#participatory object

[n1k0laa5]

Doubts again? Sweetheart, I would tell you what anyone else here would but I wanna try something new.

Introducing; A Rant To Back Up Manifestation And Shifting With “Proof”

Hi. Hello. I don’t know why I’m starting an introduction as if I’m some philosophical giant that’ll change your perception of life but—hey did someone say perception? DING DING DING HOE! Consciousness does influence your perception of reality, this part is scientifically undisputed due to the fact that consciousness determines what you focus on, what you PERCIEVE, what your brain filters out and what you experience emotionally, mentally and behaviourally. You see what you believe, you experience what your nervous system thinks is true, it’s basic neuroscience and cognitive psychology.

Now, we get to Clauser, quantum entanglement and the death of local realism (sorry Einstein.)

John Clauser, a man who won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger for proving quantum entanglement is real and disproving Einstein’s belief in local realism. Now, what is local realism?

Locality = objects only affect eachother if they’re near

Realism = things exist independently of observation.

Einstein believed in both as he hated the idea of spooky action at a distance, from his famous quote; “I like to think the moon is there even when I’m not looking at it.”

But Clauser, Aspect and Zeilinger used Bell’s Theorem and experiments with entangled photons to show local realism is FALSE! Yikes.. ya know what is true though? The following!

Particles are instantaneously connected across vast distances, their properties are not determined until measured and YOUR (yes, you, you cutie!) choice of how to observe a system can affect how reality behaves. Sounds familiar?

Manifestation…

In other words, observation changes outcomes. Entangled particles behave as a single system even light years apart.

That. Should. Not. Be. Possible.

Unless reality is NOT what we though.

Now—John Archibald Wheeler and the participatory universe.

Wheeler, mentor to Richard Feynman created:

The Participatory Anthropic Principle: observers play a creative role in how the universe behaves.

Delayed Choice Experiment: suggests that a choice made in the present can determine how a particle behaved in the past.

But let’s get into more!

Let’s say; you close your pretty eyes. You’re not observing particles. You create it. You’re visualizing, believing, and possibly creating (whether that would be creating the shift itself or something else)

Even if the mechanism is “unknown”, here’s what’s arguably true:

Belief alters perception.

Perception alters behavior.

Behavior and energy alter outcomes.

Intention affects probability in quantum systems.

Observation collapses waveforms into material form.

Repeated visualization & belief create synaptic patterns that change how your reality unfolds.

We don’t yet know the limits of this.

SCARY SHIT.

Reality is not stable. It’s participatory.

Reality is in flux until someone or something observes or engages with it.

And that’s the entire principle behind manifestation:

Reality conforms to your inner world. Not instantly. Not always obviously (unless ya want it to!). But reliably, if you’re consistent.

Let’s, once again look at what is now scientifically validated, Nobel-approved, or replicated.

1. Quantum Entanglement

Proven beyond doubt.

Described by Nobel-winning physicists.

Shows particles communicate across space faster than light, which violates classical causality.

Proves that separation is an illusion, all is interconnected.

Manifestation angle?

If everything is entangled, then what you do, what you think, ripples out. Energy, intention, emotion, it reaches farther than we can perceive.

2. Wavefunction Collapse / Measurement Problem

The act of measurement turns a probability into a concrete event.

Prior to that, the system is undefined, nothing is fixed.

Manifestation angle?

Until you observe it, your life is a quantum soup of probabilities.

Your decision to choose a reality (through belief, visualization, assumption, etc.) could be the thing that collapses the wave.

This is exactly what Neville Goddard taught, long before quantum physics confirmed it.

3. Placebo Effect (Scientifically Proven Thousands of Times)

Just believing a sugar pill is medicine causes real healing, often better than actual drugs.

Placebos can even work when people know it’s a placebo.

Belief alone changes biology, behavior, perception, and pain.

Manifestation angle?

Belief is not just “positive thinking.” It literally reshapes your biology and reality, sometimes against all odds.

4. Neuroplasticity & Visualization (Used by Olympians, Celebs, CEOs)

Athletes perform better just by mentally rehearsing.

Brain scans show real changes from imagining something—as if it’s really happening.

You can become someone new just by visualizing it repeatedly.

Manifestation angle?

Your brain can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality which means what you repeatedly envision becomes real to your nervous system, and then to your outer world.

5. Testimonies & Patterns (Anecdotal but GLOBAL)

There are millions of people across cultures, eras, and beliefs who have reported manifesting:

Love, money, healing, even physical changes

Against logic, effort, timing, or expectations

The very fact that there are so many people experiencing the same thing, from CEOs to kids on TikTok, proves there’s a phenomenon.

6. Diverse Methods, One Principle

People manifest through:

Law of Assumption (assume it’s done)

Law of Attraction (focus on the desire)

Scripting

Meditation

Vision boards

Prayer

Living “as if”

Gratitude loops

Quantum jumping

Affirmations

Dream work

Feeling it real

Letting go

Different methods. Same result:

Intention + belief + focus = external change.

That’s not magic. That’s quantum alignment meets neural reprogramming meets conscious selection of timelines.

I bet you’re wondering; “Oh, Author Nikolas! Is manifestation real?!?! Please tell me, I need to manifest and shift to Steve Harrington’s lap!”

At this point?

To say it’s not real would require ignoring:

Nobel Prize–winning science

Quantum mechanics’ destruction of fixed reality

The power of the placebo

Neuroscience’s evidence of belief reshaping brain and life

Global witness testimony across time

Personal experience, trial after trial

You don’t have to prove how it works to know that it works.

The GPS in your phone is based on Einstein’s relativity. You don’t understand that, but it still gets you home.

With all this in front of us, how can we not consider manifestation real?

Maybe it’s consciousness.

Maybe it’s quantum entanglement.

Maybe it’s the brain.

Maybe it’s all of it — you, the quantum field, the emotional charge, the infinite possibilities.

Maybe reality is listening.

Maybe it always was.

But realistically? I just wrote the end part for dramatics. It’s you, babe.

You. You are God. Don’t forget that.

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - January 1-7

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!

1. Homes built with clay, grass, plastic and glass: How a Caribbean island is shying away from concrete

“[… Clay] traps moisture which then evaporates and pulls heat from the surface as it goes. […] The roof is covered in old recycled advertising banners and piece of a water tank, the other half of which is used to house some of Rahaman-Noronha's fish [… and] multi-coloured glass bottles inset into walls provide an avenue for streams of light and colour.”

2. To Combat Phoenix’s Extreme Heat, a New Program Provides Sustainable Shade

“The neighborhood workshops allow residents to get a shade plan tailored to their community’s needs and identify the locations where officials can plant trees. Meanwhile, the workforce-development side of the program creates the jobs needed to keep the trees alive for generations[….]”

3. Conservation corridors provide hope for Latin America’s felines

“[… S]cience has shown that to maintain healthy populations there needs to be connection between individuals. [… A] protected area that is close to another has more species and more potential for their survival.”

4. Social program cuts tuberculosis cases among Brazil's poorest by more than half

“The decrease [“in TB cases and deaths”] was over 50% in extremely poor people and more than 60% among the Indigenous populations. […] "We know that the program improves access to food [… and healthcare…] and strengthens people's immune defenses as a result.””

5. Geothermal has vast potential to meet the world’s power needs

“New geothermal systems could technically provide as much as 600 terawatts of carbon-free power capacity by 2050[…. C]ountries could cost-effectively deploy over 800 GW of geothermal power capacity using technology that’s in development today[….]”

6. New D.C. Catholic archbishop is pro-LGBTQ+ and anti-Trump

“In 2018, he objected to the blaming of gay priests for the clergy sexual abuse crisis, “saying that such abuse was a matter of power, not sexual orientation[….]” “We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies [… and] seek to rob our medical care, especially from the poor.””

7. Chesapeake Bay Will Gain New Wildlife Refuge

“The Chesapeake Bay area will have a new wildlife refuge for the first time in a quarter century. […] “This new refuge offers an opportunity to halt and even reverse biodiversity loss in this important place, and in a way that fully integrates and respects the leadership and rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.””

8. Inside Svalbard seed vault’s critical mission to stop our favourite fruit and veg from going extinct

“[… T]he world’s largest secure seed storage […] sits proudly in a massive former coal mine[….] Right now, there are over 1,331,458 samples of 6,297 crop species. […] “During 2024, 61 seed genebanks deposited 64,331 seed samples, including 21 from institutes that deposited seeds for the first time this year[….]””

9. Medical debt will be erased from credit reports for all Americans under new federal rule

“The rule will affect more than 15 million Americans, raising their credit scores by an estimated average of 20 points. [… S]tates and localities have already utilized American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to support the elimination of over $1 billion in medical debt for more than 700,000 Americans[….]”

10. 'Forgotten' water harvesting system transforms 'barren wasteland' into thriving farmland

“"The process started with the community-based participatory planning[….]” 10% to 15% of the water will actually soak into the ground to replenish the water table, creating a more sustainable agricultural process.”

December 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

I’ve read a few takes which view Izzy through a Marxist lens and paint him as a working class* hero. The premise being that this proletarian warrior is unfairly usurped in the affections of Ed by some upper class, monied, artsy type; and to not root for the grassroots character makes you somehow a bourgeois prick.

Izzy is never in Ed’s affections romantically. Ever. So the premise falls at the first hurdle.

But for the sake of argument…

If you’re truly going to view the show as a Marxist allegory, in which an individual overcomes horrendous class obstacles, then that character is Ed Teach.

Ed rises from extreme poverty to become the most successful and infamous pirate in history. It’s a rags-to-riches story.

The takes I’ve read on this completely ignore the fact that Ed is also ‘working class’. And the only conclusion I can reach is that Ed is ‘the wrong kind of working class’. Because what these interpretations do is separate the idea of the working classes into a ‘deserving’, romanticised, white, ‘salt-of-the-earth’ type, and non-deserving groups not worthy of recognition, usually representing people of colour.

And so we’re back to race. The Marxist lens as I’ve seen it applied here defines the white working class man as having had his toy stolen by the white bourgeois man. Ed is a just an object. And when Ed’s handed back rightfully to Izzy by the British Crown as payment, he is literally chattel returned to the correct owner.

A large part of the show is Ed’s fightback against an ownership narrative in order to claim his identity for himself. That to be with Stede is his choice; and Stede’s initial obliviousness is an extremely important part of that narrative. The agency has to lie with Ed first, and the writers clearly understand this. Else we might be setting up a power struggle over ‘who owns the brown man’.

Stede never lays claim to Ed because there is no claim to lay. He instinctively and intuitively falls into a reciprocal friendship with Ed, which eventually grows into an equal love and natural affection. Stede always sees Ed’s personhood. And it’s really important that Stede views Ed, at the very least, as an equal in terms of human worth. Societally they are not equal due to white patriarchy; however, Stede’s giving up of his wealth, his bourgeois status, is another step towards a truer equality between the two.

Meanwhile, Izzy views Ed as a valuable asset to be utilised for a certain masculine glory and riches. Izzy might not be bourgeois, but his worldview is certainly bent that way. He will willingly and violently take possession of another human being as an interpretation of owning the means of production - that isn’t exactly proletarian. It’s participatory enslavement and a bourgeois act.

We know nothing of Izzy’s past. We can presume he’s from a working class background because Occam’s razor would suggest as much. But we are never explicitly shown Izzy’s class in the way we are Ed’s, because Izzy’s class isn’t overly important to the story unless it serves the narrative of Ed and Stede. It has no independent meaning. He’s an antagonist. And let’s face it: he cosies up to Chauncey and the British establishment pretty easily when it suits him.

If you must apply a Marxist lens to this story, your working class hero is Ed. And if not, why not?

*I’m using ‘working class’ as a Marxist term. I realise in 1717, it was not widely used

Ed Teach, finally co-owning property and a potential business. It’s not a fairytale ending entirely, but it is an important practical ending to a lifelong journey from nothing. And Ed might never have to go hungry again.

[theoraclephobetor]

Franklyn makes Hannibal so uncomfortable and he hates this little cheese man so much.

Dan Fogler is a master for acting this character in such a smarmy and unsympathetic way - and he does it without making Franklyn actively evil or mean. There's just this undercurrent of piteous desperation in everything he does, and he's so obviously dysfunctional in a way that is deeply repellent to viewers.

For Hannibal, it's worse. Hannibal is canny enough to recognize another human who constantly wears a 'person suit'. He watches Franklyn craft himself a persona from their conversations, from his own preferences, moulding himself into a perfect friend for Hannibal. Franklyn has such an ego, and thinks that where the world failed a famous man, he - in his infinite capacity for support and friendship - could succeed. But in crafting his person suit to perfectly fit his therapist's tastes, he makes himself repugnant to Hannibal.

Franklyn is doing to Hannibal what Hannibal is trying to do for Will - he wants to make himself into Will's anchor, to get behind his walls and touch greatness, to be his saviour (in a way) and show Will his true potential.

And yet Franklyn is objectively pitiable.

Which means Hannibal, seeing his actions played out by this small man, has to grapple with the fact that he is also a small and desperate creature. He is also pitiable.

This is the same episode where Will talks about the Chesapeake Ripper as an insignificant thing that should not have been born and can never really be a person - no matter how hard it tries. He talks about the Ripper's person suit as an extrapolation - something that must exist because how else would he have evaded capture - but what Will sees in that moment is the Ripper.

Will takes so much longer to figure out Hannibal because he gives Hannibal his trust so early on in the series. He isn't looking too deeply below Hannibal's facade (which I firmly think he sees) because he trusts that there is something behind it that vaguely resembles a person. Hannibal gets all the credit for seeing that Will has a cruel streak, but Will also sees parts of Hannibal that (almost) no one else has spotted - mainly, that he holds himself firmly apart from people, even as he charms them.

And Will is completely right. Hannibal is so lonely that he goes to find Will when he doesn't show up to an appointment. He has been confronted with his own loneliness through Franklyn, while at the same time needing to shore up his identity as the Chesapeake Ripper after two copycat kills. Sorbet is all about Hannibal's identity crisis working in opposition to his desire to make Will Graham his friend.

That's also what Bedelia sees when she calls out Hannibal's person suit/human veil. Like yeah, she'll have a glass of rose and a nice conversation with him, because she honestly does like the character Hannibal's been puppeting for years. But she knows it's a shadow play. She knows that they may be friendly, but friendship requires knowing Hannibal. Bedelia peeked beneath that veil - once, at her most vulnerable moment - and she never forgets that the person suit is tailored for a lonely predator. She never forgets that the only way he was able to truly connect with her was to manipulate her into killing.

Bedelia's place in all this is so interesting to me, because for a little while she is the audience surrogate. She has the same knowledge of Hannibal's character as any viewer who grew up with The Silence of the Lambs. Later she becomes a participatory character (until Hannibal makes her a surrogate for Will), but in the beginning she exists to help show the watcher what they already know. She reaffirms - in a time when Will and Jack are becoming untethered from their realities - that what the viewer knows about Hannibal is true. Bedelia is the viewer's anchor in this narrative, up until the point she chooses to disappear from it.

Though she knows better than to clearly say as much, I think she hears about Franklyn and knows exactly why Hannibal wants nothing to do with him.

[joyfulexchristian]

There is no objective morality in Christianity.

God's opinion is subjective.

Apologists and evangelists often use the idea that Christianity is an objective morality to sell people on their faith.

But the most subjective morality we can have is one that is based off of just one person's opinion.

Morality is participatory, not prescribed. We can learn how to be better people, build better communities, and defend against inhumane actions. Not by following an unchangeable power, but by listening, empathizing, and negotiating in an informed way.

Opting out in favor of following one god's opinion is an abdication of moral responsibility.

patreon | merch | twitch

[therearepeoplewho]

how do we move past this imaginary permanence of the world, that is fostered by images & signs, out of death-denial and into recognition of the world around us

how do we pull our heads out of this constant immersion in images, ephemera, cultural objects (with which and by which we learn about the world, which are necessary)

this 'glass bead game' play of atemporal subtitutions, the imagined meanings, this subservience to the word, the exchange of signs with signs

how do we take what can be learned from this mess of things that we've made and return to look outward to the dying world with the intention of giving life back to it

how do we do possibly do anything resembling that without descending further into fascism

how do we wilfully destroy this imagined permanence or integrity of language (that folly which traps us in this death spiral of signs exchanging signs) without giving ground to reactionaries (who are the first to co-opt language, and already have)

how do we deconstruct the reactionary voice, the hateful graffiti echoing in every comment section (half of it bots, but the bots scarcely being needed any longer to maintain the same volume)

how do we repurpose ourselves towards a science of the "natural" world which seeks to restructure the "natural" world in preparedness for the future (as it is already decimated and no attempt to return to prior ecologies is going to help) - to build sustainable, drought-ready, burn-ready, flood-ready food forests and to biologically remediate the poisoned land - without rapidly descending into ecofascism and wanton "mastery over nature". (to find our animism, to live in respect to the living world whilst gardening it effectively towards massive and as-rapid-as-can-be-considered-responsible ecological transformation)

to me always the answer appears to be repurposing these tools to turn them to decolonisation (theory & praxis) - although in this regard we are lost in the face of black-box algorithmic content feeds still the responsibility is one of sharing with everyone the knowledge of deconstruction and assemblage-theory, biopolitics and knowledge of history. the answer appears also to be radical hospitality, poetry and self-recursive participatory theatre, expanded cinema, shedding of convention in creation of new media as subsidiary to radical action and for sharing/understanding radical action, sharing surroundings (travelling without moving). beyond that we need truly universal UBI, beyond basic (broad redistribution of resources & leisure time, needs-based, hospitality-based, and gift-giving based economy of mutual aid - instead of any system of commanding the other by any means to action or provision), lifelong access to education, it's never too soon. and we would all need to be ready to leave behind lazy survey-based "representative" politics and to replace it with power-dissassembling multi-stage plenary politics of complete participation - the idea being that everyone so empowered could agree and consent together, with no one's legitimate concerns disregarded.

anyway i think ten years time will be the ecofascism era because, yeah. i have no hope. if people like me can't even get past this fear of the state even just to go bolster the local green party then what are we really going to do

also just thinking even just using the internet as a leftist was really wild under the cameron coalition btw. it was very offputting. there's trauma there, just saying. I'd assume it's the same way now if you stick your neck out in the slightest.

remember that guy who set himself on fire outside selly oak job centre? no one talks about that. probably because they put it out right quick but still. it's the thought that counts. not that i am suggesting anyone takes the jan palach way out and not that i would but.. i fixate on it a little because that's the only thing i see as an option for me to politically self actualise because the rest of it is petrifying and that really really sucks given how much i would enjoy working at a communal kitchen in our bright anarcho-communist green future with a little neckerchief on looking all washerwoman-like and rosy-cheeked

[drivinmeinsane]

Bad Dog

※ Ryan Gosling!Ken x GN!Reader ※

{ masterlist } ※ { ao3 }

※ Summary: You have volunteered to give Ken a lesson in being a good dog. It takes a firm hand to get positive results.

※ Rating: 18+ for explicit mature content.

※ Content/Tags: Petplay, Master/Pet, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pegging, Strap-Ons, Bondage and Discipline, Bondage, Strap Sucking, Ken has glittery cum (glizz), Instances of crack treated seriously, Allan is an innocent bystander, Semi-public sex

※ Word count: 4,274

※ Status: Oneshot/Complete

※ Author's Notes: Happy glizz fest everyone! Be sure to check out the wonderful participatory works by @hollandstrophyhusband, @ken-dom, @uncleclam, @danime25, and @ken-f-cker. A huge thanks goes to @yohohotookabiteofgumgum. This goofy fic would still be rotting in my drafts if she hadn’t helped me cook. 

It’s evening by the time you find yourself at the door of what has now permanently become Ken’s mojo dojo casa house. Barbie hadn’t wanted to keep it, electing to move on with her existence in the real world. Ken hadn’t had the wherewithal to do the same. He remained in this plastic oasis, still coming to terms with being ‘just Ken’. He wasn’t progressing anything that had happened to him. There are still too many patriarchal ideas knocking around in that blond head of his, which is where you come in.

The other Barbies had been nervous about letting you go alone to confront him, but you had reassured them that you would be able to handle the situation just fine. Ken wouldn’t be a problem. He just needed a firm hand. 

You press the large, heart shaped button serving as the doorbell. The chime echoes easily through the open concept home. Almost immediately, you hear the noises of objects being tossed aside as Ken hurries to answer the door. He swings the door open with such energy that you have to take a step back to avoid being hit with the saloon door. He stands in the doorway, arm slung over the plastic.

“Hey.” He squints at you, clearly confused as to why you’re not his ex-girlfriend.

You take in his disheveled appearance. It’s late and Ken has stripped off all the extra accessories that he piles on each time he leaves the house for the day. He’s just in his pants with the lightning bolts down the side. There’s not a watch or headband in sight. He looks softer like this, more authentic.

“Hi, Ken. I’m here to help you,” you tell him before going on the offensive and putting a hand on his bare chest. Despite himself, his eyes flutter closed at your touch and he shudders. Your other hand is occupied with holding onto your overflowing bag.

“H-help me with what?” When he speaks, it sounds as though he’s struggling to form thoughts, much less sentences. You’ve already overwhelmed him and you haven’t even gotten him upstairs yet. 

“Being a better member of Barbieland,” you respond, trailing your hand down his chest before pulling it away. Depriving him. He nearly pitches over forward to chase after the contact. He’s even more needy than you had expected.

He barely collects himself enough to scramble for the macho persona he’s developed to make up for his insecurities. He can’t quite put on the indifferent mask, not when he’s looking at you with such wide eyes. He stands aside though, allowing you to pass by him into the spacious home.

“What do you mean by a… better member?” 

“I’ve heard that you haven’t been a very good Ken lately, a lot of dolls are upset with what you’ve been getting up to.”

He frowns at your chiding words and looks away. There’s shame in the movement and you almost think he might apologize, making the lesson you came here to teach obsolete. The horse decor is so overwhelming that you reach out and gently cup his chin to get him to look at you. He’s a more pleasant sight than the 72’ inch screen of the same horse video looping over and over again. You ignore the tapestry fluttering in the corner over his shoulder. 

The blond doll is trying to put on an indifferent face and failing miserably. “It’s impossible to do anything right. I can’t even get an appliance that has freezer space. ”

Your face softens. “I know. I can help you learn.”

“There’s nothing for me to learn. I learned everything I needed to know in Century City.” He pauses, taking in the hand still under his chin. He straightens up and pulls you into his muscular arms. You fight back surprise as he swings you into a low dip. “For instance, I learned what to do when someone pretty comes to your house in the middle of the night…”

He purses his lips and leans down to plant a kiss on you. You slap him across the face, hard. “Bad dog!”

Ken recoils, nearly dropping you as he reels back. He lets you drag yourself back into an upright position by using his shoulder for support. You shove his clinging arms away. 

“I didn’t give you permission,” you say. Your tone is cold.

His eyes flit away from you. He’s holding onto his cheek with one broad hand. “Men don’t need permission.”

“Ken, you’re going to learn that they do.”

That gets a sarcastic laugh out of him. It’s unbearably obnoxious and part of you wants to strike him across the face again. You manage to hold yourself back by reassuring yourself that he’s about to get what he deserves. 

“Prove it,” he says to you. He’s way too cocky.

He wilts a little under your unimpressed gaze. Even now, Ken is in desperate need of approval. That desire is what had gotten him into trouble in the real world. You suppose the fault doesn’t rest solely upon his shoulders when you consider that he had been treated like a second rate citizen, an accessory , for who knows how long.

You catch him by the arm. He brightens up at the meager contact. He follows willingly as you make the trek to the third floor. The bedroom is equally a decorative disaster to the ground floor, but you’re not here to make too many judgements about his interior design choices. You separate from him to put your bag down on the horse themed bedspread before pulling out the first of the many items you will be using for Ken’s lesson. You turn to face him. He stands slightly off to the side near one of the support pillars. The pose he’s striking seems to be one that’s attempting to portray an aura of confidence, but it doesn’t seem to be working out for him. He seems wrong-footed and uncertain.

“Get on your hands and knees.”

He rolls his eyes at your demand but listens. The innate desire to obey is still in him. Tonight, your job will be to remind him that it exists. You feel like everything is going to plan while you calmly observe him settle in and look up at you expectantly from halfway across the room. 

It’s time to move to the next stage. Thinking quickly, you pull his faux fur coat off the bed and spread it out onto the floor at your feet.  “Come here.”

There’s a long moment where you think his pride will be too much, that he will refuse to listen to you, but he submits to your instruction once again. He does exactly what you meant for him to do. Instead of rising to his feet, he crawls across the floor to you. He pauses once he’s squarely on his coat. There’s a defiant look on his face that tries to inform you that he’s playing along just for now. 

You kneel and fasten the collar that you’ve been holding in your hands around his neck. It fits snugly with just enough room to squeeze a couple fingers in between the bright pink material and his skin. There’s no tag on the collar. He hasn’t yet earned one. While he waits, you quickly pull out another object. After a quick adjustment, it’s ready.

“Take those off,” you order, gesturing to his pants, “and put this on.” you finish, throwing the mess of faux leather straps that you’ve been holding at him.

Ken picks up and turns it over in his broad hands, trying to decipher what it is. You don’t provide assistance. You’ve unclipped the arm restraints and tossed them onto the bed next to the bag. You’ll need them later. Ken isn’t quite at the point where you need that much control over him.

“This looks like something they had at that dance party place,” he mumbles to himself. You struggle to not raise your eyebrows. Just what had he gotten up to while in the real world?

His own words seem to assist him in connecting the dots because he flashes you a smirk. He launches into action. Almost as if he’s thinking this is some macho Century City display, he tries to sensually strip for you. He does an unnecessary amount of flexing and posturing while he pulls off his pants and clumsily tightens the straps around his waist and thighs. Once he’s sure everything is in place, he settles back on all fours. He’s fully naked now aside from the harness he’s wearing. The pink straps of the harness, made complete by the pink bows settled precisely on his asscheeks, are obvious against his tanned skin. He’s waiting rather impatiently for you to make the next move, but something else seems to register in his mind.

“Well? Why am I the only one exposed like this?” He asks, brow furrowed.

“It’s part of your lesson. Remember how you made the Barbies wear demeaning outfits?” You explain, trying to keep the condescension out of your tone. You would not be removing so much as your shoes during the duration of the lesson. He had done nothing to earn an eyeful of your skin. No visuals and no touching. Bad pets don't get the privilege.

He doesn’t respond, mulling over your words. You step onto the coat and offer him a pecan as a treat after pulling it from your pocket. His eyes light up at the sight of one of his favorite snacks and he eagerly takes it right from your hand. Good behavior gets rewarded. You decide to be magnanimous and offer him another scrap of affection. You pet him, running a firm hand over his head and down his back. He shivers at the touch.

“Part of being a good dog is minding your manners. Do you think you’ve been doing that?”

“You’re the one who is supposed to be listening to me, you know.” He’s smug in his wrongness.

That’s enough of a signal to you that the lesson needs to proceed. You slick your fingers liberally with the lube that you pulled from the bag during the time it took him to spew more patriarchal nonsense at you. You move into position behind him, crouching slightly to get better access. He turns to look at you curiously.

“Look straight ahead,” you correct.

He grumbles and you’re sure that he rolls his eyes. “Why?”

“Because I told you to do it. A good dog listens to his owner.”

“That’s not good enough of a reason.” He’s whiny, petulant. 

You grab him by the hair and jerk his head into the position that you want. You’re thoroughly done with hearing him speak. “It’s about all the reason you gave the barbies when you decided to make Kendomland a reality.”

Ken stays silent after your rebuttal. His breathing is uneven, however, and you notice that he’s flushed. The back of his neck is all but glowing in the dim light. You decide that he’s ready. You transition your grip from his hair to his shoulder, hooking your fingers over the firm muscle. He won’t be able to go anywhere without purposely struggling. With your free hand, you nudge your way between his cheeks to circle his tight hole. He jerks at the unexpected touch and you feel him start to tremble in your hold as you slip a lubricated finger into him. You start pumping it inside of him, opening him up enough to introduce a second finger. He instinctively spreads wider for the intrusion. Perhaps he was made to be a different kind of doll.

By the time you’re scissoring your pointer and middle fingers in him to work up enough space for your ring finger, he’s a gasping, shaky mess. You cast a glance to check on his state and find him open mouthed and nearly drooling onto the faux fur coat underneath him, not even bothering to wipe his mouth. He’s trying to rock back against your hand, utterly smitten with the new sensation you’ve introduced him to. Abruptly, you withdraw your fingers. He whines, almost doglike, at the sudden emptiness. 

“Good Ken, good.” He squirms at the praise. “You know that good boys get gifts and I have one to give you right now.”

You produce the butt plug you’ve brought with you and press it against his entrance. It slips in with no resistance, you had fucked him right open with your fingers. He makes a wounded noise and clenches around the new introduction. 

“Oh Mattel! Oh Mattel !” He gasps, his arms are struggling to support him. He’s nearly face down on his coat while he fights to collect himself. 

“Mattel can’t help you here.”

He tries to grab for his achingly hard erection. It has been left completely neglected during this entire lesson so far and it must have him at a breaking point. He can’t be allowed to give himself any relief, however. It would spoil the lesson. You slap him across the ass, avoiding the bow-adorned strap that crosses over the pliant flesh. 

“That hurt,” he whines, the imprint of your hand blooming across his skin.

“Your actions hurt everyone in Barbieland,” you remind him.

“I was just trying to set things right,” he protests. His argument isn’t all that compelling given that he’s on his hands and knees with his asshole firmly plugged.

Letting out a sigh, you move to fully restrain him by putting the leather cuffs you had set aside earlier around his wrists. If he is going to try to touch himself without explicit permission, he needs to be bound. You guide his arms into place behind his back and clip them into place onto his harness. He’s fully restrained and completely at the mercy of whatever you decide to allow him.

Ken is trembling a little on spread knees. His body is curved into an uncomfortable arc while he sits back on his haunches. He’s a marble sculpture come to life, blinking and breathing, on the floor of his unfairly acquired residence. You know the unyielding butt plug must be digging into him in a way that feels pleasurable because his cock is standing at attention, glittery precum beading at the tip of his slit and shining like a diamond in the moonlight. 

You leave him there, vulnerable and pent up, while you go to slip your own harness on. Unlike Ken’s, it’s not meant to restrict movement. You make the final adjustments to the straps and secure the dildo that you will be using for tonight’s session. It’s made of a crystal clear silicone, gradiented from purple to pink. His lips will look pretty wrapped around it. 

Crossing the scant few feet between you and the waiting figure, you come to a stop in front of him. His gaze narrows in on the silicone cock sitting proudly against your clothed pelvis. It’s an easy thing to coax his mouth open. You simply press your thumb to the corner of his lips and he lets his jaw relax and opens up for you. Keeping his head steady with a hand fisted in his hair, you slowly push the dildo past his lips, sliding it over his tongue. You make him stretch forward so that he finds himself struggling to not choke himself on the silicone. You cannot make his lesson too easy, you’d be a bad trainer.

“Suck it,” you tell him, and he does.

His lips seal around the shaft and you’re glad that you can’t feel the inexperienced scrape of his teeth against it. You use your grip on his hair to drag him up and down the length of the dildo. Eventually he gets the hang of the motion and starts enthusiastically sucking you off. Your hand loosens in those blond strands and you merely watch him, letting him take control in this submissive capacity. He has no issues taking the silicone all the way to the base. His gag reflex is nonexistent. You praise Ken with small niceties when he makes a particularly effortful attempt. He receives a ‘good boy’ and a soft scratch of his scalp when he pulls all the way off and licks at the tip while sheepishly making eye contact with you. 

Eventually, you do have to call it quits after he’s thoroughly acquainted himself with the dildo. You don’t want him too worn out before the main part of the training session gets underway. Sliding two fingers against his warm skin and the leather of the collar he’s wearing is enough to hold him in place as you slip out of his mouth. Strings of spit connect the tip of the silicone cock to his mouth. His lips are puffy and his eyes are a little glazed. He’s clearly used, maybe a little cock-drunk. He leans after the strap, nearly face planting onto the fabric underneath him in his eagerness to continue. 

“Easy, Ken. Don’t get too excited.”

“I’m not excited,” he argues, voice rough. His body betrays him. He’s not slumped so far forward that you can’t see the way his erection twitches and shines with sparkling precum. He’s so wet and you haven’t even touched him. 

“Of course not. Down.” 

“Why? Haven’t I had enough?”

“Because your lesson isn’t over,” you explain patiently. 

Ken hesitates, eyeing the coat. He lowers himself, chest first to the floor, hissing as his sensitive nipples receive the barest hint of stimulation. His face is all but rubbing into the faux fur. The position elevates his hips for easy access. You pull the butt plug from him and toss it onto the coat. It’s going to leave another wet spot. You get the dildo ready with lube. The rapidly drying saliva coating it isn’t going to provide enough slickness to penetrate him with. 

He shifts uncomfortably while he waits for you to get prepared to breach him. Much to his obvious relief, he doesn’t have to wait too long before you’re taking his hips in hand and guiding him downwards onto the thick cock. He makes a sound like you’ve stricken him when you finally bottom out, your pelvis flush against his ass. He’s so tense against you that you take some pity on him and rub your thumb in soothing circles on his hip bone. 

“Good dog. You’re taking it so well.”

The praise drags a shudder out of him but he relaxes. He can’t hide under layers of bravado and poorly understood misogyny gained from library books when he’s at your mercy like this. You set up a steady rhythm, punching noises out of him. He’s getting loud, too loud. If he doesn’t shut up he’s going to show the entirety of Barbieland how much of a slut he is. The Barbies were aware that you would be paying Ken a special visit tonight for some training, but you had neglected to inform them of what exactly that training would entail. Ken’s rehabilitation was taking a more intimate hand than they would have presumed and you would like to keep them in the dark about precisely what your method is. You needed to get him quiet. 

Struck by a realization, you abruptly pull out, leaving Ken reeling and empty. You briskly dig the gag you had brought as an emergency measure out of the bag still resting on the bed. You should have known he would be as much of a loudmouth while getting fucked as he is in day to day life. 

“Why did you stop? Are we gonna flip things around now?” He questions with a confused look on his face, sitting up slightly to watch what you’re doing. There’s no disguising the suggestive roll of his words. How he could still think he could end up on top at this point is a mystery. You have given him nothing to indicate that he would be at all dominant tonight.

He follows up his questions with another inquiry upon seeing the pink, silicone bone secured on its leather strap. “What’s that?”

“You’ll see,” you tell him, already trying to get it into position. Ken immediately sees where this is going. He doesn’t take it as easily as he’s taken everything else you’ve thrown at him tonight. He keeps his mouth tightly shut until you work a finger into the corner of it like you had earlier. He relents and allows you to slip the pink bone between his teeth and to buckle the strap around his head. Always desperate to please anyone who takes even a passing interest in him.

You trail a hand down his spine, grab his harness at the hip and guide yourself back into the tight heat of him. You resume thrusting into him like you had never left in the first place. It’s all he can do brace himself as best as he can while you fuck into him. He meets you thrust for thrust, chasing his own pleasure. You wonder if he will end up coming from this, untouched, glittery ropes splattering over his belly and over his coat. It would not surprise you.

Over the muffled and choked off gasps of the doll you’re playing with, you hear a scuffle and a sharp intake of breath. Your eyes scan the dreamhouse before you turn your searching gaze to the street below just to make direct eye contact with a horrified looking Allan. He’s staring comically wide-eyed at the scene unfolding in front of him. He hadn’t been a part of President Barbie’s meeting about tonight, and must have not heard from anyone to stay clear of the dreamhouse cul-de-sac. His face screams that he has seen too much. Mattel, if only he had been able to get out of Barbieland when he had had the chance. 

He opens his mouth like he’s about to speak but thinks better of it, and to your own growing horror, he raises a hand and awkwardly waves to you. You weakly think that there are some occasions when neighborly courtesies can be skipped. To your own dismay, you take one of your own hands off Ken’s hip and wave back to Allan. You both wear matching grimaces. He breaks eye contact with a dazed shake of his head and recedes off into the darkness to do whatever it is he does at night. He must not be part of the Ken huddle if he’s wandering around near the dreamhouses this late. For his part, Ken is utterly oblivious during the exchange, too busy getting lost in forcing himself back onto your strap. 

With a smothered shout, he finally cums, proving you right about falling over the brink completely untouched. He soaks the faux fur below him with an obscene amount of glittery semen. He shudders and clenches around the strap still seated in him. You fuck him through the aftershocks, wringing him dry. You think you can hear him sobbing around the gag from his face down position on the floor.

You slip free of his ass for the final time this evening and take off the strap-on harness in order to toss it onto the floor. It misses the coat. He doesn’t look at you when you kneel down at his side. 

“Ken,” you say, voice soft. He jerks in acknowledgement but doesn’t turn. You reach over and undo the clips for the wrist restraints. He makes no effort to keep his arms from falling to his sides, leaden. You unbuckle the gag, working carefully to avoid snagging his hair in the process. Slipping a hand under his jaw to force his face off the coat, you pull the silicone bone from between his teeth. You tip his head towards you, but he refuses to make eye contact. His face is flushed and wet with tears and saliva. Despite yourself, you feel a small pang of sympathy at his state. It was deserved after the stunt he pulled, but he looks so fucked out and spent.

“Look at me.”

He does, obedient despite everything he’s been through. His blue eyes are teary and red-rimmed. His throat moves like he’s trying to speak but nothing comes out. Poor dog.

You grab hold of his arm, encouraging him to his feet. He stands unsteadily, almost swaying on his feet. While you undo his restraint system, you can’t help but notice that his coat is matted in wet patches. It won’t be coming clean, not with the glitter matting the fur. It’s just as well though, it was a symbol of Ken’s insecurities. You steer him the short distance to the bed after the pink straps of the harness fall at his feet. He sits down heavily on the edge of the mattress. You join him, getting comfortable before you guide him onto his side to let him rest his head on your lap. Remembering Ken’s earlier treat, you pull some pecans out of your pants pocket and offer them to him. He eats them right out of your hand. 

“What did you learn?” You question, petting him while he chews.

“I think I like being a good dog. Will… will you visit again?” His voice falters, meek. He’s back to being the more docile version of himself that he was before the ill-fated trip to the real world, however, now he has enough experience to be more aware of his actions and the actions of others. 

You continue petting him. “I suppose I could come by to pay my dog a visit if he keeps being a good boy.”

[invinciblerodent]

yknow, no, i'm not done thinking/posting/being deeply angry about the whole "bbuuuhhh Astarion is gay and was made playersexual as a game mechanic bbbuuuhhhhhhh" garbage some people still spout.

like this type of sentiment is always annoying and wrong, but it's specifically this character for whom it's especially annoying to me, just because on top of all the regular host of issues, it also deeply contradicts what I believe is the central theme of his whole goddamn story.

(excuse the rant please.)

Like, my skin already crawls at that term, "playersexual". I hate it, and find its use either vaguely ignorant at best, or blatantly pan/biphobic at worst. but even just besides that....

This character is a man whose narrative intentionally shows his presentation of himself, and of his masculinity, as being contradictory with convention. This character is one whose entire arc is about discovering who he is beyond the boxes he was assigned: a spawn, a monster, a seducer, a tool, a predator, a plaything, a victim, a sexual object... these are all identities that were forced onto him. And if he's given space to discover them, turns out, none of them are things that he actually wants to be. if you give him space, and affection (romantic or otherwise), and acceptance, and help him attain closure and catharsis, he expresses desire to be... an adventurer, a lover, a friend, a protector, so many things, but all of them in his own way. That's the point of his story, control vs. autonomy.

How.... myopic does one have to be to see that story, to play that story, to play an active, participatory role in that subversion, that search for the self beneath the masks, and declare that actually, they made him this other box for him to fit into, so... it's fine, i guess, to ignore what he says?????? it's fine if they pick and choose among his expressed traits which ones to use and which to disregard, because they decided (based on frankly homophobic and rather misogynistic stereotypes) that he cannot be different from their perception, despite him literally saying otherwise????????

Astarion's entire figure is a succession of trope-subversions. I could write essays about all the ways in which, in the romanced spawn game, the narrative sets up tropes (primarily in act 1), only to then purposefully knock them down and contradict them as the game progresses.

Like..... He was to take revenge by taking power for himself (like he thought he wanted, like Cazador did to Vellioth): ended up taking his revenge and rejecting the power that could have come with it, and despite that having a price, being content and grateful for it (and realizing that the alternative would have had an even greater price he would have paid unknowingly). He starts out using sex and sexuality as a weapon, and a tool of manipulation, like he did for many decades: ends up expressing discomfort with being seen as a sex object, resuming his sex life by saying "I love you" before his partner would have, and proposing sex with them as a beautiful metaphor for his own rebirth.

His whole story starts out with him thinking he requires protection from the player and that the only way to get that is through using his body and looks as a bargaining chip: later he discovers in himself a desire to be the protector himself, which he talks about more than once, and expresses varying degrees of discomfort at the thoughts of both using his body to gain something, and needing a protector.

There's the "this is what I'm good for" type of attitude towards sex morphing into "I am so much more than a thing to be used". There's the whole thing about how important his looks were to both him and his "usefulness" back then, despite him not being able to even fucking see them, (which also kind of includes that silly lovely gremlin-face he sometimes makes), but those are just the ones off the top of my head.

The story, and the romance plot, is about... it's about him regaining ownership of himself, it's about autonomy, his whole recurring "what do you want" line is about respecting his choices and letting him find his way to them, it's about letting him show you who he is, believing him, and loving the man behind the facade.

how absolutely fucking short-sighted does one have to be to then take that incredibly reductive stereotype of "femme-leaning man with theatrical mannerisms who cares about his looks; must be exclusively homosexual and any attraction he shows to women is just a mechanic/fanservice/flattery" (which, that's so fucking insulting to gay men, and bi/pan men, an any man who might express masculinity in a less than conventional way, and to the women who may love them [eta: and of course nonbinary people, and the people to whom masculinity means something wholly different]), and assign it to this character on their own accord, despite him literally telling the player otherwise? despite him verbally expressing attraction to multiple women, and contradicting that stereotypical interpretation wholly and out of pocket??????

like, hello??????? did we play the same game????????? did we play the same fucking game??????????

like don't think for one second that it isn't the pan/biphobia that annoys me more, it absolutely is, but this character is such a particularly egregious example, it's almost fucking poetic.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Kaianere’kó:wa as Constitution of a Stateless Polity?

Some have been tempted to submit a particular translation and transcription of the Kaianere’kó:wa to a political-science constitutional analysis. Depending on the version of the Kaianere’kó:wa, an analyst might come to the conclusions that Donald S. Lutz has: that the Rotinonshón:ni was not a participatory democratic confederacy of equal nations, but rather a hereditary oligarchy in which the Kanien’kehá:ka enjoyed a privileged position in making proposals to the council. [81] Lutz only consults the versions of the Kaianere’kó:wa published by Gawasco Waneh (Arthur Parker). In fact, his analysis focuses only on a single version written by Dayodekane (Seth Newhouse), and ignores a different version approved by the roiá:ner at Ohswé:ken, which was included in Gawasco Waneh’s volume. According to Snow, “The Newhouse version tells us as much, if not more about political conditions on the Grand River at the end of the nineteenth century than it does about the origins of the League” [82]. The Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee believe that no one version is preferred and that “many traditional leaders feel that none of the written versions have all of the known oral history included.” [83]

Atsenhaienton (Kenneth Deer) objects to the Kaianere’kó:wa even being called “the Great Law” and those that would treat it as such: “it’s not a law: it��s guidelines to help people get to harmony and coexistence... They look at the Great Law and interpret it the way a constitutional lawyer would. That’s not the way it was intended to be treated.” [84] Even if the Kaianere’kó:wa should not be given a strict legalist reading, among its principles is a metaphor for amendment: “adding to the rafters” of the long house. This includes meetings among the traditional Rotinonshón:ni involving not only the roiá:ner but all the people, as a check on their power. [85]

The influence of Lewis Henry Morgan’s study of the Rotinonshón:ni on Marx and Engels’ concept of a stateless communist society is well known. In The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels summarized Morgan’s description of the Rotinonshón:ni society:

“No soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits — and everything takes its orderly course. All quarrels and disputes are settled by the whole of the community affected, by the gens or the tribe, or by the gentes among themselves; only as an extreme and exceptional measure is blood revenge threatened-and our capital punishment is nothing but blood revenge in a civilized form, with all the advantages and drawbacks of civilization. Although there were many more matters to be settled in common than today — the household is maintained by a number of families in common, and is communistic, the land belongs to the tribe, only the small gardens are allotted provisionally to the households — yet there is no need for even a trace of our complicated administrative apparatus with all its ramifications. The decisions are taken by those concerned, and in most cases everything has been already settled by the custom of centuries. There cannot be any poor or needy — the communal household and the gens know their responsibilities towards the old, the sick, and those disabled in war. All are equal and free — the women included. There is no place yet for slaves, nor, as a rule, for the subjugation of other tribes.” [86]

While Engels is right to commend the communal economy, sexual equality, and horizontal political structure of the Rotinonshón:ni, he erred in claiming that there were no ranks of social prestige with political responsibilities. The anthropological definition of “egalitarian” is narrow. There are some “rank societies in which positions of valued status are somehow limited so that not all those of sufficient talent to occupy such statuses actually achieve them. Such a society may or may not be stratified. That is, a society may sharply limit its positions of prestige without affecting the access of its entire membership to the basic resources upon which life depends” [87] While the numbers of roiá:ner and iakoiá:ner were limited by the Kaianere’kó:wa to certain kahwá:tsire, positions of ohnkanetoten were open to all men on the basis of merit and selection by the roiá:ner council. As has already been explained, Rotinonshón:ni society had a communal work and consumption ethic (the communal economy of the “one bowl”), so although ranks of prestige did exist, they did not serve in a position of accumulating or redistributing wealth.

Graeber, who as an anarchist is quite suspicious of all hierarchy, says of the traditional Rotinonshón:ni, “for all the complex federative structure, society was in most respects highly egalitarian. Office-holders, male and female, were elected from among a pool of possible heirs; the offices themselves, at least the male political ones, were considered as much a responsibility as a reward as they involved no real material rewards and certainly granted the holder no coercive power.” [88]

While it is often argued that the roiá:ner were traditionally selected from certain matrilineal lines, and that not all kahwá:tsire were able to select candidates, this varied over time and location. Teiowí:sonte describes modern debates around heredity: “To some, heredity is the very essence of Haudenosaunee governance and an integral factor in leadership selection... To others, this concept represents the infiltration of European corruption into Haundenosaunee leadership selection and the fortification of a class system invading our traditional concept of democracy with notions of royalty. Likewise, advocates against the heredity concept believe it to be a non-traditional convention that is a fairly recent development resulting from colonization.” [89] Snow claims that “Each nation devised its own internal mechanism for selecting and organizing its League Chiefs”[90]; and that ohnkanetoten were created to specifically deal with the issue of empowering men who did not come from the distinct matrilineal lines eligible for becoming roiá:ner. [91] He argues further that at times, the ranks may have represented a political class distinct from the common Rotinonshón:ni, and a class of slaves made up of captives who had not been adopted [92]—a situation which would have been most pronounced during the Beaver Wars.

Graeber notes this as well. “It was around this period one reads accounts of a society effectively divided into classes, with adopted prisoners doing the bulk of the menial labor and with members of their adopted families having the right to kill them for the slightest infranctions or impertinence... [T]his exceptionally brutal period did not last long: the children of these captives were considered full members of their adoptive clans.” [93] As we have seen from the life of Thaientané:ken, the descendents of adoptees had the same political rights of common Rotinonshón:ni and could be selected as ohnkanetoten. It is seemingly without contradiction that Snow also describes how little authority came with rank: “Although men appointed by each ohwachira probably met as a village council, they had little authority beyond the force of their personalities. This in turn meant that face-to-face persuasion was the rule.” [94] Kanatiiosh emphasizes that “being a chief or a clan mother is just as important as being a person without a title, for all people are held responsible for preserving and protecting the Great Law of Peace.” [95]

Circle Wampum [96]

Bonaparte, who himself served as a former elected chief of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne,[97] does not even think that roiá:ner should be called “chiefs”: “a lot of our people don’t like using the term “chief” instead of “royaner,” because chief is such a generic term. You’ve got fire chiefs, police chiefs, chief of staff, etc. Those are positions where the people who have them are empowered to make decisions for a group, whereas our “royaners” are facilitators for having the group itself come to the decision, and who then act upon that decision.” [98] Indeed, the focus on decision-making among the Rotinonshón:ni was always to reach consensus. Snow has argued that the Rotinonshón:ni “emphasized consensus rather than executive authority, unanimity rather than majority rule, and equality rather than hierarchy” [99] Taiaiake goes so far as to write that “holding non-consensual power over others is contrary to tradition. Whatever the purpose behind the use of arbitrary authority, the power relationship is wrong”. [100] Richter describes a state of universal suffrage, claiming that voting in the council was open to all who had reached the age of maturity.[101]

Those familiar with the institution of consensus-based spokecouncils, used recently in the protests against corporate neoliberalism (“anti-globalization”), will notice many similarities with Kahentinetha Horn’s description of consensual decision-making among the Kanien’kehá:ka:

“[N]o one can impose their will nor make decisions for another, all must understand the viewpoint and agree of their own free will. The goal is not total agreement, but total understanding. If there is no agreement, then the consensus is to retain the status quo. If there is understanding by all then they go ahead with the decision... In entering the consensual decision-making process, whatever ideas are put into the process, the needs and attitudes of each is considered and complements the decision. Also, the individual has a duty to be directly involved, and to bring their ideas into the discussion within their clan. The final decision will be fully satisfactory to some, satisfactory to others and relatively satisfactory to the remainder, and will reflect elements from every group. This is a slow careful process requiring the reaching of a full understanding by each individual and not a decision made by a ‘leader.’ The person who explains the decision is a spokesman.” [102]

The Kaianere’kó:wa lacks the monopoly of force and the authority of coercive control that define statist polities. It is a mutual agreement of non-aggression among its participants, aimed primarily on maintaining peaceful relations among them, rather than a guiding document for the rule of elites over the rest of society. Richter has stated that “the coercive exercise of authority was virtually unknown” among the Rotinonshón:ni,[103] and that their “political values were essentially noncompetitive.” [104] Graeber believes that “the entire political apparatus was seen by its creators primarily as a way of resolving murderous disputes. The League was less a government, or even alliance, than a series of treaties establishing amity and providing the institutional means for preventing feuds and maintaining harmony among the five nations that made it up. For all their reputation as predatory warriors, the Iroquois themselves saw the essence of political action to lie in making peace.” [105]

Justice among the traditional Rotinonshón:ni was the responsibility of everyone, particularly one’s matrilineal kin. The focus was on condoling kahwá:tsire for their loss and on regulating social behavior through popular opinion, rather than through justice administered by a specialized class. While some see the offering of wampum to the family of a murder victim to as a reparational payment, comparable to the Northern European weregild, Morgan claimed that “the present of white wampum was not in the nature of a compensation of the life of the deceased, but of a regretful confession of the crime, with a petition for forgiveness. It was a peace-offering, the acceptance of which was pressed by mutual friends, and under such influences that the reconciliation was usually effect, except, perhaps, in aggravated cases of premeditated murder.” [106]

Wallace’s interpretation echoes Engel’s analysis of Rotinonshón:ni justice: “Behavior was governed not by published laws enforced by police, courts, and jails, but by oral tradition supported by a sense of duty, a fear of gossip, and a dread of retaliatory witchcraft. Theft, vandalism, armed robbery, were almost unknown. Public opinion, gently exercised, was sufficient to deter most persons from property crimes, for public opinion went straight to the heart of the matter: the weakness of the criminal.” [107] And Kanatiiosh argues that European settler “hierarchy breeds competition, and competition breeds anger, resentment, hatred, and can lead to revenge, which only continues the vicious cycle of violence. Western society is dependent on imprisonment, fines and other punishments, which are supposed to keep social order.” She contrasts that system of coercive punishment with the legal principles of the Kaianere’kó:wa, which created a “shared community where people have mutual respect for the entire group rather then interested only in one’s self. Perhaps a little spirituality, shame, guilt, and respect of self and community would be the best elements to include in a recipe for a true system of justice.” [108]

Richter repeatedly describes the traditional polity of the Rotinonshón:ni as a “nonstate society” [109] and “a system dependent upon voluntary compliance”. [110] His insistence on the difference between the Rotinonshón:ni and the colonial states it was contemporary with is worth emphasizing:

“Making and preserving peace, then was the purpose of the League, and accordingly the Grand Council apparently did not undertake the kinds of political functions of decision making and diplomacy characteristic of state-organized governments. In the early seventeenth century, the League possessed few state like characteristics: the Five nations had little in the way of common foreign policy, no effective means of devising unified strategies, and no central government in the sense that term is usually understood by Americans. Indeed, on various issues the ten or so autonomous towns of Iroquoia were often at odds with one another as they were in consensus. The League was not designed to remedy the deficit—nor, apparently, did the Iroquois people even perceive that there was any kind of deficit...” Daniel Richter, Ordeal of the Longhouse [111]

While the exact definition of a “state” is elusive, none can deny that states wield a legal monopoly of violence, and that the state therefore takes a coercive role in regards to its citizens. In respect to the degree of a given polity’s coercive control over its constituent members, we can imagine a spectrum with the totalitarian state on one end and a stateless society, an anarchy, on the other. Societies that are more ranked and stratified are more statist. Along this spectrum, the Rotinonshón:ni polity falls toward the pole of statelessness, having extremely limited ranking, and lacking in both coercive authority and economic stratification.

The anarchist historian George Woodcock believed that the Rotinonshón:ni’s polity amounted to a stateless confederation: “a common council of sachems, in whose selection the women, whose influence derived from their control of agriculture, played a great role; but this council did not interfere in the internal affairs of the tribes, so that it remained the coordinating body of a true confederation rather than the government of the state.” [112] Colonial historian Francis Jennings recognizes that it was “a league of friendship and mutual assistance, but ... a league of consultation and contract rather than a government of legislative command”. [113] Member nations “never gave up their power of individual decision. Often they struggled for dominance within the league, and sometimes (though rarely) they came to blows with each other. These phenomena were also to be observed among colonial towns and villages, but whereas the Iroquois tribes maintained local independence throughout their existence, the colonies gradually came under more and more effective central controls.” [114] All Rotinonshón:ni nations are equal, regardless of their number of clans, size of territory or numbers of population. [115] Bookchin, who so often suggested New England town-meeting democracy as a basic building block of libertarian municipalist confederation, would have done well to have taken the advice of Mitchel Cohen, and examine the Rotinonshón:ni polity as an example of the very sort of ideal of that he was advocating:

“Town meetings, according to Bookchin, are the American equivalent of the Greek polis — and why does he not seek to emulate the Iroquois tribal council instead or any of a hundred non-European forms? Linked together, local communities form the potential, according to Bookchin, for a “federated municipalism.” All other forms, particularly those created by native peoples, are seen as inferior. American Indian communities are diminished, in Bookchin’s framework, because of their lack of rational municipal debate. The framework of the colonizer informs Bookchin’s ideas despite himself, disempowering radical ecology movements and undermining their potential.”[116]

[jacobwren]

“What comes across in the stories that Myles Horton tells, in SNCC workers’ tales of best organizers, and in the broader literature on organizing is good organizers’ creativity: their ability to respond to local conditions, to capitalize on sudden opportunities, to turn to advantage a seeming setback, to know when to exploit teachable moments and when to concentrate on winning an immediate objective. Sometimes you insist on fully participatory decision-making; sometimes you do not. Albany SNCC project head Charles Sherrod urged fellow organizers not to “let the project go to the dogs because you feel you must be democratic to the letter.” Horton recounted on numerous occasions an experience that he had had in a union organizing effort. At the time, the highway patrol was escorting scabs through the picket line, and the strike committee was at its wit’s end about how to counter this threat to strikers’ solidarity. After considering and rejecting numerous proposals, exhausted committee members demanded advice from Horton. When he refused, one of them pulled a gun. “I was tempted then to become an instant expert, right on the spot!” Horton confessed. “But I knew that if I did that, all would be lost and then all of the rest of them would start asking me what to do. So I said: ‘No. Go ahead and shoot if you want to, but I’m not going to tell you.’ And the others calmed him down.” Giving in would have defeated the purpose of persuading the strikers that they had the knowledge to make the decision themselves. But Horton sometimes told another story. When he was once asked to speak to a group of Tennessee farmers about organizing a cooperative, he knew, he said, that since “their expectation was that I would speak as an expert… if I didn’t speak, and said, ‘let’s have a discussion about this,’ they’d say, that this guy doesn’t know anything.” So Horton “made a speech, the best speech I could. Then after it was over, while we were still there, I said, let’s discuss what I have said. Well now, that was just one step removed, but close enough to their expectation that I was able to carry them along… You do have to make concessions like that.” What better time to make a concession than when you’re looking down the barrel of a gun? Horton presumably knew that he could get away with refusing to be an expert in the first situation and not in the second. Perhaps the difference was that he was unknown to the farmers and was known to the strikers. But one could argue that a relationship with a history could tolerate aberrant exercises of leadership while first impressions die harder. In other words, extracting rules from the stories that Horton tells is difficult. When to lead and when to defer, when to ask leadings questions and when to remain silent, when to focus on the limited objective and when to encourage people to see the circumscribed character of that objective – the answers depend on the situation and are not always readily evident.” – Francesca Polletta, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements  

[dipperdesperado]

the importance of social technology in social change

TLDR: By retooling, devouring, and innovating our social technologies, we can create participatory organizations that enable egalitarian social change. These organizations should be animated by an understanding of hierarchy, its relation to oppression writ-large, and how to create and employ social technologies that distribute power, rather than concentrating it.

Introduction

We take technology for granted in general (most people I know don’t think much about how water gets to their sink unless it doesn’t work, for example), but this seems especially true for our social technologies. We take things like democracy, laws, and even the nuclear family form at face value and as fundamental parts of reality.

So, what is technology, and how does it relate to our pending conversation? What is the throughline between obvious technologies like a stone axe and my iPhone, and more nebulous ones, like speech and the nuclear family? Any technology you can imagine takes concepts and knowledge and creates a method of applying them to specific goals, objectives, or functions. This doesn’t preclude emergent uses for tools, as you can probably think of using tools in unintended ways. This definition is useful to keep in mind as we realize that the technologies at present, animating the status quo are inadequate. We need something different to make radical, roots-grasping change.

And, for the sake of change, we need a specific way to achieve it. Part of this is technological; we need to figure out models of relating and working with one another that prefigure the changes that we want to see. To create and modify those technologies, we need to figure out which concepts and knowledge we will use.

Prefiguration can be described as “creating the new world in the shell of the old”. It’s doing things in the present that we think will get us to our imagined future. This implies the need to have a coherent conception of what is currently happening, and change will look like.

Currently, we live in a hierarchical, bureaucratic hell. This might best be epitomized by trying to obtain official identification recognized by our respective state. From all of the forms that you fill out, to the additional paperwork needed, to the horrible experience of getting that information approved, there are a lot of issues that this creates, from an experiential standpoint. One of the more under-realized aspects of issues such as this is how these experiences alienate us from the ability to do things for ourselves. Bureaucracy is a way to manage hierarchy’s inherent simplification of reality. A king couldn’t actually run their kingdom themselves, so they create layers of functionaries, under their control, to (try and) manage that complexity.

Along with my opposition, I’d like to propose something. A theory of change, that allows us to do that prefiguration work, leaving behind some of the negative methods of relating as currently mediated and handled. Since we live in a very hierarchical and bureaucratic world-system, constituting a colonial-imperialist, cisheteropatriarchical, ableist hegemony, if we create non-hierarchical/heterarchical organizational forms that allow us to relate in alignment with our values, then we will achieve a more egalitarian world, because of these organizational forms addressing fundamental contradictions in the way that society, from the personal to the global scale, is administered and ordered at present.

Having non-hierarchical organizational forms will allow us to become self-managed and autonomous, gaining collective control over collective issues, and individual control over individual issues. What is hierarchy, though? For our purposes, hierarchy can be seen as the glue that brings oppression together. It binds structures of domination, coercion, and power (specifically power-over) into oppression writ-large. This is what makes the act of arranging organizational forms a pyramid, where value, authority, and decision-making ability are concentrated toward the top. It is not a problem if some friendly games and competitions employ hierarchy in the broadest sense. The issue comes where, in that game, the folks who won got to eat and the folks who lost went hungry. The power imbalance and value judgments are what make hierarchy dangerous.

Alternatively, non-hierarchical structures that prioritize non-coercive, non-domineering principles, that enable positive versions of power-to (the ability to act) and power-with (the ability to act collectively, towards collective interest) have much more liberatory potential at their foundation. That’s what we’re aiming for, social technologies that allow for horizontal relating.

The pieces of horizontal organizations

The foundation of these horizontal, heterarchical forms should be in values and principles that enable relating in that way. Some of these values might be joy, autonomy, radically informed consent, cultivating ownness-uniqueness, and solidarity. These are defined as:

Joy: This should be a group that is constantly looking critically at how we engage with productivity, work, and formality from the perspective of prefiguring spaces of fun, play, and levity -- infusing it into as much of the work as we can. If it feels like a drag, that should at the very least give us pause. While we will not be able to avoid negativity wholesale, we can be intentional about minimizing the moments where it is unnecessary.

Autonomy: Each unit of interest (teammate, team, section/wing, whole) can operate independently from other elements as it desires, without imposition.

Radically Informed Consent: All decisions that include or impact someone should be made with that person (1) in that discussion/process and (2) having as much context and information as they need to be aware of the implications of the decision being made.

Cultivating Ownness-Uniqueness: The group should allow for a cooperative orientation that is based on finding what is best for all involved as individuals, concerning the collective goals. The group should be a tool that cultivates this orientation, rather than existing for its own sake and becoming something that holds power over the people in the space.

Solidarity: People in the group should work together around common interests and affinities, made clear in the joining process, grounded in (1) centering the most marginalized in society and/or our specific context within our spaces, and (2) sharing in the responsibilities of achieving what the group sets out to do.

Having these values as described gives us a shared language from which to judge how we relate to each other using the organizational forms we will set out to describe, to make sure that it gives opportunities to widen the spaces where our organizational aims can be achieved.

The components of these forms, the building blocks that sit atop the foundation, creating the organization when assembled, are the teammate, roles & tasks, aims & domains, the team, assemblies and summits, and the areas, functions, and committees. These are defined as:

Teammate: This is the individual in the structure. A specific person, who interfaces with the other parts of the structure.

Roles and Tasks: This is how the work is distributed within an organization, in line with the foundational principles and the aims of the specific team and organization as a whole.

aims: Objectives of the unit of interest. The thing that the unit of interest is trying to accomplish.

Domains: The range of focus a specific unit of interest has within an organization. What the unit of interest is responsible for doing.

Team: A collective unit within the structure. Multiple teammates coming together.

Assemblies and Summits: Multiple teams (or delegations of teams) coming together to deliberate on mutual aims, across mutual domains.

Areas, Functions, and Committees: Ways to group teams together (or create new teams) to cover specific aims.

These allow for us to have specific modes of relating with each other around specific things that we want to accomplish, from the individual to the organization-wide scale, with the potential to connect with outside organizations.

These values and components are important to create are heterarchical organization, but it doesn’t tell us what the organization will be doing. We know that it’s meant to be aimed towards social change, but what does that actually look like? I think that there are three interrelated things that the organization should achieve for it to be successful at its overall aims. There should be robust analysis, care work, and effective, radical action. These are described as:

Care Work: Embedding the ideas of restoration, rest, healthy engagement, sustainability, and healing into the core of the organizational structure. This can be done through things like healing circles, accountability circles, meeting "non-organizational" needs that deal with the making and remaking of folks (a la childcare, food, emotional care, etc), and other methods.

Robust analysis: Creating mental models that can approach an accurate understanding of the world, along with how to be experimental and learn from those experiments (while not seeing participants as disposable, or coercing folks into things). This horizontal orientation encourages us to be able to catalyze autonomous & self-directed action, rather than make ourselves indispensable to a movement. We should use these forms to organize ourselves out of a role, in a sense, through things such as making sure other people understand how to do what we do, and not hyper-specializing.

Effective, Radical Action: The organization, through the above two functions, should be able to achieve the goals that it sets. It should be successful at the current conjuncture, and these successes should build up to the general goals of the organization. There should be a conception of strategy, campaigns, logistics/operations, and tactics.

For any of these initiatives to be successful, there needs to be a basic security culture. Pretty much any social change org that is directly effective or building towards effectiveness necessitates modes of protection for the people in the organization. We need to protect from state, corporate, and non-state reactionaries. This is worth an in-depth conversation, but basic things like not talking to those forces, being mindful of where and when certain information is shared, if at all, and screening for new members, the intensity of which is proportional to the openness of the organization, and not fedjacketing (claim that someone is the cops) people. This would be paired with collective discussion to establish those agreements, and training/collective study to inoculate folks against bad security practices.

Arranging the pieces

Now that we’ve built up the different parts of our organizations, we can describe some ways to bring them together. I propose three different organizational shapes: phantom cells, networked guerrillas, and fractal teams and working groups. These are differentiated by the ways that the teams within the org are connected and relate to one another.

Phantom cells are the most ephemeral formation that I’ll describe. These are temporary teams created with wide variations towards some goal. They don’t even have any meaningful awareness of the composition of other cells. Actions are motivated by catalyzing forces that follow a general flow of event → action → report-back → action. Something happens that motivates a cell to form and act, that cell publishes information about their action, along with instructions on how to replicate and the ideological motivation behind it, and others follow suit. This repeats and spreads out, through stigmergy. It’s like how social media trends work. All follow a similar format, evolving as they spread until they saturate a space and wane. The goal here is to combine distributed intelligence through information posting, replicability, and inspiration.

A diagram representing phantom cells. Pill shapes with the word team in the middle are spread around on a white canvas.

This form is inspired by Tiktok and the SHAC campaign. If we could have groups of folks who: (1) find concrete goals & replicable methods for finding connected goals in specific contexts, (2) create compelling narratives around acting in line with those goals, and (3) encourage easily replicable actions, consistent pressure, and sharing the results so that it spreads. This allows for action to become highly distributed, where unity isn’t based on allegiance to specific organizations, movements, or formations. This type of operation is most useful for trying to achieve protracted, quick, decisive, small actions against a target.

Networked guerrillas are cells (or teams) of folks that have a well-rounded skill set, and who work consistently together. I imagine it being like a team for an RPG (role-playing game) campaign where each character is in a different class. This group should have a relatively high amount of self-sufficiency, to be able to achieve aims within their domain without much outside assistance. Each cell is animated by a general alignment of principles, vision, and values. Cells are also designed to link up with other cells, of this type, to accomplish bigger goals and complete bigger actions. There might also be a bundle of cells “in the middle” to help coordinate resources between cells and provide additional, more specialized, and contextual resources. Ideally, there is a rotation and continual morphing of the core to not become a failure point. This is why it’s important to have the cells be as self-sufficient as possible. Every connection is an enhancement of capability, rather than a necessity. The relationships between the cells can be organized like a mesh network (many-to-many relationships between the cells), star (one-to-many-to-one relationships), and a chain/ring (one-to-one-to-one relationships), or some combination, based on the needs of the organization.

A diagram representing networked guerrillas. showing a form that combines mesh, start, and chain/ring.

Fractal teams and working groups work through a kind of fractal, heterarchical confederalism. Essentially, it flips the hierarchical nature of authoritarian federalism by having power flow from the lowest level upwards, rather than the other way around. It starts at the lowest level, the team, and we confederate upwards from there to encompass more general aims and domains, using assemblies, assemblies of assemblies, and summits. This structure also operates on the principle of autonomous collaboration, where people who are impacted by and/or are doing a specific set of tasks are the ones to decide how that task is implemented. This is meant to minimize the amount of power-over within the structure, while still fostering modes of engagement between different scales of decision making. At each level, there would be assemblies that provide the space to share information and discuss plans, and for potential working groups to meet and freely associate and dissociate as necessary. Decisions shouldn’t be made here at these higher levels of the hierarchy, as that leads to a form of power that isn’t always deliberative. Folks would execute whatever plans they see fit on the ground, based on self-organization, informed by the information that is shared within these more open, popular gatherings. The trust is put on folks to be self-directed around their needs, getting help and providing assistance in a mutualistic way, rather than a top-down way.

a diagram of the fractal teams & working groups. teams send delegates to assemblies, and assemblies send delegates to assemblies of assemblies or summits. delegates gather information and context at the above levels and come back to their team to provide context and give information to the team. They also will share the decisions made by the teams, to the assemblies and summits.

All of these forms would need some kind of intelligence apparatus. Intelligence for us will be information that allows us to achieve objectives better. We gain this information through research, investigative journalism-style methods, and espionage. It is pertinent, practical, and informative. These apparatuses will gather information (what we might usually think of as intelligence), and prevent/impede opposition from doing the same (counterintelligence). This is not something it seems like social change folks are intentional about very often, but is an important part of building, refining, and achieving the aims laid out at every scale, from strategies for wider social change to specific actions.

The basic structure of this intelligence apparatus is a specific unit of interest would (s)elect/delegate an intelligence handler to work within that unit’s domain. This handler is one part of an intelligence cell. The cell would be a compartmentalized team for the sake of mutual protection, containing a handler, analyst(s), and agent(s). Handlers are the cell coordinators, recruiting the other roles as they see fit. They act as the direct link/contact to the agent on the ground/in the field, supporting them on their missions with whatever they need. Handlers also support analysts with collaborating on research work or anything that they need. Handlers are the glue of a cell, supporting everyone towards their objectives. Analysts are the folks who make the information gathered by the agents usable. They sort and organize the information, making things like reports and presentations so that action can come from or be informed by the information. Handlers may support the analysts with those tasks. Agents are the crux of this cell—they gather the intelligence. They should be a generalizing specialist, where they understand the breadth of the context in which they act, even with a specific specialty in the type of intelligence they gather.

For these purposes, there will probably be a combination of focus on open-source intelligence, signals intelligence, and human intelligence. Finally, we have the auditor. They are also elected by the unit of interest (the one that placed the handler). This is a way to make sure there isn’t any tomfoolery happening within the cell—the auditor can look over any of the information within the cell, and compile an independent report for the sake of the unit of interest.

A diagram of the basic intelligence apparatus.

The basic intelligence process would go as follows: Information would be split or categorized into four main areas: strategic, campaign, logistic/operational, and tactical. For each of these levels, there would be a repeating loop process of setting goals in relation to those areas, gathering the information, analyzing it, figuring out how to use it, and a method to evaluate the process. Information can be gathered by agents or anyone else in the organization, anonymously. This helps bolster the capacity of information gathering.

So, we start by asking, what do we need to know to achieve our aims? Then, we ask about where we can find that information. As we’ll probably receive more information than what is usable, we want to ask about what information found is important, timely, and accurate/verifiable? After that, we want to ask how we can package and disseminate the information, along with an understanding of the audience(s). That leads us to review what we’ve done, integrate any changes, and start the process over. This is not to say that teams can’t do intelligence-gathering work themselves, such as scouting or information synthesis. It is just useful to have capacity specifically built for that work.

How these forms relate

Finally, we want to look at the relationship between the organizational forms, and how these forms change, depending on what the specific organization does. We can do this by understanding how things look through the classifications of overt, covert, and clandestine.

Overt organizations act out in the open. They operate in a mode where what you see is what you get. Phantom cells might operate as front-facing aboveground collectives of folks who have a very specific focus, with the intent to popularize and virally spread action around that focus, through building (para)social relationships. Networked guerrillas might make more intentional, long-term connections between cells, leading to a more tightly bound network. This could look like the mesh model. Fractal teams might have highly accessible and legible teams and assemblies with centralized information pipelines, creating an easy way to get involved with the movement. This point is important when we’re thinking about how to make the movement accessible.

Covert organizations act in secret, operating on the mode of plausible deniability. Phantom cells might use mainstream channels to share their ideas but operate in a way that obscures their identities. Networked guerrillas might have the cells be related using a star model, with many connections compartmentalized by those shared nodes. Fractal teams might hide membership and focus on the intake process because this formation is the most vulnerable to infiltration. Maybe this formation isn’t useful outside of the overt context.

Clandestine organizations are fully underground. Phantom cells might only spread action through hyper-encrypted or low-tech methods. Networked guerrillas might have no awareness of who or what the composition is of other teams in the network, and any connections between cells might be mediated in ways that maintain anonymity and prevent infiltration. Fractal teams likely would be a great weakness in this context.

Looking at all of these forms, across different modes of operating, we should not “pick” one form or the other in a dogmatic way. Each form should see the others as providing something of value towards anti-authoritarian ends. In other words, fractals should not decry networks or phantoms for their seemingly chaotic structures or methods. Phantoms shouldn’t shit on the other two for not being effective enough. Aligning people and actions across these horizontal forms will allow an ecosystem of forms that reinforces the ability of each to succeed. Overt groups can act as an auxiliary force for the covert and clandestine groups, and the covert and clandestine groups can create spaces for the overt groups to construct the world they are all working for.

By having principles and ethics that are sound, exploring what organizations need to do, and creating structures that enable those ethics and principles to be realized, we can have social technologies that allow us to more easily accomplish the social change that we’re seeking.

[longlistshort]

Lisa Marie Patzer’s studio and detail from “Chromatic Landscapes”

Along with its exhibitions and programming, The Delaware Contemporary houses several artist studios. Several times a year the artists open their doors to the public. The images included in this post are from the December 2024 event.

The first images are from new media digital media artist Lisa Marie Patzer’s Chromatic Landscapes series.

From her website about the work-

Employing digital chroma-based processes, Patzer sorted, separated, and reconfigured images derived from more than one thousand 35mm slides. Originally captured by photographer Ben Kabakow during the mid-1950’s, the slides reflect his view of life in New York City and international travel. Lisa Marie Patzer’s treatment of this large archive emphasizes the role nostalgia and personal association play when interpreting another’s visual anthology. The result is a colorful set of vignettes and landscapes that are abstracted from the original context inviting the viewer in for playful association.

Below are selections from some of the other artists studios and from the walls surrounding them and their bios and quotes from the museum’s website.

Still life paintings by Jenna Lucente

Jenna Lucente is an artist and educator currently living in Delaware. She recently completed a public art commission that includes 28 glass windows for the above-ground Arthur Kill train station in Staten Island, New York. Commissioning agency: MTA Art and Design; glass fabrication by Franz Mayer of Munich.

Work by Ruth Ansel

Ruth Ansel creates paintings using egg tempera. “My egg tempera paintings are meditations in pigment and brushstroke.”

Sculptures by Jennifer Borders

Jennifer Borders is a visual artist whose sculpture and drawing is installation-based and often participatory. She uses history, personal family stories, and current events to prompt viewers into inquiry.

Painting by Caroline Chen

Caroline Chen paints primarily with oil on canvas. “Painting is personal. The slow act of seeing takes time and hands and grace. I’m striving to express simple truths before me, to paint the emotion as well as the subject itself.”

Work and woodblocks by Caroline Coolidge Brown

Caroline Coolidge Brown is a mixed-media printmaker and visual journaler who collects inspiration from her travels far and near. Her playful work combines traditional printmaking processes (etching, monotype, lino and wood block) with collage and paint. “Mixed media printmaking allows me to push expected boundaries of “what is a print?” or “what is a painting?” For me, it’s all about the layers – of color, shape and meaning.”

Paintings by John Breakey

John Breakey– “The familiar space above the horizon line provides conditions that empower my vision. The powerful brevity of Minimalism and the lasting voices of the Abstract Expressionists motivate me to treat the pure instance of looking out not as an act of passive observance but as a call to action.”

Paintings by Lauren E. Peters

Lauren E. Peters– Through self-portraits based on staged photographs, Peters explores the multifaceted nature of identity.

Work by Diane Hulse

Diane Hulse is an abstract, mixed media artist whose work includes painting, drawing, and objects. With a background in science and the fine arts, she explores internal and external landscapes, as found in the psychological terrain of self and the beauty of our embattled Earth. Intensely curious about almost everything, she studies nature, architecture, poetry, spiritualism, and psychology. Just as curiosity is a pillar of her art, so is imagination. A pink ocean or a monster perched on a beach ball are not farfetched for her. In fact, Hulse often pretends that she can miniaturize herself and walk through her paintings. She agrees with Picasso, who said that it is essential for artists to keep alive the child inside of all of us.

Tomorrow, 2/7/25, the studios will be open to the public as part of the monthly Art Loop Wilmington event. The museum will extend its hours to 8pm and there will be musical guests, food trucks, and a cash bar.

[sourcreammachine]

LABOUR PARTY MANIFESTO 2024 SUMMARY ie, the agenda of the party that'll win

tldr: Milton Keynes, by which i mean it's keynesianism but really boring. it's the principle of keynes, but with its ambitions scaled so far back that it no longer even qualifies as social democracy

you’ve probably heard that they want to increase spending without increasing tax. the theory goes that state investments reap dividends — the deficits you run will grow the economy, so your dividends will go up, so debts will always be repaid. this how this manifesto can justify being so scant on revenue-raising, the existing sources of revenue should automatically reap more over time

but, keynesianism is very fundamentally sociodemocratic. state expenditure goes to big-ticket economic infrastructure to improve AND to public services, to improve health and wealth, which serves to grow the economy further – a slightly cold but contextually understandable framing for the fact that stamping out poverty and delivering vital public services is a moral imperative and a good thing

this wheezy manifesto fails in all that, fundamentally. there are spending plans for public services but they are tiny compared to the big-ticket economic investments. it's keynesian theory in liberal practice, and i say that derogatorily. it's the same neoliberal system with the smallest yank back towards un-neo liberalism to try to save it from itself

literally, in the Innsmouth debate last week starmer was asked why he wouldn't raise taxes on high-earners to fund the beleaguered public services that've been crushed and broken, and starmer gave a coward's answer, saying it wasn't the right thing to do, in the poorest town in the country, in front of an audience of fishpeople, not an audience of aristocrats and six-figure salarymen

which serves my point. this isn't a manifesto of enlightened, committed socioliberalism, far from it: this is a manifesto of cowardice. rumours suggested it could've been about 30 pages long, around a third of the typical length. and while it's not that short, it's been padded to hell and back with justifications, waffle, and masses of promises with no policy to make them so. even objectively non-economic policy is anaemic, with scant plans for reform, scant plans for social policy, and scant plans for anything

labour alleges it's plan is to decentralise power and end the autophagic hypercentralist leadership. but no, that couldn't be further from the truth. sir kid starver is running for president. he wants a blank cheque. he wants the right to make decisions. he "changed the labour party" to centralise power to override internal power controls, and not because he's an evil scheming autocrat, but because he has zero faith in democracy. they are the decisionmakers. they are the governors. participatory democracy is impossible, shut up and do your job: putting them in power

it’s also the only manifesto i’ve found a typo in, on page 125. naughty naughty

💷ECONOMY

LITERALLY NO TAX PROPOSALS

abolish nondoms and 'end the use of offshore trusts'

restore the industrial strategy council quango with legal authorities

make the independent minimum wage commission 'account for the cost of living', maybe raising it one maybe two bob idk, and abolish the age bands so everyone gets the adult wage

ban zerohour contracts, ban fire-rehire, strengthen rights to to sick pay, parental leave and protections from unfair dismissal

extend the oil/gas windfall tax for five more years, raise it by three percent, and close loopholes

"people who can work should work, and there will be consequences for those who do not fulfil their obligations"

reform the work capability assessment system, though based on above, it'll be to get more and quicker rejections

not increase the internationally tiny business tax for the entire parliament, letting the invisible hand wank everyone off

more registration/reportage requirements at HMRC, tactical focus on the tax avoidance of corporations and the rich [which like, aint that how it's supposed to be already?]

unify employment law / workers' protections authorities into a single enforcement body, "we will strengthen the collective voice of workers, including through their trade unions" [clarification needed]

programme to get under-21 neets into free training or work programmes with a focus on mental health

£7b centralised national wealth fund for economic investment including automotive gigafactories and steel

new state energy company, long an ephemeral promise of theirs, now confirmed to be backend-only, responsible for building and maintaining infrastructures, while the private companies remain responsible for selling the electricity to the people

remove planning restrictions on datacentres

strengthen Equality Act regulations for gender, racial and disability pay imbalances, increasing workers' ability to sue the pants off their employers

create a regulatory innovation office to coordinate new regulations for rapidly moving economic sectors, ie big tech, with a specific pledge to introduce 'binding regulation on the handful of companies developing the most powerful ai models”

aim to double the size of the cooperative/mutual sector

turn a blind eye to the City just like all other major parties

🏥PUBLIC SERVICES

free breakfasts in primary schools, but not lunches

put misogyny on the curriculum

i mean like. teaching about misogyny. that it's bad

reform royal mail 'so that workers and customers can have a stronger voice', implying preventing its privatisation to that czech billionaire

found the national care service

recruit 8500 mental health staff, reform the mental health acts

6500 more 'expert' teachers [citation needed]

double the number of CT and MRI machines

'end HIV cases by 2030'. they won't do it tho

mental health professionals in every school

build a boatload of new inhouse integrated features into the NHS app, with an inhouse appointment system, local service referrals, vaccination reminders and a pool of personal medical guidelines and treatment information

convert some colleges into specialist technical colleges

3,000 "new" nurseries glued onto primary school sites

finally end the "charity" status of for-profit private schools to make private parents pay their fair share

ok, here's the bulk of labour's trans policy, and the unfortunate reason why i've chosen to list it under public services: they've pledged to reform the Gender Recognition system, per them, "to remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition and acceptance; whilst retaining the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a specialist doctor". they continue with an equally cowardly statement to 'support the implementation of single-sex exceptions'. this is a coward's position because the labour leadership is terrified of the commentariat and the terf cult it stands by. that's also why there's a fleeting line to "implement the expert recommendations of the cass review". lmao, they should call him wes fleeting. truth is, they have no plan to reform gender recognition. the abolition of the transmedicalist clause is the minimum amount of feasible and meaningful reform that could have any sort of political momentum, but that minimum is over the line for the terfs and will cause commentariat outrage. the labour right has no ability to change the situation of trans people by staying on the fence, they'd have to commit to supporting the struggle for freedom — and their choice is to stay on the fence

reintroduce the age-gated fag ban, maybe raising it from 2006 to like 2008

limit the number of branded items of uniform schools can require

replace ofsted headline grades with a 'report card system', 'bring multi-academy trusts into the inspection system' but not abolish the indefensible MAT system

🏠HOUSING

ban no-fault evictions, introduce more powers for renters to challenge rent increases

reintroduce mandatory housebuilding targets, national target to build 1.5M in five years

abolish leaseholds, ban flat leaseholds and replace them with commonholds

scramble and deploy more planning officers to local councils, which are to keep stronger housebuilding plans, and with combined authorities given full power (and requirement) to plan and housebuild with their funding

reform compulsory purchase compensation laws to force the price of appropriations down to actual value rather than speculative value

explicit threat to nimby councils: "we will ensure local communities continue to shape housebuilding in their area, but where necessary [we] will not be afraid to make full use of intervention powers to build the houses we need"

prioritise brownfield development [clarification needed] but release and build on 'grey belt', their neologism for shit green belt that nobody wants

ensure social housing is central to the building scheme

ban new developments being sold to international buyers before construction ends, ie, slowing the hypergentrification of luxury districts, though possibly not fixing these areas or even doing enough to stop the trend

new New Towns, which'll be 'part of a series of large-scale new communities' [clarification needed]

🚄TRANSPORT

simply wait for the franchise-concession system to lapse, established in 2020 when the private franchise system collapsed, then give british rail the contracts as a single island-wide renationalised train operator with a unified consumer frontend

return to local councils the ability to franchise their own bus networks (ie, not centrally fund their doing so) and let them create their own unified travel networks (like the bee in Manchester)

expand freightrail

devolve to mayors rail british rail planning for their areas

restore the 2030 ban of new petrol cars, build more ev chargers

👮FORCE

raise defence spending to 2.5% GDP

points-based immigration system and restrict visas, ban employers who break migrant labour laws from hiring any migrant again, intelligence border command 'hundreds of new' officers to stamp down on desperate people wanting a better life, new home office unit for mass deportations

recognise palestine… but no commitment to do it immediately or unambiguously, only “as part of the process” etc etc etc. “push” for an immediate ceasefire

'Respect Orders', ASBOs 2, with power to ban people from entering town centres

'force' fly-tippers and 'vandals' to 'clean up the mess they have created'

mandatory referral to reoffending programmes for young people caught with knives

end the sengoku period by enacting katanagari

SVU in every police force, 'using tactics normally reserved for terrorists and organised crime

upgrade any and all hate crimes to aggravated offences, though not actually amend the definition. Brianna Ghey's slaughter was, under the letter of the current law, not a hate crime, despite one of her killers openly admitting to targeting her due to her being transgender

ban conversion therapy including for trans people

make spiking a specific criminal offence

extend protection against domestic violence in marriages to cohabitees

reduce relations with china

'build on the online safety act', not ruling out the potential for a bad internet bill

massive building of new prisons

"labour is committed to reducing gambling-related harm. recognising the evolution of the gambling landscape since 2005, labour will reform gambling regulation, strengthening protections. we will continue to work with the industry on how to ensure responsible gambling" is the entire section on gambling. don't get me wrong, this is scandalous. the country's gambling laws are lax beyond words and an international laughing stock. The House have not hidden their infiltration of the labour party lobbies - their biggest catch is probably Tom Watson, former deputy leader-turned-gambling lobbyist, who waged civil war on corbyn, founded the major caucus against him, and so commands major respect from the labour right MPs who'll be in the new government. this pathetic paragraph means The House can continue to demolish lives for the next five years at least and the public health emergency will continue to burn. i fucking BEG prime minister starmer to remove all equivocation from the first two sentences of this paragraph, and throw the third in the bin. a punt on the game, a night in the bingo hall, the lottery are all brilliant and beloved, but The House being let loose to make money on people's lives makes it an enemy of public health.

continue to be the american empire’s prettiest bitch

🌱CLIMATE

zero-carbon electricity by 2030**: quadruple offshore wind, triple solar, double onshore wind, rollout Small Modular Reactors

**two asterisks: first to maintain a 'strategic reserve' of gas stations for energy security, and second "ensure a phased and responsible transition" to not Thatcher the communities that're employed in gas. idk, it seems like you can't do that in six short years without a radical plan

commitment to upgrading the Grid (a long-looming problem), which may well push through projects that annoy the nimbys

no new licenses for oil extraction, no new coal licenses, permaban on fracking

three new national forests, plant millions of trees, expand protected wetlands, woodlands and Pete Boggs, seed new woodland

LEAVE WATER PRIVATE despite the shit situation (shituation), but ban bonuses of dumping bosses and criminalise repeat dumping

introduce a land-use framework for economical usage of land, a policy shared by the liberals

end the badger cull, ban trailhunting, ban trophy imports, ban puppy farming

🗳️DEMOCRACY

votes at sixteen

immediately evict all 92 hereditary Filth, but keep the 25 bishops

immediately introduce an 80-year age limit for the Filth, with evictions occurring at the end of the parliament the Filth turns 80. also introduce minimum attendance requirements, and eviction for rulebreaking. 308 of the 709 filth who aren't hereditary or bishops are 75 or older right now

"Whilst this action to modernise the House of [Filth] will be an improvement, Labour is committed to replacing the House of [Filth] with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations. Labour will consult on proposals, seeking the input of the British public on how politics can best serve them." okay. look. i know you're intelligent enough to see that this paragraph is just a get-out-of-jail-free card. president starmer has no plans to replace the Filth with democracy, because the patronage spoils system is too useful for his closed-door regime. that's also why there's nothing about electoral reform, the dumb bad stupid system simply serves him and regime-minded political operators too well. democracy is for chumps. end of story. sorry peasants

keep the indefensible voter id system

new council of all first ministers and mayors for some reason

more combined authorities, with devolution of transport, adult education, housing, and 'employment support', give the new CAs 'strong governance arrangements' and renew those of the existing ones so the CA areas have better governments

create a commons modernisation committee to modernise the commons' useless old practises, with its purview including replacing the pairing system with proxying

ban on MP second jobs in advisory or consultancy roles, task the (above) committee in restricting other second jobs, 'enforcing restrictions on ministers lobbying for the companies they used to regulate' [clarification needed]

[argyrocratie]

"Thus many collectives did not compete with each other for profits, as surpluses were pooled and distributed on a wider basis than the individual collective.

This process went on in many different unions and collectives and, unsurprisingly, the forms of co-ordination agreed to lead to different forms of organisation in different areas and industries, as would be expected in a free society. However, the two most important forms can be termed syndicalisation and confederationalism (we will ignore the forms created by the collectivisation decree as these were not created by the workers themselves).

Syndicalisation (our term) meant that the CNT’s industrial union ran the whole industry. This solution was tried by the woodworkers’ union after extensive debate. One section of the union, “dominated by the FAI, maintained that anarchist self-management meant that the workers should set up and operate autonomous centres of production so as to avoid the threat of bureaucratisation.” However, those in favour of syndicalisation won the day and production was organised in the hands of the union, with administration posts and delegate meetings elected by the rank and file. However, the “major failure … (and which supported the original anarchist objection) was that the union became like a large firm” and its “structure grew increasingly rigid.” [Ronald Fraser, Blood of Spain, p. 222] According to one militant, “From the outside it began to look like an American or German trust” and the workers found it difficult to secure any changes and “felt they weren’t particularly involved in decision making.” [quoted by Fraser, Op. Cit., p. 222 and p. 223] However, this did not stop workers re-electing almost all posts at the first Annual General Assembly.

In the end, the major difference between the union-run industry and a capitalist firm organisationally appeared to be that workers could vote for (and recall) the industry management at relatively regular General Assembly meetings. While a vast improvement on capitalism, it is hardly the best example of participatory self-management in action.

(...)

The other important form of co-operation was what we will term confederalisation. This system was based on horizontal links between workplaces (via the CNT union) and allowed a maximum of self-management and mutual aid. This form of co-operation was practised by the Badalona textile industry (and had been defeated in the woodworkers’ union). It was based upon each workplace being run by its elected management, selling its own production, getting its own orders and receiving the proceeds. However, “everything each mill did was reported to the union which charted progress and kept statistics. If the union felt that a particular factory was not acting in the best interests of the collectivised industry as a whole, the enterprise was informed and asked to change course.”

This system ensured that the “dangers of the big ‘union trust’ as of the atomised collective were avoided.” [Fraser, Op. Cit., p. 229] According to one militant, the union “acted more as a socialist control of collectivised industry than as a direct hierarchised executive.” The federation of collectives created “the first social security system in Spain” (which included retirement pay, free medicines, sick and maternity pay) and a compensation fund was organised “to permit the economically weaker collectives to pay their workers, the amount each collective contributed being in direct proportion to the number of workers employed.” [quoted by Fraser, Op. Cit., p. 229]

As can be seen, the industrial collectives co-ordinated their activity in many ways, with varying degrees of success."

I.8.4 How were the Spanish industrial collectives co-ordinated?

[cindyngx]

Week 8 Blog

1: In what ways do women's involvement in online white supremacist groups either reflect or contradict conventional gender norms?

Participation of women in online white nationalist groups questions and supports conventional gender roles. On one side, their participation in forums, talks, and ideological arguments helps them to actively shape the movement's discourse—something that was mostly under control in the print-only era. Still, in these environments they remain underprivileged to masculine supremacy even if their presence is rising. For instance, women who engage in conversations about white nationalism typically do so from a domestic standpoint, stressing motherhood, conventional family values, and racial purity even as they participate. A "ladies-only" forum on Stormfront represents both their ongoing marginalization inside the movement and their rising involvement.

2: Do female digital avatars like Ananova support or subvert gender stereotypes?

Like Ananova, digital simulations of femininity mainly support rather than challenge heteronormative gender stereotypes. These virtual personas are meant to represent hyper-feminized qualities—youth, beauty, submissiveness, and emotional warmth—which will help technology seem "user-friendly" while preserving conventional gender roles. This fits the cultural inclination to portray technology as "female" to downplay its frightening power. By accentuating physical traits (e.g., small waist, big breasts) and supporting conventional feminine behaviors, the simulations further mix sex and gender. Though digital media has the power to challenge restrictive gender stereotypes, these simulations usually help to reinforce traditional ideas of femininity, therefore restricting other ways of presenting gender in cyberculture.

3: In what ways, relative to print media, has the internet transformed white supremacist notions about gender?

White supremacist speech has become more participatory and easily available in the digital era, enabling men and women to actively contribute to the production and spread of extreme ideas. Unlike the print-only age, in which a small number of male leaders controlled material via newsletters, online forums allow distributed debates including gender-oriented movement topics. Though their involvement is still subordinate to male supremacy, women now have venues to speak from their viewpoints. Digital environments also produce a "translocal whiteness," in which white racists may interact internationally so bolstering racial identity across national boundaries. Though women are more involved, online white supremacy is still essentially patriarchal; men shape the ideological underpinnings and women frequently support traditional gender norms.

4: How do people perceive technology and gender when technology is often feminized?

Figures like Mavis Beacon and Ananova show how feminizing digital interfaces is influencing the way people view both technology and gender. Companies support the concept that technology should be approachable, obedient, and accommodating—qualities historically connected with women by portraying artificial intelligence and digital assistants as nice, feminine avatars. This relationship reflects current gender roles whereby women are expected to be non-threatening, kind, and helpful. Furthermore, these depictions help to shape the larger societal view of women as inert objects instead of active participants in technological evolution. The focus on hyper-feminine aesthetics in digital simulations also implies that women in technology are regarded more for their attractiveness than their intellectual contributions, therefore supporting gender power disparities in both media and technology sectors.

Jones, J. (Director). (2024). Seeking Mavis Beacon. BelleMoon Productions, Neon, Field of Vision, Cinereach.

Daniels, J. (2025). Gender, white supremacy, and the internet. In Social Movements in the Information Age (Chapter 5).

[marzipanbnny]

The S in S&M Stands for Surveillance: How #Girlboss Feminism Thrives Through the Sex-bot 

Sell your sex, doll—be dynamo! Encased in Thierry Mugler’s “superrealist” masterpiece—metallic in its conception, Hajime Sorayama-ified in its eroticization—Zendaya’s techno-Venus seems to scream just about that and nothing more. Blood diamonds, reaped and gathered by Congolese children, trickle down her plexiglass body, smudging all that is silvery about her skin with streaks of success. The actress seems to have superbly #girblossed her way into fame. Hence, she can embrace her sexuality now like never before! It is clear: She is the Standard—a fem-bot that has “made it”. Sans the stripper-bot facade that the model in Mugler’s ‘Cirque d’Hiver’ (as Thierry "Manfred" Mugler titled his couture collection) performed on the catwalk, however—wearing the same bodysuit underneath a dress, torn off in haste, plaguing peepshows through terrorizing binaries set between human and artifice—Zendaya’s 2024 reconstruction of the sex-bot falls into the consumable traps of conforming eroticism.

Traps Mugler’s winter circus refused to replicate.

Yet, times have changed since then, and sex dolls have become the new feminist sexy. Consent is king, and participatory pornography is liberating. Screening the hot and hustle of womanhood through fashioned surveillance has made of clothing new confinement. 

At first sight, Mugler’s clothed cyborg may not align with Donna Haraway’s—author of A Cyborg Manifesto—illegitimate robo-offsprings of papa patriarchy. These successors reject the marital exchange of bestiality in favor of hybridizing the machine and the organism, eliminating essentialist understandings of humanness, and mediating translations of sex into genetic engineering and reproductive technologies. Thus, they are removed from the sciences and technologies that thrive in their ardent reproductions. Ardent reproductions, in the sense that medicine is dependent on military power, which is dependent on the government, which is dependent on the media, which is dependent on fashion—all of which are controlled by papas (also: the phallus). Mugler’s robot has transparent windows—the flesh underneath being her nipples and breast fat, her stomach and legs. Her chest cherries are furthermore circled with metal, adding extra emphasis to the lactiferous ducts once necessary for breastfeeding, now simply sexy.  

Unlike Haraway’s genderless cyborg, the she-bot is a wearable prosthetic—a femmed up version of hypervisible femininity. A depiction of classic womanliness made shiny with Sorayama-varnished lac. A fetishized She, wearing windows for the scopophile.  

Yet Mugler’s she-bot moves. She poses.  

Where Sorayama’s sex-bots display themselves to be looked at—merely appearing, not acting—Mugler’s she-bot mimes the magnetism of the stripper next door, imbued with the intention to attract attention of the phallus while simultaneously policing it. Distinctly mechanical, her striptease unsettles the divide between artificial intelligence and “biological” desire, unsettling the papa and killing the boner. Instead of giving the she-bot a second, Mugler foregrounds her performance of the fashion piece instead. She disrobes herself—subjects herself to being ogled—and prostitutes her body to inorganic materialization. To the likes of Walter Benjamin, this has always marked fashion’s relation to the body, yet the she-bot's sex-appeal succumbs to that of a different inorganic than peters buoy up from. Her mechanical frame has another raison d’être, rendering visible the performance of fashion and its close kinship to materializing the female body and its various transformations—making the She an object, triumphing over Her death while actively defying Her mortality. She gazes in reflection and looks back.  

Much like feminist theorist Craig Owens sees the peep show to be an inversion of the patriarchal Panopticon, Thierry Mugler’s couture shifts “the gaze” and steers surveillance. The designer was known for transforming his women into insects and robots of various kinds, forging breast plates out of molded plastic, and creating stilettos out of steel. He would exaggerate the femaleness of his models with exoskeletons—similar to that of the she-bot—attaching handlebars to bustiers, and turning models into multitasking motorcycles and motorcyclists. As long as he had bodies to work with—those that could act out his grotesque imageries—the designer would play the role of a playwright. He would sculpt shapes that were infernal in their inauguration—consistently becoming, downgrading, and regenerating. His theatrics would embrace drag artists as well as “the overweight” and “elderly”. Individual identity is absorbed into cloth, after all!

The essence of Mugler body lies not in its surface, but in its heights and cavities—a body that is becoming, as Bakhtin would put it. In Thierry's collections, women's sexualites are performed rather than made innate. These performances are ones of “untrustworthiness” that stage the surveillance camera opposite to the sex-bot, capturing the peeping Tom instead of patriarchy’s prostitute.  

In ‘Cirque d’Hiver’ she emphasized the staged-ness of sold sex. Now, on the sand-covered red carpet, she swims upstream the patriarchy and sells her sex on the socking great stage.

Blood rushes through the penis once again. The women have won! 

So has Zendaya, clad in Mugler’s metallic robo-armor, whose sheer plexiglass inserts ever-so teasingly unveil another bodysuit. Stepping into the premiere of Dune: Part Two, re-engineered with prostheses, the actress is physically pruned into the role of sand warrior Chani, personifying the #girlboss said character represents. Because as much as she appears in the phantasies of the phallus, Paul—around whom the narrative of Dune is strap(ped)-on—she is a fighter, a strong independent woman, who happens to be perplexing and peculiar enough to the extent she can be desired, and made into a fellow’s porn-tasy. Such independence is interlaced within the actress' selfhood as well, who has now stepped out of the image Disney once set out for her, covering her bareness with concrete cotton and conflict diamonds she has worked her way up for to pay. She can finally take charge of her sexy! 

...We have yet to let go of the phallus.  

Next to her co-star Anya Taylor Joy—whose character is inspired by matriarchal cult leaders, as Catholic as they come—it becomes even more evident what image of womanhood is deemed to be congestible these days. Nobody desires a nun whose selfhood is pinched within the precincts of tradition (even if she is wearing archival Dior). Yet where Zendaya does not bare herself to mislead the phallic gaze into a performance of staged sex, she sells her sex as an individual act of liberation—one that does not operate against Owens’ Panopticon, but rather Sorayama-ifies itself to become a fetish. Her necklace, shimmering shinily against her silver frame, only highlights how alienated the superstar is from her erotic capital. One she has staged to be economic and social. Where being an individual has centered itself to be of most importance when it comes to self-formation—as opposed to Dior’s veiled marking of an agency that regulates itself within a collective conceptualization of devout femininity—sexual emancipation has reorganized the fashioned body into a consumer practice. A practice based on individual action, or so they say (the papas). Yet this “action” has sprung out in the minds of surveilled subjects who have disciplined themselves to internalize their own hypervisibilities. Minds that are ever-so aware of the gaze, ever-so traditional.

Where Zendaya’s sex operates around a type of self-branding—in which eroticized clots of cutis are framed within individual parcelization—she is ultimately hustling! Within this scopic regime, her tinman body is removed from its perfomative context and once again made to-be-looked-at. All she is, then, is plate pieces of metal—to be sold in a market that thrives on erotic evaluation, and to gain. The cracked chunks of children's cuticle, and the droplets of sweat within her diamonds may be as segregated from her sympathy as her girlbossism is, given her self-sexualization thrives on bodily competition and corporeal commodification. Both are situated in a consumer system where women’s difficulty to stabilize their symbolic and economic value is solved through sexual self-value—made individual, but catered to the cock. Objectifation, made feminist, only benefits the Shes that gain and are successful.

Ultimately, the only winner is the man.  

Startling as this is—Mugler’s she-bot has both defied and acquiescenced, shriveled the phallus and made it swell. Ultimately, she marks the template sadomasochist—both in her positionality within the panopticon, and with her sexed performances of the self (in all its organicity and artificiality). Time will tell if she manages to break out of her current surveilled confinement, but in the meantime she will continue to stage herself with all her silvery sheen. What Zendaya’s resignification of this boundary breaking She has come to show then, is what #girlbosses do best! To thrive within the patriarchy is to challenge the phallus—only when defiance sells.  

◆

Works referenced: 

Ekardt, P. (2020). Benjamin on Fashion. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350076013 

Greer, K., Kane, L., Leonard-Rose, M., Morrison, M., Staveski, C., Freeburg, R. S., Couch, N., & Bench, H. (n.d.). Spectacles of agency and desire: The grotesque body. Spectacles of Agency and Desire: Dance Histories and the Burlesque Stage. https://scalar.usc.edu/works/spectacles-of-agency-and-desire/the-grotesque-body.2 

Haraway, D. (2013). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the late Twentieth Century. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203955055-16 

Owens, C., Bryson, S. S., & Watney, S. (1992). Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power, and Culture. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA21071736 

◇

Related readings: 

Illouz, E. (2021). The End of Love: A Sociology of Negative Relations. John Wiley & Sons. 

Morrison, E. (2016). Discipline and Desire: Surveillance Technologies in Performance. University of Michigan Press. 

◆

Related reviews:

previous | next