#but there are some behaviours that are so normalised that no one wants to address because that means admitting they were a bully

[corvidkusnos]

Anyway eldest sibling woe is me stories are annoying and tired :)

When you've been on the receiving end for years of an older/eldest sibling acting like they basically raised you when you literally were babies/kids together and the sun shines out their asshole while you get overlooked unless it's to be a scapegoat, and then any time you express your annoyance at that being called a brat and hearing them lecture you about how hard they have it claiming to do roles in the family that were actually ones you did while they got the credit, it's very tiresome

[cinnamonest]

With this whole 'rape fantasies are a result of misogyny as they allow women a guilt free sexuality cos they have no autonomy'

Surely that means your writing and fantasies are contributing to misogyny? Adding to it and normalising it?

Like isnt the answer to write and encourage fantasies of empowerment? Not abuse and rape?

Just seems crazy to me like 'we do this because of misogyny. And we'll keep doing it'

Obviously some behaviour come from misogyny and exist to combat it. This... really doesn't

I just don't think it's a feminist win when your writing is indistinguishable from that of a misogynistic man's.

This isnt an attack on you it just really seems like common sense that if something exists because of misogyny the last thing we should do is feed into those ideas

(I assume this is coming from this post, so I might reference that a bit here)

No worries, I fully understand how this can come across negative to those who do not have the same experiences and I appreciate you approaching the matter in a non-attacking way with genuine desire to have dialogue on the subject. I'll do my best to address these points individually.

>Surely that means your writing and fantasies are contributing to misogyny? Adding to it and normalising it?

In the past few years fandom culture has become a bit obsessed with the idea of "normalization" to the point that the definition of the term has been a bit skewed, which creates issues with these discussions.

There is no concept of which existence of content containing it alone constitutes normalization, by the actual definition of the word. Normalization is the process by which it is distributed and way in which it is presented, and intent of its creation.

Normalization via fiction is a process in which a creator, generally intentionally, creates content that presents a concept as, well, normal. That is, not reprehensible or problematic to replicate, and presents this to a population with the intent of them accepting the idea as something acceptable in reality. Generally it also necessitates that the creator will try to ensure the media is viewed by mainstream general audiences who would not normally seek the content out, since the purpose of normalization is to make an idea acceptable amongst a population.

That is the opposite of what I am doing, which is creating a private space filled with warnings. I am going out of my way to ensure that people who do not want to see this content, have the foreknowledge to opt to avoid it.

By definition, if you’re creating content and ensuring that it is heavily warned, and marketing it as such that only a niche group who likes such content seeks it out, that’s not normalization by any reasonable metric.

>Like isnt the answer to write and encourage fantasies of empowerment? Not abuse and rape?

For some people, I’m sure that would help them, and in that case, that is a great solution for them.

But people are different, and certain things that help some, don’t help others. The types of fantasies that would probably be called “empowering,” personally do nothing for me but make me uncomfortable, in the same way that the sort of content I write makes some people uncomfortable. It does not have the same positive effects on my mental health that this form of content does.

>Obviously some behaviour come from misogyny and exist to combat it. This... really doesn't

That's fair — but it doesn't have to.

It is not intended to directly combat misogyny in any way, there are other ways to do that, and this does not have to be one. It's primary purpose is catharsis and the ways in which it benefits me and, as is my hope, those who choose to consume it.

>I just don't think it's a feminist win when your writing is indistinguishable from that of a misogynistic man's.

Again, I never had any intention for it to be a "win" — misogyny is the reason for why I have these desires, but in making what I make, my purpose is to provide catharsis for myself and others.

But also, I would heavily contest that it is indistinguishable from male fantasies. As someone who has seen actual men's misogynist fetishization fantasies, they are very different.

Female disposability and the complete worthlessness of women’s very being — that is, women being non-human objects that are interchangeable, and made to be used temporarily and replaced — is the core defining characteristic of male fantasy/sexuality. Male fantasies almost always involve multiple women to one man, largely because he does not have any actual bond with women, they are items to be collected, no interpersonal relationship actually exists.

The lack of interpersonal connection and lack of personableness itself is fetishized by men, what men get off to is the power they feel from completely disregarding the woman as a person in any way. The very act of the woman being thrown away after being used is fetishized.

In male fantasy, there is no interpersonal connection or affection of any kind, whereas that is one of the defining themes of content like mine.

Tl;dr — while misogyny impacts all women, the severity and form of it in different upbringings, environments and cultures can create misunderstandings and strong reactions when different people react so differently to the same content and thus form misconceptions about each other's perceptions and intentions, but I believe both sides of this argument are usually coming from a place of good intent.

While I fully understand how it would be difficult for those who do not have the same experience to grasp mine, I just ask for mutual understanding that some forms of content help some people, in the same way entirely different forms of content help other people.

[gatheringbones]

[“Feminists’ discomfort with proximity to sex workers reached a fever pitch during the so-called ‘sex wars’ of the 1980s and 1990s. In this era, radical feminists locked horns with ‘pro-sex’ feminists over the issues of pornography and prostitution. The radical-feminist perspective on sex work holds that it reproduces (and is itself a product of) patriarchal violence against women. This analysis could extend to all heterosexual sexual behaviours, as well as public sex and kink (commonly known as BDSM, for ‘bondage, domination, submission/sadism, masochism’).

The focus in this era was on censoring porn and ‘raising awareness’ rather than addressing prostitution through criminal law directly, but a nonetheless vehement anti-prostitution stance became commonplace in the feminist movement. Writer Janice Raymond stated that ‘prostitution is rape that’s paid for’, while Kathleen Barry said buying and selling sex was ‘destructive of human life’.

The defence of porn and prostitution that followed in response was based on ideas of sexual liberation through nonconformist sexual expression, such as BDSM and the ‘queering’ of lesbian and gay identities. Many ‘pro-sex’ or ‘sex-radical’ feminists posited that not only could watching porn be gratifying and educational, it could upend patriarchal control over women’s sexual expression. Moreover, that the sex industry was sticking two fingers up at the institution of marriage, highlighting the hypocrisy of conservative, monogamous heteronormativity. While some people who fought for sexual liberation were sex workers – such as LGBTQ and AIDS activist Amber Hollibaugh – many sex radicals advanced their arguments from a non–sex worker perspective. Defending porn often meant defending watching it, rather than performing in it.

Radical feminists famously described sex radicals as ‘Uncle Toms’* pandering to the primacy of male sexuality, while they in turn were derided as ‘prudes’ invested in preserving sexual puritanism. Rather than focussing on the ‘work’ of sex work, both pro-sex feminists and anti-prostitution feminists concerned themselves with sex as symbol. Both groups questioned what the existence of the sex industry implied for their own positions as women; both groups prioritised those questions over what material improvements could be made in the lives of the sex workers in their communities. Stuck in the domain of sex and whether it is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for women (and adamant that it could only be one or the other) it was all too easy for feminists to think of The Prostitute only in terms of what she represented to them. They claimed ownership of sex worker experiences in order to make sense of their own.

Anti-prostitution activist Dorchen Leidholdt spoke to this feminist impulse; ‘this de-individualized, de-humanized being has the function of representing generic woman … She stands in for all of us, and she takes the abuse that we are beginning to resist.’ It was in this context that former prostitute Andrea Dworkin’s work became highly influential in the movement, and set a new tone for criticism of sex work. The Prostitute, she said

lives the literal reality of being the dirty woman. There is no metaphor. She is the woman covered in dirt, which is to say that every man who has ever been on top of her has left a piece of himself behind … She is perceived as, treated as – and I want you to remember this, this is real – vaginal slime.

Her confrontational writing style – and her experiences in the sex trade – helped to legitimise and normalise similar usage of graphic and misogynist language in ‘feminist’ discussions of sex workers and their bodies. Barry, a contemporary of Dworkin, likened prostitutes to blow-up dolls, ‘complete with orifices for penetration and ejaculation’, while Leidholdt wrote that ‘stranger after stranger use[s] her body as a seminal spittoon … What other job is so deeply gendered that one’s breasts, vagina and rectum constitute the working equipment?’ Academics Cecilie Høigård and Liv Finstad wrote of women who sell sex that ‘at the core they experience themselves as only cheap whores’.

Sex working feminists have long found themselves harshly excluded, and not only by de-humanising language in academia, but by explicit lack of invitation into spaces. Kate Millett recalls a feminist conference on prostitution, held in 1971. Disgruntled working women arrived to demand a seat at the table: An inadvertent masterpiece of tactless precipitance, the title of the day’s program was inscribed on leaflets for our benefit: ‘Towards the Elimination of Prostitution’. The panel of experts included everyone but prostitutes … all hell broke loose – between the prostitute and the movement. Because, against all likelihood, prostitutes did in fact attend the conference … They had a great deal to say about the presumption of straight women who fancied they could debate, decide or even discuss what was their situation and not ours.

Unlike the hostile environment of radical feminism, sex radicals were welcoming and supportive to sex workers. This influence helped shape the movement’s growth. In 1974, COYOTE hosted the first National Hookers’ Convention. The bright orange flyer nodded to the way prostitutes had been shunned from the women’s movement: emblazoned with a hand touching a vulva, it proclaimed, ‘Our Convention Is Different: We Want Everyone to Come’”]

molly smith, juno mac, from revolting prostitutes: the fight for sex workers’ rights, 2018

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

hi I usually love ur takes n some of them have literally meant a lot to me when I was struggling to find myself n somewhat still am but not this time. there's absolutely no need to even try to defend the rich texan man jus cus disappointment isn't a new thing for u guys who've been in the fandom for years. horrible behaviour w/ fans need not be normalised under any circumstances n there's just no need to say 'oh the rich white man mustn't have heard the question or the crying he's not like that.' No. Just no. The solution of going in w/ no expectations may be rational but that's not what happened right. We fully expected to be disappointed wrt destiel n I personally expected a full jomophobe panel tbh but not this shit w/ the grieving fan & girl!jack. if ppl are calling him out on being shitty I absolutely don't see the need to call it an overexaggeration on our part. Sorry it got too long. Sorry if I've hurt you in any way, not my intention. I love you and your patience.

okay so i got a lot of asks yesterday, the day Jensen Said The Thing About Jack, far more than i can possibly answer. and while the majority were positive support (and thank you so much to everyone who sent support, i see you and i love you), but i got several hostile, antagonistic asks, and there was a particular reoccurring theme in them that i did not have the cognitive energy to address yesterday.

however, i have now had time to have a good old fashioned shower argument session, so i'm going to write this out, and i'm choosing this ask because it was at least less hostile than others.

here's the thing. basically everyone who was hostile to me used the exact same words: "why are you defending the rich white middle-aged texan man."

they said those words over and over. rich white middle-aged texan man. rich white middle-aged texan man.

now, if you don't know, i happen to be a white person who has lived in texas my entire life, and is closer to middle-aged than i'd prefer. just so we're all starting on the same page here.

while it's a dangerous thing to do on tumblr, i would like to try and deconstruct some of the logic here.

it appears as though the argument to this statement is simply, "this person has multiple axes of privilege, therefore he is wrong by default and everyone agreeing with him is wrong by default." it appears as though the argument is, "a debate on morality and correct vs incorrect is won or lost based on the amount of privilege held by those having the debate".

because, let me make it perfectly clear: i never said that jensen did absolutely nothing wrong. i never "poor baby"d him. i said that he was probably stressed out and anxious and he probably didn't mean it to come out the way it sounded, but i completely understood why people felt grossed out and upset by what he said. i said that i would like for someone to sit him down and explain to him why what he said was gross so he could do better, because i think that he's a sincere person would do better once he knows better. i did not pull the "stop being so mean to my poor little meow meow" routine. i discussed the subject at length, with what i think is a proper degree of nuance.

but every time i wrote 500 words of nuance, somebody else told me "stop defending the rich white middle aged texan man."

and i don't want to get into a whole essay here, but like..... do you people understand that each one of those things are not, in of themselves, bad?

yes, jensen is "rich", but is not wealthy. if you don't know the difference between 10 million and 10 billion, please do some math. he's a c list celebrity, not elon musk. yes, jensen is white. so am i. so is misha. so are lots of quite decent people. yes, jensen is middle aged. are we really gonna get ageist here and act like not being 20 is a character flaw? all of you will be middle aged someday.

yes, jensen is from texas. do you know why texas is shitty? because of gerrymandering and voter suppression, not because the people who live here suck worse than anywhere else. i see people make posts going "lmao he's literally from texas" like it's hilarious. donald trump was born in new york. what's your fucking point?

and yes, jensen is a man. is radfem rhetoric really so pervasive that i need to say that being a man is not bad? i mean like, it's one thing to vent and joke about men as a class, it's another thing entirely to act as though being a man makes you a bad person. men are not bad. men are fucking great. i love men.

and the thing is, i say all of this, but of course you know it already. because two days ago you knew that jensen was a rich white middle-aged texan man, and you still called him "king" and parasocialized like fucking crazy. when you thought he was gonna go out on stage and say "dean wants cas to fuck him in the ass" you LOVED him, you wanted to suck his dick. you didn't care that he was a rich white middle-aged texan.

but, when he didn't say the things you were demanding he say, you turned on him. he wasn't your king anymore. and then he fumbled a lame joke that was, at worst, casually sexist. (i will no longer entertain anyone saying he sexualized a child. if you cannot understand that alex calvert is in his thirties i do not know what to say to you anymore.) and it's completely fair to say "i don't like that joke, it was casually sexist and made me feel gross." that is completely fair.

BUT. with that, you have to admit that you're not upset about jensen being a rich white middle-aged texan man, you're upset about what he said. and, again, that's fair, as long as you're not twisting it into shit it wasn't. anyone who's upset and grossed out by the "a few more glances" comment, i sympathize with you. i'm not excusing the fact that he said it.

so... we're back to the fact that when i was discussing this, i was trying to discuss the morality of what he said, and whether those of us having the discussion were correct or incorrect in what he meant by what he said. and over and over, people responded with the "rich white middle aged texan man".

which, if you've made it this far, brings me to my ultimate point: i don't know how to tell you this, tumblr, but morality and correctness is not determined by privilege.

the most marginalized person in the room is not inherently the most moral person in the room, or the kindest. being gay or Black or disabled or poor doesn't make you a good person. being kind makes you a good person. and i guess this might be controversial on here, but sometimes privileged people are kind, and sometimes marginalized people are unkind assholes.

i was not defending jensen because he's white or a man, but because i think he's kind, and i think the people trashing him were both unkind and incorrect. i am not going to become so fucking brainrotted that i say "kill him" because the him in question is a white man who said one mildly upsetting thing, and i'm not gonna just go along with people who do.

i do not fucking like the way my dash turned so swiftly from kissing jensen's ass when they thought he was gonna say something gay to literally calling for him to be murdered because he said one dumb thing. the way people acted was unkind and cruel and undeserved, and i don't care how marginalized you are, if you are unkind and cruel for sport, i don't like you. you make fandom a terrible place.

i will defend anyone that i think is a kind, genuine person, and i will call out anyone who i think is an unkind asshole. i don't care if you're gay or trans or a person of color, if you're an unkind asshole, i'm not going to stand by you. your oppression is not an excuse for being a shitty ass person.

and before i end this post that DID turn into an essay despite my best efforts, there's one more thing i'd like to bring up that i found... interesting.

as soon as the dash starting going to hell over The Comment, i immediately saw people saying things like "well what do you expect from a straight man." and those people were the SAME people who have spent months making jokes about jensen being "[gunshots]" and gleefully partaking in my cockles masterlist. in other words, these people have spent nigh a year joking around and agreeing that jensen is a queer man.

but the moment he displeased them, he became a straight man again. as if being queer is only reserved for good people (you do know that queer men can be sexist, right?) and straight = bad. as though they were punishing a queer man by calling him straight.

and ultimately, i think my point is that you don't say "(straight) rich white middle-aged texan man" because you think those really are inherently bad things, because you were a fan of jensen five minutes ago. i think you say that so you have an excuse to be mean. just fucking nasty and unkind and violent and disgusting, really.

as long as he's all those things, there's no problem with saying that he should be shot in the head, right? because of course, it would be Wrong and Terrible to say that a poor disabled native lesbian should be shot in the head because she said something that upset you, right? and the difference would be because, uh... because being marginalized inherently makes you Good and being privileged inherently makes you Bad? so as long as the person in question was born under certain circumstances, it's totally cool and funny to make jokes wishing violent death upon them.

and, before anyone comes to tell me i'm a hypocrite, then, for saying rude things about jared, i'm going to explain, if i must, that the reason i hate jared is because he's not only a self-centered bigot, but because he thinks being cruel for sport is funny. do you get my point?

lastly, before i press post, i'm going to say this one more time: jensen absolutely did not hear that girl crying from backstage. i have been in a convention audience and not been able to clearly hear what a questioner said, because they are not mic'd as well as the person onstage. that is not an excuse, that's just a fact. some event coordinator told jensen to round up misha for the next thing on the schedule, jensen did not know what was currently going on, and he came out teasing in a way that would have been perfectly fine if the question was light-hearted, which they usually are. someone asking a question involving how to cope with the death of their abusive father is simply not what is typically happening at convention panels. he didn't. fucking. know.

at this point, i think that you guys actually just enjoy tearing people down and manipulating something into an excuse to be cruel. you view real, actual human people with feelings as toys to be played with, and when they don't dance the way you like, you throw a tantrum. and if that's what you want out of fandom, stop making any pretense of valuing kindness.

[balillee]

i don't understand how people can write off every single person in the dream smp/mcyt as problematic

yes, definitely, dream has been in some controversies, but you also know what else he's done?

he's helped to give a platform to someone like eret, who has, on record, bought binders for some of his trans followers. he gave a platform to ranboo, who cumulatively has donated $100,000 to the trevor project (which dream contributed to when he gifted 1000 subs during the subathon). he helped to further platform tommy, who, despite not needing to, goes through those godawful threads on twitter and apologises for things he may have fucked up on even if they are insignificant, and who addresses a lot of stuff even without being asked. the list of very positive people he's helped give a platform to goes on.

i don't get the whole 'you shouldn't have done it in the first place then' argument. you're calling them irredeemable, and for someone who's pushing for positive and progressive social change, that makes you a hypocrite. opinions can change, people can learn, and that should be wholly welcomed and encouraged. and, nine times out of ten, when someone's being 'problematic', as you say, they likely don't know that something's problematic. and you can sit there and you can say that 'well if i know, then you should know', but that's not how this works. i didn't know for years that the r word was a slur, for example, due to my history with internalised ableism that i've learnt and grown from (which has helped me to navigate my own neurodivergence), and because of the normalisation of the term in britain. that's immediately very different from someone with a set of progressive parents who are well educated on topics such as mental health, and who's from an area where terms like that aren't so normalised. you don't know these people's upbringings either in real life or online.

'oh, but my parents were conservative, you just don't have any agency to think for yourself. you have no compassion.' once again, not how this works. a lot of people could have been taught things by their parents from a young age that will have very long-lasting impacts on their life and their perspectives, and if something's been taught to you, it can be difficult to unlearn that behaviour or change your viewpoint, especially in the case of neurodivergent people - to which, for the people that said that dream 'has no compassion because he would have known better in the first place', your ableism is showing. these people don't encourage positive growth because they don't care about actually changing minds and changing lives - they want to win. they're the ones who don't have the compassion, the patience or the sympathy to help people become better and understand why they were wrong, and most importantly, move on from that so that real change can be made.

it's glaringly obvious that people who say these things only know the dream smp or mcyt through dream's controversies and the shitshow that is mcyttwt, and they don't know the true depth of the creators involved who are a breath of fresh air in comparison to the types of individuals who used to sit at the top of the gaming categories. they're not perfect and they're always learning, especially since a lot of them are still so young, but especially in comparison to the types of people you typically see in gaming communities, the mcyt/dsmp community is the last of your worries. to be overly concerned about it seems performative, like i always say.

[comrade-meow]

The commodification of women and “enclosure” of sexuality through prostitution, widespread porn and the resulting fallout led to the next frontier: biology itself, womanhood itself. Transgenderism leverages the mind/body split that rape culture promotes by introducing a new form of biological enclosure. With transgenderism, the reality of sex is no longer something natural that we simply share in common, but a place for Big Pharma to set up shop in the name of “identity.”

I have a “big picture” brain. I’m unsatisfied with superficial explanations of current events and political trends, and only understand them once I’ve placed them in the context of deeper historic trajectories, social patterns and human drives. Without these explanations, I remain unsatisfied and questioning (and can’t be sold on false solutions either).

Transgenderism is one contemporary political trend that requires big picture thinking to comprehend—because there are no casual explanations for why, in less than a decade, people all over the world have started to accept a set of bizarre and contradictory ideas: that sex is a spectrum, that sex can be changed, and/or that sex is not real at all, only gender identity is—all to justify the political mantra, “transwomen are women.” This mantra is simply an assertion of male privilege, that men should be able to claim female identity if they want to, without needing sound justification. How did it spread so fast?

I have just finished writing a series of books called the Brief, Complete Herstory (2021) which offers a continuous narrative of history from the Big Bang to neoliberalism. It discusses pre-patriarchal cultures around the world, and the creation of patriarchy, church and state, capitalism, and neoliberalism. Only the last volume mentions transgenderism, but writing these books has helped me put the transgender trend, among others, in context.

One thing that is clear to me is that the idea that men can become women is not new—it began when patriarchal religions insisted that God, the creator of life, is male. Before this, if “god” had a sex, it was commonly female: she who birthed the world. The idea of god as male-produced all sorts of weird stories and myths to capture the imagination: like the one about Aphrodite being born out of Zeus’ head, and Jesus being born after an “immaculate conception” involving a male sky god and Mary, a sexless virgin (trans activists might call her an “incubator”).

Another thing that strikes me, taking this long view of history, is a succession of waves of “enclosure” or colonisation that cause enough social and economic fallout to prepare the ground for the next, more intimate, “enclosure.” The pattern begins earlier, but if we start with the enclosure movement of the 15th and 16th centuries, also called the “privatisation of the commons,” it is easy to place transgenderism in the context of a historic trajectory. I’ve discussed this before, in a talk on YouTube, but here I want to cast a wider net.

The 16th century saw the Protestant Reformation and the rise of modern capitalism while the Tudors reigned in England. The Tudors used the Reformation as a way of breaking from the Catholic church in order to act without, or against, the pope’s approval. After breaking from Rome, they seized church property, privatised the commons, and colonised Ireland. For centuries, peasants had used common lands to graze milk cows and gather water, edible and medicinal plants, and wood for construction and making fires.

The simultaneous confiscation of the commons and church property cast many people into poverty because the lands were a source of sustenance and, under feudalism, it was the church that had given aid and shelter to the poor. Women were especially affected by the double whammy of enclosure and lack of poverty alleviation. In her biography My Own Story, British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst traces her feminist awakening to witnessing women in the homeless shelters and workhouses that queen Elizabeth I eventually established to address the crisis.

Looking back, we can see that the enclosure movement provided the preconditions for Britain’s industrialisation. When common lands were privatised, they largely became lands for grazing sheep used for wool in the textile industry, the biggest industry of the early industrial revolution; and it created a class of people desperate enough to work up to 18 hours a day for a pittance in dismal conditions, in the factories or “satanic mills,” as the poet William Blake called them. Most textile workers were women. Urbanisation also took place in tandem with the rise of prostitution, with many women forced to choose between that, factory work or domesticity.

In her book, Witches, Witch-Hunting and Women(2018), Silvia Federici connects the 16th- and 17th-century witch hunts in England with the rise of capitalism and the privatisation of the commons. She writes that “women were the most likely to be victimised” by enclosure, pauperisation, and the “disintegration of communal forms of agriculture that had prevailed in feudal Europe,” because they were “the most disempowered by these changes, especially older women, who often rebelled against their impoverishment and social exclusion.” She notes that some women participated in protests, pulling up fences enclosing the commons, and explains:

[W]omen were charged with witchcraft because the restructuring of rural Europe at the dawn of capitalism destroyed the means of livelihood and the basis of their social power, leaving them with no resort but dependence on the charity of the better off, at a time when communal bonds were disintegrating, a new morality was taking hold that criminalised begging and looked down upon charity.

The premise of Federici’s book is that this very same correlation between privatisation and “witch” hunting can be seen with neoliberal privatisation. She shows how witch hunts have escalated dramatically following the neoliberalisation (or “re-colonisation”) of the African continent and the privatisation of lands there, for instance in Tanzania, where more than 5,000 women per year are murdered as witches and in the Central African Republic, where “prisons are full of accused witches.” In Indian tribal lands, “where large scale processes of land privatisation are underway,” witch hunts are also increasing, as they are in Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Saudi Arabia. Describing the way witch-hunting frames the female sex, Federici argues that, “we have to think of the enclosures as a broader phenomenon than simply the fencing off of land. We must think of an enclosure of knowledge, of our bodies, and of our relationship to other people, and nature.”

Federici considers her analysis of the correlation between privatisation and witch-hunting to be ongoing, a work in progress—but I think her project is hamstrung. Her conclusions will remain sorely limited as long as she maintains the position that there is such a thing as a “sex worker” and a “transwoman,” because these ideas are central to the neoliberal “enclosure of knowledge, of our bodies, and of our relationship to other people, and nature” today. The term “sex worker” was coined by the global sex trade lobby on the back of women’s poverty and the normalisation of prostitution under neoliberalism.

In his book Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery (2010), human trafficking expert Siddharth Kara shows that neoliberalisation leaves indigenous women especially vulnerable. He unveils a pattern of neoliberal government reform followed by land confiscation, leading to domestic poverty, and then prostitution in Asia, Europe and the United States. His book covers the period of the 1980s and 90s when the International Monetary Fund and World Bank were handing out “structural adjustment packages” all over the world. These are financial loans conditional on land and infrastructure privatisation, cutbacks to health and welfare spending, and removal of legislation protecting workers and obstructing profit.

In The Shock Doctrine(2007), Naomi Klein argues that this neoliberalisation requires disaster to disorient people and render them sufficiently immobilised to have their rights stripped. Once implemented, just like enclosure and colonisation, neoliberalism creates its own fallout. As Klein explains, neoliberalism began to enter more intimate territory after September 11, 2001, when surveillance culture began to “enclose” our privacy in unprecedented ways. This led to an age where internet companies, which are best positioned to track and collect data, reign.

History shows us a continuous pattern that goes all the way back to the Tudors and before: disaster followed by enclosure creates more disaster that allows for further, more intimate, enclosure. This is precisely why Federici’s argument that we need to define enclosure more deeply and broadly, is so important: otherwise we cannot properly track the pattern and we will fail to notice when neoliberalisation starts claiming new frontiers.

Combine the internet age with prostitution and you have today’s growing porn industry—and porn creates its own fallout. As feminist author Gail Dines points out in Pornland(2010), the average age boys start watching pornography is at eleven years, and porn brainwashes them into objectifying women by linking the image of rape to orgasm. There is hardly a more efficient way to condition somebody than through orgasm. Social conditioning normally involves a system of punishment and reward by some external body—but when men learn to objectify women by watching porn, their own penises dispense the rewards. After that, nobody needs to offer them any other incentives to keep repeating the behaviour.

The fact that porn not only depicts rape but drives it is well established. We can see the link in high profile rape cases like those involving Brock Turner and Larry Nassar. Turner took photos during his assault, and shared them with friends; Nassar was found to be in possession of at least 37,000 child pornography videos and images. New Zealand women’s organisation the Backbone Collective’s report on child abuse "Seen and Not Heard" shows that for 54% of abusive fathers, pornography is a factor in the abuse of their children.

The fallout from rape is dissociation. The human stress response is designed to allow us to run from predators, or to overpower them if we judge ourselves as capable. It is not designed to deal with entrapment and cruelty, and when faced with these situations, women often freeze, our minds shutting off conscious awareness of what is happening, whilst the subconscious absorbs it for dealing with later. This mind/body split is at the root of patriarchy and patriarchal religion because patriarchy relies on it: it requires men to detach from their own humanity and cultivate the dissociation, body hatred and dysphoria that rape culture fosters.

The commodification of women and “enclosure” of sexuality through prostitution, widespread porn and the resulting fallout led to the next frontier: biology itself, womanhood itself. Transgenderism leverages the mind/body split that rape culture promotes by introducing a new form of biological enclosure. With transgenderism, the reality of sex is no longer something natural that we simply share in common, but a place for Big Pharma to set up shop in the name of “identity.”

Trans activists assist this commodification of sex by excitedly censoring, blacklisting, firing, harassing and abusing women as “TERFs” (“trans-exclusionary radical feminists”). “TERF” is a now well-known misnomer for feminists who have not forgotten what sex is, and, whilst trying to tear down the fences transgenderism erects around it, get in the way of the rollout of this new form of enclosure. With respect to her work, it is almost mind-boggling that Federici does not take into account this neoliberal “witch-hunting” that trans activists participate in.

If this terrifying trend exists as part of a broader trajectory—how far can it go?

The first volume in my Brief Complete Herstory argues that the most basic quality of life is sensitivity. Water has a miraculous capacity for storing information, for picking up the qualities of all it encounters. Even the smallest, single-celled organisms share with human beings the capacity to sense and respond to light, movement, and other environmental patterns and changes. Yet the more people are tethered to our phones and smart devices, our behaviour mined as “data” and sold to those who profit from predicting and manipulating our movements, the more numb and desensitised we become. I sometimes worry that as privatisation and dispossession advance in what Shoshana Zuboff calls the Age of Surveillance Capitalism(2019), this is the current frontier: our very sensitivity.

If we listen to spiritual teachers and visionaries throughout the ages, the seat of human sensitivity is the heart. Indigenous cultures have always recognised this, and herbalist Stephen Buhner taught me that this is not a metaphor: our bodies are surrounded by an electromagnetic field generated by the heart, and this field is five thousand times more powerful than that created by the brain. In The Secret Teachings of Plants(2004), Buhner writes that this means that the “[a]nalysis of information flow into the human body has shown that much of it impacts the heart first, flowing to the brain only after it has been perceived by the heart.”

If this is true, then in an era of desensitisation, the heart is the new frontier of enclosure. Can it be captured and domesticated? Or is there a freedom in the heart that simply cannot be enclosed?

One thing the long view of history shows us is that freedom does not exist in the hands of politicians who will deliver it after they tidy up the aftermath of the latest crisis, as they like to promise. I would also suggest it shows us that not only is the very idea of a patriarchal state incompatible with human freedom by definition—the tactic of negotiating with governments to have our “rights” and freedoms delivered has proven ineffective through centuries of trial and error. History shows us that governments are irredeemably deaf to the voices of women, and when they appear not to be, it is short-lived. Between the era of enclosure and the present day, women won the right to vote. Today, we may officially still have that right, but as womanhood is redefined beyond meaning, so has the relevance of the vote to our lives.

I am not saying that people should not lobby governments to promote the recognition of their rights, or that changes in the law have never benefited those who fought for them. I am also not suggesting that you can save the world by sitting under a tree and searching your heart. What I am saying is that in an era characterised by noise and desensitisation, there is no better time to tune out for long enough to discover whether you do carry within you a freedom immune to enclosure—because if you do, if this is part of our make up, surely there could be no better advisor in the decisions you, and we, need to make from here. There cannot be a better guide in the defence of freedom than freedom itself.

[kim-ruzek]

The unit beyond Hank Voight: or, why Hailey being corrupted and/or changed isn't unique or special to only her. (Part One)

This is a meta that's split into two parts. There's this, which is an introductory one, really, that addresses who Voight is and why the greater fandom opinion of him is misunderstood. Setting up for part two: how life for Intelligence should be if/when Voight is written out. Because this is a topic I think people miss the nuance on as well.

Enjoy!

There's been a lot of talk on whether or not Voight, in this time, should really be the face of Intelligence. I, personally, do think no. I get why he first became it, and I get why he still is and in many ways I appreciate it. He's not the kind of cop this world should have, even in the eighties and whatnot, but he is-- especially for Chicago-- a "good" cop. Please take that word with a grain of salt, there's not a precise word in the English language which sums his mix of good and bad in the way he is-- even "morally grey", to me, does not quite describe him.

The world does not exist in a vacuum. We'd love it to, because then it makes life so much more simpler, and it's easy to act as if life does. But the truth of the matter, the world is not a vacuum, everything is complex and messy and grey. And so our shows aren't in a vacuum either, even if they try to be-- which, for the most part, Chicago pd tries not to act like they are, unlike so many shows.

It's very easy to boil things down to being black and white, good and bad, pure and evil. This is human, and something humans have been doing for years. But the world is nuanced, and to ignore that is to misunderstand what life itself is.

Setting a show in Chicago, especially a police show, was always going to be a complicated thing. And there's always going to things they exaggerated and things they overlook, but at the end of the day, Dick Wolf did a rather good job at getting the complexities. I'm not going to go into all he didn't quite get, especially as it's not my place too, it's just my place to look into this myself and learn, and this is not the point of this meta. And because at the end of the day-- it is a show.

Voight isn't morally bad, or good. He's this mix, a man who did bad things to try and get a good outcome. And it's the age old debate-- is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons morally good or bad? I think it's neither, something more complicated but either way you stand, you can't say it's cut and dry. Because it's not.

And I don't even think he's someone who does the wrong things for the right reasons, because that's too simplistic and doesn't show the full picture. What Voight wants is the outcome, and he'll do the wrong things for all the wrong reasons to get it. He'll even do the right things for the wrong reasons and vice versa.

We don't know how our actions are cosmically tallied, that's why we have our own beliefs. And we can want him to not be the lead for those beliefs, but we also need to be true. We need to look at everything, the whole picture and assess it that way-- we cannot just pick and choose.

And that's what a lot of fans are doing. And I hate that, because it's not fair to what makes humans humans. In a way, I don't even care about Voight, but this lack of understanding is what normalises some things, normalises demonising behaviours in your own peers that should be understood.

Media has an impact of real life, not just in what it shows but how the consumers respond to it, and some of this fandoms responses annoys me-- but the thing that pushed me to make this, is that it can sicken me because it's misunderstanding what life is.

I do not like Voight's policing style. It is outdated and it never should've been allowed and honestly, that first scene in the cage nearly made me not watch this show. If I wasn't going in already in love with Burzek, I probably would've stopped.

But you cannot say that he does not care. He does. Chicago is his city, and he cares about it in the way anyone employed by the city should. Everything bad thing he has done is for the city, to make it better. His methodology is not good, and it is counterproductive because it relies on the city being how broken it is. But it does do good, and he does that because he loves the city.

And he cares about the cops he works with. Not just his unit, but everyone. His unit has become his family-- the people he puts first-- over the years but even before then, he cared. In a way, it was very blue line type of way, but in a good sort of way. Still flawed, because he'd protect them in a way he wouldn't others, but much better than peers his own age. This should be appreciated, even in it's flaws-- because if you're going to judge him, take everything into account.

Voight is a bad man, in how he's achieved his outcomes. But he is not a bad man because he's an abuser. He cares, and he should not be emulated but he cares. And he is not a fucking abuser.

To get to the my starting point-- Hailey being changed or "corrupted" by Voight is not special or unique to her.

I see a lot of people saying he manipulated Hailey. And that shooting of Roy-- yeah. There was no way Roy was ever going to get out there alive, but Hailey is not blameless in that. Everyone has been telling her who Hank Voight is from day one, and she dug in her heels and thought she understood that, yet when it came to it-- when she went into that warehouse, she did not.

Voight wants the best outcome. And if we're putting things into a vacuum, Roy being dead is the best outcome. Dead = he can't physically hurt them again. And the world can always do with loosing one more awful person. Of course,out if a vacuum, murder has it's own moral assignments which makes it not the best outcome-- but that doesn't factor in for Voight and some people might agree.

I don't but if the man I fear the most was murdered by someone dodgy but cared about me, I wouldn't complain. I'd actually be able to breathe and not worry that one day I'll be a statistic. And-- it would ensure that everyone's efforts to keep me alive would definitely be worth it. Any time life is kept is good, but if I was just to die at his hands after everything, then my saviours actions... It just would be preventing the inevitable. And they worked so hard, and that's like with Kim. The unit struggled to find her, they fought, the doctors are fighting and if all that Roy survived and managed to get her and Makayla killed.

This shooting is the only time he has outright manipulated her. And he's not an emotional abuser.

But Voight is an arsehole. He can dictate how his unit is ran, but he does do dick things. And this can be infuriating when it's to your faves, especially when you perceive it as corruption. It's not, but for arguements sake, let's say it is. Hailey is not fucking unique in that-- this has happened to EVERY FUCKING MEMBER OF INTELLIGENCE. Even sumners.

So he's not evil-- and if he was an "abuser" it's not because what he's done to Hailey. It's what he's done to them all. In fact, he's done the least arsehole things to Hailey.

And yeah, Hailey projects her daddy issues onto Voight (which, like, same girl) but he doesn't take advantage of it and also-- that whole fucking unit (excluding Antonio and Al, but then they have their own problems) had parental issues that they're clearly seeking validation for. Most notably, as shown more explicitly in the show-- Adam.

So to conclude: Voight isn't some evil abuser who has manipulation on mind and doesn't care about his unit. He does, and would do everything to protect them. And yeah, it won't be in the most easiest way to protect them, but he does want the best outcome and he'll do anything to get it.

That's part one done, because this needs to be broken up into parts. Part two should hopefully be coming soon.

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

This Sarah Everard case is so terrifying for women. But not only am I terrified - I am furious.

⚠️ tw for mentions of r*pe, sexual assault, violence against women, murder etc. ⚠️

She was just walking, including walking by busy roads and not dark alleyways. She was dressed in winter clothes. Even if she HAD walked down a dark alleyway or been wearing something short or “revealing”, she still wasn’t doing anything wrong - she was just walking somewhere.

Her murderer - a police officer named Wayne Couzens - plotted to murder a woman to live out his perverse fantasy. He didn’t plot to kill a specific woman - he knew he would murder a woman, any woman he thought he could abduct, any woman who would be out at night on her own. Sarah was just there.

Not only did he drive miles and hours to kill a woman, not only was he a police officer… he used his badge, police belt, handcuffs and credentials to fake arrest her to get her into his car. If a police officer tells you to go with them, we’re told to not resist, to be obedient or we will be in even more trouble. Even if she HAD done what the MET have just said women should do - “question non uniformed officers!” - it wouldn’t have helped her because he was a police officer. He had the credentials. Why would she run away and resist a police officer? And if women do resist, the police commit violence against them (like at the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah).

He handcuffed her, drove her for hours, then raped and murdered her. This fucking monster strangled her with his fucking police belt. He burnt her body and disposed of her in a pond.

A police officer did this - a fucking police officer, a MET officer, the MET we’re supposed to trust. And you want women to trust them?!!

And I don’t want to hear that “don’t judge the whole profession based on one bad apple”, because guess what? This is not the first time a police officer has harmed a woman. There is misogyny rooted deep in the MET that needs to be addressed. Wayne Couzens was literally nicknamed “The Rapist” by other police officers and had offended in the past by flashing people, and that’s just what we know of - and yet not a single person did anything. The police joked about it. Several officers gave character references supportive of Couzens during the hearings for his sentencing, and female officers told the press that they did not feel as if they could report concerning behaviour by male colleagues.

It’s thought that at LEAST 15 serving or former police officers have killed women in UK since 2009, and HUNDREDS of UK police officers have convictions for crimes, including assault. There are many cases that do not go reported, and so it’s likely the numbers on both counts are actually higher. Why are they still allowed to serve? Why is our government giving them more power and freedom to arrest whoever they please? “It’s not that many” - IT SHOULD NOT BE ANY.

If you can’t see why there’s a huge problem with our police force and why we say “fuck the police”, you’re part of the problem.

And the fear and anger we feel isn’t new - this has been a problem for literally all of our lives.

At 11, I learnt to come home before dark, and if it was dark in the winter on my way home (meaning: every night in winter), I was taught to not go down any dark lanes, and if I was walking the dark lane I had to go down if I got the bus home, I was to walk as fast as I could and to not have earphones in because i wouldn’t hear attackers. Every day from September 2009 to July 2014, coming home from secondary school, I was told to either wait for my dad or grandad to pick me up or to walk down the busiest road that ran near my house and had constant cars on it. I couldn’t take the shortcut down the public footpath on my way home from sixth form college because it was too dark and isolated - I had to go around it and through the village instead, which took more time but was vaguely safer. Since university, I’ve made a point of waiting for the hourly bus that stops just round the corner from my home and on the busiest road, even though I have to wait up to an hour for it usually, because getting the bus that comes every 15 minutes means walking up the dark quiet lane.

At age 13, I learnt not to talk to even very friendly men, even not in broad daylight, even with a female friend, when some old man approached us and started complimenting us, telling us we had “nice smiles” and “I can hook you up with someone who can help you get into acting” and “here’s £10, you go down to the garage down the road and get whatever you girls want”.

At 14, I learnt not to sit in trees in the park by the gate, not even during the day when it’s sunny, when an old man entered the park, took one look at me, and said “you’ve got a nice arse”. I couldn’t prove he had said anything, and I would see him on my way to school sometimes and panic.

At 19, I learnt that I could not trust friendly men online. Apologies to any decent men I have spoken to online - there’s a few who are nice and not weird, I’m not talking about them. I learnt this when a guy I was speaking to on my old blog - who had for weeks just been generally nice and checking in on me - started to send intimate and sexual messages that started with “*hugs you*” and became “*spanks your ass*”, “takes your clothes off”, “f*cks you hard”, just to name a few (and these were the milder ones). When I asked his age, he merely said “older” than me - “more than twice as old as you”, actually. I learnt to not talk to men online, and if I did then I had to set very clear boundaries in a way that wasn’t too obvious - not say it outright but make it clear I am “unavailable”.

I have to carry a rape alarm on my keys, just in case. I could go out to bars if I wanted to, I could have at university when all my peers were - but doing it meant risking the chance of being harmed while intoxicated or on my way home. I have to send my location to my mother if I get any Ubers, if I go out to theatres or cinemas in the evening I have to text my mum to say I’ve arrived safe. I only feel safe out at night if I’m with a man that I trust like my dad or grandad - I got very lucky at Uni because not only did one girl make sure I got home safely at 1 in the morning by calling me a cab, but one boy even stayed with me on another night until my dad arrived to pick me up, because he knew leaving me intoxicated at 2:30 in the morning was dangerous. I have even phoned my grandmother while walking home in the dark because being on the phone to someone means you’re less of a target to an attacker.

Men do not have this experience - or, if they do, it’s nowhere near the fear and worry women feel every day. Women can’t even walk somewhere without being worried of being attacked - we cannot go anywhere without asking ourselves “am I safe?”. Are we wearing the “correct” clothing, so as to not give off the wrong idea? Are we walking down the well lit roads where it’s busy? Are we aware of our surroundings, of every single person nearby? Do I have my keys in my hand, ready to defend myself if I’m attacked? Women are blamed if we are attacked - not men, but women. “She was dressed slutty” “she was passed out drunk” “she was walking down a dark lane” “she was out late”.

When doing safe guarding training at my current TA job, I came across this phrase: “always think it can and will happen”. Just as a teacher or TA should not think “none of my students will be victims of abuse”, women should not for one second believe that they are safe and “it will never happen to me” - every day we have to think of how to prevent our own assault or murder, just in case.

Every time I’m walking home in the dark, I have the fleeting wonder of “what picture(s) of me will they use if I’m attacked or go missing?”. I was not really surprised when I saw that other women said the same thing. Women wonder it so often it’s almost a joke, an absent minded thought. But it’s not a joke - it’s real life for us, every single day.

Sarah Everard is not a one off case. Sabina Nessa, a 28 year old primary school teacher, was murdered on 18th September this year, her body discovered the next day by a dog walker. So far in 2021, 110 women have been murdered in the UK by men (or men are the prime suspects). Only a handful get national attention because at this point, violence and murder against women have become normalised in this country.

I am not only heartbroken for all of these women and their families - I am scared for my own safety; I am scared for the safety of my mother, my grandmother, my aunts. I am scared for the safety of my 20 year old sister, the safety of my 17 and 14 year old cousins, for the safety of my older male cousin’s two daughters who are only 4 and 1. I am scared for the safety of every single girl and woman I have worked with, the safety of every woman I have ever spoken to.

But I am also furious and filled with rage. Women should not be scared to go out or have fun, we should not have to take such precautions or measures that still won’t completely prevent our assaults or murders. I am sick and tired of the victim blaming when a woman is murdered, of the indifference of “oh another woman”, of this being how women are expected to live their lives.

I’m tired of this problem being ignored by our government, tired of no one giving a shit about us or our safety.

[muchymozzarella]

Fandom Racism

There's this interesting thing that happens when someone brings up fandom racism and examples of it such as the popularity of white characters and ships where people who like both get super defensive. I'M NOT RACIST JUST BECAUSE I LIKE [WHITE CHARACTER].

Which misses the point.

-

Fandom Racism, Trends, and Individuals

I don't think you're racist for liking Reylo, or for liking Stiles Teen Wolf, or for shipping SteveBucky but giving SamBucky the "just friends" treatment.

I do however identify the popularity and general trends of fandom preferring white or light skinned characters as fandom racism.

I think that there's a reason Kipo with its canonical gay animated character didn't get as much hype in the fandom queer community, and that reason is rooted in racism.

People have a hard time understanding racism as a fandom trend vs. individual racism. Both on the side of the fan and the critic, people misunderstand or assume that the very act of engaging in fandom by enjoying white characters and ships means they're inherently racist.

As stated above, shipping Reylo doesn't make you racist, as much as some people wish it did so they can win some internet brownie points. But I also do think that racists are more likely to flock to that ship and up its popularity, for obvious reasons.

-

Ships And Characters Aren't Inherently Racist, But Racists Love White/Light Ships And Characters (because of course they do)

This happens in fandom a lot. People with racist tendencies or people who were socialised around racist behaviour and media, having that normalised for them, will bring that into their consumption of media, which buffs the numbers and makes it more popular.

And no, this isn't just for white people. This is for colourist Asians or Eurocentric BIPOC like the many Filipinos I grew up with.

The truth is, the only reason I noticed it early on was because I was "weird" for "liking Black characters". I grew up with and had a crush on Static Shock as a kid, and I commented on how Black love interests in TV shows are treated as temporary (Buffy, Agents of SHIELD, etc)

My attraction to Black characters and actors alongside white ones and Asian ones was treated as an outlier, a joke. I grew up around ads for skin whitening that didn't go away until I was an adult. And media and the people around me always said to me that dark skin is ugly, light skin is beautiful.

It Isn't (Just) Fandom's Fault (Obviously)

My love for BIPOC characters in media and my vocal support of these characters despite comparatively smaller fandoms, calling racism as I see it, is met with defensiveness.

Liking white characters and ships, or even light skinned ones, doesn't automatically make you racist or colourist. But you have to understand that the reason for the popularity of these is rooted in racism and colourism, or the popularity of said media is buffered by racists adding to the numbers.

The popularity of white led media, the popularity of white characters being faves, the popularity of white male ships, the popularity of light skinned characters in fandom, the popularity of white love interests or crushes or heartthrobs isn't an accident.

It also isn't an accident that for many forms of media, having BIPOC people as protagonists is like pulling teeth, which means that fandom itself is hardly the only source of racism, and people cannot be blamed for liking the Very White Characters a show or movie or other media wants you specifically to like.

Why Not Make An Effort?

Which is why a lot of fans make an active effort to hype up, support, and engage in communities centred on BIPOC characters+ships.

You may think Not Being Racist (or Colourist) is gonna feel natural, but if you were raised around it, it's gonna take a bit of thinking and reprogramming to really shake off your automatic response of gravitating towards white or light skinned characters and ships.

We all like to pretend Not Being Racist is our natural state, but really, it's the opposite. And it's not really our fault unless we're purposely refusing to admit or address it.

You can't change your preferences by willing it, but the same way the sexist gap in fandom re: female characters has shifted in the last two decades, you can do the same with BIPOC characters. You can buff the numbers in fandoms surrounding BIPOC creators and creations.

[pragyasanghi]

Anxiety, the word in itself gives us the goosebumps that makes us ghastly. It is really a very hot topic, and many misconceptions have been rumoured around as what can and cannot be called as Anxiety or some other term. Though it is nothing to be ashamed of, still accepting and getting any sort of acceptance is a big task for everyone, while being a part of current society, where everything is getting so much intolerance and social media leash, that it becomes so much a task, to prove one's own perspective. Sometimes it is even difficult to just survive and sustain ourselves in this maddening place called life. But still it is difficult to convey.

Some might even have a very problematic state, but still denying it seems to be an option because it is really difficult to admit. Can you just understand the gravity, that we have an issue, but to prove it, we have to struggle. And on top of it, you even have to struggle for the legitimate and prolonged disease too.

Do you know how you feel at times, or why you react a certain way?

Have you known any of your inmates behaving more emotionally, or change in any closed ones relationship or way of behaving?

Something unusual in anyone?

Have you been addressed by Rotlu, or very delusional?

Or are your problems being framed as a very high figh issue, Ameero ki bimari?

All these are some of the terms our countrymen quote us. Sometimes it even gets out of hand, because the sufferers have already learnt to go and see beyond them. But still these unempathetic creatures of the society, try new and much harsh ways to go and penetrate into such a scale, that it affects the individual.

The only answer to it can be to ignore, because they will get deeper and deeper. The people must have to normalize it to get accreditation of it to the society.

On the part of Anxiety holder, just do not get carried away, or ignore the behaviour of yours as it could be a bell notification, for some extra care with no judgements. To mark anxiety and feeling low, in a bifurcation line, just start off by normalising it. You being in this world is a privilege, so let it shower through everyone in terms of how polite you are, how interested you are in what they want to say, or what precisely they need at that perfect moment. Just indulge in positive and deep conversations with your peers. Though it will not be a big expense for you, still it would be for someone, who is suffering. Just let your heart get to know people much better. Since they are also not that bad, in terms of what they really are, or what they are perceiving them to be!

Be in that boat a little longer, and have faith you will not drown!

The disease is not that bad, and is perfectly curable. Do not think yourself helpless and lonely, even if you are…. Just try to participate and relax in what soothes you!

#

[musette22]

Hi guys, 

I have been away for a few days visiting family, but I am now back and I just want to say a couple of things that I feel I need to say. What I said in a previous post about my anxiety and mental health still stands, but I also recognise that whatever I'm feeling doesn't even come close to measuring up to the sadness and fear and anger that many of you who have encountered racism first hand are experiencing right now. So while I'm still not going to answer individual asks about this – for the reasons I gave previously and because I don't want to take the focus away too much from where it ought to be – I do want to make my position clear here. This blog is for a large part about Sebastian and will continue to be about him for the foreseeable future, so what has happened should be addressed here, and my POC followers deserve to know that I support you without reservation and that this is still a safe space for you and always will be.

I want to make it very clear that Sebastian does not in any way factor into my thoughts and feelings about the Black Lives Matter movement. I condemn any and all forms of racism and I stand with the BLM movement fully and unconditionally. This has to end, and we have to do our best to make the changes the world needs, together. We should all speak up and stand up for what is right, and supporting marginalised and oppressed communities should always take precedence over any attachment or allegiance we might feel towards privileged (and in this case white, male) celebrities – that goes without saying. Also, I am not by any means an expert on any of these issues, and I am not American nor POC, so I won't pretend to have all the insights and answers. I can only tell you some of my thoughts on Sebastian’s actions in this regard, and hope that that means something to some of you.

·        Yes, I believe Sebastian could and should've handled this situation differently and better, regardless of what reasons he may have had for handling it the way he did. His actions have left me disappointed and confused too, and as much as I love him (I really do!) this is not his finest hour. He’s a grown man who’s responsible for his own behaviour, the good and the bad, and I’m not going to defend his behaviour in this case, because I believe it to be lacking. It’s not okay to blindly defend your faves’ actions just because you love them. It’s good to be critical and hold the people you love accountable when they do stuff that doesn’t pass muster.

·        Yes, people have every right to be upset, disappointed or even angry, and, in the case of his fans, to unstan if they are feeling any of those things. I am in no position to tell other people how to feel about this, so I’m not going to. The BLM movement and the overarching issues of racism and inequality in the US and elsewhere are much, much bigger than any one individual, and infinitely more important than any part of celebrity culture. Moreover, I am a firm believer in putting our mental health first. If you can’t support Sebastian after what’s happened because you feel hurt or anxious or otherwise negatively impacted, then it’s perfectly acceptable and even preferable to step away. We cannot make the changes the world needs if we don’t take care of our own mental health first.

·        No, I do not believe hate or harassment (whether against Sebastian or against other people who have joined in this discourse in whatever way) is the answer. I think some of you will know that that’s one of the beliefs by which I live and approach any situation, not just this one. I am an advocate of communication, of learning and growing, wherever possible. Of course, sometimes communication just isn’t enough, but I believe it often can be when it comes to people making singular mistakes, like in Sebastian’s case. Voicing disappointment in fandom/standom too often equals cancellation, which I frankly find short-sighted and kind of lazy. We should be allowed to be disappointed in someone without it meaning we no longer love them, and normalise that notion. Celebrities are still humans, and as such they will make mistakes, through which they will hopefully learn and grow, just like the rest of us. At this point in time, I believe Sebastian to be a good person who did a stupid thing, so I personally am not going write him off right now because of what happened over the past week, but I do sincerely hope he’ll do better in the future.

·        I do think the preoccupation with whether or not a celeb posts something on their social media is missing the point. This is not about celebrities. It’s about black people being killed by police in a system that seemingly places no value on the lives of its black citizens; it’s about structural inequality and racism being rampant in the US and many other places in the world, and about how we can change that. This is what the focus should be on, not on who's posting what on social media when. Again, feeling disappointed, mad, and upset with Sebastian is okay and fair, and you every right to voice that if that’s how you feel, but I also think we have to remember to focus our time, energy, and activism where it matters, and that there are other ways to help the cause besides posting about it on social media, which unfortunately seems to be performative to a large extent anyway. But I do believe that for someone with a significant social media following like Sebastian does, it’s important to show solidarity with those who might be impacted by everything that’s happening, and make it clear you are on their side. 

Long story short: regardless of what reasons Seb may have had for not publicly showing his support for the BLM movement sooner, I still think he made the wrong decision in this case and he should absolutely step up his game in the future. It’s not okay that it took him so long to speak up about what’s been going on and I fully understand people’s aggravation over it. But while some mistakes are certainly worse than others, generally speaking making mistakes doesn’t necessarily make us bad people. Unless, of course, we don’t learn from them, but Sebastian also isn’t some serial offender. He’s shown himself to be a decent person time and time again, and that’s why I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and allow him the opportunity to learn from this particular mistake and show that he can do better. I know some of you will disagree with me and that’s fine. This is not the absolute truth, just my opinion, and I realise I am also still learning.

[shitting-on-leftbook]

Was watching an AskReddit comp today about therapists' opinions on unhealthy internet behaviors, here are some of my favorites that are relevant for leftist spaces online:

Alt text is under the cut!

[Image 1: "Psych Nurse here, There are a number of concerning behaviours involving the internet. The one that concerns me, is seeing the way people will spend hours or days defending a topic or opinion they have....Back and forth bickering and name calling... Whereas IRL that disagreement would have ended very quickly or not even been addressed at all, because people don't generally disrespect others beliefs or outlooks that way in person... It causes anxiety in both parties, waiting for a reply..trying to come up with a smart remark...checking out from real life conversations to be consumed by an internet argument... It is detrimental to our minds to be trolls or be dragged in by a troll!"]

[Image 2: Person A posts, "From my perspective as a social worker: all the echo-chamber groups for anxiety, depression, mental problems. Where the members share a lot of private information just to be seen and heard. And they usually get the others members "solutions", which is formed through meetings with the healthcare system and personal experiences. That is scary if people are suicidal, have severe diagnoses or are getting into psychosis."

Person B comments, "I have seen a dangerously anti-recovery mindset in grief support groups, personally. The idea almost that one should never get over or get past a loss/grief, and that it is impossible to, and that anyone who ever suggests it is a horrible monster."]

[Image 3: "Overstating harm done to them and underplaying their own role in interpersonal conflicts. This is most epitomized in subreddits like r/relationship_advice or r/AmITheAsshole (but common in every corner of the internet) where people seek validation by claiming victimhood in their relationships while not mentioning the bad things they're doing to contribute to this unhealthy dynamic. It's always "I'm being abused / manipulated / harassed" and rarely "I want to learn, grow and do better." This leads to people never improving themselves, developing self-control, or examining themselves or their actions critically. This is terrible behavior that would lead to long-term unhappiness and dissatisfaction. And no one is willing to call out this crappy behavior online in case of an actual abusive relationship, which does need intervention. It's messed up all around."]

[Image 4: Person A posts, "People that take simple comments ("I don't like that movie", "I have this opinion instead that one", etc.) personal and attack you for them. Something must really suck in their lives if they come to a boiling point over something so trivial. I'm honestly worried about them sometimes."

Person B comments: "Not having the same tastes is not a bad thing. for example if we got two donuts. regular and with chocolate. if we differ in tastes and we got them in front of us its all good! you get what you like and i do as well. we both are happy"]

[Image 5: Person A posts, "1. People who take the internet too seriously, to the point where they are legitimately angry and proceed to belittle, troll and harass you. 2. People who do something wrong, then begin an all out campaign against you and/or the community. 3. Similar to the above, when someone breaks a tiny rule and gets told no to, then throws a fit and acts like the community is super strict. 2 and 3 are obvious signs of a spoiled brat who has never been told "no" in their life."

Person B comments, "I've seen people do 2 soooooo many times. Once some girl got into a fight with another girl on this site. Then, one of the second girl's friends began commenting on EVERY SINGLE ONE of the first girl's posts, saying what an awful human being she is. It was really fricked, and I blocked the other girl immediately."]

[Image 6: "1) the often rough tone on the internet (e. g. Insults, "just go and k*ll yourself", how easy it is to bully/harass someone online 2) the normalisation of heavily edited photos and the permanent exposure to "curated lifes" online which has such a negative impact on mental health - even people who are aware of social media's fakeness can't often escape the negative impact on their mental health."]

[Image 7: "I'm still just an intern, but for me it is how easily people can be sucked into toxic extensions of themselves. Not to mention how easy it is to argue and insult someone you have never seen, and will never meet. The echoing chambers that different communities provide just allows for extreme versions of those reasonable beliefs to breathe life. It's happened to me, and lots of people I know. I don't think people realize how that stress of always fighting or looking for the person to yell at can influence their mental health. The internet has allowed for compromise to be written off which is a huge problem in the real world."]

[reading-writing-revolution]

"However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful."

(Thank you to David Lerigny for forwarding this article)

Here is a brilliant Op-Ed From Irish Times writer, Fintan O’Toole.

April 25, 2020

THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT

Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.

However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.

Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into the coronavirus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic.

As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted ... like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.”

It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – wilfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly virus. Trump, his party and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News became vectors of the pestilence.

The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis, demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely to sow confusion and division. They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked on live TV.

If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world’s leading nation – an idea that has shaped the past century – has all but evaporated.

Other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to do? How many people in Düsseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas?

It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has exposed it in the most savage ways.

Abject surrender

What used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump – he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety.

Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3rd that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order.

In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students travelling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1st, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and “recreational activities”.

Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1st, explained: “We didn’t know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours.”

This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic. It is fuelled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

It draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providentialism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right.

Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralysed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted.

The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence.

Fertile ground

But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it.

There are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection.

Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder.

And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here.

That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality.

And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element.

As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics.

Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.

You can follow Fintan O’Toole @fotoole on twitter.

[procancelled]

It’s Hard To Be A Diamond In A Rhine Stone World 2008

Something I’ve noticed is that the majority of BOTDF songs address the listener instead of a specific person in the song. This is concerning given how sexual the songs are and how young the fanbase is. 

Slash Gash Terror Crew Anthem!

-          Fandom name.

-          Violent

-          Anthem for the fanbase is very sexual despite fanbase is young.

Bend over

Shake those titties

-          Gross and demeaning

Pull over

Hello Kitty

-          This is a FUCKING CHILDREN’S CARTOON CHARACTER!

Back it up like a U-Haul truck

Sock it to me

Rub my junk

-          Anthem for fanbase asks them to do sexual things to Dahvie

You’re a freak… like me!

-          Trying to connect to the audience and make them relate to him

 Save the Rave

You can talk

You stupid tricks

-          Demeaning to people who criticise him or come out with allegations against him

I’ve taken the pills

Giving into cheap thrills

-          Normalising drug use

I fell in love with a girl

At the dance club

She said what! As I’m kicking

Up the party drugs

-          Connecting relationships, ‘love’ and drug use

Shoot up this place

-          Violent

 S My D

-          A whole song dedicated to Dahvie’s oral sex fixation

I’m probably gonna lick

Feel you up until you drip

-          Oral sex fixation and overly sexual

Do you like my sexy hair?

-          Wig, shitty, mouldy, stinky wig.

I’m not wearing any underwear

-          So it’s easier to get your dick out?

-          Also, this is said in a very childish tone instead of trying to sound sexual

S my D

Pop it out like lipstick

-          Childish sounding when referring to his oral sex fixation

Take the bottles, pop ‘em out

-          Connecting alcohol with sex

Gimme gimme more on the dance floor

-          Sex in public, exhibitionism

Turn around, what the hell

Go real fast, break it down

Do it ‘til you touch the ground

Want it slick, want it sure?

-          Fast semi-violent sex

Bitch I know you want some more

-          Disrespectful and also sounds very rapey

So open me up like Christmas

-          Childish sounding which is very gross

S my D motherfuckin’ bitches

-          Disrespectful and demeaning

Suck it good

Suck it hard

Suck it right

-          Demanding

-          Oral sex fixation

-          If you want good oral sex then maybe you shouldn’t try to get oral sex from underage virgins, most of which don’t know or understand oral sex

 Ima Monster (Heart On My Sleeve)

-          Yes you are

I’m banging with the b-o—t-o-dizzle

With wiffles

-          What the fuck does this mean?

‘Cause I dribble like I’m rubbing on nipples

-          Obsession with breasts

-          Why would rubbing nipples make him dribble so much? He’s not seen boobs for the first time, he’s an adult

Gotta get out the pickle

-          Childish sounding and gross

Make it rain with the ripples

Let my candy rum trickle

-          Linking alcohol and sex

Get you buzzed with double triples

Getting head, in rentals

-          Oral sex fixation

-          Car sex again

Avoiding the parentals

-          Why would adults need to avoid parents? Because an adult should be having sex/a relationship with an adult so parents aren’t an issue right? Unless this is actually because he is avoiding parents because he intents to pursue a minor

They be hatin’ us

Cause we glamourous

They be hatin’ us

Cause I’m fabulous

-          Uses things like jealousy as the only reason he/the band are hated

 Can’t stop me once I’ve started

-          Sounds rapey as fuck

Baby got me retarded

-          Slur

Chop, chop, chop you up

-          Violent

Eat you like a cannibal

Spit you like an animal

-          Violent

-          Dismissive, uncaring and disrespectful

Slice, slice, slice you up

Cut you up, I’ll slice and dice

-          Violent

Serve you up as cold as ice

-          Gloating

Go ‘head girl, shake that butt

Make me freaking bust a nut

-          Overly sexual

-          Objectifying

Let’s get wasted, super UHW

Guess what honey, I’m a freak

I’m a freak, inside the sheets

-          Links alcohol and sex

-          Saying he’s a ‘freak’ is reminiscent of how he uses BDSM as an excuse

Rough, tough, naughty nurse

Rip it up, make it hurt

-          Normalising rough sex to a young audience that doesn’t know much about sex

-          Telling fans what he likes and what he’s like (supposedly) sexually

Don’t stop, get it, get it

Last for hours, not for minutes

-          Demanding

-          Yeah as if you could Dahvie

Open wide for my surprise

-          Oral sex fixation

Scratch and blow for your grand prize

Smear it on your plastic face

-          Rude

-          Marking who he’s with sexually

Leave you with a sweeter taste

-          He has told girls that his cum tastes like ice cream, young girls.

Super soaker on your chest

Let it drip down on your breasts

-          Breast obsession

-          At shows he would pour drinks on girls chests. He would also spit on them, mainly whichever girl he decided he wanted to have sex with

Haters make me famous

-          He indoctrinates his fans to think this way so whenever they see people criticise him or talk about what he did to them they will just replay that their ‘hate’ is just making Dahvie more famous

-          They aren’t haters and Dahvie is famous for all the wrong reasons

 It’s Hard To Be A Diamond In A Rhine Stone World

Slash Gash Terror what?

Slash Gash Terror who?

Slash Gash Party Crew

-          Violent name for fanbase

You know how we fucking do

-          Telling fanbase how to act

Pull over, that ass is so phat

You makin’ me clap

-          Overly sexual and demeaning

I don’t know how to act

-          He really doesn’t

I do it in the front

I do it in the back

Shake it down like that

Make that booty go clap

-          Overly sexual while sounding childish and not sexy in any way

Can’t knock it, I’m profit

-          Money obsession

-          Uses money and parents connect to the cops in his area to get out of any repercussions

I got paper to chase

I got money to make

-          By scamming fans

Squish, squish on your chest

-          Childish sounding

Rub those titties, super breast

-          Ah yes, one single super breast, the other one is mediocre

-          Breast obsession

Ah, ah lost my breath

Ultra sex you’re the best

-          Overly sexual

I’m packing

-          Doubt

I’m stacking

Some rated x action

Strawberry whip cream

We can be a sweet team

Bang bang choo choo train

Show me how you work that thing

-          Childish sounding while being overly sexual

This is how we fucking do

In the Slash Gash Terror Crew

-          Addressing fans

-          Telling fans how to act

 Keys To The Bakery

Haters block

-          ‘Haters’ = valid critics

-          Ironic since he blocks anyone who comments on his posts with the allegations against him

And snitches rock

-          Does he mean rock in some kind of bad way?

-          He calls anyone who confesses what he did to them as a snitch to make it sound bad so his fans go after them

Yo pass me the cup

I’ll drink till

I throw up

-          Unhealthy behaviour being normalised to a fanbase where the majority can’t legally buy alcohol

I get you wetter than Hurricane Katrina

-          Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005, three years before this album came out. People were still suffering.

-          Hurricane Katrina caused 1,200 deaths and $125 billion in damages

-          This line is said eight times in this song

Cuddle leads to trouble

When you’re up in my bubble

-          Sounds incredibly rapey

I don’t chase em

I replace em

-          It has been reported that over 100 people have reached out with stories about how they have been hurt by Dahvie

-          If Dahvie couldn’t get what he wanted from someone he would stop contacting them

-          He would also stop contact if he felt at risk of being exposed

Stackin’ hoes

Like dominoes

-          Disrespectful

Make a rumour

-          Constantly calls the allegations ‘rumours’ so they seem less valid, especially to people who don’t look into them further

Sense of humour

-          Nothing about rape or paedophilia is funny

Entertain with my life

Make me popular over night

To be famous is so nice

-          Acts as if the allegations just gain him fame. He is the literal embodiment of ‘HaTeRZ MaKE mE FaMOUs’

Reeses pieces butter cup

-          Random and childish sounding

Mess with me

I’ll fuck you up

-          Threatening violence

-          Many victims have said he is a violent person

This is how we party up

-          Saying the way he acts is normal

She licked it like a lolli pop

-          Childish sounding

-          Oral sex fixation

Don’t stop till you hit the spot

-          Demanding

You got me crazy or maybe

Get smashed

-          Linking sex and alcohol

I can’t stop

Till I pop

-          Sounds rapey

-          Only cares if he gets off, doesn’t care about the other person

There’s danger on the spot

-          Dahvie is the danger

Got money in my hands

Mad dough! Cash flow

Got the diamonds that glow

We be popin’ Champaign

Like we won the damn game

-          Obsession with being rich and flaunting that

-          He hasn’t got anything now. He’s poor and lives with his parents

Mosh and Roll!

When I step in the club

Everybody shows me love

-          No they don’t

-          And now some places, not just clubs, won’t let him in

I’m in the business of terror

-          Being honest there

More metal than Slayer

-          HA! HA! HA!

-          THE FUCK!?!?!?!?

I got money and hoes

-          Demeaning

In different area codes

-          Has victimised women in many states and even different countries

Cause haters make me famous

-          This stupid narrative again

But love will make you shameless

-          Dahvie doesn’t understand love and he also should feel shame

I’ll slash, gash this party bash

-          Violent

Gotta get that money cash

-          By scamming?

Up and down with no breaks

We as in, I’ll make you shake

-          Gross and overly sexual

We’re gonna burn this town

To the ground

-          Violent

I’m not a trend sweater

I’m a trend setter

-          This is an actual line that is spoken

Girl you better pop an umbrella cause

You’re making me wet drip, drip

I gotta get that lick

-          Oral sex fixation

For the centre of the tootsie pop

-          Childish sounding

You know I can’t stop

-          Sounds rapey

Shank you with my bling brass

-          Violent

Stacking up on my money cash

-          Obsession about money

 Do You Want To Be A Superstar?

Ummm… Mic check…

One… Two… Um… Fucking twelve

-          Again this is an actual line that is spoken

My fashion is so siq

-          He dresses the way he does so he looks younger

My fashion will make you lick

-          Oral sex fixation

Watch those panties fucking drip

-          Gross and overly sexual

Scene hair weave

-          Scene hair wig you mean

Scene attitude so fucking mean

-          Acts like being mean is okay and normal because of being part of a certain ‘culture’

Get on the floor

Get on the whore

-          Demanding and demeaning

Pull down your pants and drop your drows

-          Demanding

(Like Oh My God Dahvie you’re so obscene)

-          Acts like everything he does is just because he’s ‘obscene’ which is like him saying that how he treats women while he forces himself on them is BDSM

Bitch I’m the motherfucking war machine

-          Violent

Don’t give a fuck just bust your grill

-          Doesn’t care about being violent

Throw them hoes

-          Demeaning and dismissive

Throw these motherfuckers who get too close

-          Violent

Porn star bash

Porn star splash

-          Porn obsession

My porn star cash

-          Dahvie isn’t a porn star

Pretty damn stoned

-          Linking drugs and sex

Pretty fucked up? Yeah I know

-          Acts like everything he does is a big deal

Do you wanna be a super star?

Get fucked up and go real far?

-          Acts like if you’re famous you are going to get ‘fucked up’

Or do you want to be a porn star?

Fuck for money and go real far

-          Demeaning sex work

Wet from dreams

Wet from screams

Wet from sex and dripping with cream

-          Overly sexual

HOT HOT SEX!

HOT HOT BREASTS!

HOT WHITE TIGHT SHIRTS

BUSTING OUT YOU’RE CHEST

Double D titties

Double D pretties

-          Obsession with breasts

-          Objectifying women

Girl got them thighs

You’re pretty damn fine

-          Objectifying

I don’t give a fuck what I say

I don’t give a fuck I do it everyday

-          He literally doesn’t care as long as he gets away with what he does

Yes I’m different

Yet I’m unique

-          ‘Uwu I’m not like other predators’

Mess with me

I’ll grind you like meat

-          Threatening violence

Let’s get wasted, super fucked

Go head girl shake that butt

-          Childish sounding

-          Linking sex with alcohol

(Let’s get wasted)

Make me fucking bust a nut

-          Demanding

 Wet Dream War Machine

Operation get crunk, I'm in love with your trunk

-          Combines sex, alcohol and ‘love’

Get me fucking love drunk, baby girl I want

Drugged up like party monster, sexed up so grab the condoms

-          Links drugs and sex

Boom, Boom, Boom

In my hotel room

-          Raped underage girls in his hotel rooms while touring or would book a hotel room to take underage girls to

I'm the teenage bloody dream

-          ‘Bloody’ is he trying to be British or violent

-          He isn’t a teen and also shouldn’t be encouraging teens to want to be with him

Everybody fuck me

-          No

Getcha drink on

Take your clothes off

Let’s get down and dirty

-          Normalising drunk sex

-          Demeaning

 Mad Rad Hair

-          You mean wig

I'm fenny not a faggot!

-          Slur

With extensions so thick

-          It’s a wig not just extensions

You can suck my dick

-          Oral sex fixation

So get in my chair

Let me pimp your hair

-          Used cutting hair as a way to spend time with underage girls. Arrived at a time when the parents would have to go to work so he could be alone with the underage girl

-          He couldn’t cut hair. He called himself Dahvie The Elite Hair God on MySpace but he had not talent. I would think it’s the same with makeup. During this time his makeup wasn’t very heavy. It was only when Jayy joined the band and the band was more successful that his makeup got more extreme since he could afford a makeup artist, and Jayy actually can do makeup.

Let’s get wasted super fucked

-          Alcohol reference

My hair is better than yours

-          IT’S A WIG!

So just fuck me on the dance floor

-          Demanding

-          Exhibitionist

Everybody gettin' tense

Feeling up my body

-          Overly sexual

I love this filthy

Life to get CRUNK ALL NIGHT!

-          Linking alcohol and sex

My hair’s looking so tight

-          WIG!

In case you didn't know

I'm a really big deal

-          He wasn’t overly famous outside of MySpace at this point

So shut the fuck up

-          Demanding and disrespectful

And take your clothes off

-          Using fame to get people to have sex with him

Come' a MySpace whore

-          Demeaning

-          Telling his fans the kind of person he’s interested in

-          Being scene was a way for him to look younger and prey on young girls

Change your name to

XXGORE

-          He gave some of his victims their MySpace name

[chloes-yellow-cup]

Copied and stolen in full from a friend on FB.

This reporter sums the entire dire situation here.

Powerful piece from the Irish Times’ political reporter. Hard to read, impossible to put down. Should be required reading for every American. In fact, they should hand out copies at the polls before letting anyone vote.

———

Irish Times-April 25, 2020-By Fintan O’Toole

THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT

Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.

However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.

Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into the coronavirus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic.

As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted ... like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.”

It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – wilfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly virus. Trump, his party and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News became vectors of the pestilence.

The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis, demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely to sow confusion and division. They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked on live TV.

If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world’s leading nation – an idea that has shaped the past century – has all but evaporated.

Other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to do? How many people in Düsseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas?

It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has exposed it in the most savage ways.

Abject surrender

What used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump – he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety.

Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3rd that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order.

In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students travelling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1st, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and “recreational activities”.

Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1st, explained: “We didn’t know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours.”

This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic. It is fuelled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

It draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providentialism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right.

Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralysed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted.

The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence.

Fertile ground

But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it.

There are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection.

Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder.

And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here.

That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality.

And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element.

As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics.

Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.

[ameryth74]

From The Irish Times: very well-written yet heartbreaking. "Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again."

——————-

April 25, 2020

By Fintan O’Toole

THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT

Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.

However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.

Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into the coronavirus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic.

As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted ... like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.”

It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – wilfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly virus. Trump, his party and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News became vectors of the pestilence.

The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis, demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely to sow confusion and division. They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked on live TV.

If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world’s leading nation – an idea that has shaped the past century – has all but evaporated.

Other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to do? How many people in Düsseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas?

It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has exposed it in the most savage ways.

Abject surrender

What used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump – he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety.

Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3rd that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order.

In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students travelling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1st, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and “recreational activities”.

Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1st, explained: “We didn’t know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours.”

This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic. It is fuelled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

It draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providentialism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right.

Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralysed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted.

The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence.

Fertile ground

But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it.

There are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection.

Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder.

And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here.

That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality.

And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element.

As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics.

Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.