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idreamtofmanderleyagain · 4 years

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Morality-Focused Frameworks Of Discussion As Acts of Control

This is a post in response to a larger conversation I’ve been having with @eshusplayground. I have a perspective that I think would be really relevant to the conversation but I also don’t want to derail the specific focus of the following posts she’s been making recently.

(Trigger Warning For Abuse Discussion and Brief Mentions of Rape)

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So I’m in the Hellraiser fandom. More specifically, I’m a Pinhead/Kirsty shipper.

For those of you that don’t know, Pinhead is a demonic torturer from hell who’s design is inspired by the BDSM community. Characters who open a magical puzzle box have unknowingly given themselves away to his violent underworld community of eternal torment and depravity. Hellraiser is a film about romantic and sexual horror, and there’s quite a lot in there about abuse and trauma. Kirsty is a traumatized person, and in my personal opinion, very likely a CSA victim.

And I ship these two characters together.

So the subject matter of my particular fandom is extremely intense and niche and complicated to navigate, although YMMV (I have no trouble with this franchise, but I cannot really handle GOT or American Horror Story, for example). After I grew interested in Hellraiser and integrated into it’s fandom, my perspectives about the way we have conversations about villainous characters started to have a major shift.

I often see people have these intense conversations (and arguments) about where a particular character exists on a moral scale, with the subtext (or outright text) that if they tip too far one way or another, they can be rendered unworthy of their own subgroup of fans within their own fandom. People who love those characters or find them shippable are then subject to moral judgements.

So how does one apply such logic to a psychosexual torture demon?

The answer is you can’t.

The frameworks people online use to have these discussions do not make any sense when talking about my fandom. Hellraiser is a dark horror fairytale presenting disturbing, surreal images and behaviors in order to discuss complex and difficult experiences and perspectives. The monsters within it, like Pinhead, are more metaphor than anything.

Now, my follower count is too low and my fandom is too niche for me to really be on the receiving end of a lot of the cruelty that manifests online about the moral validity of the fiction I enjoy. That said, between the anti-kink TERFS and the younger folks involved in purity culture on this site, I can imagine exactly what it would look like. You know what they would look like.

“You’re an Abuse Apologist!”

“You’re an Abuse Fetishist!”

“You’re reinforcing sexism!”

“he’s an irredeemable torturer, you’re probably okay with literal real world rape lmao uwu”

“This is bad kink representation and you’re complicit in the abuse real men do to women because you like this!”

Now, setting aside the fact that the canon lore context of Pinhead involves him having a human soul brainwashed by a monster god to become what he is, and is also in a roundabout sense “redeemed” in canon, I think most people utilizing this kind of framework would assume that I believe Pinhead can be redeemed in the way online Discourse (tm) means it, because that’s how we talk in fandom about the villains we really like.

I do not want to redeem Pinhead. I don’t think he even needs redeeming. I don’t even see value in that conversation at all. Redemption is not a concept that makes sense for what he is, or what he could become as a character. The framework of Pinhead as a Real-World-Equivalent Human Male Abuser who Cannot Be Redeemed From His Actions would inevitably dominate all conversation, regardless of the fact that it is inherently incorrect and detrimental to real, robust literary analysis of the narrative he exists within and how brilliantly it actually interacts with male on female abuse as a subject. By nature of it’s gross oversimplification and misrepresentation, It ruins the potential for greater, more nuanced and complex conversations.

And that’s the thing: my engagement with this particular story and it’s characters has a lot to do with the potential in the narrative to examine how trauma interacts with love, desire and gender politics. Hellraiser has a very unique way of exploring that kind of subject through a storytelling aesthetic that appeals to me (horror/fairytale, gothic romance, etc).

This is about to get personal, so strap the fuck in.

I am the victim of gendered abuse, in that I had an emotionally abusive step father and sexism was absolutely a factor in why that manifested the way it did. I am also a second hand victim of gendered abuse, in that my biological father was a serial stalker and rapist, and other male abusers (or just self-centered family members) caused severe emotional destabilization in my childhood. I grew up viewing adult men as unstable, selfish children. My family endured a lot, and I came to resent the men in my mother’ life for not taking on the role of protector and nurturer when she needed them most. I had discovered the great lie of traditional masculinity: in the face of real crisis, grown men were not protectors. They did not hold together the domestic space. They abused or faltered and abandoned us. This was a repeated pattern among several men in different roles. I was often left picking up all the pieces, taking on roles as a child that these men could not. I had to have strength they did not.

My experience of desire for romantic intimacy with men and men in roles of stable, nurturing authority now inherently involves a jumbled emotional soup of fear, pain, and a deep longing that comes from a place of feminine vulnerability, a desire to be taken care of instead of being the caretaker.

The narrative of Hellraiser pushes a lot of buttons for me. It speaks to my own trauma experiences in a very specific way. In an effort to further that conversation, I’m trying to create a piece of art (a fic) inspired by the deeply personal feelings this film gives me.

For me, Pinhead represents the Jungian shadow masculine, a simultaneous mix of fear and desire, the potential for suffering and pleasure, and everything in between. These experiences are inherently intertwined for me. And Kirsty’s experiences mirror many of my own.

In other words, in order for me to get out of Hellraiser what I get out of Hellraiser, Pinhead has to be exactly what he is, and everything that he is. Which includes monstrosity. Which includes the potential for change. His place in the narrative must fully, truly embody this conversation I need to have with masculinity, which inherently involves painful, scary things.

Anybody demanding that I either denounce my interest in him as morally offensive because he’s a monster in the full sense of the word (and not just the aesthetic one like what is currently trending in Monster Boyfriend fandom), or force a traditional redemption arc upon him as if he were a real life human person who must repent for his real life sins, are essentially saying that I am not allowed to engage with this work of fiction in a way that is transformative for me. And that’s very unfortunate, because honestly, I think my perspective is so much more dynamic and has so much more to offer.

This is not just about basic catharsis. This is not even a power fantasy about emotionally transforming a powerful (white) dude, or “bad boy” fantasies, both standard arguments for villain stanning that feels like it has never truly represented me or the complexity of my experiences and interests. This is a full-on conversation and act of self expression I want to have through art about the experience of fear and trauma when dealing with men as a woman who desires men.

And I don’t think a person has to be traumatized in order to want to engage with this type of fiction. I want to be clear that my experience is not a justification for my interest (I do not need to justify myself), it is an example of a perspective that gets erased by the framework of these conversations.

To me, the framework of moral validity for enjoying fictional villains and monsters and whatever you please feels incredibly stifling to the complex, dynamic ideas and analysis that I want to engage in, because I, and many people I know, are consistently pressured to structure their thoughts with this framework as the only acceptable baseline of discussion. This is so ubiquitous that when people I’ve known have tried to engage in ways that diverge from that framework, the responses they get are outright confused or direct the conversation right back to the original framework they tried to avoid. Complex conversation gets steamrolled.

Somewhere in the conversation we were all having about acknowledging and discussing abuse and oppression, and acknowledging troubling patterns in media which reinforce the normalization of abuse and opression, some people decided that there was a very serious moral discussion to be had regarding the mere act of liking things which involve dark subject matter and complex, or even monstrous characters. They now argue that there are very clear cut, simple moral frameworks for A) telling stories and B) enjoying stories, and most importantly, that this moral framework is a valid justification for the social treatment and silencing of certain people.

A framework, by the way, which I think is actually not functionally a framework, because like the toxic American fundamentalist christian groups it’s thinking is structured from, it does not account for the vastly diverse moral landscape within it’s own space. There is no objectively consistent body of knowledge anybody is working from, because morals are derived from the human experience, which is inherently subjective.

Interestingly, no where does this have more of an impact than with marginalized people, and people like me, who want to express something deeper and more meaningful in the conversation about abuse and oppression than what this framework really offers us. To be honest, The more I see this kind of conversation making the rounds, the clearer it becomes that it’s a means of control and power game playing. It’s not about morality, but about how morality can be leveraged in order to silence truly diverse and nuanced perspectives and uphold people’s sense of self-comfort. It is a means of supplanting more convenient and easily digestible understandings of these highly complex subjects that require more intensive, thoughtful engagement, especially when it gets challenging. This kind of rhetoric absolves people of making room for complex and diverse experiences, and reinforces an (at face-value) easy to follow set of moral rules of how we are all allowed to think and feel.

The implication of all of this is that if we all adhere to the One True (alleged) Moral Framework of Fandom Engagement, then we will somehow come out on the other side with all the Good People having a Great Time having Squeaky Clean Fun. And I don’t think I should have to tell you at this point how stifling and disturbing the implications of that kind of mentality really are.

Quite frankly, I think a lot of us are very tired of constantly speaking on other people’s terms.

#abuse tw #rape tw #Fandom #Hellraiser

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savnofilter · 4 years

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no nuance november!

a/n: which is basically you have a bunch of opinions and dont explain any of em' and let your followers discuss them (much more suited for tiktok sjsnj). i'll be doing it since it compiles with many topics like fandom, racism, lgbtq+, politics and etc. i highly encourage people to do this simply because why not? feel free to send your own opinions n stuff, i wanna know what my followers think!!

disclaimer!! ⚠️ all of these are broad, not pin pointing certain people or situations. even though these are my opinions these were all in fun and have been collected over the years and will change as time goes on. nothing is sugar-coated so thread carefully. feel free to agree or disagree. :)

warning(s): mentions of racism, p*do micro aggression, fetishizing, toxicity, abuse, politics, labelling, mental health, cancelling, fandoms, ages.

key:

iswis = i said what i said, no explanation to that one.

whe = will happily explain.

stop sexualizing gay/m|m/yaoi relationships. it's not only demonizing to the males, it's also very fetishizing. (iswis)

most times /10 yall root for "feminine men" when you really mean white boys and fetishised asian men on social media. (whe)

bullying someone isnt educating. you either cant cope with the fact people have different opinions from you or you have a struggle with things either always never going your way or the opposite. (iswis)

straight people will never have a say in lgbtq+ issues. stop inserting yourself. (iswis)

white people will never have a say in poc issues. stop inserting yourself. (iswis)

poc will never have a say in black people issues. stop inserting yourself. (vice versa but im black and it happens more often to us lol) (iswis)

using the defense, "but black lives matter, right?" when one black person does something bad isnt facts, youre racist. (iswis)

fandom adults need to stop gatekeeping the target audience (demographics) to animes/shows. (iswis)

poc people can be racist. (whe)

even if a certain site was adult doesnt mean that every adult wants to see your porn. either keep it to yourself or tag properly. (iswis)

saying shit like, "im more xyz than you and im not even xyz" is not only disrespectful but disgusting. just because you believe in a popular opinion of a group does NOT suddenly make you a person in it, get over yourself. (iswis)

dont hate on people for the same things you have done at a young age. (ex: writing fanfic, seggs, etc) (iswis)

blaming a minor/someone mentally unstable for being abused is not only victim blaming, but it enables the notion that people who go those things that they wanted it. (iswis)

going off of that last point, if you do victim blame for situations and been in them yourself you either still havent coped with what you went through and still think it was your fault when it wasnt. (whe)

it's stupid people hate minors for being undeveloped when adults are the reason as to why people get traumas, abused and quite literally are destroying the world right now. (iswis)

gen z is white as fuck. (iswis)

early 2000s kids are equivalent to 90s kids who use to post, "only 90s kids under this" and post something that 2000-5 experienced. (iswis)

dear 2005+ kids, abusing harmful substances and having sex doesnt make you grown. stop it. (iswis)

adults, being able to post porn doesnt make you grown or mature, stop believing that it does. (iswis)

just because it's a coping mechanism doesnt mean it's healthy. (iswis)

avoiding conflict doesnt mean youre mature. if there is an active problem and you know ignoring it will only benefit you and not the actual problem at hand that is selfish. (iswis)

black women generate clout for everyone. when we're hated the person gets patted on the back, someone appreciates black girls they are praised, and people of many groups repeatedly steal from our culture. (iswis)

YES THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING BLACK AND AFRICAN AMERICAN. (whe)

if youre black you do not have to be democrat OR republican, there are many other parties. (whe)

i do not trust either parties, no minority should. (whe)

this 2020 election was not a win for poc people no matter who won. (iswis)

we do not decide whether or not what to do on columbus day. it is up to the natives themselves. (whe)

pointing out other countries (current) faults is not racist. although the issue can be misconstrued, if proper research is done it safe to say it's an educated observation or opinion. (whe)

privilege heavily varies; ex, americans are seen as privileged, while the people who live in it experience a disadvantage because of the societal standards. within the country itself. (whe)

americans, stop saying that america is the worst country and there are other countries who are suffering much worse than we are. yes sometimes it sucks but do not label it as the worst. (iswis + whe)

white people are privileged and will always be until we break the racist issues deep rooted in EVERY community. (iswis)

9/10 when marginalized groups like (women, lgbt) are mostly focused on white people and never address the poc counter parts. using the excuse "well idk much about that" is not good enough and just promotes pseudo-white supremecy. (iswis + whe)

do not use aave. (iswis)

aave is not gen z language, stop calling it that. (iswis)

gay men (white especially) use black women and get praised for the things we do that are called ghetto. (iswis)

yes it is offensive if you touch a black persons hair with or without permission. we are not your pets nor zoo animals. (iswis)

and yes it is offensive if you see a black women with beautiful hair and assume it's fake or ask, "is it yours?" "is it real?" (iswis)

using jailbait as an excuse to lewd minors is just as disgusting. (iswis)

beauty standards for women is rooted from pedophilia. (iswis)

using other pedophilic relationships as an excuse to ship yours is disturbing and you shouldnt be near children at any capacity. (iswis)

everything doesnt need a label. (iswis)

the fact that gangs have been criminalized while mafias havent is racist and feeds the stereotypes that poc are criminals. (iswis)

people are more forgiving to white predators than to poc (neither are good but people let white off the hook more often). (iswis)

if youre okay with your friends being racists, creeps, abusers you are just as bad. (iswis)

although you can like what you like, making dark content shouldnt be as glorified as much as it is. (iswis)

some kinks do deserve to be kink shamed. (iswis)

adults need to be more held accountable when held in situations with minors. (iswis + whe)

everyone perceives the world differently, many people will see the same things you see differently. (iswis)

calling people crazy for questioning the things around them doesnt make them crazy, youre just asleep. (iswis)

the human body can function without a soul. (iswis)

stop disrespecting christianity. you wouldnt do the same with hinduism, islam and etc. (iswis)

the bible was altered by white men and the true meanings have been misconstrued. (iswis + whe)

bullying someone who you THINK is problematic is not excuse to be hateful. youre just scum and feel the need to justify your actions. (iswis)

not everyone has to like you and dont need a reason. (iswis)

just because you dont like someone doesnt mean you have to make a show of it. be mature and move along. (iswis)

yes callouts/cancelling has its place but it's never done right. (iswis)

"cancel culture" wasnt a thing till white people joined in. (iswis)

dont cancel someone for stuff they did years ago. bringing it up is important but not allowing them to understand, reflect, and apologize is not only bullying it defeats the purpose of bringing awareness. (iswis)

big writers need to stop complaining when one fic or a few dont do good. not only does it rub in small writers faces, it shows that if you need people's validation to write you probably shouldnt be writing. some works will be popular and some will flop, get over it. (iswis)

stop witch hunting & crucifying people for shit you have done or your friends have done and going "uwu sorry" when you get caught. (iswis)

90% people believe content creators with bigger audiences. (iswis)

people spontaneously posting, "uwu take care of your mental health" doesnt mean that they actually care. (iswis)

people are always quick to judge people with real mental health such as depression, anxiety, adhd, and etc are always the one to turn and pretend to be exactly what they just mocked. (iswis)

dont have kids if youre not going to take care of them. (iswis)

stop baiting baby otakus (people freshly getting into anime) into watching cp like yarichin bitch club or boku no pico. they are minors, it's not funny, stop it. (iswis)

stop being protective & toxic over anime characters. if they were real they probably wouldnt even like you. (iswis)

just because someone is your friend doesnt mean that they arent toxic or abusive. (iswis)

start believing when people show their true traits. (iswis)

trauma happens in different forms, stop saying something didnt happen because it didnt go the way that has commonly happened or the way it occurred to you. (iswis)

stop saying minors should "know" while also being the loudest to say that our brains arent even developed till 25. (iswis)

the adult age should be raised to 20 years old. (iswis + whe)

tos should be raised to 16 years old. (iswis + whe)

minors take "18+" & "minors dni" out of your bio. (iswis)

yelling at minors for finding the content you freely put out without any care is your fault not theirs. (iswis)

there are plenty of adult sites that are more confined for adults but you guys ignore them because youd rather get popular on writing erotica on a popular social media platform. (iswis)

trying to cancel someone over one mistake and or blowing said things out of proportion is toxic and stupid. (iswis)

if you take someone saying they need to distance themselves for mental health reasons personally and make them feel bad for it youre an actual shitty person. (iswis)

if someone disrespects you, you have the right to say whatever you want in response. (iswis + whe)

stop hypersexualizing everything (adults especially). (iswis)

the excuses of, "they look grown" "i mentally think xyz" "theyre fake" is creepy and weird and yall should come up with a better excuse. (iswis)

yes i do believe minors should be writing for minors only, but i will not give a shit if an adult does if said characters are aged up in every work sfw or not. (iswis)

stop saying teens cant go through traumatic things and cant experience mental illnesses. it just shows that you werent cared for as a child and never get the therapy for it. (iswis)

gen z has a very colonized idea of activism. (iswis)

feminism was never for all women until the rest of us forced ourselves in. and even now it's still an issue whether or not people realize it or not. (iswis)

poc solidarity doesnt exist as much as we try to make it happen. (iswis)

colorism is an issue, and no you will not tell me otherwise. (iswis)

the hot cheeto girl is offensive and demeans black & hispanic culture. (iswis)

stop bashing minors for breathing, just say youre mad youre not young anymore and move on. (iswis)

black men are the white people of black people. (iswis)

there is no reason as to why you anyone would refer to black people as "blacks". nor should you (non-black people) be arguing whether or not to say nigga even with the hard r. (iswis)

if you (pertains to white people) think white privilege doesnt exist but go on to make fun of or ignore minority problems you are the living and breathing example of what we are talking about. (iswis)

loli/shotas are fucking disgusting and people who like it deserve to be tortured for eternity. (iswis)

seriously, stop using theyre "fake" as an excuse. (iswis)

if youre comfortable with being hateful to someone but still consider yourself a nice person because you do the hate minimum to be a decent human, youre either a narcissist or have a god complex. (iswis)

coons have no say in black issues. (iswis)

people need to stop blaming the "home wrecker" for ruining the relationship when it was the s/o's fault as well. there is no home to enter without an owner. (iswis)

stop saying any asian man yo see reminds you of a haikyuu character and or any anime character. it's racist. (iswis)

stop saying any asian person looks like a kpop idol, it's racist. (iswis)

stop downplaying and invalidating when black women go through traumatic things. not only does it promote that we have to be strong and save everyone else's problems, it says that we dont have emotions and cant be a victim which is disgusting. (iswis)

if you say shit like "minors curate your own experience" then go and turn around to say you REFUSE TO TAG YOUR SHIT YOU ARE LITERALLY MAKING THE PROCESS OF CENSORING HARD! (iswis)

white women are just as much of a problem as white men. only difference is sex keeping them apart. (iswis)

stop saying kpop is racist. expecting artists from a different political progression to understand that things can be offensive is bland. (iswis)

people accept boy groups fuck-ups more than they accept girl groups. and most times out of ten, the males are worse. (iswis)

if you engage in nsfw conversation with a minor, it is your fault they responded. (iswis)

anyone can be abused. (iswis)

stop coddling adults and bullying minors. (iswis)

most of you females have internalized misogyny and dont even know it. (iswis)

you can callout issues without having to drag a group of people. same with uplifting. (iswis)

if youre fine with being a sheep unfollow me. (iswis)

seven deadly sins is not a good anime. (iswis)

there is a difference between boku no hero academia fans based on if they call it "bnha" or "mha". (iswis)

ships literally are not serious stop harassing people over ships. (iswis)

do not harass creators of series because they do something with THEIR story. make your own. (iswis)

stop saying horikoshi sexualizes his women too much/mineta is the worst when you guys enjoy shows like one piece, hunter x hunter, naruto and etc. (iswis)

minors often or not are sheeps (heres your sign you dont have to agree with everything other people say). (iswis)

just because minors can be mature doesnt mean that they are adults. stop treating them as such. (iswis)

we should give more voice actors in the asmr (idk what to call it) community more recognition instead of just one. (iswis)

writers are the ones that send hate to other writers. anon hate is so corny and if you do it that goes to show that you are truly a toxic person wearing a fake mask of kindness when youre not on anonymous. (iswis)

stop being mean to smaller writers because they did not have as much luck as you. (iswis)

stop blaming your readers because one story flopped. (iswis)

ignoring someone's shitty actions encourages them to do it more. (iswis)

going to school and getting a job is much harder now than it was before. (iswis)

being an adult doesnt automatically make you mature. just because youre older doesnt mean youre better or you opinion is more valuable. it just shows that you werent heard when you were younger. (iswis)

there should be no reason as to why someone of the age of 18 should be having any romantic relationship with someone who is a minor. (iswis)

hawks is a shitty character. (iswis)

bakudeku isnt toxic. (iswis)

just because bakugo is in a ship, doesnt mean it's toxic. (iswis)

stop shipping male characters together simply because they have screen time together. it's creepy. (iswis)

almost all of 1-a students have ptsd and anything close to the after effects of being traumatized. (iswis)

no, editing characters to be poc is not racist. youre just mad they arent "white" when they never were. theyre asian and come in many colors as well. (iswis)

wanting to only be with a different race to get a mixed baby is fucking disgusting. (iswis)

stop ignoring pedo relationships between older women and younger boys and or with older women in general. (iswis)

males can be abused, stop telling them to suck it up or that they cant go through things. (iswis)

shaming young females about things they cant control is misogynistic and is damaging to their identity and shouldnt be excused. (iswis + whe)

not all females have to shave. (iswis)

what you dont like in someone is the projections you see of yourself on other people that you dont like about yourself. (whe)

popular bl stories extremely misrepresent gay relationships and frankly it's disgusting that theyre boosted as much as they are. (iswis)

jjba isnt ugly, you just watch animes to sexualize the characters. (iswis)

it's shitty that anime and kpop only became cool once white people stated to like it and made it mainstream. go gatekeep family guy or something. (iswis)

if you have been anime fan for a long time you were with bullied/teased for just generally liking it or you were a weirdo who recreated shit from it. (iswis)

weaboo and weeb were bad terms till we made them positive?? literally otaku is the word for it but we use weeb instead lol. (whe)

normalize and promote educating someone without going straight to bullying them. (whe)

haikyuu isnt really a good manga/anime nor is the art style the best but the characters make up for it. (iswis)

stop misusing terms and stop nitpicking definitions to manipulate your narrative. (iswis)

toxic positivity is manipulative and if you have to make it back handed you are not as nice as you like to make it seem. (iswis)

studying a major doesnt mean youre actually good in the subject. (iswis)

normalize people realizing their past mistakes and growing from it. (iswis)

do not self diagnos unless you actually feel like you may have that issue and would like to seek help. mental health is not a personality trait. (iswis)

stop projecting onto people. (iswis)

stop misusing terms and stop nitpicking definitions to fit your narrative. (iswis)

stealing any type of work should not be tolerated. (iswis)

constantly trying to trigger someone to go back to their old ways (being toxic, abusive, addiction, suicidal etc) after changing is toxic and manipulative. (iswis)

if you make jokes about hurting kids and or feel the need speak badly about them i do not want to speak to you. (iswis)

the human brain wasnt developed to understand complex ideas such as death or the universe. (iswis)

we will never truly know what is beyond our skies. (iswis)

thats all, thanks for sifting!

#opinions #hot takes #three t's for the week #read at your own discretion #no nuance november #d dabbles

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rainbowloliofjustice · 5 years

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While I’m on the topic of “kink critical” radfems and whatever

Minus the fact that a lot of it ignores the various roles in BDSM and kinks, how trauma and abuse work, as well as relying on and even reinforcing gender roles and stereotypes, it also relies on whether or not they decide (for you) whether or not you are able to consent or engage in something.

“You shouldn’t get off to humiliation and degradation.”

For the person to decide, not you. If someone likes to be tied up and called a dirty little whore who am I to tell them that they can’t enjoy that? A lot of people will say that you shouldn’t get off to xyz even if that activity is completely consensual. Someone being humiliated and degraded against their will isn’t the same as someone who willingly engages in that activity nor should they be treated the same.

“No should be a good enough safe word.”

The reason that, unless it is negotiated, “no” isn’t a safe word in kinky situations is that some people get off to saying no and roleplaying a person who is rebelling against something. In situations like that, “No” as a safeword or a way of stopping a scene will just lead to mixed signals on what is or isn’t okay rather than clear and effective communication. If someone’s safeword is “peaches and cream” then when they say it, everyone knows that the scene should come to a halt as opposed to if they just say “no” and they’re the kind of person that likes to get off by saying no.

Plus, safewords even outside of nonsexual and kinky situations can be good for getting yourself out of something or signaling to someone that you need help without directly saying it. It can be a way of getting out of a dinner party that you have no real excuse to leave or signaling that you need a ride home from a party and don’t want to make it obvious that you’re ditching. It avoids the whole being guilted into staying for whatever reason by giving you a reason that is “beyond your control” to leave.

“There should be a line drawn somewhere.”

Yes and that line should be determined by whoever is being directly impacted by the scene or sexual situation. For some people, that line starts and stops at what they say is okay, whereas for some people that line can be pushed and nudged with only a few hard boundaries to respect.

You can’t “draw the line” for someone else because to do so would have to ignore how that person feels about the situation and their own personal boundaries. So to “draw the line” for someone else would mean violating their own rights to their body and ability to consent.

“But there are some kinks that are genuinely harmful/threatening.”

Yes, and they should be talked about... in the context in which they exist. When all you say is “some kinks are harmful” with no boundary or distinction on what qualifies as a harmful kink, all you really do is lump in the “harmful” ones with the “unharmful” ones. So kinks that are “harmless” are classified as “harmful” and there is no real distinction on what qualifies as either other than whatever standard the radfem or “kink critical” person has said because some qualify anything beyond the most mainstream, acceptable form of BDSM to be harmful while others even consider something like spanking to be harmful.

Whereas in kink and BDSM communities, kinks that are thought to be harmful are said by name of what they are, and there is a relatively open discussion between people who engage in them and people who don’t to reach some measure of consensus. Even if that consensus is “Don’t involve people who can’t/don’t/or are unable to consent.” in regards to whatever that kink is. In terms of ones where that consensus isn’t reached, the conversation continues without lumping it into other “harmless” kinks.

And in the event that there are varying degrees to danger involving a kink, they actually discuss those dangers, why, and how to mitigate them as opposed to just saying “You shouldn’t do this.”

“Aftercare is just reconditioning the body to accept abuse and trauma.”

Except that isn’t how abuse and trauma work. At all. The first thing being that you can’t consensually traumatize or abuse yourself or someone else. Yes, there is a period of time in the cycle of abuse where the abuser will lavish their victim in gifts, love, and affection as a means of “making amends” but the difference between that and aftercare is the fact that abuse is non consensual and that the words and feelings of the victim don’t matter. As well as the fact that these attempts at “apologizing” are just ways of making the victim feel sorry for the abuser rather than being a genuine attempt at apologizing before falling back into the same cycle.

Ever cuddle with someone after sex? Ever get something to eat or drink after sex? Ever watch a nice movie together after sex?

Congrats you just participated in aftercare.

The reason that it is given a term in BDSM and kink communities is to make sure that everyone is properly cared for after a scene. It has nothing to do with “conditioning” someone for anything. It’s making sure that after a scene, especially an intense one, that everyone is okay and it’s effectively the downtime afterward.

The reason that things like “aftercare” and “safe words” are given actual labels and meanings as opposed to just being something that you “just do” is that it helps clear up the communication and lessens the likelihood of a miscommunication occurring and it’s also for the purpose of actually educating people. It’s to help people navigate what they’re feeling, what they should do, etc.

“But some people use kink as a cover for abuse.”

Yes and putting people who are abuse victims and kinky people in the same pile of “These are the same” inhibits any discussion related to people who use kink as a cover-up for abuse. Even in kinky situations, the signs of abuse do not change much from a vanilla relationship.

There is a lack of respect for the person’s wishes and desires, disregarding their ability to consent, etc. etc. The signs of it don’t particularly change, you just have to look at them with more nuance for the situation, but ultimately the signs of abuse don’t change.

It’s a frequent topic and advice that any dom who violates or ignores the safe word is ignorant at best and an abuser at worst, especially if it is a repeated pattern of behaviors. Same goes for any sub that violates or ignores the safe word. Same goes for anyone who engages in generally harmful and toxic behaviors and excuses it by saying that they’re kinky or whatever else.

Those are some of the most disliked people in the community. It’s not like the community just turns a blind eye to abuse, as it’s easy to talk about and is frequently discussed within the community as well as ways of mitigating abuse and how to more easily spot abuse within the community.

However, “but some people use kink as a cover for abuse.” is so frequently used by radfems and “kink critical” people as a way of painting all (male) doms and kinksters as abusive people who just want to bully, abuse, and degrade people women for sexual gratification that it is practically worthless to say. Especially given that many of those “kink critical” and radfem type people, have absolutely no issue justifying abuse against men (at worst) and ignoring or downplaying it (at best) while also claiming that women cannot be or that abuse experienced at the hands of a woman is “lesser” or is less traumatic. Even more so when you consider that many even consider any type of kink to be abuse and intentionally will say things like “So you’re saying someone can ask to be abused?” when the conversation is in regards to consensual kinks.

All in all they just do more harm than good and honestly just inhibit conversations regarding it because they can only look at things through their own political lens and agenda.

#rainbow things #kink critical #radfems #okay i think thats my last post on the topic for now

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

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#9yrsago Heinlein memoir: LEARNING CURVE - the secret history of science fiction

The first volume of William H Patterson's enormous Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century is out. It's the first authorized biography of the sf writer who popularized at least three important motifs of the 20th century (polyamory, private space travel and libertarianism) and redefined the field of science fiction with a series of novels, stories and essays that are usually brilliant but sometimes self-indulgent, sometimes offensive in their treatment of race and gender, and always provocative and generally sneaky.

The best review I've read of this book so far comes from John Clute, one of the field's great scholars and critical writers, who devoted his June column in Strange Horizons to discussing Heinlein's work and (flatteringly enough) comparing it to the whys and hows of my own work. I recommend you read Clute's piece now, but for those of you without the time to follow the link, I'll sum up some of the bones of Clute's essay:

Heinlein was notoriously recalcitrant about his early life and the two wives he was married to before his epic marriage to Virginia Heinlein. He repeatedly burned correspondence and other writings that related to that period. Clute suggests that this is partly driven by Heinlein's desire to be Robert A Heinlein, titan of the field, without having to cope with his youthful embarrassments. It's a good bet -- lots of the stuff that drives young people to write science fiction also makes them a pain in the ass to be around until they work some of the kinks out of their system (I wholeheartedly include myself in this generalization).

Patterson doesn't seem to have ever met Heinlein, and most of Heinlein's contemporaries were dead by the time Virginia Heinlein authorized the project, which means that, by and large, Patterson works from secondary and tertiary sources (fascinatingly documented in a lengthy set of end-notes that I'd much rather have seen as footnotes), playing detective, especially in Heinlein's early, pre-WWII military career. This makes some of the early material a bit dry, a bit of a detective's notebook rather than the gripping narrative that the book gradually turns into as Heinlein comes into focus through increased use of primary sources.

But the dry detective work of those first hundred-some pages (the main body of the enormous book runs to 473 pages) absolutely pays off as the book goes on. Patterson isn't just aiming to be a detective of Heinlein's life: he's seeking out the inspiration, situational and philosophical, behind Heinlein's fiction, and the carefully traced pathways from Heinlein's boyhood and adolescence into his career as a writer are peppered with Aha! moments as the origins of his best-loved work are revealed.

Patterson also puts forward a pretty comprehensive case for the idea that Heinlein's fiction generally conveys Heinlein's own political beliefs. This is widely acknowledged among Heinlein fans, save for a few who seem distressed by the idea that the blatant racism and sexism (especially in the earlier works) are the true beliefs of the writer at the time of writing and would prefer to believe that Heinlein didn't write himself into his works. I got into a pretty heated debate with one such person at the Heinlein panel at the 2007 Comicon, who maintained the absurd position that Heinlein's views could never be divined by reading his fiction -- after all, his characters espouse all manner of contradictory beliefs! (To which I replied: "Yes, but the convincing arguments are always for the same set of beliefs, and the characters who challenge those beliefs are beaten in the argument.") Not that I fault Heinlein for this -- it's an honorable tradition in SF and the mainstream of literature, and I find Heinlein's beliefs to be nuanced and complex, anything but the reactionary caricature with which he is often dismissed.

Once Heinlein gets out of the Navy, marries his second wife, Leslyn, and relocates to LA, things start to get a lot more interesting. He and Leslyn had an open marriage, and were at the center of a quirky, bohemian circle of sf writers and oddballs. They befriended a young L Ron Hubbard (Leslyn later has an affair with him) and subsequently introduced him to a disciple of Crowleyan sex magick, who, it seems, inspired much of Dianetics (but this comes later, after the war).

Heinlein also began writing fiction for John W Campbell in this period, and their chummy -- but often tempestuous -- correspondence is a genuinely fascinating look into the development of the Heinlein Project, the thing that motivated Heinlein through his years as a writer, and before that as a California politician (as Clute puts it, "he was a utopian quasi-socialist Social-Credit doorbell-ringer for the Upton Sinclair rump of the Democratic party in California") -- a utopian ideology based on global government, an end to war, technological increase, personal liberty, and a society built on fairness and equality.

Heinlein's war years are harrowing due to personal illness and long years spent working as an engineer in a materiel factory (his poor health disqualified him from active military service), and put him in the center of a gang of sf writer/engineers whom he gathered around him to work on the war effort, including an obnoxiously high-strung young Isaac Asimov, who had to be treated like a clever but naughty puppy.

After the war, Heinlein's second marriage turned sour (his first marriage hardly existed and was dissolved quickly) and his fortunes wavered as he strove to find his place in the world, with one foot in the pulps and the other in respectable slicks like the Saturday Evening Post. The complex logistics of the dissolution of his second marriage to Leslyn -- his longtime collaborator, who had fallen to alcoholism and depression -- are made more fraught by the commercial uncertainty his fictional risk-taking engenders, but by the book's ending, Heinlein's career is in the black, he has remarried (to Virginia Heinlein, to whom he remained married until he died) and things seem to be going well for him.

I've read a few memorable histories of the early years of science fiction, such as Judith Merril and Emily Pohl-Weary's Better to Have Loved and Damon Knight's The Futurians but Heinlein was in a class all his own, someone who, along with John W Campbell and a few others, personally changed the shape of the field, and possibly the world.

Reading Learning Curve feels a little like happening on a secret history, a hidden lens through which my understanding of the world came into slightly sharper focus. I'm really looking forward to volume two.

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve

https://boingboing.net/2010/08/16/heinlein-memoir-lear.html

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planitiautopia · 3 years

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vibecheck me if u wish - my various stances and rules of engagement r under the cut, and also my short intro👇🏻

a very short intro:

hi. call me cerber. i’m a homoflexible genderqueer guy, i’m perisex transsexual; my pronouns are he/they and sometimes i use xe/xem/xers (or xirs)/xemself

few hills i’m standing on as of rn:

destigmatize being ill

you can criticize the medical institution without bashing the ill who rely heavily on the few accommodations it provides

addicts are also disabled ppl

hate trans ppl? fix ur heart or die trying idgaf

strong solidarity with intersex, gnc, detrans, and retrans ppl, and ppl w/ other marginalized variations of gender expressions, experiences and/or sexing histories; anyone who challenges the white-centric dyadic-binary cis-heteronormativity is my sibling and comrade, especially if they aren’t universally accepted in larger Queer spaces

demedicalize transness and intersexness

fuck exclusionism and respectability politics; Queer liberation is only possible with the liberation of all bodies, expressions and lifestyles

i personally use term ‘transsexual’ to celebrate my trans body; i don’t really care much about the other definitions of this term and how other trans ppl might be using it

identity labels are tools. not laws, not science, not the holy bible of queerness; foucalt got this one straight on point fr

oppression is systemic and intersectional; intersectional theory’s framework is based on nuance; it is Not strictly-unilateral (“oppressor vs oppressed”), Not universally applicable/replicable (“cis men oppress cis women => trans men oppress women, cis and/or trans”), Not arithmetical (“marginalized by X but privileged by Y, thus -1 + 1 = 0 on the oppression scale”), and definitely Not interpersonal (“X group’s member(s) in my community treated me like shit, therefore they as a group oppress me as a group”)

note that i’m Not saying ‘We Are All Oppressed’ or ‘we’re all oppressing each other equally’. many groups are multiply-marginalized. yet, many individuals are oppressed by larger structures that do not explicitly target their groups (ex.: many intersex, detrans, and gnc people are heavily targeted and oppressed by cissexism and transphobia on top of dealing with their own specific discrimination, even tho they’re not necessarily trans; another ex.: many perfectly healthy fat people are targeted by rampant ableism because their bodies are different; and so on). these voices do matter in conversations about oppression bc they help us to see how tightly interconnected all the mistreatments that we face are; shutting these voices down will immediately affect multiply-marginalized people

other marginalized people are not your enemy, the oppressive system is; statistics are nuanced and these nuances are literally pointed out in every single properly done survey; just bc one group has been documented to have lesser % number on a scale of Dealing with A Specific Thing DOESN’T mean that they’re a.) Immune to The Thing and Aren’t Affected by The Thing individually, thus Are Privileged and b.) Benefit from The Thing and must be A Threat to the other groups; saying otherwise is fucking ridiculous! and especially so when percentage are like 1.5-3% and the survey is limited to US only, fucking c’mon y’all

lateral aggression is unfortunately a real thing and we all have to do better

language is inherently flawed, biased, and limited; it cannot be relied on entirely when discussing thins like morality, the “validity” of identities, etc. oh, and it’s also completely fucking useless for doing respectability politics shit

thought crimes aren’t real; fiction isn’t reality; video games don’t cause violence, publicly wearing kink gear =/= assaulting bystander, playing DnD won’t make u a satanist; y’all are just susceptible to fear-mongering and very gullible

kink is awesome and good; kinksters are our allies, inclusive and explicitly Queer kink communities are our backbones and shelters. we’re all perverts, keep Pride weird and kinky

sex work is work; decriminalize sex work; swerfism doesn’t do shit for sex workers, unions do

unionize. organize. collaborate. don’t be a fed. amen

ACAB and filthy fucking racists; Disarm and Never Talk To Cops; and fuck prisons; forced labor is slavery; carceral torture, SA, medical neglect, etc. are human right violations, not a part of a prison sentence

decriminalize homelessness; housing, free healthcare and universal income are basic human rights; uplift the poor, outlaw the rich or at least tax ‘em into human decency

also, fuck borders; fuck occupations, fuck genocides, fuck assimilation; No One Is Illegal; Land Back; Black Lives Matter; Free Palestine;

USSR genuinely sucked, actually! tho soviet propaganda still works to this day, soviet censorship is over - read some history of post-soviet countries, learn about the corruption and the abuse of authority, the political prosecutions, the pogroms and the rampant antisemitism, the occupations and literal mass murders, pre-war nazi collaborationism, etc etc etc. usamericans, please stop doing the “the enemy of my enemy is my bestie” thing cuz stalin isn’t your leftist commie daddy lmfao, he was a tyrant. USSR was a tyranny.

and some general psa:

english isn’t my 1st or even 2nd language! i’m also dyslexic on top of that, so i’m very aware that there might be miscommunication issues

this blog isn’t screenreader-friendly but please do describe anything u want and just @ me so i can update it

i reclaim slurs heavily and don’t wish to be censored. tagging my posts with ‘q-slur’ and such will not be appreciated

do ask me to tag general triggers, especially if a post is tagged as ‘#ask to tag’!

can’t guarantee consistently tagged trigger warnings; reminding me to tag things is very appreciated

i will tag my tone on request; i’ll appreciate if you do the same but it’s purely optional on ur part. i’m usually sincere but feel free to ask if it’s unclear

don’t tone-police me if i’m speaking in general terms about topics that upset me and please, please don’t immediately assume genuine hostility when i’m simply not agreeing with ur take or not being overly cautious/apologetic when i’m speaking to u; tho i try to watch my manners, i don’t do eggshelling and it’s a really fucking weird thing to ask of someone

ignore me if u don’t like me! it’s normal and fine, even good for you! block me if u need to!

do tell me if i’m neglecting nuances when discussing intersectional oppression; tho i don’t claim to be always right or to know everything, there are many experiences that i haven’t personally been through and might even never thought of!

i’m ok with criticism and having my ideas challenged, and i truly do appreciate the effort to educate me

that said, there are many experiences i’ve been through and i won’t tolerate invalidation

i also won’t tolerate hateful, provocative, and abusive behavior; i refuse to argue for the sake of arguing and will block ppl who don’t listen, twist my words and/or make arguments in bad faith

everything stated here is but a small part of what i believe in and care about irl; my views may change over time; i don’t personally endorse every single user i reblog from; if u need to know for sure - ask me directly

i don’t owe anyone my personal information; you don’t know me and it’s ok! if there’s no disclaimer, assume that i’m speaking from my personal experience

congrats, u made it to the end! thank you and stay inquisitive <3

last edit: 21/08/24

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zorilleerrant · 6 years

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There is no one community.

Oh, sure, there’s overlap, there’s a space that marks itself LGBT in big letters and a space people name ‘the queer group’ and another space that no one has a name for, but you know if you go there you’re safe if you’re gay and you’re safe if you’re trans but no one better talk about kink. A space where we can’t talk about aphobia and biphobia because it’s ‘getting too political’ and a space where we can talk all we want about intracommunity issues but the kid in the corner having a panic attack just gets laughed at and told to suck it up.

Plenty of you get your hackles up when something says LGB, when something says LGBTPN. Some of us have to navigate the intricate nuances of the difference between LGBT and LGBT+ and LGBTQ and LGBTQ+ and LGBTQIA and every letter, every symbol after that. Do you want to know the difference? The difference is, the first is sometimes well meaning older people and often strict assimilationists the second is progressives from conservative areas but mostly some kind of gatekeeper the third is strict on its definitions it’s okay with people who don’t want labels but it expects you to be some kind of gay or some kind of trans real trans not any of that nonbinary shit while the fourth may be okay with that and probably is okay with any identity but they love to play respectability politics and the fifth is virtue signalling they like to seem inclusive to feel inclusive but they don’t like to be inclusive and by god if they don’t shut down any conversation they think is off topic. You can see it in the people who like the labels, in the books that get shelved under them, in the articles that get marked with one tag over another. You can see it in the support blogs, in the community discussion groups, in the events that get a banner with one or the other. It’s not just the activist groups.

And it makes sense in some ways to have groups that are just the L, just the G, just the B, just the T. (It doesn’t make sense to have just the Q. What would that mean, anyway?) And something for mlm and something for wlw, but LG and oh now that’s a red flag, that’s, well it’s sure something, but it’s something we don’t need to reinforce within the ‘community’ or without. And sure, different groups for trans women, trans men, nonbinary people, different groups for transneutral and transmasculine and transfeminine, but here’s a question: what do trans men and trans women have in common that nonbinary people just don’t have to deal with that’s the real issue. And sure separate resources for people who want HRT and people who want at-home solutions, people who need help with changing their legal documents and people who just want to be called something different by their so called family, people who are trying to be vocal and people who are as closeted as they can be at the moment. But the infighting? Well, you can try to keep it open to ‘everyone’, which means safest for whoever was already safest on the outside, only protect us from the lowest common denominator of well that wasn’t very nice, or you can keep it safe for the most at risk, which means risking the most backlash, the angriest subhegemonic rants about who is and who isn’t allowed. No one can play nice with everyone, it’s the paradox of I want to punch you in the face.

(Let’s not address which people are personally oppressing which other people. This dichotomy of ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’, that’s not how oppression works. That’s straight out of radfem rhetoric. And ‘privileged people’ v. ‘marginalized people’ isn’t much better. Classes are privileged, not people, and how that plays out one on one often looks different than the aggregate, which is sort of the point of why you have to aggregate the data in the first place. And while we’re at it, stop treating every kind of oppression like it has the same dynamic, like it works in the same way, like it’s interchangeable. They aren’t.)

And there’s the other acronyms, too, the MOGAI and GS(R?)M that welcome everyone who wants to be included, but, you know, a lot of people don’t. For one reason or another. So the intended demographic and the observed demographic, well, let’s go back to the paradox of kys shall we? Anyway there are a lot I didn’t put here because I don’t even recognize them all and also because I hate SAGA so much just because it looks like SGA even though I don’t actually know what it means. Alliance, I think? But that’s reasons for you.

And queer, you can say queer, but that isn’t one thing, either. There are queer behaviors - those we can list off, those we can study in any reputable university - and it’s easy to say what. Is it socially normative? Checklist time. Queer people are harder. We can pick who self-identifies and that’s fine, but. But. Some people use queer to mean specifically gay, like specifically, like if they find out you have some sort of vague or nebulous attraction, that you like men and women both, that you have any sort of feelings about your gender, well, that’s a betrayal isn’t it? (It’s an older meme, but it checks out.) You have the people who are queer as in ‘oh I don’t know yet’, or queer as in ‘I don’t like labels’, or queer as in ‘none of your business’. You get the ‘queer as in fuck you’ crowd that means they want to assimilate so bad, that they can’t see why these facts are meaningful, that they just want a way to be hegemonic like you and you and you. You get queer as in homonationalist, you get queer as in transgressive just for the transgression (queer as in troll), you get queer as in political faction that seems off but you can’t tell how. You get queer as in closeted about some of their identities. You get queer as in I want to queer things, queer as in academic, queer as in apparent, vocal, loud. Rarely you get people who mean they want to subvert the paradigm, smash the hegemony, the queer agenda if you will.

And it’s not the same. Pick any group, any group you want. You think the tumblr anarcho-queer and the facebook anarcho-queer and the reddit anarcho-queer are the same person? The same cultural perception, the same context, the same makeup of backgrounds and goals? You think the internet cultures we build are the same as offline spaces, and those - how are you acting like that specialty group in the middle of Manhattan works the same way as the five people who meet in someone’s barn in the middle of Kansas and have to be friends no matter how much they hate each other.

And fuck it. I’ve given up finding a community with people who know anything about my experiences of color, about the way my brain forces me to see the world, about the way my body stops it, let alone my interests.

But please, please stop the myth of the cohesive whole.

#my writing #look i said something

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 years

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#8yrsago Heinlein memoir: LEARNING CURVE - the secret history of science fiction

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve

https://boingboing.net/2010/08/16/heinlein-memoir-lear.html

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 years

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Heinlein memoir: LEARNING CURVE - the secret history of science fiction #7yrsago

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve

https://boingboing.net/2010/08/16/heinlein-memoir-lear.html

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