#a man wanting to have sex with a woman is also not an inherent threat

[leupagus]

I've seen a number of posts claiming that Rebecca choosing to stay on Boat Guy's houseboat was "incredibly stupid" or "wildly unsafe" or other such descriptors. Everyone's perspectives are valid; I certainly understand that individual people would not want to stay there in that situation, and don't get why Rebecca did.

That being said, I really disagree with the posts that think she should have left or that she was in danger. Even putting aside that this is a television show and not real life, Rebecca, had she been a real person, did not have a "death wish" merely by remaining on board and spending time with Boat Guy.

Boat Guy was clearly interested in Rebecca, even before she fell into the canal — after all, he tries to warn her about being in the bike lane first by whistling at her and then saying she's a beautiful woman. He's smitten right from the jump! And during the scenes they have together, we see him make a number of passes at her. This is a guy who saw Rebecca and thought "ooh yes please."

But that does not make him unsafe, nor does it make any of his actions "creepy," "gross," or "red flags." What it makes him is a middle-aged man speaking as an equal to a middle-aged woman, who is similarly showing sexual interest in him. And who doesn't feel the need to pretend he doesn't find her gorgeous and compelling and sexy, which again, is not a bad thing!

I suspect a lot of the folks framing this guy as predatory just... don't have a lot of personal experience of being a 40-something woman flirting with a 40-something man. And I can say, from personal experience, that it's really fucking nice to see that dynamic between them.

Because I would've stayed on that boat, you'd better believe.

[molsno]

I find the notion that trans women's oppression is at least partially based on a systemic hatred of men and masculinity troubling for many reasons. the biggest reason, of course, is that misandry is not real no matter how you attempt to label or define it. but moreover, it's just flat out wrong.

it is true that many forms of transmisogyny consist of some form of misgendering. however, it's ludicrous to call it misandry just because the underlying implication is that the trans woman in question is really a man; if that were the case, then cis men and trans men would be subjected to the same oppression on the basis of their manhood. but no, the misgendering is always simply a cover for something else - something far more insidious.

if a trans woman is loud, outspoken, and argumentative, then she's accused of demonstrating her "male socialization". she's told she's guilty of "mansplaining". when a trans woman is jealous or clingy with her partner, she's accused of expressing "male entitlement" over them, and being "manipulative" and "controlling". when a trans woman is attracted to cis women and talks about her desire to have sex with them, she's accused of being "creepy" or "predatory". she's told she's being "misogynistic" by reducing women (cis women, or "real women" as is usually the implication in this scenario) to just their bodies and valuing them only for their worthiness as sex objects.

if you think about it, though, these arguments mirror regular old misogyny pretty closely! if a cis woman is loud, outspoken, and argumentative, then she's a "bitch", she's "bossy". she's told she needs to "know her place". when a cis woman is jealous or clingy with her partner, she's accused of being "crazy" and "obsessive". and indeed, when a cis woman is attracted to other cis women and talks about her desire to have sex with them, she's accused of being "creepy" or "predatory"!

so why, then, if these statements are really a form of misogyny, does the justification for them hinge on trans women's supposed "maleness"? the answer is simple: biological essentialism. this ideology, in no small part popularized in feminist and queer spaces by terfs, states that "biological males" are predestined by their very nature to prey on and dominate "biological females". and since trans women are "biologically male", it follows then that they are wolves in sheeps' clothing. any presumption of innocence or harmlessness is discarded, and trans women's actions are painted in a new light.

if you accuse a trans woman of being an infiltrator in women's spaces due to her supposed "maleness", then what you've effectively accomplished is the subjugation of an underclass of women. trans women are not considered deserving of respect, compassion, or dignity whatsoever. if you paint a trans woman as a threat to other women, then you can drum up as much outrage and violence against her as you want, and she will have no recourse. and the simple fact of the matter is that the easiest way to do this is to draw attention to her alleged proximity to "maleness".

perhaps you might be thinking that proximity to maleness being used as a justification for oppression implies that misandry actually is real. after all, aren't women of color, butch lesbians, and even black men also subjected to violence due to their perceived proximity to "maleness"?

I understand how one could make that mistake, but that notion fails to engage with the actual material reasoning behind the forms of oppression these groups face: they pose a threat to the cishet white man's absolute dominion. the root of these disparate but related forms of oppression, biological essentialism, is inherently a white supremacist, misogynistic, and conservative ideology. its purpose, much like its ilk, eugenics and phrenology, is to establish a hierarchy in society that places cishet white christian men at the top by asserting that they are inherently biologically superior to all others in every respect.

if you observe people's behavior, you can see that this ideology permeates almost every level of society. cishet white men are elevated to positions of authority without question; their motives are never scrutinized and criticized in the same way that trans women's are, or any of the other oppressed groups mentioned above. if one of these men is misogynistic, if he views women as mere sex objects to be controlled to suit his liking, he will not be punished for it; he is exercising the right that has been given to him by the society people like him have created through centuries of colonialism. even in queer spaces, men are regularly coddled, their misdeeds forgiven or excused for no real reason other than that many queer people have not questioned the assumptions they've internalized.

the notion that trans women are oppressed by misandry is laughable, really, because we are constantly made aware that, due to biological essentialism, TME people will always trust a man over us.

[aryas-faces]

Debunking Popular Team Black Arguments

“Alicent abused Rhaenyra!”

Except nothing in the book supports this. In fact, Alicent adored Rhaenyra at first. She called her daughter, asks, “Criston protects the princess, but who protects the princess from Criston?” And then the only reason, per the book, there started to be conflict between them is because Alicent wanted Aegon to be Heir, and for herself to be the first Lady of the Seven Kingdoms. And even than, it doesn’t say Alicent treated Rhaenyra poorly, just that there was tension between them

And in fact, there is more textual evidence that Viserys abused Aegon than there is for Alicent abusing Rhaenyra. Let’s look at the only canonical time Viserys addresses Aegon directly:

“The boy is Alicent’s own blood. She wants him on the throne.”

This is in response to Alicent’s proposal to bind Aegon and Rhaenyra together in marriage and let them rule together. So he not only dehumanizes Aegon by calling him Alicent’s blood (not even son), but also distances himself from acknowledging Aegon as his own child as well

And than there is the only time they directly interact:

Right after Aemond loses his eye, he says that Aegon was the one who told him Rhaenyra’s kids were bastards. Aegon said everyone knows. And so in response to this, “No eyes would be put out (Viserys) decreed…. But should anyone-‘Man or woman or child, noble or common or royal’- mocks his grandsons as ‘Strongs’ again, their tongues would be pulled out with hot pincers.” Viserys is indirectly threatening Aegon here. This is in response to learning that Aegon “lied” to Aemond about Rhaenyra’s sons, of course it’s a threat

And of course, Aegon’s description says he has sullen eyes and pouty lips, aka, he is consistently sad. Why? Probably because his father hates him

“Alicent tormented Rhaenyra and her kids!”

Calling obvious bastards bastards isn’t torment, and it’s actually treason on Rhaenyra’s part to pass them off as Heirs to Driftmark

“Aegon sexually assaults the maids!”

This is actually a hard one because you can’t actually disprove this one. There is the line about pinching and fondling the maids. However, neither word, pinching or fondling, is inherently sexual, so you can also easily read it as him being a Flirt with the maids. Especially because when he is caught with having sex, the book specifically says she is well cared for. He is being caring to a common girl he is sleeping with as a royal in medieval times. That truly speaks to his character

“Aegon is a pedophile, Eustace doesn’t deny her age!”

Eustace’s account isn’t written in response to Mushroom. It is written independently. And the book calls this rumor Mushroom being Mushroom, and then also in response says the girl is well cared for. And The Princess and the Queen, which has no sources, matches Eustace’s version, as well not saying anywhere in the text that girl was 12

“The only reason the Greens usurped her is because she’s a woman!”

Uh no. As they say in the Green Council, the throne by all rights and laws is Aegon’s. Yes, the laws are sexist, but instead of changing them, Viserys sees Rhaenyra as the exception not the rule. The king isn’t above the law. If he wanted Rhaenyra to be heir, he should’ve changed the law. And Otto, Alicent, and Criston ALL cite her cruelty and the fact she would kill Aegon to secure her claim as to why they do this

“Rhaenyra only became cruel when her children started dying!”

Not true. Before any of her kids die, she demands Aemond be tortured for saying the truth about her children, feeds Vaemond to Syrax for the same, marries Daemon shortly after their spouses die, commits treason by passing bastards as Heirs to Driftmark. Rhaenyra is cruel long before any of her children die

“Rhaenyra wouldn’t kill Aegon, it’s a manipulation!”

Why? Just because she offers to spare him? She also says the only reason is because she doesn’t want to be a kinslayer as that would make HER look bad. It’s not out of love or mercy, it’s out of fear of kinslaying. And it doesn’t take much to convince her out of it. Aegon’s peace terms reach her, and her response is, “I will have my throne or I will have his head.” So no. Aegon was ALWAYS in danger of being killed by her

“Rhaenyra is meant to be the hero and Aegon the villain!”

Then why is Rhaenyra cut by the throne while Aegon isn’t? Then why is Rhaenyra motivated by power, while Aegon is by love for his family? Why does Rhaenyra’s cruelty turn her council against her, while Aegon’s is loyal until the end? Why does, while Rhaenyra loses King’s Landing because of her cruelty, Aegon win Dragonstone by turning the Blacks there as well as the smallfolk to his side through charisma ALONE. Why is Rhaenyra’s death written as the villain finally dying, while Aegon’s reign after is described as bittersweet because he defeated her but would never know peace or joy again. Why would Aegon’s death be avenged, and also implied to be suicide? And finally, why would Rhaenyra be forever known with Female Meagor, while Aegon forever known as the True King?

“The book is Green/Maester propaganda/biased against Rhaenyra!”

Be so for real right now. Why would George write a book full of lies? He makes it very clear who is lying and when. The unreliable narrators aren’t a license to pick and choose what you believe. And you genuinely believe most of what’s in this book is a lie, than you have 0 media literacy

[johannestevans]

Big deep dive into themes of sexual violence and rape culture as portrayed in Alien (1979, dir. Ridley Scott)! About 13k.

---

Here is a horror film about rape — and not just rape, but forced impregnation and reproductive coercion — that doesn’t use the word rape, doesn’t use words like sexual violence. Although the reproductive threat remains the same and the alien herself is phallic in appearance, the xenomorph’s assault is a degree removed from “actual” on-screen sex, so those words are never needed. The xenomorph penetrates her prey via her facehuggers, and through this process, impregnates them against their will, sometimes without even their awareness. It is a direct parallel to sexual violence amongst human predators and their victims but is not in itself sexual when presented on screen.

Because it doesn’t use those words, we strip off the assumptions people have about the gendered aspect of this sort of violence. In the sci-fi setting, using a unisex cast and also introducing androids as well as human beings, we also strip off the forced binary of male and female.

In Alien (1979), it’s not just cisgender women who are at risk of being forcibly impregnated with a dangerous parasite that could kill them as it grows inside them, as with human pregnancy as assumed by cis society — it’s everybody. And because the monster is an alien — a big, clawed alien that’s very penis-like in its design — there is not the same ability for the filmmakers to in some way romanticise or downplay the violence of the assault.

There’s no need to humanise the rapist or explain that he’s a lonely man who just wants female companionship, really, and shouldn’t society provide for a man like him? Isn’t the real cause of his violence against women that no woman provided for him, to cater to his needs as a man?

There’s no need to humanise the xenomorph or her facehuggers — they are alien creatures who seek only to breed and survive. They have no voice, only violent action.

But here comes the real horror of the film and what ramps up the terror inherent in it: yes, the xenomorph and her children are acting only on instinct, but Earth’s society is thinking about the value of it. The xenomorph’s offspring might be worth money. They might be converted into weapons and fire power, and scientific advancement.

In real life, the damage is losing the rapists who work at the company, or dealing with the media fall-out that might occur if rape victims spoke up about toxic work environments, or the legal fees that might be incurred — and thus, victims are silenced, let go, the working culture makes certain to defend and further enfranchise abusers while silencing and disenfranchising victims.

In Alien, The Company does what any company does in our society. It measures the damage caused by not just the assaults and the coerced impregnation and the death that will be caused in the result, against the potential profit of the xenomorph’s DNA, no matter how scary or violent or traumatising the xenomorph and its behaviours are.

Alien (1979) then becomes a perfect metaphor and parallel for sexual violence in our society — and especially as a male victim of sexual violence myself, but also as a transgender man, it really cuts to the core of the horror of it for me.

Yes, it’s terrifying to be raped, but it’s not terrifying because men are strong, and they all want to rape women, who are always so pure and innocent — women rape other women or men or nonbinary people; men rape other men and the same; corporations and other for-profit enterprises might work towards invasions and corruptions of individual bodily autonomy because it benefits them monetarily or societally; other political and governing bodies might work toward the same.

The terror of rape is in the invasion of your body against your will, your powerlessness to stop it or defend yourself, whether by force or coercion. It’s in the collapse of your desires for your body and its purpose as you see it to that of another person’s, or a third party’s.

And when that rape can come with the threat of pregnancy, there is a further terror — can you access emergency contraceptive and/or abortion services? Will they be delivered to you without prejudice and without delay? Will you be forced to submit to further invasions of your body, having a rape kit done, being tested for STIs, and having to describe your assault to police or to other violent authority figures, who as you describe it, will demean and undermine you, and do anything to discredit your testimony? Will you have to flee your state or country to get medical services to end a pregnancy? Will you be blocked off from these and forced by the state to carry a pregnancy to term, on top of having already been raped by an individual?

Unlike many other horror movies about rape, no one gets raped in Alien (1979), and then at the end, does a stirring monologue to sad piano music about how, yes, they were raped and attacked, but they couldn’t possibly kill “an innocent life” by having an abortion, because any female rape victim’s natural instinct is, of course, to want to be a mother to their rapist’s children. Anti-abortion activists aren’t putting facehuggers on their posters and their propaganda.

Read more on Patreon / / Read more on Medium

[velvetvexations]

Can confirm I've been on here for years now and before Gamer Gate and then the rebirth of Terfism happened the widely accepted feminist talking point was that men suffer under the patriarchy and how we need to talk about that because one of the fastest ways to get cis men on our side was to show them we were already on their side!

I remeber posts with hundreds of thousands of notes talking about how men are assumed to be worse caregivers than women to the point that in custody battles even if the mother is beyond a shadow of a doubt the worst abusive mess ever and the dad is the embodiment of a perfect parent the kids will end up with the mom. It doesn't even matter if the dad says he wants the kids and the mom says she doesn't, the women still gets assumed to be the better caretaker!! This is misogyny effecting men!!

And I know MRAs are terrible but I remember a video going around talking about their recruitment points, like how more men die doing dangerous jobs and the draft or men getting no help when they've been abused by women and being assumed to be violent predators even when they haven't done anything and like yeah, they 100% came to the wrong conclusions about what causes the problems and what the solutions are bcs it's easier to act like women are the problem, but those problems as they were introduced in the early 2010s were actual problems feminism is trying to address, and if these men could see that we are fighting the same fights and join US we'd be stronger. There was a prominent internet feminist who got full on red pilled just by listening to men tell her about their real actual problems, and the time they pulled the rug out on blaming women it was too late, she was convinced, because yeah women aren't the real problem at the root of men's issues they do HAVE ISSUES. The trick is that they just need to tackle the patriarchy, not women. I also saw stuff that legit talked about how to recruit men by pointing out how badly the patriarchy "serves" them!! (GamerGate quickly ruined any and all salient points that existed in the MRA movement bcs the internet is a feedback loop and anger is easy/fun sadly but yeah I feel like it's weird to act like they were always wrong no matter what when they at least did point out real problems.)

And like RBG partially made her name in the courts defending a CIS MAN on the basis that he was being discriminated in a way a CIS WOMAN would not have been, and the ruling allowed for insane amounts of progress for women. A man not being allowed a tax credit to hire a nurse for his bedridden mother is one of the first things that challenged discrimination on the basis of sex in America. But sure men ONLY gain benefits from the patriarchy. It NEVER hurts them too!! And helping them won't benefit us!!! Making them our allies is silly they should all shut up 🙄

Hell back in the 2010s I still remember seeing trans men talk about how horrible and alienating it was for all of their female friends and family to suddenly start acting like they were a threat, and not just pointing out the inherent transphobia, the guy went on to talk about that they finally get why cis men are the way they are, they suffer from systemic emotional neglect. And yeah that obviously does not mean women owe them emotional avaliablity and sex, but maybe the patriarchy telling men to be big tuff guys who never hug or cry or like anything even a little girly HURTS THEM and is a direct cause of a LOT of the problems we're dealing with rn!!! There was a whole study about how widows tend to live a lot longer after their husbands because they have friends and family to lean on and weren't taught to suppress their emotions, meanwhile widowers tend to die VERY quickly after their wives because they no longer have someone who it's okay for them to be open and emotional around, and not having someone you can do that with KILLS PEOPLE. People were saying again, this does not mean women HAVE to take on all their problems, but maybe that we need to stop assuming men don't need emotional support and teach our sons to not be afraid of being ulnerable, honest people because systemic emotional neglect IS BAD FOR YOU ACTUALLY.

These were ACTUAL conversations that swept this damn site. This was the direction feminism was going in. We were on the cusp of a beautiful age of 4th wave feminism with the knowledge that the patriarchy seves no one well and free the nipple and no gender segregated bathrooms and sports, and now just pointing out that we need to maybe understand the ways men struggle under the patriarchy if we've ever going to have them join and help us build a better world gets my inbox flooded with both terfs and so called progressive feminists calling me a gender traitor for being willing to admit men arent the source of all the world's ills and WE NEED THEM ON OUR FUCKING SIDE. I used to proudly call myself a 4th wave feminist back when people still claimed to be of the 3rd, and now idk what I even am. A bell hooks and leslie finberg feminist I guess, since they actually seemed to get it.

Yeesh. Anyway sorry that got heated. This has just ruined my brain. I do not understand where tf we went wrong, bcs hell back in the day we also pointed out how TERFs were wrong to want men and people they perceive as men and those "tainted" by men put to death for existing so they could build their stupid white supremacist wombyn utopia. We KNEW hating men just for being men was wrong and regressive and hurt maringalized men and did NOTHONG to push feminism forward. We talked about the issues that men face and how to raise our sons to be better. But idk I guess Gamer Gate and the Incel movement took off right as TREFs figured out the whole ace and truscum discourse thing wasn't working and they just needed to doctor their arguments against men better and radical feminism took off and this entire site regressed 1000 years and thinks trans men of all people are just as bad as cis men and trans women have a monopoly on an entire axis of oppression like?????

And I'm not putting the blame squarely on anyone aside from the radfems who started this shit but it does NOT surprise me that we are seeing a massive resurgence of biphobic, transmedicalism, and aphobia since half the queer discourse I see these days is anti-transandrophpbia assholes just word for word repeating the kind of blatant aphobia and truscumery that would have gotten you suplexed off the face of the earth in the 2010s with the identities swapped. Just word for word monosexist aphobic shit. Legit is giving me flashbacks, it's insane.

I have never in my life been more disappointed in my community of queer feminists. This is masks all over again. Like is this how kids who grew up evangelical feel when they realized actually the adults didn't mean literally love all your neighbors silly just the Correct ones?? I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. What the hell happened to us.

Thank you for writing all this anon, you put enough work in it I'm gonna toss it in the tags, I think it deserves to be seen. <3

The problem with MRAs was never that they believed men had problems too, but that they used certain things - like their disadvantage in custody hearings, for instance - as a cudgel in a malicious crusade against a target they hated anyway for not fucking them. Now with as quick as people are to say things like "what, are you saying androphobia exists too?????" it feels as though we've completely forgotten the actual reason we ever hated MRAs to begin with.

It's the same with the dating article where the most basic possible interactions between two adults mutually seeking a hook-up were taken to be pick-up artistry.

[shunnedmorlock]

Hi! What are your opinions on each of the greens ?

Have a good day/night!

Otto: I think he gets a bad rap, not in absolute terms but relatively to the people like Viserys and Daemon. If you hate Otto for pushing Alicent to marry Viserys, you should hate Viserys much, much more. Otto is "merely" complicit in what happened. There was no one Vissy could've said no to more effectively than Otto. It just goes to a double standard you see a lot with these farcical black-green debates where people change their opinions on whether it's ok to judge people by in-universe standards depending on what "team" they're a part of. He has a habit of telling unfortunate truths that get him in trouble, but most of the things he says are just, like, objectively true, but people don't want to hear it. Daemon is actually a danger to the realm and his brother, Rhaenyra does actually have to give the scions of great houses a hearing, Daemon did actually groom Rhaenyra to claim the throne, Alicent's children do pose an inherent threat to Rhaenyra by their mere existence.

From a Doylist perspective, like many other things, I think episode 9 really butchered Otto's character. All of a sudden the guy who has been working hand in hand with his daughter for the past few episodes didn't tell her about the plot to seat her son on the throne??? And now the guy who got fired by Aegon for being too slow and measured in his war planning is pushing to kill Rhaenyra immediately? And he wants to send the Kingsguard to do clandestine assassin work? And he's reluctant to ban child fighting pits for like no reason? I'm sorry, you don't have to be a feminist to not like that!

Alicent: I have talked about her at length. Nixonian Queen. I kneel. The war will make her worse, and I enjoy it. One of the characters I think on-balance the show improved.

Criston: Not a good guy by any means, but dismissing him as just a resentful incel is just boring. It's very clear he was, at best, conflicted about his tryst with Rhaenyra to begin with - he liked her, they had a lot of chemistry, but he does genuinely believe in his vows. The marriage thing is obviously silly and naive, but from his perspective it's him trying to do right by her (and also preserve himself and his soul), which puts him a step above many other Westerosi men who canonically often feel no obligations to the women they sleep with outside of marriage or the children created. There is a real difference in values between him and Rhaenyra that goes beyond him hating women, even if his values aren't strictly speaking good. I'm sorry, but the fact that a Westerosi man is as sexually repressed as an average Westerosi woman is genuinely a point in his favor! I sincerely hope he and Alicent make each other worse. Substantially improved by the show.

Aegon: This is going to be controversial, but baffling/over-the-top/ill-thought-out decisions like Dyana and the child fighting pits aside, I much prefer this version of Aegon to F&B. I don't care that he's kind of pathetic, that's fun, that's drama, that gives room for character development and growth into the king he ends up becoming. It's clear the writers do want Aegon to be kind of sympathetic, but it seems they didn't consider what stuff like Dyana would do to that, which to me indicates they meant the focus of that scene to be Alicent and her behavior, not Aegon. Which is stupid. One of the worse victims of inconsistent characterization, switching between vaguely sympathetic drunken frat bro to outright sex criminal every episode, or even in the same episode.

Helaena: I like what they've done with her. It's more interesting for her to be a doomed neurodivergent prophetess than just a little dumb, even though she hasn't done a ton so far. Similarly, in an RP I was a part of, Jaehaera was depicted as not simple, just autistic and it was much more interesting.

Aemond: BORING! Don't care about this guy, sorry. Maybe I'll like him more when he is pathetically down-bad for Alys Rivers, but right now he's just like budget Daemon to me, who I also find boring. He was more interesting as a bullied teen.

Larys: He's a tough guy to adapt because his motivations are kind of nonsensical behind a vague idea of getting back at Rhaenyra (?) for dishonoring his brother (??) by putting his children in line for the throne (???). The foot thing is kind of gross and I do wish they'd have given him an actual motivation but whatever. The actor's good and I do like him and Alicent on balance. Improved by the adaptation.

Tyland: We love our little bureaucrat don't we folks? Hope he gets more screen time later on.

Jasper Wylde: FUCK YOU SHOWRUNNERS WHY IS THE GUY WHO HAS HAD ONE LINE THIS ENTIRE SEASON PART OF THE COUP BUT NOT ALICENT FUCKING HIGHTOWER??????

[glitter-soda]

I’d like to break down my current feelings and gripes about the trans movement, both to inform my followers and maybe start a discussion.

The vast majority of trans people are relatively normal and are just trying to live their lives in peace.

Trans women are trans women. They are male, and by definition it is much more accurate to call them men than women, but I do believe they are something of a separate category. The same goes for trans men, in reverse.

Definitions like “a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman” and “a lesbian is a non-man who’s attracted to non-men” are ridiculous and frankly offensive. The word lesbian is taken. It means “female homosexual”. Literally nobody is stopping you from making your own term, so stop trying to forcibly redefine ours.

Male socialization and female socialization both exist and are important. Trans women were socialized male and trans men were socialized female.

The sheer amount of vitriol towards “terfs” and anyone else who questions anything is just…disgusting. It’s acceptable to send them graphic rape and death threats, doxx them, assault them at protests, and celebrate when they get sick or die. I don’t know how to explain that that’s not normal fucking behavior, especially since “terf” is thrown around very casually these days.

Biological women should be allowed to have spaces that don’t include any males, regardless of the purpose. Lesbian bars, female only gyms, female only domestic violence/rape shelters, and literally anything else are fine and should be allowed to exist without being vandalized or threatened with shutdowns.

The former point includes female only sports teams. Males are biologically very different from females and it should’ve be offensive to anyone to say so. Both sexes have advantages and disadvantages over the other, it just happens that many sports are designed in a way that makes it easier for males to succeed.

Abolishing female only categories in award ceremonies, scholarships, and the like in the name of inclusivity is stupid and completely forgets the reason they were established in the first place. Male bias exists and women will almost never be included because of it.

I’m not against transitioning because I believe in total bodily autonomy and find language like “mutilation” to be incredibly gross and callous. However, I think it’s bad and dangerous to be presented as the literal only treatment for dysphoria.

Children who express any form of questioning or gender nonconformity should not be immediately assumed to be trans. A little girl saying “I want to be a boy” may mean “I want the freedoms that boys have and this is the only way I know how to express it because I’m six”. For actual trans kids, puberty blockers are dangerous and minors should only be allowed to socially transition.

The entire idea of being non-binary is frankly silly to me. I believe it to mostly be a poor coping mechanism for sexist stereotypes. Again, do what you want, but don’t expect me to take you seriously.

The way a lot of information and discussions that don’t support the current trans narrative are censored or lied about online is really bad and honestly borderline cult-like. Very few people actually know what radfems believe because people are discouraged from reading anything straight from the source. The Cass Review was picked apart in bad faith and many of the articles that “sum it up” are just straight up full of false information. Detransitioners are swept under the rug and told to shut up and stop trying to ruin things when they try to talk about their experiences. The trans community needs to do better.

And most importantly:

I do not want trans people dead. I believe in my heart of hearts that the vast majority of actual radfems and gender criticals do not want trans people dead. Neither ideology is hateful or inherently against trans people.

(Y’all just hate being told “no”.)

(Also I probably forgot something, so feel free to ask or discuss idk)

[acourtofthought]

The book Sarah had displayed "The Once and Future Sex" just triggered something for me after looking over the synopsis:

Enshrined medieval thinkers, almost always male, subscribed to a blend of classical Greek and Roman philosophy and Christian theology for their concepts of the sexes. For the height of female attractiveness, they chose the mythical Helen of Troy, whose imagined pear shape, small breasts, and golden hair served as beauty’s epitome. Casting Eve’s shadow over medieval women, they derided them as oversexed sinners, inherently lustful, insatiable, and weak. And, unless a nun, a woman was to be the embodiment of perfect motherhood.

I always thought it was a bit strange how Sarah continually reminded us of Elain's small breasts but seeing the above makes me wonder if it's because she took inspiration from the likeness of Helen of Troy as a pear shaped, small breasted figure which was the ideal of attractiveness during that time period.

It makes a bit of sense as Helen of Troy's face was one that launched a thousand ships with Elain's being a face that could bring kings to their knees.

The Trojan War began because Paris took Helen from her husband, Menelaus and in SF we have Rhys warning Az that his actions, his lack of concern for her mating bond with Lucien, could lead to a battle to the death and ruin the peace of their lands.

On the one hand, the Paris of Homer's Iliad is depicted as a handsome and charming young man motivated by his love for Helen and his belief that she is destined to be his.

It's debatable whether Paris truly loved Helen or whether he believed he did because her love was promised to him:

Still, Paris could not decide, as all three were ideally beautiful, so the goddesses attempted to bribe him to choose among them. Hera offered ownership of all of Europe and Asia. Athena offered skill in battle, wisdom and the abilities of the greatest warriors. Aphrodite offered the love of the most beautiful woman on Earth: Helen of Sparta. Paris chose Helen and thereby Aphrodite.

"His belief that she is destined to be his." sounds a lot like Az feeling he should have been given Elain because his brothers are with her sisters.

"Some stories say that Aphrodite put a spell on Helen to make her fall in love with Paris, while others say she loved him without the goddess’ help."

Helen regrets her decision to be with Paris, and her resentment of him intensifies as the war progresses. She is disgusted by Paris's cowardly behavior when he fights Menelaus.

If Sarah went with the first story, she could have played into that with Elain's interest in Az where she felt influenced by what she thought her sisters wanted of her (which Rhys all but acknowledges in the Feyre bonus, about her being worried that she'd disappoint them if she acted out of character for what they expected of her). It's clear that Feyre initially had animosity towards Lucien in ACOWAR and it was very evident that Nesta only started coming around to him later in her book so it's not a stretch to believe Elain thought that since her sisters were interested in Rhys and Cassian, she as the third sister should also try to be happy with the third brother so as not to make waves.

Also, Elain is bothered by cruelty and though the circumstances would be different (since I don't imagine Sarah would write Lucien and Az battling it out to the death), I do think that had Elain actually hooked up with Az she would have later regretted it. I think she would have been bothered by Azriel's threats of Lucien, his indifference to killing him and causing issues between courts.

In Homers account, Helen is eventually reunited with her husband Menelaus.

I also think it's interesting how in what is clearly a negative way of thinking, the above book mentions men who considered woman to be the embodiment of "perfect motherhood" and Sarah chose to write Az thinking of how innocent and pure Elain is in his bonus chapter, how he will taint her.

[blubushie]

i've seen some blogs i follow say that misandry isn't real and men aren't opressed for being men and honestly the former doesn't sit right with me. misandry is not systemic like misogyny but your answers about your experiences prove that it does indeed happen in queer spaces. masculine queer men have to prove that they aren't a threat by making themselves a walking gay caricature.

Hell men aren't just oppressed in female-dominant "cultures" (like queer spaces) but they're also oppressed by patriarchy and, in some ways, legally. They're just not oppressed in the same way women are.

Men are considered inherently stronger/better, which means women can't compete with us, which means any time a man is a victim of a woman it's automatically his fault for ALLOWING himself to be. How are you, a man, gonna let a woman hit you? (It's because even if you defend yourself, and you make the call the police, YOU'LL be arrested as the aggressor. It's your word against hers, and in domestic violence they will always favour hers.)

We are simultaneously shit on for defending ourselves, because how dare a man ever put his hands on a woman even in self defence, but at the same time if we DON'T do that, it's our fault for being abused because we didn't "resist" our abuser. This is the male version of being asked about what you were wearing when you were victimised. The only way men are ALLOWED to be recognised as victims is if you're a child and your abuser is an adult man. If it's an adult woman? Hell, kid, you're lucky.

A lot of people think men can't be raped—either because we "always want sex", or because we're expected to physically resist our rapist and win. Contrast this to women, who are told to piss themselves or scream, or just take it because maybe if you do your rapist won't kill you. (If you ask me a firearm makes a helluva equaliser, but that's a conversation for another day.) Legislation even reflects this—in the UK, for example, according to UK law, it isn't possible for a women to rape a man unless she penetrates him with an object. A woman violently raping a man, even a child, by restraining him or otherwise and forcing him into penetrating her, is merely considered sexual assault and carries a much lighter sentence than rape.

And that really sucks for someone like me, who was raped by two women while I was drunk. Who didn't even realise I was raped until a mate explained it to me, because it's normalised that women can have sex with a drunk man and that's not considered rape—not even if he blacks out and asks them to stop when he wakes up, and they keep going while he blacks out again. Like what happened to me. An even bigger kicker—a man is always considered responsible in sex. So if a drunk man and a drunk woman both agree to sex while both are intoxicated, legally HE is raping HER despite both being unable to actually consent.

This in addition to men being expected to be sole providers for a home by society—look at the current rise of women looking for a sugar daddy or red-flagging a man because he only has one car instead of two, or of men never being favoured in family court even when the mother is unable to care for the children or is abusive, or how women will weaponise visitation against fathers for spite because they know the court will side with her regardless of how good of a father he is, or the lack of men's shelters, or how DV shelters won't take women with minor children who are boys older than 12 so a woman has to either go back to her abuser with her children or leave her sons behind alone with an abusive father, of people laughing at the male loneliness epidemic and treating it like a good thing/deserved reckoning instead of recognising it as a warning sign for a flood of lost teens and young men drifting down the Andrew Tate or rapist incel misogyny pipeline, of people laughing at men's mental health month posts and outright encouraging men to commit suicide under them while men already statistically commit suicide at a higher rate than women...

Men are oppressed in some ways, I'd argue some of those ways are systemic, but no one talks or cares about it. There was a feminism wave in the 90s of "patriarchy harms everyone", which is true, but now we're on a different wave of "men are biologically evil", which is absolutely batshit fucking insane and helps no one. Bioessentialism helps no one. (Plus it's transphobic and intersexist.)

Anyway I'm gonna go back to working on my ute now.

[shreddheir]

KT lore passione explanation.

THE REVENUE SOURCE——

Giorno’s Passione doesn’t need to have constant profits. They’re self sustaining from the inside (this will be elaborated on later). But they still need to do something in order to maintain their control of Italy and keep them feared and respected. This Passione is all about social power. It’s as much of a booming industry as the narcotics trade was. Information dealing, blackmail, extortion, manipulating political parties—they do all that, and do it well. Of course, they still participate in the businesses of smuggling, illegal betting, and making people disappear, to name a few. It’s a good idea to cater to all sorts of clientele.

The members:

The Passione members we see in KT lore are the new equivalent of “Unita Especial”. They are Giorno’s closest inner circle.

Giorno Giovanna———The Boss

Stand: Gold Experience (Requiem).

You all know who he is. He’s the man, the myth, the legend. His role is self explanatory. He’s one of the most influential men in the country, and one of, if not the most powerful stand user in existence. It’s thanks to him that Terunosuke was able to return to human form. Giorno sees all of Italy as his domain to protect. Though most of what he does is morally dubious at best, he wants this country to flourish and move towards a good future. A future he plans from behind the scenes.

Despite public backlash, Italy uses almost no fossil fuels anymore. Similarly, fracking and ecologically damaging business practices are banned, with hefty prison times. Regardless of the politician in office, these laws are not challenged or repealed. I wonder why?

Pannacotta Fugo——head of logistics.

Stand: Purple Haze (distortion)

He keeps the gears of Passione HQ turning. Though he doesn’t do all the logistic work (that’s what subordinates are for), he has the final say on most of it, and he handles anything stand-related or otherwise classified. Though he’s been a part of some spectacular operations back in the day, he currently prefers to stay out of the limelight. It’s safer for everyone. His involvement in planning smuggling operations has lead him to develop an interest in cartography. For a while, he was at peace. Then he lost another friend. When we see him, he’s barely slept for weeks.

Guido Mista——reluctant bodyguard.

Stand: Sex Pistols

Even though Giorno ABSOLUTELY does not need a bodyguard, he takes one with him anyway, as it’s the expected way for someone of his status to act. Up until recently, this was Sheila E. However, she was killed while attempting to independently eliminate a threat to Passione, so Mista was promoted. He’s not too happy about it, but he’s had plenty of chances to leave that he’s never taken. In the years following 2001, he has also developed a complex about the number 3, believing that groups of three are inherently lucky but are also always doomed to be ruined with a 4th.

Panzanella—-The Medium

Stand: Heaven Knows

Wound: Phasmophobia

The head informant of Passione. Her ability in gathering the secrets of others is unmatched, due to the network of spirits she has at her beck and call. All Stand users can see SOME ghosts, but she sees all of them. She knows that the dead are always watching the living. Unexpectedly, her office is full of potted plants, many of which are named. It seems like a surprisingly lighthearted hobby for such a morbid and stoic woman to have. The three largest plants are a rhododendron bush she calls “Carne” and two citrus bonsais she calls “Squalo” and “Tiziano.” Her 3 favorite things in life are her wife Champagne, her hearse, and the cleanser spirits that follow her around and listen to her commands. Giorno is a close fourth. The factoid about the cleansers and the plants are 100% related.

Champagne—-Head of assassinations.

Stand: Jigsaw Feeling

A woman who joined passione while running from her old life and quickly moved up the ranks. She had a hand-picked team of assassins that were some of her closest friends, and moschino picked them off one by one. When we see her in the story, her desire for revenge is all-consuming, but she does a good job hiding it under her irreverent attitude. She is fascinated by the human body to no end, and uses her missions to indulge her morbid curiosity. If her target has interesting eyes and she’s got the time, she’ll swap theirs out for hers. When she’s off the clock, she enjoys sewing and being better than her wife Panzanella in Every Video Game.

The House of the Rising Sun——-The Supplier. Stand: House of the Rising Sun.

This is why Passione doesn’t need to worry about lost money from drug trafficking. This is why no one has ever survived infiltrating their HQ. This IS their HQ. Rising sun is a sentient, stand using building with total control over its impossibly big interior. It can just. Create matter. From NOWHERE. Arms, food, clothes, money,….. it summons all these into existence without a catch. It communicates through signs and has awareness of everything inside of its “body”; even people’s thoughts.

It’s benevolent to allies of passione, but it views humans that aren’t Giorno as below it, much like you might view a cute animal as below you. Like, you want to protect them and see them thrive, but they aren’t at the same level that you are. After all, it is a requiem stand. Only giorno knows how it came to be.

thanks for reading!

[horizon-verizon]

I was asked by someone to look over a specific post and write what I thought about it...this is an opportunity to group several arguments & point out the pattern for a certain discrepancy.

LINK to the post I will talk about. Quote (the parts I will address):

but how can you judge Aegon for fighting for his (very strong and legitimate) claim on the throne when his family persuaded him to do so for their safety and survival but not judge Luke for taking Driftmark from Beala and Rhaena without blinking an eye which is objectively much worse because he was not forced into doing it by any means, and literally has no legitimate claim. Him not getting Driftmark would not have put the lives of his family members at risk the way Aegon not fighting for his claim would have.

I don't know if this post was about HotD or the original canon, but I'll divide my own thoughts accordingly. This post is in no way an invective against the Tumblr user as a person, just a critique of their thoughts.

Their argument claims four things:

Alicent's greens' main motivation to usurp Rhaenyra was self-defense

Aegon did himself at least feel that the throne/Viserys' regard should have gone towards him over Rhaenyra

the twins were at all in the customary line of succession for Driftmark as if they were part of the Velaryon house or were under Colrys' sole authority

that it is Rhaenyra making the decisions over succession

A)

Book!Alicent, Cole, and the older green adults' main reason for usurping Rhaenyra was always about ambition and power. They both believed in patriarchal privilege/Faith-dominance AND used patriarchal privilege for their own ends. Show!older green adults are motivated differently:

Alicent is motivated by Otto's deception of her kids being in grave danger from Rhaenyra taking authority as well as her own envy of Rhaenyra's ability to at least avoid abuse and wishes to take some of her own by pulling Rhaenyra down through patriarchal restrictions and abuses (but even this is confusing in the show bc Alicent herself, as a character, is not written consistently nor intelligently...she is too reactive)

Cole just wants to destroy a person he pedestalized and at one point expected to pedestalize him back above her own station and role despite the fact that he had no real fear of her taking real advantage of him the same way a man could a woman

Otto is motivated by sheer ambition as his canon self is

Going back to the book characters, here are quotes from the green council for why each green older adult wants to usurp Rhaenyra (keeping in mind that they are also presenting their reasons to the green council and Alicent has left Viserys' body to rot to buy time and has already imprisoned/held hostage several people in the castle):

Otto

Alicent

Criston

Fuller Account

Rundown

Book!Otto cites survival for himself and Alicent, banking on Daemon's hatred for him and subsequent disapproval of Alicent for being his daughter, saying that Daemon would definitely try to execute him for just being someone he hated even after Rhaenyra gets crowned. Following his sentiment, Alicent cites the need to preserve her kids' lives on account that they had "a better claim to the throne than her brood of bastards" and are thus a threat to her. So she amends Otto's statement of Daemon killing them just bc he hates them AND uses the aristocratic disgust with bastards and the social stigma against bastards to make the council people more suspicious of the blacks/Rhaenyra. Again, bastards are regarded as inherently untrustworthy people bc they come from lust, "loss of self-control", and not the "duty" involved in a noble marriage. Finally, coming off of Alicent's note about bastards being untrustworthy and from lust, Cole reasons that if Rhaenyra were allowed to rule, she'd have lots of sex with Daemon and both would sexually predate on various lords' children or wives (note the gendered roles: "wife" of a lord). He's talking about "sullying", especially when he brings up how he thinks Laenor would have influenced the Velaryon boys to be sexually predatory themselves by virtue of the fact that Laenor was gay. So like modern media and persons who claim that gay men & drag queens (sometimes women, too but not that often) will prey on children based on the taboo sexual boundary crossing that queerness is seen to be, Criston uses homophobia to express that Rhaenyra shouldn't rule. Meanwhile, the boys are not supposed to be Laenor's kids--that is the whole argument for them being bastards--and Laenor actually didn't spend as much time with the V boys as people around them would expect for a father since he only went to Dragonstone to put up appearances and maybe the odd purely social visit. Laenor mainly lived at Driftmark with his Velaryon family and never built a household with Rhaenyra. Jace (114) was the only one who was born at KL, Luke (115) seems to have been born at the Red Keep and Joffrey (117) was born in Dragonstone.

Counterarguments to the OP's Post (bc some arguments still cross over to the show by the show's own writing)

Rhaenyra has been able to get others to fight for her even after her and her first 3 sons' deaths. The greens were the ones who always made the first move to antagonize, provoke, or undermine Rhaenyra and the blacks in both the book & the show, not the blacks.

If it was just about surviving, bastardry being made into a moral argument wouldn't be used. Also, we have no proof that Daemon would willingly taint Rhaenyra's and their kids' reputation by willy-nilly murdering not just Otto but the Alicent, the would-be Queen Dowager to Rhaenyra's own father without provocation. His killing of the Braavosi noble boy who was betrothed to Laena was all in Corlys' permission, i.e. the lord of Driftmark. Daemon may be a violent man, but he's not a stupid man.

And he never expressed actual hatred for Alicent, it is far more likely he thought of her as an interloper. Otto is still safe even though Daemon hates him: he never killed Rhea Royce and he could have killed Otto when it was safer for him before Viserys died if only by underhanded means. It's not like Viserys would actually execute Daemon if he did, even if it were exile.

As for how Alicent's kids being in danger:

Daemon largely ignored them

Rhaenyra explicitly said that if her siblings stopped she would spare them and only go after Alicent & Otto (this is after she's been usurped and she crowns herself at Dragonstone)

in the bigger picture sense, they actually had more defenses against other lords' machinations even with Rhaenyra [Posts: #1, #2, #3]

In the show, Laenor and Rhaenyra lived at the Red Keep together for all their boys to be born in the same place and it is very shortly after Joff is born that they leave together. Laenor still was not usually as physically close to Rhaenyra's side, but much more than what is implied in the book. However, Cole doesn't mention Laenor being gay as a reason for Rhaenyra's usurpation in the show and neither Alicent nor her father mentions bastardry or survival for their presented reasons to the council. It was just Otto shifting the conversation to naming Aegon and "discussing" the succession "question", Alicent being upset about being iced out for particular discussions and her trying to get them to not kill Rhaenyra and Beesbury's protests leading to his death plus Harold Westerling's giving up his cloak (who is actually already dead in the book). All because the show changed it to Alicent misinterpreting Viserys' dying words and her losing control over the council's and her father's actions, trying to prevent Rhaenyra's death--as she thought that was assured...tsk, tsk no confidence in one who she at one point was trying to go after her own son....

The show made the usurpation a whole, mere misunderstanding and miscommunication rather than the greens twisting truths, being blood purists and openly misogynists for their justifications. If somehow making the biggest civil war and injustices against a woman reads better as coming from a misunderstanding rather than an intentional perception attack on someone, I don't know if they understand the meaning of accountability nor think that misogyny is a real, palpable evil today or ever was, nor how to identify it.

B)

Since we actually do not have that much evidence for how book!Aegon felt about Rhaenyra as a person before she was coronated, this is my headcanon and reasons for why I think he felt he deserved the throne over her despite his trying to foist off getting crowned until Cole (not Alicent) convinced him to take the crown for pure self-preservation sake. At least according to Septon Eustace.

C)

This post goes into why Baela and Rhaena were not ever above the Velaryon boys in the line of the Driftmark succession.

D)

Viserys, Otto, and Corlys are the ones primarily responsible for their children's misery for how they all contributed/directed to how they will marry. Both and show, except Alicent in the book, very much wanted to be Viserys' Queen Consort and of her own volition formed a faction and harrassed Rhaenyra for most of her pubescence and early motherhood.

[stewykablooey]

i'd like to hear your thoughts on shiv's homophobia if you have any? 👀 ngl i did a double take when you called her homophobic—clearly she can conveniently use homophobia to emasculate her interlocutor, but i don't think she has any deep-seated beliefs of the sort, unlike kendall and his misogyny and the fact that he doesn't want to involve her in the business partly because of that

which brings us to

she'd probably replicate the sympathy/solidarity thing with stewy too, in this case because she's a woman and he's a brown man, paired with the fact that the two of them, unlike kendall, 1) can't simply conceal who they are, 2) are not allowed to assert masculinity in an aggressive way. quite obviously shiv's relationship to stewy is largely mediated by their respective relationships with kendall but i won't say more

hi <3

you’re right in that shiv is not homophobic in the sense of having deep-seated beliefs on the matter at all, shiv’s issue with gayness has less to do with the physicality of it but more of the gender implications which is to say that shiv’s homophobia is really just an extension of her internalized misogyny. it’s again related with the masculinity aspect, it’s not about how gay you are but how much you will deviate from your gender and most importantly how much of that is a threat to her? in terms of gay men, shiv sees it as just an extended boys club that she cant access even if it’s just through sex and attraction, the one card she can play as a woman (this was first mentioned by @/shesnake and @/akajustmerry in their succession gaytv podcast episode which i highly recommend) but also it’s how much can their masculinity trump their gayness. out of all the siblings shiv is probably the one that shares logan’s ideas of masculinity the most. she thinks ken is too soft and she thinks roman is weird and she thinks connors lame and its because they just dont align to that idea of logan-masculinity (without getting too daddy issues about it lol) which is also why she’s with tom, because he’s just masculine enough but also decidedly not masculine enough to be a real threat to overshadow her.

which all applies to shiv’s relationship to stewy because stewy is the ultimate threat because he plays at both masculinity and femininity like stewy will never be a logan-type masculine and he knows that which is why he plays to his other strengths which is charm and it’s so carefully cultivated on stewys end Because he knows he can never pass as a logan-type masculine so he Has to play up the handsome charm and confidence but also stewy Is inherently masculine in that he definitely fits in as a man even if it’s the asshole insane amounts of money SUCCESS cocaine party animal kind of man, which may not be man enough in logans book but it’s definitely man enough for the world stewy is operating in which is why he can operate in it so successfully and the success is key. stewy’s riches are self made for the most part which gives him power and status in being an earner and a moneymaker but also stewy’s not in a position of leading stewys not vying for ceo he’s not vying to be top dog which is why he doesn’t Need a logan-type masculinity But he still needs some kind of masculinity to stay afloat which goes back to his crucially self-managed image. in terms of shiv, stewy confuses her in that he isnt a logan-type masculine but a) it doesnt bother him/he doesnt want to be and b) he’s still a winner anyway. but also there’s that edge of homophobia in that she’s confused and annoyed about it because she really thinks ‘youre not a real man. why are you thriving here?’ but also with a little bit ‘you’re a little bit feminine you’re a little bit masculine how does that work/im pissed off that that won’t work for me’ but also again going back to ‘being charming is the card i get to play, but now you get to play it too but also again it works for you but not for me’

there is Also of course. racism. shiv would never feel a solidarity with stewy over him being brown and her being a woman because she’s racist. kendall being gay and her being woman has a common denominator of being white before it has a common denominator of being oppressed. the racism also feeds into shiv’s opposition to stewy’s masculinity. ‘you’re not a man’ is as much because he doesn’t fit an idea of masculinity that she understands as much as it is just her not seeing him as as much of a man because he’s not white.

[paperlunamoth]

Open letter to all terfs:

You’re revolting. You look at a group of people trying their best to survive, to break an oppressive view of the world, and you try your best to ruin them. Need I explain why painting a group of people as monsters, why encouraging others to oppress a minority, why raping (and yes, trans people have been and are raped by terfs) and killing a group of people is wrong?

You claim to be for Justice, yet at every turn you side with fascists who impose the very rules you claim to want to break! Hell, you enforce those rules yourselves, claiming that they’re entrenched in sex! You claim that women are inherently weaker, gentler! That no woman has broad shoulders or facial hair, that no woman has excess testosterone, that no woman looks like a man!

Don’t you see how repulsive you are to people not embroiled in hate? Don’t you want to do something to make the world better, not worse? Use your passion for good! If you can’t understand trans people, if you don’t care too, fine! Focus your passion towards something else, but don’t focus it on a small population of people who just want to live happily in their own skin.

Prove to me you’re not just bigots. Prove me wrong, and put away your hate. Prove me wrong, and improve yourselves. Or, don’t. And let your hate consume you. But just understand, trans people are never going away. You can’t stop them from existing. But you can make your existence better.

I can see that what you wrote is coming from a place of hurt and distress, and I sympathize with that. However, a lot of what you said is just plain not true, and it hurts me to see that your upset is grounded in misinformation.

I do not want to "ruin" anyone. I do not think trans people are monsters. I do not encourage anyone to oppress anyone. I think the same can be said for most radical feminists. And I genuinely have no idea what you are referring to when you say radfems are raping people, but we are just about the most anti-rape bunch on the planet, and we absolutely do not condone that behavior in any way. The same goes for murder. Radical feminists do not support the murder of trans people. Anyone who commits violent hate crimes against trans people is doing so out of personal bigotry and malice, not because they are feminists.

Radical feminists also do not support fascism, or political conservativism in general. Radical feminism is fundamentally incompatible with these ideologies, most chiefly because "traditional gender roles" and misogyny are baked into them. So far as I'm aware, most radical feminists are explicitly left wing. You have been misinformed if someone told you that radical feminism in any way supports or is compatible with right wing ideologies.

Radical feminists do not uphold or support traditional gender roles in any way. We encourage people to be gender nonconforming. And we encourage and support people who have bodies that deviate from what is considered normal or attractive for their sex. One of our ultimate goals is the elimination of the concept of gender altogether. We seek a world where no one is told they must act or look a certain way because of their sex. Again, you have been misinformed if someone told you that radical feminists expect people to conform to gender norms.

Radical feminism is not "embroiled in hate." There are some ways in which some ideas pushed by the trans movement harm the fight for women's liberation. That is the full extent of our beef with trans people. We are responding to something that is a threat to women, we are on the defensive, we are not attacking people out of blind hatred. While I acknowledge that some truly hateful radfems exist, they do not represent the movement any more than uniquely hateful trans people represent theirs.

We are not trying to stop trans people from existing. We are trying to protect our own ability to discuss, think about, and address issues that pertain to women in a way that is helpful to the goal of enacting positive change for women as a social class.

[synthient]

Probably observations that have been made by plenty of people over the last century, but:

Fascinating how the Evil and Unnatural control that Dracula wields over people, is mirrored against the Good and Natural control of men over women; the rich over the poor; the British over backwards and savage foreigners; doctors over the insane.

Fascinating how much the Jonathan's Spooky Castle Adventure segment is subtextally about the horror of feminization. On the obvious level of being subject to sexual violence, sure, but also on the level of being trapped in a domestic space that you're not allowed to leave. The person who's the greatest threat to you is the also the person you've been made absolutely dependant on. You have to keep up a cheerful facade, play along with his social games, and pretend to be too stupid to realize you're a prisoner, if you want any hope of survival.

Fascinating how much the rest of the (surface level) text is dedicated to frantically backtracking that (early, subtextal) insight. The Heteropatriarchal Gender Order is actually the greatest thing in the word! Look how rosy and wholesome the scooby gang polycule is! (Again, our cute jokey pseudo-polygamy is mirrored against their barbarous 3 brides). Yet all the while, the inherent grotesqueness of these relations can't help bleeding through the sentimental trappings - the "euthanasia is such a beautiful word" bit springs to mind

Fascinating how our Three Heroes are, respectively, representatives of The Psychiatric Order, The British Nobility, and American Colonial Expansion (Quincy specifically gets congratulated on the recent Texan secession from Mexio). Fascinating how Dracula and Van Helsing never actually face off directly - everything is mediated through Mina, and it all comes down to a brainwash-off to see who can control her better.

Fascinating how Jonathan's feminization narrative is also haunted by the specter of institutionalization (via the Renfield subplot, which barely ties in with the main story on a surface level). It's not the horrors themselves that affect him the most - it's not being able to trust his own perceptions. (It's the idea that if he really had been "mad," then his imprisonment would have been justified).

Fascinating that the book later goes to great pains to show that he's Regained His Manly Vigour And Has A Knife Now, yet his emasculation still clings to him in the Dracula-based cultural consciousness: he's composited with Renfield to keep that emasculation from infecting the hero in the 30s; he's the unappealing weak prettyboy of the 90s love triangle; he's Shaggy in the scooby gang (unrelated to the Serious Analysis, but it is deeply funny how obvious the Velma=Mina/Daphne=Lucy/Fred=Arthur inspo is now).

Fascinating how much the ultimate question of the book is "What's the Right way to do gender? (and therefore do whiteness/Britishness/patriarchy/colonialism/capitalism?) The answer, apparently, is that both sexes should aspire to a "a woman's brain and a man's heart" - Mina's man-brain, and the Five Guys' woman-sensitivity - while still dutifully playing the roles of their "natural" power dynamic. The obvious inverse is a woman's brain with a man's heart - and is that not Dracula and his "child brain;" the brides and their "cold hard voluptuousness"?

Fascinating to read Mina and Jonathan as effectively the same character (with Mina picking up the gender-power themes Jonathan left off, in a more socially-acceptable vessel). Fascinating how strong the religious cognitive dissonance is throughout. And of course, the whole thing is drenched with Bram Stoker sending some gay little letters to Walt Whitman (as every single victorian gay guy apparently did), then seeing the Oscar Wilde trial and Freaking Out

[tra-archive]

I know you’ve already blocked sincerelyyellingback but someone asked her if she was an antivaxxer today (presumably wanting proof for the anon message you got earlier today) and she replied “hell yeah” - so not only is she ignorant, she’s proud of her ignorance. And also now she has a “both sides are the same coin” post pinned to her blog due to the criticism she’s receiving for voting trump. I’m so sick of people in this community outing themselves as the dumbest, most bigoted people alive smh.

I decided to check that out to verify. I had to use my simblr😩

1)

I never claimed she wasn’t a feminist. I asked how she could call herself a radical feminist while knowingly voting for a man who has several anti-woman positions, anti-abortion being a huge one. Do you really think Trump won’t get into office and take that choice away? If you think it’s bad now, just wait.

Also I’m sorry but you can’t claim both sides are the exact same. Both are full of misogynists, yes, but one side wants women, gay people, and POC to lose all their rights. “Repeal the 19th” is a huge thing among conservatives right now. Florida has been attempting to stop gay/bi teachers such as myself from being allowed to even mention our same-sex partners or even say the word gay to our students. Abortion bans are going to kill women and children.

Dems need to fix a lot of their priorities and there are more than enough sexist liberal men, but you can’t claim both sides are the same when one actively wants you back in the kitchen as your husband’s slave.

2)

I’m begging GCs to realize that conservatives don’t care about single-sex spaces because they care about women. Conservatives don’t even criticize trans ideology for the same reasons we do, they hate trans people because they’re homophobic and hate the idea of a feminine man or masculine woman- notice how they only care about “men in dresses” and not the inherent sexism of gender ideology. They don’t care about women getting our own safe spaces. Trump is the same one who said “grab them by the pussy,” he doesn’t care about women being and feeling safe.

Also as much as I’m against what’s going on in the Middle East and just want peace, things really won’t change with a Trump presidency. I don’t think either one of the two old fucks really cares about the innocent people being killed, if we’re being honest. Radfems are known for being anti-war so idk why she thinks we’re out here cheering on Biden for his part in the Israel/Palestine conflict.

3)

She’s trolling here, still weird though. Also a lot of people think only being against the covid vaccine is different than being “anti-vax,” but it’s the same thing. Not saying that’s what she believes but it’s what I’ve seen many say.

4)

I haven’t trashed you. You shared an opinion on a public social media platform and I shared my thoughts on that. I was not hateful towards you- I expressed my frustration with your choice to vote for Trump, but nowhere did I insult you or call for anyone to hate on you. It’s your choice to vote for who you want and it’s also my choice to talk about it.

Trust me, I know how to trash people- ask any of the TRAs who have sent me threats- and that is not what I did here. 😂

I’m so fucking tired bc it seems like every week someone on radblr shares an opinion that’s bigoted or privileged (revived-frogs being pro-forced birth, redberry being racist, etc) and then gets mad when the rest of us call it out.

Don’t post things publicly if you can’t handle it. Maybe it’s because I’m a rudefem but I won’t hesitate to call out opinions I think are hateful, and that goes for radfems too.

[anadrenalineslut]

The uncomfortable truth that feminism doesn't want you to reckon with: being a woman is defined solely through sexist stereotypes and being a man is defined as being a human.

If there is truly nothing that men can do that women cannot, then there is also truly nothing women can do that men cannot- this includes wearing make-up, wearing dresses, long hair, jewelry, and going by names like Danielle and Marisa.

This is why FARTs are destined to fail and eventually will be recognized as just another reactionary hate group that will fade away into the peripherals of society as we continue to be bold and unwavering in our support of trans people and have these actually honest conversations about what it means to be human.

FART ideology relies on the assumed "common sense" assumption that women are biologically and genetically different than men. Not just culturally different, but there is an innate difference in woman and man that is so significant that it must in some way shape or form be kept as completely separate and distinct things from one another. In other words, there HAS to be something scientifically that makes women different from men and men different from women.

This is at the core of their ideology, and fuels their desire to "exclude men from women's spaces" under a false sense of security by doing so. You cannot believe that men and women are equal while also believing a penis is inherently evil and dirty. A woman being born with or giving themselves a penis isn't inherently evil and wrong because being born with a penis doesn't make you evil and dirty.

Believing that men need to be excluded from women's spaces for safety reasons necessarily means that men are somehow born as a threat or danger to women. If you believe that men are socialized into being rapists and abusers, then you must also believe that men are capable of being unsocialized from being rapists and abusers.

This is not to say to accept PROVEN rapists and abusers into women's spaces. This is an argument that just having a penis in a woman's space is not inherently a threat to that woman. If you disagree with this premise, I just... have no idea what to even say to that? Original Sin doesn't exist, not even for penises. There is no gene that makes penises rape, men are not genetically predisposed to rape women. That, my friends, is RAPE CULTURE 101. Stop normalizing this idea that men are biologically born to want to rape women, this literally indoctrinates baby boys into thinking they have to fucking rape women?

Anyways, moving on, penises are beautiful and natural body organs. They are used for so many different body functions, like heat regulation, reproduction and excretion of harmful waster. They even are born with a cute little protective barrier of skin over the head like a turtle. Penises are healthy body parts to have. There is nothing wrong with having a penis. Just like with vaginas, you just have to be taught how to use your body parts appropriately and we are lacking on that front for penises right now.

If you want gender equality, true equality, where men and women are truly considered human beings first and foremost then you must eventually come to the realization that penises are normal things that exist in the world and they say nothing about your character or who you will be in life. I say this to say: get over yourselves, FARTs. Penises are not genetically wired to rape vaginas, thinking this invalidates women being rapists- of which there are many.

Intersectionality necessarily means that your spaces MUST be open to sex organs and gender expressions of all kinds- because there are many different points of oppression where some people who have penises are oppressed and their needs must not be ignored. Men are not oppressed for having penises- this much is true. Men are not even oppressed for being men. However, men's domination of society and specifically white men's domination of society has had the side effect of even 99% privileged men (white, cis, able bodied, neurotypical, straight, christian) being oppressed through capitalism. We must be able to recognize this FACT in our "progressive" spaces because otherwise, we will never stop the alt right from continuing to radicalize our young boys and men.

If there is one thing leftists can learn from 2016, it's that telling POOR and UNEDUCATED white men that they aren't being oppressed was lying to them and WRONG OF US TO DO because it allowed the manosphere and the anti sjw to alt right pipeline to fill in the spaces of empathy towards a LARGE group of WHITE MEN who were in fact being oppressed and still are being oppressed, just not because they are white or men.

Neoliberals were telling white men that capitalism would save them if they worked hard enough (subliminally: of course their dreams would come true. They are a "real" American. Read: real as white) in 2016. White men were looking around and going "something doesn't feel right. I think I'm being oppressed too," and leftists came in guns blazing and said shut the fuck up white man, you're not oppressed (true: not for being a white man) and shunned these white men for saying that they felt oppressed too. We exiled them from our community and then wondered why they joined the enemy camp: a camp that told these men that they were being oppressed, for being white men, and society had gone "too far." This was a huge mistake on our part because we should have guided these TEENAGERS AND YOUNG ADULTS to the right way of thinking but we should have swallowed our pride and realized that admitting that POOR white people are in fact an oppressed minority as well didn't mean admitting that ALL white people were being oppressed FOR BEING WHITE.

Instead of telling these young white men that yes, the oppression they were feeling was real but it wasn't other minority groups (funny that every other intersection gets this talk but we never have this talk about poor people in general) that were oppressing them, it was RICH WHITES, we just laughed at their very real pain and sent them on their way, telling them ironically to just man up. Toughen up, deal with it, oh is society being mean to you? You wanna cry, you little baby? White male tears are delicious, blah blah blah. And then we acted shocked when they retaliated with Trump, like the right hasn't been coddling their rage at the system and misdirecting to minorities for years now- in direct response to us telling white men to get over the very real oppression they are feeling (FOR BEING POOR, NOT WHITE MEN).

Now, pause, this isn't a plea to forgive neonazis but admitting our complicity in creating these creatures doesn't hurt anyone. In fact, it prevents other generations from doing the same mistakes we did and creating any more of these shits. But it's important to understand why poor white men feel oppressed, so you can better guide their anger towards the real cause of their pain.

It's also important to understand why white men are so angry so that we can understand that it's not biologically built into them and so that we can be more accepting of white men in progressive spaces, even if they are 99% privileged in all ways but one. Even 1 oppression is enough to gain access to our spaces and we need to learn how to navigate these discussions in a way that is both TRUTHFUL but COMPASSIONATE of ALL perspectives.

Men are not a danger to women, white men are not a danger to women. Not biologically. Culturally, yes, 100%. But the beautiful thing about culture is that it is fluid. It changes and adapts and things can fall in and out of style. We can shape a better society where we validate everyone's feelings, even white men's, but we also don't sacrifice truth for feelings. Truth is not always scientific and can be subjective but we should always aim to do NO HARM to anyone.

We need to de-construct our ideas of masculinity and have real conversations about white men, their pain, and their economic oppression and how to include them (white women too) in our political movements in a way that is evidence based, historically accurate, and compassionate of ALL perspectives. We need to be introspective and learn from our mistakes in handling ignorance and admit when we are wrong.

We all must put aside ego and have a real conversation about how we failed white men, how white men failed us, and how we can deradicalize/prevent future radicalization in the future. it's the only way we can save ourselves.