only survives through one manuscript. like we only have this one text because someone centuries ago copied it down for us, whether by choice or by commission. it's like reaching into the past and touching that person's hand or maybe kissing them on the mouth. with tongue.

[botanyshitposts]

dichotomous plants are so weird man. like they’re not even weird it’s the becoming the dichotomous that’s weird. i went to a talk once about a population of strawberries that were accidentally slowly becoming dichotomous and they didn’t even have sex chromosomes, like they had like a bunch of genes across a bunch of chromosomes that did a little bit of sex but not a lot and it added up to one whole sex kind of but not enough that they had all collectively decided to be one sex or the other, so there was still like, a sizable chunk of the population that was producing flowers of both sexes. like they were microdosing it. taking the sex genes for a spin in the strawberry patch

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

i had a friend who was raped as a teenager and had a really strict mum who did not let her go out so she was really lonely. when she turned 18 she started going clubbing and since we live in a city with a big fetish scene, she started going to the kinky venue. since she was young, naive and very pretty, she was immediately roped in by older men who did bondage shootings with her and everything. she started working in the club. to me, she was clearly groomed, but she works in a fetish shop now and is fully immersed in the scene

i have a friend who answered a job ad for a secretary when she was abroad and she and her friend ran out of money but when they arrived there it was a brothel. they both prostituted themselves for several months. they were only 18. she still talks highly of that brothel, how clean and safe it was, and wants prostitution to be legal

i read the gut wrenching biography of a thai woman who ran away from home, whose parents refused her education and treated her brother very preferably while openly hating her, and entered prostitution in sex tourist destination pattaya at only 13. she was paid by men in their 50s first for her virginity, then to piss on her. she exited at 19 and developed psychosis. she defends sex buyers, hates feminists and wants prostitution to be legal

do you see where im going with this? brainwashing is real. despite the obvious facts, the grooming, the system that pushed and pulled them, the men taking advantage of them; they defend it. so yeah, we shouldnt dismiss firsthand testimony and personal experience, but always take it with a grain of salt, always contextualise, always see it as one part of a bigger picture. liberals dont do that and have duped too many people into not doing it either. „if thats her choice its none of our business“ fuck you!

[dogd0m-charlie]

my experience with being a trans man is fucking crazy bc like. sure I've had fingers and dildos and everything in my pussy and in my ass and sure it feels pretty good and eventually makes me cum but like I'm not super crazy about it.

but then on the other hand, if I'm thrusting my hips against my bf's ass or if he's straddling my lap and he starts moving his hips or anything else that would stimulate my dick if i had one, i will literally be gasping and moaning and panting and drooling and within 30 seconds i will feel like my brain is leaking out of my ears. even though I'm not getting any physical stimulation from it whatsoever because i don't actually have a dick. like what

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

Something that's important to realize is that men do not view their hatred of women as political or as a personal viewpoint. When men say things like women are less than men or stupid or not good for anything or that they belong in the kitchen, they view it as a natural fact of the world. They're fine saying vile shit about women because they firmly believe those things to be basic truth. They view it as natural order. To them it's as true as the sky being blue. They don't consider their views to be subjective. They think everyone feels how they do and the ones who don't are too stupid to recognize very simple truth. If you've ever wondered why a man would feel comfortable freely saying something offensive about women, that's why. To them, women being less complex than men is as simple as saying that humans need food to eat.

[several-forms]

USERBOX FOR YOU. <3

[starcurtain]

Hey! I apologize if this question has been asked before since it seems like a pretty obvious one, but where do you think the idea of Aventurine being a sex slave came from? Other than the obvious factor of it being something fun for the fandom to mess around with, I mean.

It's something I kind of took for granted as being true before playing his quest, but after finishing it I realized there wasn't really any indication. The only thing I can really think of is his master's comments about him having a good body. Is there anything in his behavior you can think of that would lead to this conclusion if it wasn't a popular fan interpretation already/kind of just an easy conclusion to reach with a slave character?

(also kind of related but what do you think of the idea that he sleeps around/with his clients to make deals? he's obviously willing to sexualize himself with the boob window, but that doesn't necessarily mean he goes further.)

As far as I can tell, the idea that Aventurine was involved in sexual slavery comes from three (maybe four) places:

First, the comment from the master about Aventurine's appearance. People were holding this comment up as refutable proof that Aventurine was used in sexual slavery on top of being tossed into the Hunger Games; however, the response from other players on this interpretation, especially the Chinese side of the fandom, was very mixed, with a lot of people pointing out that the context in the game probably meant the slave master was talking about Aventurine's ability to attract attention from fans watching the literal Sigonian Hunger Games, rather than having a direct sexual-slavery connotation.

Second, the comment from Sparkle about stripping naked and getting on his knees for Sunday. This one has way more implication in English than I think it might for an Eastern audience, actually. In English, this pretty much sounds like Sparkle saying Aventurine trades sexual favors for success in his gambles. However, I suspect the original intention in Chinese was more about humiliation. Western audiences don't have as much history with honor-based prostration, i.e. accepting corporal humiliation as a form of reconciliation that Eastern audiences might be more familiar with. And in any case, Sparkle is Sparkle. She probably just went for the lowest blow she could think of here.

Third, the general assumption that if Sigonian slaves were being chained, branded, beaten, sent to death matches, etc., it seems logical that they would also be taken advantage of in other ways. I honestly think this is probably the fairest take--many, many real slaves around the world faced (and still face!) sexual abuse, so if slaves from Sigonia were treated so poorly you could make them fight to the death for entertainment, it stands to reason they were probably also not safe from other forms of assault. We also have no idea what happened to Kakavasha in any of the years between his being a tiny child fleeing the massacre and then being purchased as a slave as a late-teens-early-twenties person. That's a very long time for a child to have to survive on their own on an extremely hostile planet and not face risks of all kinds or end up needing to do unspeakable things to survive. So I think this is at least not that far-fetched, although it's important to say there's nothing in the game that directly confirms this.

And fourth: I read a tweet semi-recently that stated that one of the Chinese (or maybe it was Japanese) names for a quest Aventurine was involved in was actually a reference to a book about a teenage sexual assault survivor. However, when I tried to verify this myself, I couldn't find any quest Aventurine was in that was based on a book about sexual assault in either English, Chinese, or Japanese. It's possible I just missed something, but I'm taking this one with a bit of a grain of salt currently, since I can't confirm it personally.

Regarding your other question, about whether I think Aventurine sleeps around to make deals...

I definitely think he does not, for one major reason.

First, I will admit that Aventurine is definitely willing to use his appearance to his advantage. This is pretty obvious. He wears incredibly flashy clothes, baths himself in cologne, overloads on glittering golden jewels, and absolutely calls attention to his appearance when working with clients.

We see him actively doing this in his Moment Among the Stars video, where he is clearly using his looks as an equal tool (to his wealth), to daze his target.

It's not an accident that he says things like "Use me as you wish," with all the explicit connotations preserved. The implication is there. However, unless he was absolutely backed into a corner, I think that implication is all it will ever be.

The reason I think this is that the devs go out of their way to give Aventurine three fairly noticeable physical behaviors in his in-game scenes:

For one, he has some of the most closed off body language of any character in the game.

Aventurine's default conversation pose is arms crossed directly and tightly in front of himself. This is like "Defensive Body Language 101." By crossing your arms, you put a symbolic barrier between yourself and the person you're speaking to, and also ensure that your hands are up and available in case you actually need to physically defend yourself.

Virtually all of Aventurine's conversations take place from this stance, no matter who he is speaking to (from the Trailblazer all the way to Topaz). He deliberately closes his pose off and tightens up his silhouette, which just sends a glaring "Don't touch me" message.

This closing off is also blatantly apparent when you compare it to the deliberately open poses he strikes while trying to make himself seem accessible to others (like tempting clients) or seem powerful (to intimidate):

Complementing this habit of closing himself off is a second noticeable aspect of his body language: He frequently avoids eye contact to the point that he even holds conversations while entirely facing away from the person he's speaking to.

I might be a bit lenient and say maybe he's doing this to on purpose to be mysterious, whoo~~ But... in all honestly, he just does this with everyone, even with Ratio while trying to talk about an actual important issue (wanting to look into Acheron's real identity). Hell, even the fake Aventurine does it to himself!

We can even say that wearing the rose-tinted glasses in the first place is another intentional barrier, one Aventurine deliberately removes in specific moments to give people the (false) impression that he's "letting them in" to his circle:

Now, this might be a bit more complicated in Aventurine's case, because eye contact has a whole extra meaning when eyes are the defining trait of your species and come with particularly challenging racial stereotypes. So it may be that Aventurine is simply used to conducting conversation while looking away to minimize racial prejudice against his eyes' unique appearance.

However, I'd also argue that the devs deliberately turned his entire model away in cutscene after cutscene to create a clear sense of being inaccessible, unapproachable, and unwilling to engage in the physical intimacy of standing closely, directly facing, and staring at his conversation partners.

While he faces away, he controls both the figurative and the literal direction of conversation, forcing people to keep their eyes on him while he is free to move as he pleases. Over and over again, it just says "I want to be the one in control. I'm not afraid to show my back to you, but you are not welcome to come near me."

And, in fact, that's a third aspect of his character's body language that I am sure the devs did not include accidentally: More so than other characters, many of Aventurine's conversations are conducted from weirdly far distances. Like, half the time he's talking, he's standing all the way on the opposite side of the room!

This habit of speaking from a-larger-than-normal distance is apparent in the first scene with Himeko...

And then in just about every other conversation too:

The bubble is twenty feet in every direction.

Like yes, he does approach and have conversations like a normal person... sometimes... But it is significantly more noticeable with Aventurine than with other characters that he often conducts whole conversations--even with his allies--from a distance. Just genuinely weirdly far apart.

Leaving space for Gaiathra, I guess.

And it's because these significant decisions were made with Aventurine's in-game body language that, when he deliberately alters his own behavior, it is instantaneously noticeable.

In 2.0, he closes the distance, the glasses come off, and he gets directly up in the Trailblazer's face.

It's uncomfortable not just because the player is suddenly being loomed over, but because this behavior has already been subconsciously established for the player as out of character for Aventurine.

The barriers the character himself was putting up are deliberately stripped away so that he can use physicality and demanding eye contact to intimidate his target. He has to reverse his own normal body language in order to come across as domineering (and, I guess if you're into that, appealing in a domineering manner).

And ummmm, just a tiny aside here because I can't resist:

This does mean that when the game goes out of its way to demonstrate Aventurine altering his own normal habit of distant and defensive body language, it is absolutely intentional.

Yes, this is a Ratiorine post in disguise. There literally isn't any other character in the game that Aventurine is shown being comfortable standing so close to and interacting with in this manner. This doesn't occur in every one of their scenes, but Ratio is the only character that this happens with repeatedly. It's not an accident that the devs literally added "They were walking side-by-side" as flavor text.

But look, I'll be fair: There's a great example of this in Aventurine's scene with Acheron too, where he closes the distance and attempts to make eye contact with her--seeking her guidance and closeness--and she is actually the one stepping away, speaking with her back turned, demonstrating her power and control (and issues with connection!) in that scene.

Anyway, this was a whole longggg tangent into analyzing Aventurine's body language, but my point is that, overall, the devs deliberately adjusted his model's actions in-game to give the impression of a person who clearly wants to be in control of every interaction he has with other people, who insists on distance over intimacy, and whose stances and habits suggest that he is significantly less accessible and open than his "Use me as you wish" motto might suggest.

Long story longer, I think that there is almost zero chance Aventurine is willingly ceding control over himself or the actions expected of him to anyone he isn't 100% comfortable with, and I think that using physical intimacy of any kind would be an absolute last resort for him. Frankly, he comes across as more likely to shoot himself in the foot than let someone he doesn't trust lay hands on him.

To me, he reads very much as "You may look, but you may not touch."

[1spooky-dad]

Always and forever thinking about the day they got the eggs and got paired up, and other people being maybe a little awkward cause they still don't necessarily know the person they've been paired with, a little unsure of what bits they can get away with, and then Mariana, i imagine, is like "damn this is my chance for an actual ship for once let's fucking go let's not be To Weird so my partner won't be creeped out" but then charlie runs up and assigns him as Bitch Wife and immediately starts a bit where they've been married for years and he's trying to get a divorce and Mariana is just like 😍 YOU! You are The One. We are going to have so much sex. And he was right.

[phoenixyfriend]

something something one of those those "Jango falls for Courtesan/Stripper/NightclubSinger/TrophyWife!Obi-Wan" AUs...

But instead Obi-Wan actually being a sex worker, he's undercover and still a Jedi, and either:

They split ways and run into each other a few months later with Obi-Wan in full Prude Beige Knight mode OR

The situation goes pear-shaped while they're still flirting and Obi-Wan has to break cover to grab a senator and jump out a window and suddenly this half-dressed glittery Person is batting away shots with a lightsaber and there's a bratty twelve-year-old who ALSO has a lightsaber threatening people with I Will Eat Your Liver if they keep staring at his dad's ass just because the sequined sheathe dress tore in a sexy place

[ihatecoconut]

anyway deadpool & wolverine slapped and at the end of the film vanessa & wade get back together but they also get logan as their own boytoy/househusband. logan is not aware of this.

[feathered-serpents]

I love writing because I get to think things like "Okay how can I make two dudes lighting their cigarettes from the same lighter at the same time sound like gay sex" completely seriously and unironically

[beanghostprincess]

Demiaroace Luffy is my favorite thing because one day he's not giving a single fuck about sex and the other he wants to do all sorts of viscerally, grotesque, disgusting sexual atrocities with Zoro because he looked "really pretty after slicing someone in half" and he doesn't know where the hell those feelings came from but he needs Zoro right the fuck now. But also Zoro smiles and the sun shines just perfectly on him and it makes his heart act silly and now he's blushing and covering his face with the straw hat and he would rather jump overboard to the sea than experience that again because what the fuck Nami fix this please-

[arthur-lesters-right-arm]

I think if Arthur just got raw dogged for like a solid 16 minutes he'd be completely fine and all his troubles would go away