God how I wish there'd been articles like this years ago when people were tripping over themselves to deny any and all struggles asexual people face. The amount of times people demanded "proof" when we talked about our experiences. Well, there's certainly more research being published nowadays, if that counts as "proof". I hope they read it.
Today “asexuality is widely accepted as a sexual orientation in the literature,” Hille says, but cultural awareness remains in its infancy, especially compared with other orientations under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella. Saying you don't experience sexual attraction is still like saying you don't eat, Hille explains, and “if you don't eat, there's something wrong with you, and you're hurting yourself.” Asexual people sometimes get this message not just from family and acquaintances but from their health-care providers.
Shelby Wren, a health equity researcher at the University of Minnesota, published a study in 2020 in which 30 to 50 percent of respondents who had disclosed their asexuality in a medical setting said a therapist or doctor had attributed their asexuality to a health condition. The proposed diagnoses included anxiety, depression and, in one case, a personality disorder. “You don't know what's going to happen when you disclose your sexual orientation,” Wren says. “And for a lot of people, that stops them from talking about things that could be relevant to their health care.”
[...]
Refraining from disclosing one's asexuality to a mental health provider is often a “very rational decision,” Chasin says. “It's always much worse to be actively rejected and misunderstood.” For instance, asexual people are sometimes subjected to conversion therapy, a practice aimed at changing someone's sexuality or gender identity. It is banned for minors in 22 U.S. states because of its well-documented and extensive harms, including increased rates of suicide. A 2018 U.K. government survey of LGBTQIA+ people found that asexual respondents were the most likely to be offered conversion therapy and as likely as gay and lesbian people to receive it. A recent survey by the Trevor Project found that 4 percent of asexual youths in the U.S. were subjected to conversion therapy, on par with bisexual respondents.
On the legislative level, bans on conversion therapy should explicitly reference asexuality, Benoit says. So, too, should professional associations of health-care practitioners, says Samantha Guz, a social work researcher at the University of Chicago. “Asexual people are made to be so invisible in our society that I don't think just having a broad call against conversion therapy is specific enough,” Guz says.
Even well-meaning doctors might unwittingly harm their patients. To a clinician, a patient who is worried that they should feel more sexual desire—and who does not know they are simply asexual—might initially look similar to patients who want sexual intimacy and could benefit from treatments aimed at increasing or restoring desire. Treatments for certain types of sexual dysfunction do help some people whose level of sexual desire leaves them distressed and unsatisfied, Brotto says. For some people, though, this distress may be coming not from an intrinsic desire to want sex but from external pressures such as partners or society as a whole. “I have worked with folks where it's taken us many, many months for the person to really understand how well asexuality fits with their identity,” as opposed to having an issue that is rooted in a health problem or a situational condition, Brotto says. Most doctors, though, don't know that such a distinction exists or is necessary, she adds.
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@tumblingxelian tag from here
#OK I'd legit love to hear your take on her interactions with Oscar
oh i think about the interrogation scene a normal amount
something i want to underline before diving in is the conspicuous discrepancy between the eloquence and spoken delivery of salem's soliloquies in V1/V3 (internal monologue) versus her dialogue (verbal speech). it's especially noticeable in juxtaposition with ozma's V7 soliloquy versus ozpin's dialogue, where no such discrepancy exists; oz talks the way he thinks, he's an excellent orator and even in casual conversation he's well-spoken and charismatic.
whereas salem... thinks eloquently and often poetically ("nature's wrath in hand, man lit their way through the darkness..." or "it's true that a simple spark can ignite hope, breathe fire into the hearts of the weary..."), but speaks with minimal rhetorical flair. her speech is also sometimes a little stilted or just very, very deliberate in a way that does not sound natural; and there's times—her conversation with cinder in V5 is a particularly noticeable example—where what she says circles around what she means.
"working with bandits? keeping ruby alive? what's the point? we're strong enough to take what we want by force!" / "never underestimate the usefulness of others; take leonardo. he was one of ozpin's most trusted, but now... hm. you will have the power i promised you when the time is right, but remember that it comes with a cost. if ruby rose has learned to harness her gift, you must take care to protect yours. there's only so much i can do to aid you."
<- its like. instead of just saying it, salem says examples supporting the idea she's trying to articulate. if a conversation were a math problem, salem shows all of her work but doesn't give the answer. and she does this A LOT.
none of the other characters in the story are like this—which means it isn't, like, a problem with the writers failing to write cogent dialogue. it's a deliberate character choice for salem specifically.
anyway, prior to the interrogation scene, salem only appears in contexts where she is either addressing her subordinates or—in V7—giving ironwood the terms of her siege. on two of these occasions, she get interrupted with unexpected new information (ozpin is back, ruby rose used the lamp) and in both cases, salem abruptly ends the conversation and either kicks everyone else out (V6) or leaves (V7).
and i think that's worth noting in relation to this scene, because the interrogation veers off script very fast and we get to see salem, um, Trying Her Best.
so!
as far as salem knows, oscar is gone. she expects—prepares for—a hostile and painful confrontation with ozma. when oscar wakes up, she's huddled against a pillar in a shadowy corner with an arm curled around herself and her head low, staring fixedly at conjured shadows of her dead children. she is Not Okay.
but when she speaks, her tone is conversational. almost cordial, once she's past the withering sarcasm in "my long lost ozma... found at last." it's affected! it's not real! she's reciting words she planned and probably rehearsed beforehand—which i think is likely the case for most of her little speeches. she's a poor speaker.
except... it's oscar. salem twigs that he isn't ozma the instant he talks, stares at him for a couple seconds without no visible reaction except that her mocking little smile fades, and:
snarls and grabs his face and yanks him down to get a better look at him—the mask just shatters. there's lots of ways to interpret this, but i'm inclined to take it as salem recognizing that this isn't ozma and then second-guessing that instinct and grabbing him because she needs to be absolutely sure.
"you can pretend, boy... but you're not fully him. not yet, at least." her tone shifts on every clause, from almost a growl to relieved to just sort of resigned. and then she drops him, exhales, steps back:
and just... stands there gazing into the middle distance for a couple seconds. like—oscar being here was not a possibility she even considered until it happened and upon finding herself in this situation her reaction is basically, "...um."
and then she's like
well... :)
perhaps you and i can have a better working reLaTiOnShiP.
...
...
oscar, >:[
was it? :\
laying aside the dire understatement of referring to what happened between her and ozma as a bad "working relationship," you can like. hear. the crash box crashing in her head as she says this. her tone swings from sweet and gentle to sardonic to coldly indifferent—and then she follows this by swerving right back into cordial neutrality. hrgkhsj her affect just goes haywire
and i think that happens because this is just so far out of expected bounds that she can't figure out how to say what she needs to say to get herself back on track. her speech smooths out again as soon as she segues into her questions, because she knows what she planned to ask ozma and she can tailor that to oscar instead.
but getting there? dial-up noises.
the hysterical part though is that it's really obvious this awkward verbal jumble isn't indicative of internal confusion or uncertainty, in that salem knows what she's going to do—her chosen tactics are clear and entirely coherent. she:
calms herself down and backs off.
states her intention to play nice if he cooperates.
both implicitly and explicitly differentiates him from ozma to indicate she understands he's his own person and can and will set her rage and bitterness with ozma aside to treat oscar fairly.
which is precisely what i meant in the OP, about salem having the necessary grasp of human nature to be—in theory—a formidable manipulator but lacking the social dexterity and charisma required to put it into effective practice. like, tactically this line of attack is very shrewd, but her awkward, erratic delivery cuts the legs out from under it because she sounds utterly insincere.
⭐️ she tried.
continuing on—salem first explains the context regarding what she needs to know about "the beacon relic" (sidebar, does... salem even know what it is? this is the only one she refers to this way. the lamp, the staff, the sword, and "the beacon relic"), all in a fairly amicable tone except for:
"if i know my ozma" <- she's implicitly positioning herself and oscar on the same 'side' against ozma. this follows from her deliberate rhetorical separation of oscar from ozma and also the basis of her strategy in coaxing this information out of oscar. the reason she's taking the time for this little prologue is not to help oscar understand why she captured him necessarily. she's (trying to) set out the rules of the game she is playing. trying to, because she's doing her showing-her-work-but-not-giving-the-answer thing again.
here's what she means:
"perhaps you and i can have a better working relationship. oscar, was it?" -> i can work with you because i know you're not him.
"if i know my ozma, he has used some means of deception to hide [the relic's] location differently from the others." -> ozma lies. i despise him for lying to me. i expect you to prove to me that you're not like him in this specific way.
"i need to know where it is." -> i want an honest answer.
salem knows he isn't going to tell her where ozma hid the relic, if oscar even knows that information; she doesn't expect or even want him to tell her that yet, necessarily. rather, this is a test. she wants to see if oscar will try to deceive her.
"that's not something i know about." he passes.
immediately, salem rewards him for being honest. "of course." she removes her hand from the hound's shoulder and moves away.
"he would keep that one guarded as long as possible." she also takes the opportunity to reinforce that she sees oscar as a separate individual and insinuates that ozma is actively keeping secrets from both of them.
and again, this is a cunning approach because:
oscar is scared and uncomfortable. he quite clearly anticipates that salem is going to get angry and hurt him as he says he doesn't know the answer. so when she accepts "i don't know" without hesitation and physically moves out of his personal space, it creates these feelings of surprise and relief.
that emotional reaction is the key to salem's strategy here. first she tells oscar that she will be reasonable if he cooperates, then she clarifies her expectations ("don't lie.") she asks a question knowing full well that he either can't or won't answer it. he says "i don't know" and braces for retaliation, but instead salem goes "okay" and turns down the heat. she's demonstrating through her actions that she's going to play fair.
"how about something easier, then? the password for the lamp."
she doesn't expect him to tell her this one either. not yet. it's another test that builds from the first. she's established that "i don't know" is a safe answer (as long as it's true). what salem's fishing for him to say now is "i'm not going to tell you that."
why? when she walked away, she left oscar hanging from the hound's jaws. salem lowered the heat—she didn't turn it all the way off. the point of all this is to teach oscar how to play her game, and the last rule he needs to know is that "i won't say" is also a safe answer. had he given her that answer, the hound would have set him down and withdrawn to lay down in the entryway.
only then would the game truly begin. the idea is to draw oscar into something like a real conversation and gradually get him comfortable saying things like "i don't know" and "i won't answer that question" by cultivating trust. once that rapport exists, it becomes really easy to turn the discussion around by asking oscar why? why not take the risk of trusting her with this or that information? after all, she's been nothing but polite and reasonable. does he truly still believe she's the evil monster ozma made her out to be? she gave him the benefit of the doubt... can't he do the same for her?
salem wins by convincing him she's a person he can negotiate with. that pulling this off would be the ultimate fuck-you to ozma only makes it more satisfying.
of course, that's not what actually happens. (partly because salem talked a circle about the "don't lie" rule and oscar—who hasn't spent the last four volumes seeing that his woman yells and flips tables when she's lied to—didn't pick up the hint.) instead, he tries to deceive her again and salem lashes out.
<- the physical violence gets all the attention from the fandom, and i do understand why, it's nasty and protracted and made to be viscerally unpleasant to watch, but. it's only a placeholder, something salem does while she considers what she's going to do—and say—to hurt him in a way that will never heal.
ok.
salem gets that oscar isn't ozma, didn't ask to become him, and feels desperate to retain his own identity distinct and separate from for as long as possible. she knows how ozma's reincarnation works, what this curse does to his hosts. it's not hard to figure out that it is a horrifying, traumatizing ordeal for the souls he's "paired" with. this is why she makes such a particular point of differentiating between oscar and ozma.
"the lies come out of you so easily." ("if i know my ozma, he has used some means of deception...")
why does she caress his face like this? to make him remember her like ozma does. "like-minded souls, indeed." you can pretend, boy, but so much of you is him that you remember even this.
the torture is just the preshow. this is the cruelest, most devastating thing she could possibly do to him, and salem knows it. she gave him a pass on pretending to be ozma, and he threw the second chance back in her face by lying to her again; she's furious and upset and she wants to HURT him.
this is how porous the boundaries between you and him have become. this is how close you are to being him. this is how little of you there is left to lose. like-minded souls, indeed.
like.
she does this to fuck with his head and it horrifies him so much that oscar spends the remainder of this arc actively choosing to endure being hazel's literal punching bag rather than let ozma take over or try to escape using ozma's magic. in 8.6:
OZMA: I’d like to express again that this is my burden to bear, not yours. His grudge is with me.
OSCAR: No, it’ll be even worse. He’s holding back with me, I can tell.
OZMA: I understand. I do. But you’ve done so much already. The least I can do is give you a break and try to get us out of here.
OSCAR: We can’t leave yet.
they go back and forth, oscar proposes trying to flip hazel, ozma agrees it's worth a try. when hazel comes in, ozpin goes "oscar, please"—and because oscar doesn't respond, it's ambiguous whether he gives ozma control or if ozma shunts him aside again as he did at haven academy.
either way, the next we see of oscar after the interrogation scene is ozma entreating oscar to let him take over and oscar going no no no, that'll make it worse, no i don't need a break, i've got a plan, no no we have to stay here. and while his reasoning is cogent... this is a fifteen year old boy who's spent the whole day getting beaten up by a guy three times his size, and he actively wants to stay and be tortured more rather than let ozma front for a while.
and then in 8.9:
OZMA: I think this plan to divide may have run its course. It’s time we start thinking about a way out; not having our cane certainly limits our options, so…
OSCAR: No! I don’t like what happens when we use magic. Every time we use it, I can feel us merging faster. I'm not ready for that.
the deeper truth gets spoken aloud.
this is not a new thing with oscar—his emotional core has always been existential dread—but framing it in this way, set against hours and hours of brutal torture that oscar insists is the less bad option, represents a massive spike in the intensity of his horror.
because salem Did That.
anyway the interrogation scene is great. 10/10.
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