#same with femme men and cis women lol

[arinmoss]

women and femmes is like. what the fuck r u talking about lol.

like ppl will be talking about shit that effects me but postulate it as something that effects only women and femmes, two things i am not lolol

[olderthannetfic]

What's the current consensus (among you and your blog followers that is) on the good ole discourse topic of "fixed top-bottom roles dominate in fandom because straight women are imposing a heteronormative binary on slash and femlash"? Because that popped up recently in the fanfiction subreddit, and the replies (mostly blaming straight women and stereotypes, with the occasional smattering of "examine yourself") have been giving me a rage-induced headache.

--

LOL.

There is nothing new in this argument or my reactions to it.

Strict roles often come from men and from offline queer culture, not just from women and BL/slash.

The women (and "women") who like strict roles are often not straight, and the people whining about The Straights have no basis for telling who's who, which makes them inherently transphobic, biphobic, homophobic pieces of shit.

Role-based relationship dynamics are not necessarily heteronormative.

What this shit is, fundamentally, is reheated queer community wank from like the 80s about how butch/femme is insufficiently progressive and your sex life is political, wah wah wah.

People who fall for it in fandom now are some combination of radfem poisoned and those defensive idiots who think the cis gay men will validate them more than the BL fan sitting next to them.

They might be a trans man asserting that he's more male than you and thus more valid while ignoring that he isn't hanging out in other dude spaces because they disrespect his gender and/or laugh at his delusions about horny content. They might be a nonbinary person asserting their not-femaleness by asserting that everyone else is the most stereotypical cishet woman ever. They might be a woman pulling that "my gay best friend" shit.

Regardless, they're all the same morons we saw in the 90s, futilely hoping that some man will validate them.

No one is going to validate them.

If they could write for beans, they'd be a famous BL author themselves, making everyone like whatever dynamic they prefer. Instead, their only skill is crying about how the talented and productive people waste time on The Wrong Art.

Laugh in their faces. It's what they deserve.

[genderkoolaid]

it's other side of it all situation but hhh as a butch transfem people always assume that I'm a lesbian when. i'm Bi. Like, for real, it's just a way that people can be--and I understand that lesbians are v v fond of it but also like. It's like assuming all twinks are gay lol that's absurd and I hate that I have to be so fucking whiny about my orientation bc people assume i'm a lesbian because of an aesthetic.

YEAH GOD!!!!

I posted an article a while ago by a femme bi guy talking about how he's been treated dating women while being femme . People love acting like being GNC fundamentally comes from same-gender attraction, specifically lesbian spaces. Like people genuinely claim that bi women cannot have equally complex relationships to femininity because they are also attracted to men which means they must be closer to cis-heterosexual gender & aesthetics. & also the implication that men are incapable of being attracted to women who are capital-b Butch. its just a whole mess

[ghoulsbian]

Do you have any Rize headcanons? :>

certainly i do!!

• she has nightmares about the washuus finding her, even to this day. back when she was young and living with shachi, she would frequently awake screaming from these nightmares. she'd shake and sob, and shachi would hold onto her until she cried herself into an exhaustive state and fell back asleep. i think he would frequently have to sit with her as a child as she fell asleep, holding her hand, just to assure her everything was okay. the nightmares have become less like night terrors but they still have her waking up drenched in sweat.

• she loves scented candles, and prefers to light those instead of having the lights in her apartment on. rize only gets floral scents, of course. any food scented ones would be entirely too nauseating. her favorite scent is jasmine. she wears a specific jasmine perfume everyday too. she's been using the same kind for years now, jasmine is her signature scent.

• i see rize as a cis woman, who typically uses she/her pronouns but wouldn't be offended by any usage of they/them. she's also a femme lesbian to me. it's never been any question to her that she was a lesbian, i think that she's literally never felt any semblance of true attraction to men. she loves leading them on to psychologically hurt them though, when she's not doing so to kill and eat them. it's like a game for her- how pathetic she can make a man act to try and impress her, knowing she'll never ever reciprocate.

• i've had this headcanon for a long time, but i really don't think she kills women. now, she's no human sympathizer, but there's something about killing or hurting women that just is distasteful to her. rize would NEVER admit to this but i think that she avoids killing women because she understands what it's like to be a woman who is being hunted, and it's just not something she'd be willing to inflict on another woman, human or ghoul. though, i think she has fought with fellow ghoul women before, as she knows they're more durable, but she's never killed them.

• there was a period of her life in which she kept her fingernails very long and very sharp. this was because she found it pleasurable to reach out and suddenly slash men's throats when they least expected it. i think that she ditched this style of nail though because she got tired of having to clean out the dried up blood underneath them! rize misses them at times but wouldn't ever try to get them back.

• she is a very popular book reviewer online! i think she has this whole anonymous blog dedicated to it lol. it's grown quite a fanbase over the course of a few years. everyone eagerly awaits her next review, and gives her suggestions for new books to read and review too. it's something that keeps her sane. she does Q&As on her blog too! her fans are always more than happy to participate.

• rize has a very well-loved stuffed rabbit that shachi gave to her as a girl. she's had to replace the bow around its neck since she got it, but it's still in good shape. it sits on a special shelf in her bedroom, along with a semi-weathered picture of her and shachi and a dried rose. the rabbit is white and named yuki. the ribbon around its neck is baby pink with white lace on the ends.

• rize a very good dancer in my eyes. it's like she has a really natural sense of rhythm. her moves are so lithe. her hips sway smoothly, as smooth as water in a stream. it's utterly entrancing to watch her dance, i believe. she's just so good at it. mayu in particular could watch her for hours.

• it is a rare occasion in which you will see rize in pants. the flowiness of a skirt or a dress is just what makes her most comfortable. i don't even think she really owns pants, minus a pair of sweatpants or two. you'll only see her in these sweatpants if she's feeling under the weather and having a sick day at home. otherwise, to lounge around, she prefers to wear a silk nightgown or a big t-shirt and a pair of panties.

• she's very crafty with the ways in which she styles her hair sometimes. i think she taught herself all sorts of braiding techniques, and she loves to do her hair in different updos and braids. most of the time it's just down, but she likes to spice it up with an updo/braid at times! at least three or four times a month.

hope these will suffice <3 i love my girl rize so much

[anotherradfemlesbian]

Why are y’all condemning same sex attraction? Why are y’all reducing it to a sort of preference or a fetish for x genitals? Do you guys realize how incredibly homophobic this discourse y’all keep parroting is? Like, I’m done with this bullshit. Enough of masculine women claiming to be butch lesbians lusting after males. Same with the army of “femmes” who want “daddies girl-cock inside 🥺”. Enough of females that went from “not being like other girls” to being the most subversive people ever because they’re now trans gay boys who wear makeup and dresses and ohhh you’re so freaking cool lol. No. And on “trans lesbians”. You’re male. You literally can’t call yourself a lesbian. Leave us alone. Move on. Get out of our safe spaces. Please, do what you need to ease your dysphoria, have fun dressing, hope you find those who love and desire you. But, if you have some decency, please, stop calling yourself a lesbian. “Trans lesbian” was used to refer to trans men who felt attracted towards females (yk, same sex attraction but one of them has dysphoria and is trans, same as transmascs). And you took that term from them. You erased our history.

But no! It’s us, the bad cis lesbians and gays. We are so so mean to you! and so transphobic for not going to bed with you, my gosh! because our bodies don’t fucking work with someone of the opposite sex!!! Don’t go telling me this is due to trauma or I’ll fucking murder you.

Trans people and us were siblings until this batch of angsty teenagers, gorged on postmodern gibberish, arrived. You’re destroying decades of activism and education, you’re insulting us with the q slur. You’re all destroying our safe spaces, our communities, twisting our reality, claiming to be part of a community you don’t belong to. You’re ignorant homophobes. You have sentenced us. Fuck off.

[hussyknee]

could it not also be considered androphobia that trans men don’t actually “count” as men when it comes to lesbians…???

What?

Policing the way you self-identify is inherently oppressive and queerphobic, and the particular way it's levelled at trans mascs is transandrophobic. Insisting that trans men can't be lesbians and that lesbians can't be attracted to trans men denies the fact that you can't pick most trans men out of a lesbian lineup, that being assigned female informs a lot of trans mascs' experiences, that they experience most of the same oppressions as women, and rejects the belonging they found in the lesbian identity while sussing out their gender (which may not even be a fixed thing). Like, fucking hell, you're attracted to what someone looks and behaves like, their aesthetic, their energy, their vibes. NOT whether they check the right gender box on a questionnaire. Male is an internal identity that can mean a lot of things. It has nothing to do with who's attracted to you or how you experience attraction.

Also like...the gender binary isn't real lol. Y'all think women and men occupy oppositional sides like a tennis court, and that all other genders fall into one or the other and never the twain shall meet. So that when a Man™ falls into the orbit of a sexuality that predominantly centers fems/women, or when that sexuality doesn't completely exclude all attraction to mascs/men, y'all have an entire cow about it.

Edited to clarify: I meant that the majority of trans mascs are pre-transition, not that no trans masc in any state of transition can look like anything but a woman. Begging y'all to remember that the vast majority of trans people are not medically transitioned because of socio-economic reasons, most are closeted to some extent and (can't find the stats on dysphoric vs. non-dysphoric trans people) some trans mascs don't/ can't even wear binders. And even cis gays mix up femme twinks and butch lesbians. Being able to be shielded among the cis gay community and its allies is one of trans folks's most important protections.

[carlyraejepsans]

So I'm about to ask something that might be personal ? And it deals with some personal baggage that you as someone on the internet might not be interested in hearing about ^^' so you might not want to talk about it as is your right obv !! So uh feel free to tell me to fuck off, but, how did you know you weren't cis?

Ya see, I've been questioning my gender for a while now, and I can't really come up with an answer. I'm a lesbian, that's a pretty big part of my identity, I'm not overly feminine but not masc either, when people refer to me as female I feel super uncomfortable, but I ain't too bothered by some of my body parts, ive daydreamed about switching to they/them pronouns online or masculine pronouns in my native language.... But all of that wouldn't fit with what people might expect of me ? And I'm scared if I actually went through those changes people might think I'm performing a form of queerness I shouldn't be privy to. And the worst part about this is, most of my friends are queer, non binary, trans... Wouldn't they think I'm trying to copy them ? Even though ive had those thoughts long before we met ?

Kinda feel like I'm stuck, and I don't know how to be myself, because myself might not align with how i act or how i seem to be on the outside. idk if you feel the same, but it's especially shitty living in a country with a heavily gendered language you can't escape adjectives forever lmaooo

listen to me. i am holding your face in my hands. nothing and i mean nothing you decide in regards to your gender and/or sexuality will ever be anyone's business but your own. the idea that you can "appropriate" someone else's experience with queerness is a gross bastardization of the discussion on CULTURAL appropriation, which is a false analogy and can devolve into gender essentialism fast.

you have no idea how many trans people (gay people too, but especially trans people) locked themselves in the closet because of that same feeling. of "not beeing privy to those experiences", especially for trans women. i promise, as long as you stop at establishing what a certain label means TO YOU and don't try to decide what it means for other people, then you will never hurt anyone. anyone who says otherwise is a cop.

there are trans men out there who lived as cis lesbians for a very long time, and because that was such a big part of their life, they still think of themselves as such, at least in part. for some it's out of kinship. for some it's out of genuine attachment to the word. same thing with gay men who grew on to become trans women. and trans people in general who still carry their younger selves right by their heart. genderqueers who ended up being cis after all, but who still feel like that period of exploration was crucial in shaping their identity. butch and femme alone, while particularly dear as lesbian identities, encompass all genders and sexualities. wanna know something funny? i throw terms around a lot in english, but if you asked me in italian what my gender identity is, i would say "bisexual". because almost every person in my life who's ever called me bisexual actually meant "nonbinary", or "whatever weird thing those transgendereds got going on lately" (some of them probably meant intersex as well, which just for the record i am not. as far as i know, at least). is it an outdated definition? sure. but unlike the literal italian word for nonbinary, bisexual is actually a neutral noun lol. and after all, my experience with gender does inform my sexuality, just as my sexuality informs my experience with gender. it's not wrong, technically. but if someone somehow assumes I'm a lesbian (which happens a lot lol) i don't usually correct them i just... go with it too, y'know?

anyway, what it sounds like to me is that you're obviously going through a period of questioning your gender and or presentation, which you took notice of, but you also feel some kind of peer pressure or societal expectation from other queer people that is denying you a safe, healthy form of self expression in this new period of your life that you obviously wish for yourself. please, try not to pay it too much mind. try out whatever label or description calls to you. change it without notice if you find something better. and if anyone gives you trouble for it, eat them. good luck buddy.

[fuck-customers]

Pls tell me someone else has been through something similar.

TL;DR: Paid for a strangers groceries. Got asked out by him through his friend. Denied coz Idk why he did that & uh... he was deff not femme presenting so not my preference (& I still feel bad about it lmao). 🥲 #rip

○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●

I don't hate this customer, but I constantly wonder if anyone has had a shared experience like this so if you have, PLEASE leave it in the comments (or reblogs).

(*Shared experience as in... a stranger/customer asking you out for something you did for them while on the clock or something you showed them at work that's a work perk.)

When I was a cashier at the american grocery store "English en Español", I was in a low income area. I constantly had cis men hitting on me for no valid reason, as I'm not the socially accepted aesthetic for "attractive" (probably because it was a small town so there wasn't much selection & I live in cities so I dressed/acted differently than most? Idk. I'm a transman, pre-t & pre-surgery, but present as femme for safety reasons, espec in small towns). I often didn't notice until coworkers told me after they had left or until the man, himself, told me straight up. It was common enough that we had a signal bc apparently I suck at picking up on people hitting on me. NO ONE working that night signaled for this one, despite several of my coworkers seeing this.

So needless to say, I did NOT see this coming.

There was a guy with two girls checking out their groceries at my register. It was late at night, close to closing. When it came to the guys portion of the groceries, he split things up to afford everything. (I feel that lol.) His card declined on the last part. He was maybe $25ish(?) short (idr exact amount). He asked to take off a few things & I was like "Wait, wait." & jumped around & slid my own card & paid for his stuff. At that time (about a decade ago) my finances were mostly stable. I was doing what I could for anyone who needed it. It wasn't abnormal for me to pay for people whose groceries got declined by under $50 if I had it that month. I was stuck at a grocery store all day & people quite literally need food. It's the *least* I could do while financially stable, yknow? He wasn't someone I singled out... just someone else I managed to have the privilege of helping.

But this guy looked like he was both a) about to cry & b) incredibly embarrassed. He barely whispered thank you to me before grabbing everything & RUNNING out the door. His two friends thanked me profusely & followed him out *normally*. Lol.

I didn't have anyone else to check out coz it was almost 10pm at that point, so I was just vibing at my register. Maybe 5 whole minutes later (yes, THAT LONG) one of the girls the guy was with comes back in & runs up to my register.

I didn't say anything coz I was confused. Why is everyone running? Why does everyone have so much energy? Jeeze. 💀

She said, quickly & excitedly, "Remember the guy you just saw that you paid for his groceries?"

Me: "👁👄👁... yeah?"

Her: "Well, he wanted to know if you wanted to go out with him. Like, on a date."

Me, confused, not knowing what to say, stalling: "Uhhhhhhm."

In my mind, I'm thinking: 'Why would he want that? Because I paid for his groceries? Does he think I'm one of those dommes that gives money to their subs? Oh no. I'm a sub, not a dom! Maybe he just thinks I'm nice? Oh god, he's gonna find out I'm NOT nice if we date... but I really only like femme presenting people. How tf do I say that in a small town where I don't want that to get out? I don't know what's happening here, but-"

Me, without hesitation: "Sorry, but ...I like women?"

Her: "👁👄👁... Was that a question?"

Me: "...No?"

Her: "... 👁👄👁 ...Okay, I'll tell him. Thanks!"

Again, with the running. Running out the door. To the car. They looked about the same age as me. Early 20s. Like... where are they getting this ENERGY??? 😭

He NEVER came into the location I worked at again while I was there for 3 years lmao. The two girls did. Ik he lived in the area. This was before the time of grocery delivery. So uh... I feel awful lol.

I also feel awful because I never really say no to anyone in that context or break up with anyone. I always force *them* to say no or break up with me so that I don't have to do it. 😅 I'd never in a million years lead anyone on coz that's completely unfair, but I really just need the other person to do it & I couldn't in that situation so it still sits in the back of my mind like, "oh my god what have I done" kind of catastrophic thoughts spiraling from there. Meanwhile, he probably doesn't even remember I exist. 💀

So rip to me, I guess.

Please tell me someone else has had some kind of interaction where a stranger/customer has asked you out or tried to get with you based on something you did (or did for them) on the clock or a work perk you showed them/they saw. 😭 Pls make me feel less alone in this lmao.

Also make sure to give the follow up tea! Did you go out? Did it work? Are you married? ☕️ 🦊

When I was 19 I gave a lady a coupon for money off (I'm 50 I forget how much it was for.) and this lady tried to hook me up with her 13yo daughter. I dunno if that counts.

-Rodney

[kageygreye-skies]

didn’t think chappell roan would impact me SO much after finding her and her artistry but she kind of literally made me fully accept that i was a lesbian and showed me there’s space for me in the community LMFAO.

allow me to take you on a fuckin journey lmfao. heres a lil story about a recent revelation about my identity that dominoed from listening to the rise and fall of a midwest princess. lol

i found chappell technically whenever she released pink pony club lol i just had never processed it was her. (i listened to midwest princess for the first time a long while who and when it got to ppc, i paused my phone, and yelled, “THAT WAS HER? THE WHOLE TIME??”), her pop sound and drag visuals were something i found refreshing and exciting. discography went triple platinum in my household fr.

watching a lesbian drag queen rise in the public has been so lovely to see, as a queer singer myself. watching that same woman be so open about her experience as a lesbian, pay homage to other gay individuals and icons, turn down the white house for a pride performance, perform at prides in states where lgbt rights are consistently under threat,,, its beyond inspiring to me! and reminds me to remember what i really want to do with my career as a performer and the people i want to lift up and pay my respects to.

this ultimately caused me to want to brush up on the queer history i knew and start learning about the history i didnt. at that time my focus veered to history about lesbians.. because i wanted to search for lesbians that shared my experience.. if there were any that did.

i have had a strange relationship with my gender and sexuality since i was 13, coming out first as bi at 15, and nonbinary at 17 (although i experienced gender dysphoria long before then). i have used the nonbinary label since, but my sexuality was something i was never sure i could settle on. i flipped between id’ing as bi and lesbian for months until i just stopped using labels so i didnt have to think abt that shit anymore😭

the term lesbian was what felt the most right to me, after years of periods of trying to convince myself that if i jump through strange loopholes and squint a little, that i could potentially like a man. i would worry and think things like, “what if im wrong and i just havent found one that i can maybe like? what if there actually is a boy who is exactly like the idealized anime-ass version of boys in my head who is also soft and girlie and would wear matching dresses with me?” i would have to use plenty of implausible what ifs just to entertain the idea. i did this even despite the fact that i cannot and do not picture a future with a man, i have only questioned my physical attraction to men when they “look like girls,” i am almost always slightly grossed out when men express sexual attraction to me, and have not had any kind of intimacy with guys where i didnt feel almost completely disconnected. i didnt find men fulfilling. it took me very long to realize that if i have to literally FORCE myself into liking them…i dont like them lol.

i have never had to question my attraction to women, butches + femmes,, ever. i could spend hours writing both prose, poetry, music, screenplays,, just fuckin dissertation after dissertation about women.. and sometimes it has taken me hours to list at least 5 reasons of “why i like this guy” that didnt involve him reminding me of a woman. guys, the comphet.. was rough. very grateful i have a therapist lol

once i accepted again that i was definitely solely sapphic, i still felt my more-than-partial disconnect from womanhood excluded me from being able to claim the lesbian label, despite how right it began to feel. i was also worried that the people around me would think i was completely detransitioning to cis,, which definitely was not the case. although i am fine with feminine gendered terms and pronouns, and while my expression and interests lean slightly more feminine, my relationship with “womanhood” has always been messy and complicated. i remember first-ish experiencing dysphoria around when i was 11, although i didnt know what that meant at the time. for as long as i can remember, the concept of “being a woman” was not something i felt was entirely me.

i knew there were lesbians that were gender non conforming, but i was not at all aware of the intertwining of lesbianism and gender identity until i began reading more about lesbian history. realizing there have always been lesbians outside of the binary (the popular sunset lesbian flag was designed by emily gwen, a nonbinary lesbian), people who used lesbian/butch as their gender identity, cis lesbians who use pronouns other than she/her, lesbians who use/have used hrt (like me i used hrt for 2 years👋🏾😀) lesbians who bind or pursue top surgery… they were always there. i am halfway through the stone butch blues now and it has actually changed my life. not only did it increase my already overflowing gratitude for my lesbian and queer elders and their experiences… but it made me really realize there has always been a space for me. when that sank in.. i felt immense relief. and then i cried for a fuckin LONG ass time lmao

since all of this i have felt a lot more sure of myself, and have embraced myself in a way i think i have always struggled to before.

so to recap… i am a lesbian. and its pretty rad. and i also love chappell roan. she reminds me of all the reasons why i love being queer and is someone i want to look up to as i continue in my finally-starting-to-go-somewhere career as a performer. one day we will collab and ill tell her all of this in person (watch out yall! it will happen i can sense it😤)

[ozimagines]

I wanted to tell you all something but I can’t quite remember… oh, yeah…

HAPPY PRIDE!!!

I’ve been out for about five years now and it was the best decision of my life, even though I lost people I was close to because of it.

Oz is a large part of what helped me get there. I liked men growing up but I liked women too, and when I learned what Non Binary was (Deep South, no education) I fell in love with them too. I watched I Love Lucy and had a crush on both Ricky and Lucy. I thought for the longest time that straightness was a choice because I assumed everyone was attracted to everyone like I am😂 For those who don’t know, I’m pansexual fem-leaning and gender non conforming in my choice of gender expression even though I’m a Cisgender woman.

Watching Tobias Beecher, who had a wife, fall in love with a man and struggle to place these feelings that are so familiar and yet so foreign at the same time. I assumed since I liked men at all, that I just needed to choose to be straight. Watching him try to understand whether or not he was gay, and finally come to terms that he is who he is and labels aren’t always for him made my coming out easier. In fact, he’s the reason I knew I was pan. Because I liked everyone, like him, and the love didn’t feel wrong or lesser when it was for the same sex or non binaries. It just felt like more love.

Fiona empowered me to start expressing my gender the way I wanted. I still dress fairly femme, but I like to spice it up with masculine features and clothes. I like the androgyny, even if I also like my she/her pronouns. I got to see her break the mould on what gender expression was. And she looked gorgeous every step of the way, so I figured I could do the same. Bought a beautiful black suit years ago to impress a girl, and it just felt right.

And not for nothing, but LGBTQIA+ has a higher rate of sexual assault, and I was a few years ago. I think that’s why I gravitate towards Peter Schibetta and James Robson. I understand what it’s like to be taken like that. To be reduced. These characters made me feel like it wasn’t my fault, like I could grow past it and be okay one day. During this pride month, let’s make an extra effort to be there for our brothers, sisters, and siblings who were sexually assaulted or raped for being who they are.

I know this isn’t my usual post, but Oz is my quintessential show for many reasons. It helped me understand that I was gay and feel safe coming out. It helped me feel seen after my assault. It’s discourse on mental health made me feel like a person again. Oz is, and always will be, the show that made me feel like it was okay to be myself, and I hope others had similar experiences.

Also, I’m white, but for years now, have been listening to my POC brothers, sisters, and siblings to hear about intersectionality in the LGBTQIA+ community. Think Billy Keane; being a POC and gay is DIFFICULT sometimes. Being a POC and being non-binary is rough. Its important this pride that we spend extra time on our POC community and make sure they’re okay.

And finally, than you to the allies. I understand that supporting the LGBTQIA+ community, but I lived in the Deep South, and had some straight cis friends who mustered up tremendous courage to stand by me as I figured things out. Yes, people should be supporting us, but sometimes they do to their done detriment in their social or romantic lives. Thank you allies, for making the world a little bit better for us.

Happy Pride; I’ll be focusing on lots on Pride themes this month (not like my page is super straight anyways lol) and hope to hear requests from my LGBTQIA+ followers especially if you want something tailored to your specific experience. Because I know it’s hard to find fanfiction for certain genders or sexualities, so I’ll try to come up with some in my own, but also hope for your creative inspiration in making this Oz themed Pride a wonderful one!

(Im also going to continue writing the asks I’ve gotten before this obviously, lol. I got some BOMB ass requests and I’m just spending lots of time on them to get them right. Some are characters I’ve never written before so I’ve been binging their scenes. All will be out soon!)

[maxellminidisc]

I do definitely think a lot of peoples perception of penile pleasure is still so founded in idk ridicule solely because they associate penises with cis het able bodied men. But like they're not the only ones with dicks, and not every cis man's relationship with sex and even his penis is the same or under the category of the dreaded sort of toxic masculinity we're so often exposed to when we talk about sex or penises.

Disabled cis men for example as that post pointed it out is a great example of this, disabled peoples sexuality is so often erased and denied, including that of cis men in the community. I think it's rather cruel to both deny the sexuality of disabled men on top of ridicule possible tools that make sexual pleasure far more accessible to them.

And like again, not only cis men have penises. Tons of trans people have them, be it trans women/ femmes who enjoy the stimulation of their penises and trans men/ masc who have phaloplasty or bottom growth they absolutely want respected as a penis. If they want toys to play with to have fun and enjoy the stimulation of their penises then they should! Treating toys for penile stimulation as ridiculous cause cis men are part of the audience who enjoy them can absolutely make someone feel like these toys aren't for them.

Not to mention, even people without penises can absolutely enjoy them lol some of us have partners who have penises and we derive pleasure from watching them enjoy these toys, we derive pleasure from being put in the position to control these toys and ultimately control a partners pleasure, etc.

Like truly, toys for penile stimulation could and do serve such a broad audience but so much of the reputation they have is as these ugly tools for cis het men to cum in and it's so unfortunate. Because if we really gave these things a lil more consideration, who knows what else kind of advancements toys for dicks could be making in terms of design itself, materials, function, and especially accessibility.

[moesartblog]

Incredibly stupid/uneducated question incoming:

Can you like,,, explain Butch? Is it only lesbians? Is it a gender expression? Is it a like series of life choices and values? I'm honestly asking, because the way people talk about it and the way I'd kind of come to understand it as a sheltered 90's kid are not lineing up so well. I just didn't think Google was a good place to kind of try and figure this out.

I'm so sorry to bother you, and hope you are having a good day! Thanks so much for your time!

you dont need to worry about asking questions in good faith. also sorry this is a long reply

Trying to answer what butch is kinda complicated because it's such a complex identity. There are as many versions of butch as there are butches in the world.

There's a lot of discourse online based on flawed ideas of gender and sexuality that have people claim it's a lesbian only term (femme as well) but throughout its history it's been used by all sorts of queer people. Idk how much you know about how lesbianism has changed throughout the last century or so, but before 70's/80's introduction of political lesbians and transphobic cis lesbian movements, being a lesbian meant, in general, a woman who has sex with other women. this didnt exclude people who also has sex with or were attracted to men, or people of other genders. being a lesbian was something you did, not something you were. bc of that, you'd have butches/femmes who may not have been exclusively attracted to the same gender. There's been resurgences and push back of the recent idea that theyre lesbian exclusive terms.

It can be a very complex identity. It can mean gender expression. The popular idea is that it's a queer woman expressing queer masculinity. That includes clothing, certain roles taken, and other aspects of gender expression. It's also as malleable as people can decide. It can mean anything ranging from the classic leather dyke, to exaggerated masculinities (like drag kings), to Black specific expression like studs ( i should note someone being a stud does not automatically mean they identify as butch, but there are a lot of Black studs who so identify with butch too) . Things like stone butches tend to denote the sexual preference of not wanting to be touched during sex.

And yeah google's not the best place to find the nuances of queer identity I would know lol

Theres a cool poem I wish I could find that puts all of this into perspective. There's a line i think that went something like "a butch is not a man, except when he is" god i wish i could find it. if someone knows what im talking about please share.

[olderthannetfic]

i'm a lesbian femme top who is into other femmes (who, thus, are bottoms) and I still really really hate the idea that butch top/femme bottom dynamics among F/F or M/M couples are somehow inherently "heteronormative." You absolutely must not have met anyone who fits those labels if you think they are having sex or presenting their gender in the exact same way as a (hypothetical) straight person (because obviously, not every straight person is the strict gender-role-following strawman these people think up in these scenarios, but even so, there's a lot more freedom and fucking around with gender about what it means to be a "masc" man or a "femme" woman in queer communities than straight culture tends to promote, like societal ideas of the kind of "feminine" a woman needs to be to attract straight men - even if plenty of those men don't really care - are way more stringent than what it means to be a femme lesbian. Plenty of femmes I know dress casually a lot more often, or wear minimal or no makeup frequently, in situations where society tells feminine straight women that's unthinkable. And like, masc gay leather dudes aren't doing a "straight guy" kind of masculinity and are visibly, distinctively "queer" even to straight cis people, lol. In both cases, IME it tends to be a lot more centered around the individual's personal expression and comfort than about fitting into a pre-assigned societal role.)

I really wish people discussing this stuff especially in the context of fandom would consider how much they're just kind of reifying heteronormativity. You're furthering the idea that topping = male and bottoming = female if you see queer couples that feature those roles (especially if the top is the more masc and the bottom the more femme one) as somehow reproducing heteronormativity. You're also suggesting that what queer people really want to be is just like straight people, when nothing could be further from the truth from most people I know like that. I've never met someone who fits into those "roles" who doesn't resent the idea that they're somehow "acting straight" by doing so.

Also.... two people of the same gender having sex is just never going to be "straight" no matter how you slice it. A woman getting fucked by another woman is not "having sex like a straight woman" because the person fucking her is not a man! How hard it is for these people to understand. It just makes it so obvious that straight is default in their mind, they're desperate to fit us into it.

--

[possibilistfanfiction]

(1/2) Yeah absolutely, I get what you mean with Ava just being blissed out by Beatrice. I guess I phrased it wrong, not necessarily about directly comparing B to a bro, but it's more like, I wonder if Ava - in the same way that Beatrice is allowed to explore her identity - if Ava allows herself be introspective and examine her own attraction and ~types, so to speak. But maybe it's not needed?

(2/2) Like is Ava in the gog so on the other side of identity acceptance that she can just be ~present with B and isn't really hung up on a needing to further explore herself within the relationship? Like that natural freedom she has to her helps her make peace with concepts comes to her much faster and more naturally than B? (Also thank u for ur time u legend)

ok i'm not Entirely sure what this is getting at but just to clarify a few things that i think it's asking:

1 ava's experience of/with queerness is profoundly different than bea's. i don't think that ava's ever struggled with being queer any more than she's struggled with not having the access to experience everything she wants. for ava, desire is so integral to her ability to experience what life is ('i want to live') without systemic, more than any, limitations, & so it makes sense that queerness would just be a part of how to fully access pleasure & want & love & safety. (there's so much more in here about how if ava had been given care & access then being disabled wouldn't have taken away any huge degree of pleasure from her life, but that's for another day! whew.) bea's experience with queerness is one of fear, of it being 'a flaw,' one that made her feel not valued, not worthy. so even just within their characters, i don't think that ava's exploration of queerness is internal so much as it is just... getting to feel the things that come along with love, especially queer love. bea's is allowing herself to be who she is, in whatever way that may be or look at the time. also, ava is white, & bea is Asian, & there's cultural & systemic harms that come along with intersections of identity (including ava's disability too, of course). so i think ava's queerness is an external exploration, in a way, & bea's is just like. letting herself feel anything at all, & then working for that to be positive.

2 listen... ava isn't on love island lmao.

she liked JC, maybe even loved him in a way, & then Fell IN LOVE with bea. even if she did have 'types' (which is like... beyond a little laugh, kind of weird in most cases), i really just do not fuck with the idea that masc of center women, especially butches & dykes, are in the same category as cis men. butches & dykes are like... god tier (so are femmes, y'all know i love u!). but like, even if ava DID have types, bea with short hair & a good pair of pants isn't anywhere close to JC in any categorization?? maybe if ava was like hmm soft butches?? hot.... bea, tasha cloud.... awesome. but bea & a boy. no. i think ava's 'type' is just people who show her patience & kindness & are funny & smart. beyond that, she's just glad she's hot & they're hot

3 there are so many ways — infinite ways!!!! — to be butch! & they're all beautiful & they're all hard to come to! i think i write abt bea's queerness bc a) i love writing abt being butch bc i love being butch lol; b) being butch is abt private decisions you have to make, all the fucking time! how do u want ppl to read you as a woman/dfab person who isn't a trans man but like... doesn't feel like a CIS WOMAN? do u feel safe to be masc? what does androgyny & masculinity look like TO YOU? butchness for me is actually so fucking soft, & wonderful. i don't picture (or write) bea as a stone or hard butch; there's a comfortable breath of an in-between there: cottons & linens & soft hair & clean skin, a big bed, a little mascara, the very rare suit but not often, & only for events. it's on purpose, bc i think ppl often have a p reductive view of masculinity & butchness, & femininity & femmeness, & all the gentleness that exists in being a dyke kind of gets lost. it's just... not femme. there are so, so many ways to be soft butch especially. & those are all decisions that have to be made all the time. like it is constant &, while having a partner who is truly just along for the ride is helpful, my wife being supportive of me hasn't made those decisions on my behalf. i have to make them, every day, every time i get dressed, every time i put on a watch or shoes, even just to like... go to the store. it rly is smth u are constantly figuring out, even without like hyper-homophobic parents fucking you up as a kiddo. so yeah, i think, if ava wants to try anything w appearance, bea wouldn't care at all, she would be just as happy. but like... the essence of being a dyke isn't abt appearance so much as it is everything, & aesthetic is just a way to reflect who you are. & i know i've written this, very clearly lol, but bea's queerness (& ava's, & anyone's) has absolutely nothing to do with who they date, or marry, or love, or fuck. being queer is a politic, an expression, a way of existing. being a dyke is those things in spades, with a very, very special orientation toward liberation throughout history.

4 w my life partner, & my friends, all i care about is that they're happy. like legit. are ur material needs met? do you feel loved by me? -- if those are both good strong yeses, then like... we are good. i cannot imagine loving my partner less if she wanted to do literally anything aesthetically other than maybe like... a giant face tattoo or something lol. but exploring expression? i would never feel less than proud or brave. do i have favorite stuff? of course! do i think my friends sometimes make decisions that are not the cutest possible? of course! so do it! bc i want to! bc i want to try. & so yeah, i don't think ava would ever think less of bea, & i don't think bea would ever think less of ava. it's not like, a lack of care abt being physically attracted to someone, it's like... u love that person, & their body is gorgeous. ava's disabled, too, so u know there is profound care that bea shows & has to grow into as that changes & shifts too!

anyway i still don't know what this was rly asking lol but... butches/dykes should not be in the same category as cis men at all ever lol; ava & bea are just horny & in love. rules of thumb

[gloriousmonsters]

hi!! obviously feel free to ignore, but just in case my other ask got lost i wanted to send another :) i just recently got into tgcf and have been going through various tags and i really liked reading your posts!! i was just curious to see how you view sqx's gender since rereading? the more fic ive read since finishing the book, the more surprised ive been to find that most of it (at least that ive read so far) really ignores any discussion of either gender id or having sqx be gnc or anything. like, it seems like if its a serious fic people write him in male form and if its a fun fic people write her in female form (and my/hx in female form as well, which is a whole other convo) and regardless of form its all very much adhering to expectations for whatever gender the author is writing, not really any gnc stuff. anyway! sorry, i got carried away, but i guess im really just looking for an insightful take on gnc cis sqx so that i can have some hope restored that there are people who have a nuanced take lol

hey, sorry for the late reply! I got your other ask, I just have been pretty caught up with work and other distracting things the past few days..../week. what is time

Honestly I haven't read much fic for TGCF at all and less featuring SQX, but i'm... sadly not surprised at hearing what you've mostly run into. People don't often seem to be up for any sort of complicated gender stuff on the average day, so it makes sense it wouldn't be addressed in a lot of fics, and SQX's femininity--in whatever form--being treated mostly as a 'fun' thing instead of a serious part of SQX's gender is... frustrating but again, not surprising.

It's been a bit since I last looked at TGCF, but my personal interpretation remains that SQX is a femme man, much as I view Ling Wen as a butch woman--I very much don't want to say it's not as valid or interesting to interpret either of them as trans, but for me personally both characters are most interesting to read as GNC cis characters. That's its own whole struggle, one that the issue of their worshipers essentially deciding what their gender is for them--because they don't conform to the conventions of their own--is painfully resonant with.

(I'll try not to talk more about Ling Wen more on this SQX gender post, but I'll make a last sidebar about I wish people would talk about Ling Wen's gender more in general.I barely even see people acknowledge that she HAS a male form or any of her character as it relates to her being masc/butch.)

SQX clearly enjoys wearing his female form, and it very much comes across as dressing up in clothes that really express how you feel--he's so much cuter, it's so fun to wear a female form (to such an extent that he will try to pester anyone left alone with him for five seconds into doing so, because how can you NOT ENJOY looking pretty??). But to me he never seems dysphoric about his male form--just bored and sometimes hurt by the limitations it imposes on him. Being a man isn't an issue for him, acting like a man is.

And I understand that for some people there's little difference between those things--a lot of people find their gender nonconformity means they're not that gender at all. I feel like another factor is the well-meaning anvil that got dropped a while ago of 'you can't write a stereotype, so all your queer men have to be normal macho and all your queer women have to be normal feminine' which further erased the very concept of GNC-ness, at least when it came to writing fic. I think that's one of the reasons I'm so attached to cis femme SQX--GNC characters, or even interpretations more complex than 'completely conventionally cis or binary, also conventionally (gender) trans' are thin on the ground in fandom.

(a sidebar: writing a guy as a uke-in-all-but-name is not the same as writing a guy as meaningfully gnc. like pursue your bliss and write what you want and all that, but I had the haunting suspicion that there's probably some 'gay twink that cries a lot and always bottoms' SQXs out there and i want to register that it's nooooot what i'm talking about when i talk about being gnc. WHOLE other discussion packed away inside that one. let's skip it for now)

I wish I had something more specific or insightful to say here, lol. You can enjoy looking like a woman and not be a woman. You can dislike being masculine and still be a man. SQX clearly, despite the not-cool reasons for him having it (because the implications of two gods being close, even if they were brothers, was just TOO GAY, we gotta make it straight! are their worshipers those people who genderbend just one sibling to write incest because i have some Annoyed Words for those people. Stop Making It Boring) is very attached to his female form and enjoys wearing it, and while it's not given a great deal of time, there's obviously friction between him and his brother based in the fact that, even while not wearing a female form, SQX just doesn't... act quite like a man should.

(This is pure personal interpretation/headcanon, but he often doesn't see the problem with how he's acting because he simply has an internal sense of gender that doesn't clash with looking like a woman or not acting like a man--gnc gender identity is no less deeply or completely felt than any other. It takes SWD or someone else reacting badly to remind him, ah, apparently not every man would be like this if he had the chance. Which seems fake, but ok)

if there's a conclusion, there's this--to write SQX as either a straightforward male or female character is just missing his whole point. He can be a gnc man, genderfluid, a trans woman--but whatever he is is complicated, despite how untroubled he usually seems by it all. There's tension between what he is, how he's viewed, and the limited means he has to express himself, and while that obviously can't be the point of every fic he appears in, it's always there. And cis gnc SQX remains, in the end, my favorite lens. It's unlikely, but I do hope someone got that boy a cute outfit at some point postcanon, it's the least he deserves.

[redheadbigshoes]

It’s rly interesting tho cuz I live in Canada but I have no idea what our lgbt history is. It’s almost like it’s non existent so all history I go by is from the US. And from what u said earlier - sometimes I get annoyed by people/younger gay ppl who don’t know lgbt history But it’s really only because they have bad takes and make up history or are lesbophobic and back it up by saying “well all non-men used to be called lesbians because there was no other word for mspec women” or “transness was never included in lesbianism” or something of the sort. So while I do absolutely recognize that the US and gay ppls history is not the centre of all lgbt history (literally don’t even like the US) I do take a lot from it because it Is still history and I really don’t have anything else to go by to defend my community yk. Like recently there’s been A Lot of lesbian/bi discourse on twt and a lot of the time it’s younger bi ppl/young women who are being lesbophobic and say that they were the most oppressed group/sexuality in the 20th century and were pushed out of lesbian spaces and ‘movements’ (not sure which they were referring to) While Historically butches were pushed out of the feminist movement because they were seen as men/imitating their oppressors and femmes were also pushed out if they were dating a butch. So yeah. That’s according to US lgbt history. But yeah. Anyways sorry for saying so much and probably went off track but I think it’s just the case that US lgbt history is most accessible - but even then it’s still hard to find

I’m very sorry if I misunderstand you, but I really hope you don’t support “mspec” lesbians lol, because you were criticizing something lesbians say to lesbophobes who love to include men in lesbianism (and to clarify, I am talking about cis and trans men). Because from what I saw the people who say “all non-men used to be called lesbians because there was no other word for mspec women” are usually people who criticize “mspec” lesbians, not people who say that to support them.

I know how you use US history as like the default because you don’t know any other history, but my criticism here is to consider US history as universal history. Yes it’s still LGBTQ+ history, but what I’m complaining about is how people use it to criticize everything else as if everywhere the LGBTQ+ history was the exact same as the US.

Obviously if younger people say certain things because they’re ignorant about the history or if they’re simply saying something wrong it’s totally fair to call them out, I’ve never said otherwise. My problem is 1) someone being younger than you does not = having less knowledge, 2) acting as if you’re superior just because you’re older is simply a shitty thing to do. Someone’s age shouldn’t matter. Actually, what I hate about other queers using the age card is that they reproduce the same argument a lot of homophobic cishets use.

I have no problem to use American history as the default or parameter for LGBTQ+ related issues. I have a problem with acting as if the American history is the only history. Maybe you and everyone else (including me) should try to do more research about other countries history regarding LGBTQ+. If we know how US-centered the community is we have the power to just go online and learn by ourselves about other places.

I don’t like the mindset “well, the only LGBTQ+ history we know it’s from the US, so let’s just keep it like that”.