#i don't personally use hermaphrodite but i love my friends who do | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

straightfromthetorturedpoetsdept · 1 year

Text

To be clear with yall, I love men. I love my brothers and sisters all equally.

I don't say things like most men are rapists to hurt men, but rather because I believe that the only way we can move forward in social justice is by healing the wounds that the patriarchy has inflicted on us. I don't believe rape is a biologically determined factor, because I don't believe humans evolved to rape. Rape in nature usually has a reproductive purpose but in social species, it's not really needed as a tactic because well.... you can just get consent from someone instead.

Like, most mating processes require consent from both parties and especially in our species, with our advanced cognition we are able to recognize the importance of bodily autonomy. We are able to evolve as a species because we understand bodily autonomy to such a degree, we are able to encourage cooperation as a survival tactic instead of aggression or dominance.

I believe that for most of our history, we have looked to other animals to determine what's natural but I think that's a huge mistake. Not only is deferring to science 100% of the time inherently white supremacist thinking, but our unique control over our biology puts us in a position where we don't need to defer to science all the time.

Like, for example, body modification. Yes, there are conversations to be had about societal pressures etc (the conclusion of those conversations is not to get rid of the option all together but rather to limit and heavily regulate marketing practices to use the central approach instead of the peripheral approach to persuasion because we know the cause of these things is capitalism) but as humans, if we can safely allow body modification.... why shouldn't we?

Take your God out of it, don't talk to me about the purity of the human body. What scientific evidence do you have that body modification is a "sin"? This is what the transphobic rhetoric in society comes down to really. It comes down to a central belief that you are mutilating a sacred vessel somehow, and riding it of its "purity." You believe that "half tit, half penis" bodies are somehow "freaks" or "unnatural" but why? Why do you believe that? What evidence do you have to suggest that type of body shouldn't exist?

Is it biology? Hermaphrodite species exist all over the globe, so it can't be. Is it our human specific biology? No, we have plenty of intersex individuals in our biology.

You see, if you dont understand the basics of human psychology, you won't be able to answer why you believe that type of body is "unnatural" and therefore, why intervention is necessary to stop those types of bodies from existing?

I'm sorry to my trans friends who have to see me use this type of language, but I hope you stick around to see why I have to use this language to deconstruct the belief surrounding this type of language. I'm so sorry if my words are hurtful, I do not mean them to hurt you and I personally do not believe them at all. I love you.

Anyways, if you do take a basic psychology course however, you understand that the reason someone might come to view that type of body as unnatural is because they are relying on social categorization and heuristics to inform their view of the world. If a person believes that the human form can only come in 2 ways based on anecdotal evidence of "I've only ever seen these 2 ways expressed before" well then of course they will believe that anything outside of that is "unnatural." They are experiencing cognitive dissonance when they encounter that type of body they've never seen before, so their best resolution without evidence is "well it must be an exception to the rule." Mix that in with cultural ideas of gender and boom transphobia exists.

The reason I say this is because the same reasoning for a lot of transphobia relies on these same types of heuristics and social categorization, but in a more skewed manner. For example, women who are transphobic will try and justify their discomfort at seeing a trans body as natural because well "males are an inherent threat to women." Not only do they subtly dehumanize the person by referring to them as "male," something that I've literally never understood why people justify doing because you never say just the fucking sex. It's male humans you morons anyways. Anyways I digress.

What I'm getting at here is that social categorization and heuristics are distorting the logic here as well. By claiming that being born with a penis makes you an inherent threat of rape, you are saying there is something in the genetic expression to make a penis rape is encoded in there as well. And this is just not based in any scientific fact whatsoever. Like, male humans are not encoded to rape female humans. Our entire history proves otherwise, our classification as a social species proves otherwise.

But by associating the cis men's culturally programmed desire to rape with a biologically programmed desire to rape, they are then able to justify classifying the penis as a threat to them. This is where the cognitive dissonance is taking place. They are unable to identify the cultural factors that come into a cis man's desire to rape, and thus they are able to identify another factor (the penis) as the cause of rape.

But by claiming that the penis is an inherent threat to women, you are actually encouraging rape culture to thrive. Rape culture thrives on the assumption that men are biologically predisposed to rape. They just can't fucking help it is the reason why people give to explain away deciding to rape someone (minor rapists are very interesting for a different reason maybe I'll make a post on my thoughts on that later) as an adult. They want to escape accountability so they claim its biological.

But by endorsing this excuse, you are putting some of the responsibility on the victim because if there is a biological factor to rape, then we do have to take that into account when raising the gender that gets raped. If male penises were programmed to rape, then we would have a responsibility as a culture to minimize triggering that response to rape as much as possible. Like, that's why "what was she wearing" and "was she drinking" are used as excuses. Because all of rape culture relies on the assumption that male humans are biologically programmed to rape and to want to rape female humans.

That's why this all feeds into each other, because if we don't identify that rape is a correctable behavior, we enable not just patriarchy, transphobia, white supremacy blah blah but also the prison industrial complex as well. Like, much of the pushback against abolishing prisons in the US is "you want rapists on the street!?!?!"

Which like no, not if they haven't gotten serious therapy first. But, it's designed to stop conversations about what prison abolition is and what it would look like in a perfect society. Like, if you say rapists can be rehabilitated, many people take offense to that as being pro rapist? Like, people will actively label this narrative that I've presented as being "pro-rape" or "pro-rapist." And like, sure, since I'm advocating for the humanity of rapists, I guess you could classify it as being pro-rapist but why do you have such a visceral reaction to the suggestion that rapists can change?

That rape is a correctable behavior, that you can teach a rapist not to be a rapist but it requires engaging with the concept and legacy of white patriarchy in a way that our institutions do not want us to engage with. You cannot come to the conclusion that rape is learned without understanding African tribes being shocked at the concept of war rape, without understanding how being a man equates to being a rapist in white culture, you cannot understand these things without understanding how gender was constructed in Africa to be so oppressive and how Islam is a cultural response to Christianity and white supremacy at its core. You cannot understand how your view of men is reductive and simplistic and contributes to the very thing you wish to abolish without understanding how other cultures defined manhood in nonproblematic ways.

You cannot come to this conclusion without years of research into sociology and that is why Republicans are attacking public education so heavily at the moment. They wish to get rid of the most basic tool against fascism we have: education.

#lots of thoughts about oppression #oppression discourse #gender discourse #transphobia #rape #culture analysis

0 notes

lady-elora · 3 years

Text

"It was love", or five reasons and five refutations of hatred for sylki

So, folks, I did it. I finally translated from Russian an amazing article about the romantic line in “Loki”. I agree with every word in it. Hope it’ll help all the sylki shipers to fend off the attacks of antis with a reasoned arguments.

Would you like to talk about our god Odin the most controversial Marvel franchise pairing which caused a storm of indignation and negative emotions on the part of fans?

We're talking about Loki/Sylvie from "Loki" (2021) mini-series, or sylki (lovie) as they were called by fans. Apparently a simple get-pairing consisting of a man and a woman (or bisexual gender fluids, if you prefer), but some people were shocked by such a relationship on the screen. Why? What for? How? That may be your questions. So we’ll discuss their claims and groundlessness of them in this article.

But before we start talking about it, I want to clarify what actually the concept of the "selfcest" is.

Usually we marked as a "selfcest" those works that describe the relationship of a character with himself. Most often, this warning implies a "doubling" of the character; alternatively – the same character is taken at different ages or falls for his/her absolutely identical copies.

Agreed?

Let's go then.

< < < 1 > > >

The first and main thing which follows from the definition above is: "Showing the selfcest on the screen is disgusting and immoral!"

It also follows from the definition above that the selfcest is the relationship of the same character with himself in the form of identical copies both in character and appearance. The highest form of narcissism, according to Mobius (which, in fact, is to some extent true). Horrors from a snuffbox, according to some impressionable audience. It hardly makes sense to rant about the fact that masturbation is also a form of selfcest (although the fact is rather amusing).

The bottom line is that if Loki once again created a copy of himself to deceive someone and fell in love with it, it would be a selfcest. Splitting himself into two people and building a relationship between them is a selfcest as well. Turning into a hermaphrodite and ... no, this is something completely perverted.

The basis of the selfcest is absolute identity. If we take a character who is so in love with him/herself that he/she sees relationships only with him/herself, then in such a case he/she can only build them with a perfect scanned copy of him/herself. It will be very easy for the person who knows him/herself inside and out to notice some inconsistencies in a partner, and then it makes no sense to build a relationship if he/she is not as perfect (as the "original" is), isn’t it? That’s how this logic works.

And now attention, please!

Is the romance of two Elvis Presley understudies a selfcest?

They look almost the same, both like Elvis... But no, right? These two people are different people, with different tempers and lives, who are similar only in appearance and pseudonyms. So this is a very ordinary relationship.

Now let's get back to our sheep. So we have two people from different worlds, with different stories, different tempers, different powers and different external signs who were born under the same name and later lived their lives with different ones. The only thing that is identical in them is the essence of the God of Mischief. So where is the ground for an egoistic selfcest? Nowhere.

Don't forget about identity. We can say that they are very similar, since initially they are both Lokis. But do you wanna say it's so hard to meet similar people in real life? No. Do you wanna say it's hard to meet similar people in two similar universes? No. I'll tell you a secret: writers often like to use the trope of intertwining almost identical tempers between characters to show their mental connection. And it's not a crime, but a common technique. And, again, a "similarity" doesn't fall under the criteria of selfcest.

And finally, if Sylvie were an exact copy of Loki, would there be people who love one but can't stand the other? It's the same character after all, so what's the problem? But the point is that Loki is Loki. And Sylvie is Sylvie. They exist separately from each other and are not the same due to the presence of distinctive features.

If you want to use Kang's words, remember that he admired these two.

< < < 2 > > >

The second and no less amusing is "Loki doesn't need a love interest at all!"

I'm sorry, but which Loki?

The one who appeared in all the films of the series "Thor" and "The Avengers"?

He's dead, guys.

And Loki from the series is a character torn out from the finale of the first "Avengers" and revamped by TVA with the help of an impromptu session of psychologist Mobius and viewing on-screen all of his promising deeds. This Loki was told head-on that he was created as a minor character in order to plot his machinations for the development of the protagonists and he was unnecessary to the whole world. This Loki has an advantage over the previously known version of himself just in knowing this fact. This Loki has recognized for everyone and for himself that he didn't want to harm the others. And this Loki, by definition, is already a different character, but for some reason people tailor him to a long-familiar one, ignoring the obvious things point-blank.

He is no stranger to simple human feelings, because every version of the God of Mischief is initially an offended and despised child grown up in the shadow of his own brother, a child who just wanted to be loved too and in the same way. Only the paths to this under-goal were different for all Lokis. One killed Thor in order to remain the only ruler (people always adore kings), another invented unthinkable feats (people love heroes), the third built a perfect world out of promises for everyone, the fourth tried to become a hero himself, but was too crushed to find mistakes in his plan, the fifth excluded himself from the equation so that everyone understood he didn't want to harm the others and to cause the pain.

Loki from the series is a version that knows everything about himself, but at the same time is not bound by the framework of the other variants' plot. He doesn't need to win back Asgard, to fight with Thanos, with the Avengers, with contempt and so on. He is free from borders. He is from the world where Frigga never died. He is the only Loki without the "glorious purpose". He is different.

So his attitude to other people is now different as well. It's stupid to perceive this version exactly as a long-known character.

After all he had seen, this Loki would hardly be able to live alone like any other. He is extremely naked and needs love (in any form), as the most reliable and not bringing destruction and suffering point of support.

< < < 3 > > >

The third and my favorite thing is: "Love in five minutes! Why did it come out at all?"

Why did Loki fall for Sylvie, and even in a couple of days?

OK, you can quite easily explain Sylvie's motivation: she found a person who had interest for her, who suddenly cared about her, protected her... Could he be an unworthy party in such a case? Moreover, before that, Sylvie, in principle, had no close people and she internally really lacked such an attitude to herself, banal love (parents, people, friends, romantic), which she hadn’t due to the lack of normal childhood and a stable life.

But Loki?..

But Loki is not a vain killing machine from The Avengers anymore, not a person for whom the self-affirmation is the only goal in life. Let's rewind a little, and remember that he was brainwashed in TVA and lowered from heaven to earth. Loki was always reasonable. Loki could always be courteous and friendly. Loki was always a gentleman. And finally he realized that there's no sense in all this aggression and hyperbolized narcissism, and he pushed his one-actor theater aside in order to at least normally rethink the concept of time and reality.

And here comes Sylvie.

Unpredictable, dangerous, painfully similar to him, but at the same time completely different. Loki never had good intentions in his conquests; only the ways were sometimes good. Sylvie went to the good liberation of people and the return of their right to choose their lives, but through blood. In fact, she is his mirror image.

She intrigued. A wild person who swung at the destruction of the time control organization alone and coped well with it.

However, the countdown started from the moment when they both got on the train. The moment when Loki began to understand what the real essence of Sylvie was. Grown up in fear, distrustful, broken Sylvie, who was desperately trying to make TVA pay for everything. For everyone. And it was amazing for him.

Here, as for me, the Moffat's quote about his BBC Sherlock fits very well: ..when he saw her, he thought: "Maybe there can be someone like me?" – but with a slight nuance that Loki himself would like to be someone like that. Like a fighter in spite of and for the good, causing admiration. With some corrections in the form of the absence of a painful childhood, despair and anger.

Then the spring of "Loki's MeUs" begins to unwind, and the essence of it is that he understands her and her feelings, because, although they are different people, they are internally similar. Loki looks at her as if she is a person he has known for a very long time, but not completely. It's like if you met an old childhood friend seven years later: it seems to be the same, but also it seems to be different. It seems that everything is elementary, but there's not enough of a certain number of details.

(He'll realize later that he was missing much more).

So we take the initial interest, add the conditional knowledge of a person, and we get a very specific variation of the trope "from friends to lovers".

This may seem far-fetched, but we have two factors on our hands that are fundamental for this trope. Keep them in your head, but for now, let's applaud the fact that Marvel for the first time figured out how to derive formulas for the logical development of relationships in the shortest possible time. In what way? In the most elementary way: through psychology.

There's such a thing as the stages of the formation of relationships, which includes:

- Falling in love (interest, flirting, rethinking)

- Trust (challenge, joint activity, mutual assistance)

- A sense of kinship (empathy, responsibility, confidence)

- A sense of unity

- Love

In our case, only the first three points are considered, but the third one is with a chip in the form of a final. I should also focus attention on the fact we are not considering love. We are considering a serious crush, which can develop into love, since the latter one is a slightly longer process that still has to go through to the end. And we consider them in extreme (+accelerated by our two fundamental factors) conditions, where our heroes are forced to work together and trust each other in order to survive.

After reviewing the aspects of the three points we have chosen, we can easily draw analogies with the events that happened with Loki and Sylvie.

They are interested in each other, they think that they know each other, they develop in relationships with each other in a completely healthy way. A little faster than in the series for a hundred episodes maybe, but it is conditioned.

Needless to say, this is impossible and illogical: we have the clearest example of love from nowhere in the form of a couple of Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne, who had absolutely no prerequisites to it, but at the same time kissed at the end of the first film. Nothing personal, it's just a fact.

The relations of our "defendants" aren't based on carnal attraction, they didn't immediately break out ready-made due to a rush of adrenaline, they are not one-sided and not abusive. Loki and Sylvie carry about each other, support each other (if it doesn't seem so, then we'll also talk about Sylvie a little later, everything in its own time), plus sympathy and love based on the fact that a person is ready to fight with you and trust you, sounds very appropriate, doesn't it?

And yes, there are similar examples of "love in five minutes" in life, which I've also seen. This is real.

< < < 4 > > >

The fourth thing which also makes me roll my eyes is "Sylvie didn't need relationships at all and she didn't care about Loki."

So let's make a small lyrical digression and think about who Sylvie is.

The Goddess of Mischief? Yep, but far from Loki, which means there's no sense to adjust her to the same classic image. As a child, Sylvie was dragged out of her own world. As a child, Sylvie fled across the time with fear and horror from TVA. Sylvie hid all her conscious life and saw people dying around her over and over again. Sylvie knew that outside of the apocalypses millions are simply dying from the hands of TVA too. She was alone all the time, during all her life she developed anger and hatred for this organization, until revenge for herself and for others became the only meaning of her life.

And here comes Loki.

Another version of the God of Mischief, which forces her to rebuild the plan on the go, in order to still bring it to the end. Frivolous, broken, stucked up Loki. He lazily, automatically puts sticks in her wheels. And then, on Lamentis, he suddenly decides to fight with her and help. After that, he completely trusts her with his life and cares about her own. And it seems to her like some kind of nonsense, like another trick, an invention for personal gain. Sylvie understands the essence of Loki, but she can't perceive him the way he perceives her. She sees in him what she could have become without the intervention of TVA.

But after that rush through the city, after realizing the hopelessness of the situation, when he says he is sorry and he thinks she is amazing, something clicks in her head. No one has ever cared about her (in this regard, she is not like Loki, who had at least Frigga), and now Loki, who knows her only from the archives and her meager life-story, who dragged her into the apocalypse, but also tried his best to help her to get out, just says that he is fascinated.

Sylvie grew up with her own concept of truth and lies: for her, there's only her truth and the eternal deception from the others. And then she thinks: may it be that..?

The thoughts that no one on the entire Timeline needs her, and that she should have recognized the lie, are marinating in her head to the end. Loki is not like the people she has spent her whole life with (he looks more like her, understands more or tries to understand at least; he believes), Loki behaves strangely and worries about her. Sylvie can't believe it (her past affects her completely), but subconsciously she wants someone to really care about her.

And she starts taking care of Loki in return. She comes closer and closer, but at the same time she is ready to turn around and rush back at any moment. Because she's scared. Sophia Di Martino says that for Sylvie, feelings are something new, unknown, and such things always cause fear in people. She tries to deny it, to be ironic, she's waiting for a trick, but doesn't move away.

She's just thinking: "Come on. Betray me. Betray me so that I'll be right again and trust no one anymore."

But Loki doesn't betray her. On the contrary: he recognizes that he cares of her, he tries to protect her with all his might. And that's the moment when Sylvie finally falls in love. That's why she pushes him through the portal to TVA which – the Multiverse is being formed, yay – is the safest place at the time.

Why didn't she give up on killing Kang? Because that was her glorious purpose. Sylvie lived with the revenge and the dream of saving everyone from the dictator and she just couldn't give up all this after the horrors that she experienced in her life. Blood, death and fear – that's what she saw during all these years. But Loki didn't see that so he couldn't understand. That's why Sylvie didn't listen to him.

And if she didn't care about Loki, if she didn't feel anything at all, Sylvie would have killed him the moment her sword was at his neck. She'd killed before – it wouldn't be a problem. But she does care of Loki.

< < < 5 > > >

The fifth and final thing is "These relationships hinder the development of both characters!"

And that's the funniest claim from those who watched the series with their eyes closed.

During the series, Sylvie and Loki are revealed from new sides thanks to their feelings. Caring for others, compassion, responsibility, the very fact of showing love for another person – all this develops them both. The friendship was shown through Mobius. The family has always been represented by Thor, Odin and Frigga. But showrunners wanted to reveal Loki from all sides, decompose him into components and show what he is from the inside in all aspects. And they did it.

Loki, who doesn't care about the fate of the Universe, and who only wants to regain world domination again, turns into a hero who wants to save the whole world. And one more person.

With Sylvie, it's a little more difficult, due to the fact that her life was also more difficult. Her case is more lost. However, in the end we see that such a long-awaited retribution doesn't bring her satisfaction. Because she understands the wrongness of this act, she regrets it and realizes that everything was wrong. But she realizes it too late.

If we had cut Loki out of her life, Sylvie would have killed the Keeper without any guilt, without feeling remorse, because she wouldn't have known that everything could be different, that she might choose another way.

This is what is called character development.

Sophia says both Loki and Sylvie feel the same, they grow together, but at different rates. And by the end of the series, Sylvie is approximately where Loki was after a psychotherapy session with Mobius. But not at the very beginning – that's what's important.

I hope this article has at least a little explained the whole essence of sylki pairing, because surely I'm not Tom and Sophia, who know their characters best. However, trying is something, isn't it?

Thanks for attention ;)

Source: «Это была любовь», или пять причин и пять опровержений ненависти к Sylki

#loki #sylvie #loki x sylvie #loki series #sylki #lovie #lovedaggers #fandom analytics #translation from russian

63 notes · View notes

shudderspeed-f8-blog · 5 years

Text

This is me. Yes I was mostly naked and I am old but I don't want to be a younger girl now that I am not. You know how much young girls to tear each other down when you could be building each other up? I didn't realize it until I was older but I was a pretty girl much prettier than in this picture and I was being thrown into a competition I never signed up for and it was vicious!

Now I am old enough to be your mother- a lot of mothers my age talk about their kids using Tumblr And I'm in a photo group page whenever that has a Tumblr thing Link extension that well I figured I'd add one and so I'm doing that. Didn't know which picture to post first and this one is not in that group however I'm putting it here since it's not like you can see anything "naked naked ".

Now that was several years and several pounds ago-not that I'd be embarrassed really at what I look like now because I'm human and it's not like I've given up on myself. I have this tumor on my pituitary gland and no health insurance and it's wreaked havoc on my whole endocrine system including my weight which is usually around 125 pounds. I mean I normally wear a size 7 dress and I didn't need to wear a bra I was a small B cup but in the last 2 years my system just turned on me no matter how healthy I eat or how much I could move even though I started getting exhausted. Even with a little movement I kept gaining weight and I was like what the f**** Happening to my body?

My voice got lower suddenly I had boobs like giant boobs And it's deep voice giant boobs I was starting to wonder if I was turning into some kind of hermaphrodite but I'm not now it's all the stupid shit of arguments with medicaid and all this other crap just to see if I qualify for radiation and if it's operable because it's growing ... And of course I'd love to be a size 7 again but I would not like to be 21 again I would not like to be 16 again I would even wanna be 35 again.

I see these younger girls and theyll fight over anything and other girls will turn their friends against each other just to see what happens, just to knock out the competition and it sucks because if it's about a man it's really not worth it-there's so many of them and most of them are not that special .

I have a couple friends I've had since childhood in high school one of them since we were 14 and another since we were 13. I lost a friendship that I had for 30 years since we were 7 and 8 and that might as well have been over a man because it was over a woman I introduced her to-her future wife who was my college best friend and it turns out I didn't know her very well. And all I can hope is one day my original friend w see that I wasn't the person her current wife drew me out to be: I am the same person she met the summer there was first a woman in the presidential election (even though she was running mate with a man for vice president and even though she didn't win) and most of the people who might read this were far from being born.

Now even girls in their twenties look at me as a mother figure and I'm OK with that I want them to know I'm not the competition and I advise them no man is worth your best friend falling out with you 'sisters before misters" that's our "bro code" and look at the way that guys say it: they call it "Bros before hoes" and we're not "hoes" which is why women should stick together because it feels safer to be able to laugh when you're almost 44 with somebody you've known since summer camp and have a million nicknames for your ex boyfriends that you went cried your hearts out to each other over when they seemed so important at 15 20 25 for God's sake my pisces friend from summer camp is now an incredible artist who travels the world and we had a fight that lasted 10 years now I understand it as an adult but I sure ship didn't when I was 21. She was in my wedding and she laughed 21 years later and I laughed with her when I told her I wore my wedding dress to my divorce and I did see most I ever paid for one dress might as well get more than 1 where out of it and it fit me better the 2nd time this time I had boobs still anyways This is my Tumblr and it's probably going to be full of pictures of cats , Astrology posts and the man I live with. Good luck and hope you have a better day than you have so far.

- the aperture

0 notes