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girderednerve · 1 month

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i have once more Read a Book !

the book was jim morris' cancer factory: industrial chemicals, corporate deception, & the hidden deaths of american workers. this book! is very good! it is primarily about the bladder cancer outbreak associated with the goodyear plant in niagara falls, new york, & which was caused by a chemical called orthotoluedine. goodyear itself is shielded by new york's workers' comp law from any real liability for these exposures & occupational illnesses; instead, a lot of the information that morris relies on comes from suits against dupont, which manufactured the orthotoluedine that goodyear used, & despite clear internal awareness of its carcinogenicity, did not inform its clients, who then failed to protect their workers. fuck dupont! morris also points out that goodyear manufactured polyvinyl chloride (PVC) at that plant, and, along with other PVC manufacturers, colluded to hide the cancer-causing effects of vinyl chloride, a primary ingredient in PVC & the chemical spilled in east palestine, ohio in 2023. the book also discusses other chemical threats to american workers, including, and this was exciting for me personally, silica; it mentions the hawks nest tunnel disaster (widely forgotten now despite being influential in the 30s, and, by some measures, the deadliest industrial disaster in US history) & spends some time on the outbreak of severe silicosis among southern california countertop fabricators, associated with high-silica 'engineered stone' or 'quartz' countertops. i shrieked about that, the coverage is really good although the treatment of hawks nest was very brief & neglected the racial dynamic at play (the workers exposed to silica at hawks nest were primarily migrant black workers from the deep south).

cancer factory spends a lot of time on the regulatory apparatus in place to respond to chemical threats in the workplace, & thoroughly lays out how inadequate they are. OSHA is responsible for setting exposure standards for workplace chemicals, but they have standards for only a tiny fraction—less than one percent!—of chemicals used in american industry, and issue standards extremely slowly. the two major issues it faces, outside of its pathetically tiny budget, are 1) the standard for demonstrating harm for workers is higher than it is for the general public, a problem substantially worsened during the reagan administration but not created by it, and 2) OSHA is obliged to regulate each individual chemical separately, rather than by functional groups, which, if you know anything at all about organic chemistry, is nonsensical on its face. morris spends a good amount of time on the tenure of eula bingham as the head of OSHA during the carter administration; she was the first woman to head the organization & made a lot of reasonable reforms (a cotton dust standard for textile workers!), but could not get a general chemical standard, allowing OSHA to regulate chemicals in blocks instead of individually, through, & then of course much of her good work was undone by reagan appointees.

the part of the book that made me most uncomfortable was morris' attempt to include birth defects in his analysis. i don't especially love the term 'birth defect'—it feels cruel & seems to me to openly devalue disabled people's lives, no?—but i did appreciate attention to women's experiences in the workplace, and i think workplace chemical exposure is an underdiscussed part of reproductive justice. cancer factory mentions women lead workers who were forced to undergo tubal ligations to retain their employment, supposedly because lead is a teratogen. morris points at workers in silicon valley's electronics industry; workers, most of them women, who made those early transistors were exposed to horrifying amounts of lead, benzene, and dangerous solvents, often with disabling effects for their children.

morris points out again & again that we only know that there was an outbreak of bladder cancer & that it should be associated with o-toluedine because the goodyear plant workers were organized with the oil, chemical, & atomic workers (OCAW; now part of united steelworkers), and the union pursued NIOSH investigation and advocated for improved safety and monitoring for employees, present & former. even so, 78 workers got bladder cancer, 3 died of angiosarcoma, and goodyear workers' families experienced bladder cancer and miscarriage as a result of secondary exposure. i kept thinking about unorganized workers in the deep south, cancer alley in louisiana, miners & refinery workers; we don't have meaningful safety enforcement or monitoring for many of these workers. we simply do not know how many of them have been sickened & killed by their employers. there is no political will among people with power to count & prevent these deaths. labor protections for workers are better under the biden administration than the trump administration, but biden's last proposed budget leaves OSHA with a functional budget cut after inflation, and there is no federal heat safety standard for indoor workers. the best we get is marginal improvement, & workers die. i know you know! but it's too big to hold all the same.

anyway it's a good book, it's wide-ranging & interested in a lot of experiences of work in america, & morris presents an intimate (sometimes painfully so!) portrait of workers who were harmed by goodyear & dupont. would recommend

#if anyone knows about scholarship that addresses workplace chemical exposure #& children born with disabilities through a disability justice lens please recommend it to me!#booksbooksbooks #have reached the point in my Being Weird About Occupational Safety era where i cheered when familiar names came up #yay irving j. selikoff champion of workers exposed to asbestos! yay labor historians alan derickson & gerald markowitz!#morris points out the tension between workers - who want engineering controls of hazards (eg enclosed reactors)#& employers who want workers to wear cumbersome PPE #the PPE approach is cheaper & makes it even easier to lean on the old 'the worker was careless' canard when occupational disease occurs #i just cannot stop thinking about it in relation to covid. my florida library system declined to enforce masks for political reasons #& reassured us that PPE is much less important than safety improvements at the operational & engineering level #but they didn't do those things either! we opened no windows; upgraded no HVACs; we put plexi on the service desks & stickers on the floors #& just as we have seen covid dangers downplayed or misrepresented workers still do not receive useful information about chemical hazard #a bunch of those MSDS handouts leave out carcinogen status & workers had to fight like hell to even be told what they're handling #a bunch of them still do not know—consider agricultural workers & pesticide exposures. to choose an obvious & egregious example.

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absolutebl · 2 years

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Hello Fount of BL Knowledge, I hope you can answer this question.

I am loving the pairing of a young seme and an older uke. other than Minato's Coin Laundry and the History 3 side couple, what other BLs have this pairing?

Not only do I gotcha covered, I am more than pleased to do this post. Power flipped hyung romances = one of my ABSOLUTE favorites! (I sort of did it here, Younger Gay Identifying Elder Gay as MINE, but I’ll do it again properly!)

Age Gap BLs where the Seme is YOUNGER

This was super common in early yaoi, like SUPER common. Japan loves an age gap + power play, and making the younger character the aggressor is the definition of power play. Guess who else likes it a lot? Why yes, Taiwan.

In no particular order, this is just a list.

Minato’s Laundromat

Japan 2022 GaGa

AKA Minato Coin Laundry AKA Wash My Heart! AKA Minato Shouji Koin Randorii AKA Minato Shouji Coin Laundry

Younger seme older uke, 10 year age gap. I love this show so much. This is by far the best long running example that really dwells on this trope, Shin is very much the aggressor also very much still a high school kid. Minato is very much NOT.

Old Fashion Cupcake

Japan 2022 Viki & GaGa

Also from Japan, another 10 year gap, and a flipping genius version. This time both parties are older, so there’s less of a stigma around the age gap, but there is stigma about the one being the other’s boss.

This show had me from the moment they broke the egg yolk with the chopsticks in the opening credits for episode one. It’s about a younger man with a long cherished crush on his boss (ten years older and going through a mid life crisis) who decides to save and seduce said man with pancakes. It’s wholesome, comforting, sexy, and a very necessary narrative about still having hope, interests, and openness to affection at any age. It’s coming of age/queerness packaged in a subtle critique of expectations around masculinity and love and loneliness... and it’s beautiful. Full review.

Seven Days

Japan 2015 grey

AKA Seven Days: Monday-Thursday AND Seven Days: Friday-Sunday Japan

Seryou kinda counts as the pursuer, but the dynamic is very very weak in this one. Still the way he asks to use Yuzuru’s first name (so CHEEKY) and the way he says “senpai” in SUCH a cute way makes me so happy.

Never doubt my ability to recommend this show. One of the best live action yaois ever made, with perfectly structured angst, fantastic characters and acting, and no problematic tropes (rare in Japanese BL). The leads have excellent chemistry although it’s low heat there’s still some really cute mutual kisses.

HIStory 2: Crossing the Line

Taiwan 2018 Viki

Seme uke is VERY weak with this one but the younger character is certainly the pursuer. It’s SO GOOD.

Lin Pei Yu directs this is a sports romance (volleyball) with a good boy/bad boy pairing, and mu favorite of the HIStory franchise. There is no clear seme/uke. Ostensibly it's high school set but Taiwan doesn't care about age appropriate actors. It's a very soft sweet romance with some ridiculously easily overcome conflict. There's great kisses but it's medium heat. The side dishes are the stepbrother trope but they’re very tame, and there’s no other triggers. It's not just my favorite of the franchise, it’s one of my favorite BLs with a perfect happy ending.

SOTUS

Thailand 2016 YouTube

Guess who started this trope in Thailand? Yeah, sometimes I forget too. But they are not just classic sunshine/tsunder but classic younger/older.

This is the BL that launched a hundred BLs. No literally, it was SOTUS’s international success that pretty much built the Thai BL industry into the juggernaut it is today. People have baggage around SOTUS, I have nostalgia. Trigger warning on bully hazing. Review here.

Oxygen

Thailand 2020 YouTube

Thailand’s first real stab at this dynamic as a main couple and it so worked for me. There are many who find this BL too slow and wooden, but I loved it so much.

I think of that as the paragon of Thailand’s BL style, since Oxygen uses every BL trope in the playbook for one of the gentlest lowest angst BLs ever made. This one showcases how far Thailand is moving BL from its yaoi roots, and is a prime example of the sweet “new BL” model for which Thailand is the main advocate (Korea is liking it a lot these days too, tho). My first watch along.

Lovely Writer

Thailand 2021 YouTube

Again Sib is quite a bit younger than Gene and the pursuer, man I love this dynamic. Since Gene is out of university and established in his career, I'm calling this one for age gap.

Thailand criticizes itself and the BL industry while simultaneously giving us classic seme/uke with great chemistry in a one-two punch of “we love it, but are we supposed to? and must we think this hard, yet enjoy it SO MUCH?” This show won’t appeal or make sense to those who don’t already have at least some Thai BL watching experience. What Lovely Writer does, at heart, is reexamine Thai BL has done to queerness, but in a very gentle way that has more to do with Thai BL growing up than any actual queer authenticity. It’s not parody or pastiche, but it is self reflective and trying to correct for some chronic mistakes. Whether it is ultimately successful in this matter is going to depend on the watcher’s relationship to BL and queer identity. But that’s what makes this show beautiful, interesting, and thought provoking. And I, for one, applaud the effort even if I didn’t personally connect to the characters.

Manner of Death

Thailand 2021 WeTV

It’s not really relevant to the story, but Tan is younger. Not only that, he’s Bun’s friends younger brother.

I like MoD a lot but I’m conflicted over it being actual BL. It’s a great gay romantic suspense, although the mystery element is its weakness. MaxTul, the Kings of chemistry, are, of course, perfect and perfectly cast, but their romance thread is more a distraction than an addition. Still, I could watch them make-out the phonebook. Watch along here.

En of Love: Tossera

Thailand 2020 YouTube

Younger boy wants to court older boy and does and… that’s it. No really that’s the WHOLE STORY. There is actually no angst, drama, or, indeed plot. But are they the softest bois ever to BL as a main couple? Yes they are.

Private Lessons

Korea 2020 GaGa

Another BL short from Strongberry that I love and given it is age gap and teacher/student (catnip) it should rate super high. The chemistry is slightly off though, but stil I do love this one for the dynamic. Certainly world watching especially if this is your trope.

MingKit MarkKit

2 Moons (VERY side dish) YouTube 2 Moons 2 YouTube (major side dish) Gen Y (leads) Gen Y 2 (sides again in LTR)

Thailand’s premier version of this dynamic I just lumped them all into one category. Only in 2 Moons 2 are they played by different actors, otherwise it is all KimCop, and who can complain about that? If you want to watch specifically for this dynamic than go for Gen Y. Trash watch here.

SIDE DISHES with this dynamic!

HIStory 3: the BL that shall not be named (BoXiang & ZhiGang)

Also HIStory 4: Close to You

The side characters in H3:MODC (and cameos in H4) BoXiang & ZhiGang have a huge age gap, 12 years, and it is a big deal for their relationship. When they start out BoXiang is a desperate himbo high school kid and ZhiGang is a small business owner. BoXiang’s friends tease him more for his lust over such a much older man than for being gay.

HIStory 4: Close to You (YongJie & XingSi)

YongJie is quite a bit younger than XingSi, not sure on the specifics but he's in middle school when XingSi is in high school and still in college when XingSi has his own business. Also the stepbrother trope. This couple is VERY problematic, but I like them anyway, probubly because I love this trope so much, and I am trash for trash.

Brothers (KhunKaow)

This is not a good show, but side couple Khun & Kaow are great in it and this is my favorite version of an age gap: younger seme + older uke. Khun is in university and Kaow has a baking business.

Don’t Say No (LeonPob)

Leon and Pob qualify. That’s all I have to say about that.

You’re My Sky (SanAei)

SanAei are a classic uni age gap pairing. San is a bit of a spoiled rich kid jock who identifies the older nerd character as HIS and is just like, MINE. That’s MY elder gay.

Top Secret Together and Love By Chance both have sub plots of high school boys pursuing college ones, but TST one didn’t go anywhere and LBC went very very bad, so yeah... no. LBC’s is my favorite version too, best friend’s older bother, sigh. I would LOVE to see this done better.

Others that kinda qualify

Pornographer series

So this is a dirty gaslighting crazy piece of Japan being SO Japan about this trope. But it sure is age gap. Established novelist with an intention to corrupt, bullies college kid into writing his porn for him with the intent to seduce, but his is the bottom (not a submissive) so it’s intentionally playing with the seme/uke dynamic. It’s an ugly dirty series, but also hot.

He’s Coming to Me

Mes is much older than Thun, and Thus is (in the end) the pursuer, but it’s kinda complicated by the fact that Mes is, ya know, a ghost.

Plus and Minus

The side pairing is an age gap with the younger as pursuer but it’s not really relevant to the story.

Tasty Florida

I think you could argue the younger character is more intersted in the relationship, but it;s also pretty clear the older boy will be in charge.

HIStory My Hero

It’s body swap and necessary pursuit for reasons of paranormal, so I’m not sure I’d count it.

My Ride

It’s not relevant but I believe Mork is younger.

Love Stage!! (sides)

The Thai version sides, TheeJet, are age gap and in the comic Thee is the pursuer. In this series, they are in a secret LTR so who chased whom isn’t relevant.

My Engineer (sides)

I make no case for it but possibly RamKing?

Not Me (sides)

DanYok is said that way, but Yok is certainly the pursuer at the beginning, and he’s younger.

Similar:

BLs With Age Gaps - Hyung Romances - these is just when there is a big age gap, not necessarily a power flip.

I also love noona romances for this same reason, the abnormal power dynamic (older woman, younger man) gives agency to the female character in an Asian romance drama = very rare.

Thai Pronouns & Honorifics when Seme/Uke is Flipped

Aggressive & Autonomous Ukes in BL Uke Forced to Undertake the Seme Role

Updated Aug 2022, not responsible for this dynamic turning up after that. Although YOU BETTER FLIPPING TELL ME ABOUT IT.

(source)