#like: ‘i related to bella because xyz and therefore i loved it’ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ashtrayfloors · 1 month

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When other people I knew in grad school read Kathy Acker’s books they were shocked. Appalled. Particularly most of the budding young feminists. I actually began weeding out women friends by their reactions to her books. The ones that smiled and lowered their eyes with sly understanding and touched themselves, I kept. The ones that freaked out, well, they were idiots. Once I read a paragraph from Empire of the Senseless in my theory of gender class and one of the women began to cry and ran out and barfed. No shit. Pussy, I thought.

—Lidia Yuknavitch, from The Chronology of Water

#quotations #lidia yuknavitch #kathy acker #the chronology of water #i think of this so so often #because i had a similar experience in undergrad #but was thinking of it again recently because i noticed a distinct split in the reactions of my women and nonbinary friends re: poor things #(note: i am not saying ‘women and enbies’ because i think they’re the same obvs #i’m just using it to denote ‘any friend who’s not a man’)#so #some are in the ‘smiling and lowering their eyes and touching themselves’ category #like: ‘i related to bella because xyz and therefore i loved it’#and some are in the ‘crying and barfing’ category #like: ‘i was super triggered and thought the depictions of sexuality were problematic and horrible’#i mean i’m not going to weed out friends because of it #but it’s…interesting #makes me think of that post that’s like #a piece of art can be triggering and awful for someone and healing and cathartic for someone else

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