#thanks audre lorde!

[inhernature]

I forgot what we were celebrating. Because we were always celebrating something, a new job, a new poem, a new love, a new dream.

AUDRE LORDE (Zami: A New Spelling of My Name)

[ftmtftm]

I'm begging other trans people to read an ounce of Black Feminist or Decolonialist Feminist writing. I'm on my hands and knees and begging you. I promise you, I promise you, there is so much more to Feminist theory than anything you have picked up from White/Radical/Pop/Liberal Feminism I promise you. Read There Is No Hierarchy Of Oppressions By Audre Lorde. I have a link to the PDF right here you can read it for free. Take my hand I can't do this alone (thanks glass beach). Peace And Love On Planet Earth.

[deathless--aphrodite]

Jaime + Brienne + unbidden

Jaime I, AFFC / Jenny Xie, Distance Sickness / George Cochran Lambdin, The Consecration / Brienne II, AFFC / Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Memory of One Day in a Kitchen / John Bauer, If someone else cries when you laugh then you will have your tears back / Jaime I, ADWD / Jack Gilbert, The Sixth Meditation: Faces of God / Anne-Louis Girodet, The Funeral of Atala / Brienne III, AFFC / Audre Lorde, Movement Song / Richard Bergh, Nordic summer’s evening / Jaime I, AFFC / Sally Rooney, Normal People / John Everett Millais, Huguenot lovers on St. Bartholomew’s Day / Brienne VIII, AFFC / Arundhati Roy, The End of Imagination / Gregory Hildebrandt, My Thanks To You / Jaime VI, ASOS / Frank Bidart, To The Dead / William Hatherall, The Battle Between King Arthur and Sir Mordred

[hairtusk]

do you have any other reading recommendations? feminist and/or philosophy in general? don't know much about these topics and would love to learn

absolutely, thank you so much for asking! i decided to interpret this as feminist texts, philosophy/political texts by female authors, and a sprinkling of feminist fiction, for ease. in honesty, i am more interested in political and theological philsophy than anything else, so there'll be a lot of that. each text is linked with the appropriate goodreads entry (i don't use the site, but i know lots of people track their reading lists there)

[necessary disclaimer! i do not necessarily agree with all of the ideas posited in these texts! i can't believe i have to reiterate this!]

Feminist Texts:

• Andrea Dworkin: Pornography: Men Possessing Women; Intercourse; Right-Wing Women; Woman Hating

• Simone de Beauvoir: The Second Sex; Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (autobiography)

• Adrienne Rich: Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution; Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence; Essential Essays: Culture, Politics, and the Art of Poetry

• Audre Lorde: Sister Outsider; The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House

• Germaine Greer: The Female Eunuch; The Whole Woman; The Change: Women, Ageing, and Menopause

• Angela Davis: Women, Race & Class • Naomi Wolf: The Beauty Myth

• Betty Freidan: The Feminine Mystique

• bell hooks: Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism

• Susan Brownmiller: Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape; Femininity

• Shulasmith Firestone: The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution

• Marilyn French: The War Against Women; A History of Women in the World (series); Beyond Power: On Women, Men & Morals

Philosophy Focused Texts / Criticism / Other Politics:

• Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil; The Origins of Totalitarianism; The Human Condition

• Simone Weil: Gravity and Grace; Waiting for God; The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind

• Susan Sontag: Illness as Metaphor & AIDS and Its Metaphors; Regarding The Pain of Others

[poetrysmackdown]

hi i love your account ! i was wondering if you had any favorite black poets as i’m always searching for more black writers to delve into :3

Hi, thank you!! To start, I'll always be a huge Audre Lorde fan—"A Litany for Survival" was one of the first poems I read that actually got me interested in poetry, so needless to say I was disappointed that it went out in Round 1 haha. fair play to Gwendolyn Brooks though 🫡

Outside of the poets that featured in this competition, I've most enjoyed Aimé Cesairé, Claudia Rankine who I also mentioned in my previous recs, and Sonia Sanchez (in particular Homegirls & Handgrenades, but I couldn't find any poems from it online). For one less well-known than those three, I also really recommend Water & Power by Steven Dunn! That book is a wonder of moving parts—ethnographic interviews, taxidermy museums, war crimes, crazy crazy. Beautifully crafted. It's billed as a hybrid novel but I first encountered it in a class focused on prose poetry, so that's the lens that I've come to view it through. Oh, and also check out 1919 by Eve L. Ewing!

If anyone else has any more recommendations, please share them below!

[doberbutts]

hey jaz, my sympathies regarding the responses to that post, it's unbearable to see. thus, some positive news perhaps, have you heard? :)

"Berlin has officially renamed one of its streets for the late activist, scholar and writer Audre Lorde. She was a regular visitor to the city and unleashed the anti-racism debate in Germany." – https://www.dw.com/en/a-69567653

I had not heard, but I am glad to hear it. Thank you for your support.

[dearorpheus]

hello, your blog's vibes are absolutely impeccable! I was wondering if you could recommend me some nonfiction reading on eroticism, religion or fear? I'd love to read about any of these topics, but I never really know where to start looking for good theory books or essays, so I usually end up reading fiction instead. any nonfiction recs would be deeply appreciated (and on other topics too if you have particular favorites). have a nice day!

hello! thank you for the kind words♡

hm! some reading might be: - Erotism: Death and Sensuality + Visions of Excess, Bataille - Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty & Venus in Furs, Deleuze - The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography, Angela Carter - Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose, Leigh Cowart - Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson - A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes - Uses of the Erotic, Audre Lorde - A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, 1932-1953 - Foucault's Histor[ies] of Sexuality - Being and Nothingness, Sartre - The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson - Aesthetic Sexuality: A Literary History of Sadomasochism, Romana Byrne - Pleasure Principles: An Interview with Carmen Maria Machado - "The Aesthetics of Fear", Joyce Carol Oates - Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing, Isabel Cristina Pinedo - "On Fear", Mary Ruefle - "In Search of Fear", Philippe Petit - Female Masochism in Film: Sexuality, Ethics and Aesthetics, Ruth Mcphee - Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva - Hélène Cixous' Stigmata (i am thinking esp of "Love of the Wolf") - Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis - anything from Caroline Walker Bynum.... Wonderful Blood, Fragmentation and Redemption, Holy Feast and Holy Fast - excerpts of Letter From a Region in my Mind, James Baldwin - Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche (re: Christian morality, death of God) - Waiting for God, Simone Weil - The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus - Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung - "The Genesis of Blame", Anne Enright

do know as well that Lapham's Quarterly has issues dedicated entirely to these subjects you've mentioned: eros, religion, fear ! there's also this wonderful ask from @rotgospels on biblical horror theory

other non-fic i will always rec: - "On Self-Respect", Joan Didion - Illness as Metaphor + Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag - The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, Maggie Nelson - "The Laugh of the Medusa", Hélène Cixous - Ways of Seeing, John Berger - The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca Solnit - The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry some non-fic things i've read lately: - "Mary Shelley's Obsession with the Cemetery", Bess Lovejoy - "Horror Lives in the Body", Megan Pillow - "The Cruel Myth of the Suffering Artist", Patrick Nathan - "The Rub of Rough Sex", Chelsea G. Summers - "The Lost Art of Memorizing Poetry", Nina Kang - "The problem with English", Mario Saraceni

[heterophobicdyke]

For your anon, ZAMI by Audre Lorde and Lesbian Sex by Joann Loulan are all on annasarchive to download for free and are books I read to really help me feel at home with my lesbianism/lesbian sex. I’d also recommend Dyke Drama by Leslie Lange but only hesitantly because I haven’t finished it yet.

Thanks wonderful anon!

[librarycards]

hello!!! I've been trying to accept for myself the idea of bodymind and was wondering if you had any recommended reading on the subject? this is worded strangely I'm sorry I'm sleepy. thanks!!!

I do! <3 here are some for free online:

Begin with Margaret Price's classic paper which popularized the bodymind as core to critical disability studies, The Bodymind Problem and the Possibilities of Pain.

AND the paper it cites heavily, Rosemarie Garland-Thompson's Misfits: A Materialist Feminist Disability Concept.

I also wrote pretty recently about this in my essay, The Beholding and Beheld!

There's two modern classics, In Defense of De-Persons and Sick Woman Theory, both by the incomparable Johanna Hedva.

J. Logan Smilges (one of my mentors!)'s amazing article Traumasex: A Queercrip Erotic.

I feel like I'm constantly recommending Mel Baggs's oeuvre....because I am. Here's a good blog post of hirs to start with regarding the bodymind interface.

Some books to look at include:

Eli Clare, Exile & Pride and Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling With Cure.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha: Bodymap and Dirty River.

Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals.

Stacey Waite, Love Poem to Androgyny and The Lake Has No Saint.

Adam Dickinson, Anatomic.

Hope these help get you started!

[aloneholy]

hi i love your blog :) & was wondering if you could recommend your favorite/the best sapphic n wlw media like shows books movies please? I have recently come to ... Realisations .. :') I do love picnic at hanging rock btw and also the similar vibes of the media that you tend to reblog. homeorotic energy w out being Explicity Stated it also very welcome <3 thank you if you can and i hope thats okay !!! have a good day :)

hellooo what a lovely question - thank you so much! i’ll happily rec some things i’ve loved, especially that i find homoerotic/wlw media that Compel me much harder to come by - and i agree, picnic at hanging rock is so unique.

books:

- zami: a new spelling of my name by audre lorde - an “autobiomythography” & maybe thee most formative book for me, in terms of wlw reading. i read it for university and it changed me as a person, changed the way i look at loving women. it’s beautiful

- nightwood by djuna barnes - if you like the more unsettling aspects of picnic at hanging rock, something lynchian and modernist, this is a dark and heavily abstract lesbian novel which i really love

- our wives under the sea - a really poignant and lovely soft sci-fi depiction of a wlw relationship, themes of grief, identity, loss etc. some compare it to annihilation though expect much less science fiction

- her body and other parties by carmen maria machado - a lovely (probably my favourite!) collection of short stories which often are wlw-centric or have a vibe. stunning prose in general

- hera lindsay bird by hera lindsay bird - wlw poetry, very fun and contemporary, what i call self-aware poetry

- mary oliver’s poetry!!!

- for biographies, anything about tove jansson….

- anything by virginia woolf will fit the not explicitly stated vibe feeling - mrs dalloway has a really wistful lesbian undercurrent, orlando is a love letter to vita sackville-west. etc. etc.

movies:

- persona (ingmar bergman) - thee movie. it’s Not explicitly stated, it’s feverish and desolate, but it’s both intensely homoerotic and a searing exploration of identity, existential dread etc.

- mulholland drive (david lynch) - again, unsettling vibes. not even gonna elaborate on it - it’s a david lynch - but it’s a must-see

- passing (rebecca hall) - a moody, poignant and beautiful adaptation of nella larsen’s novella (which is on my to-read list) about a relationship between two women

- the favourite (yorgos lanthimos) - recently rewatched with a friend, no notes. a bizarre, obsessive, thrilling story. rachel weisz is to die for in it

- kajillionaire (miranda july) - a tender and strange (affectionate) depiction of a bond between two women in unexpected circumstances

- thoroughbreds (cory finley) - what if murder was homoerotic, what if murder was a metaphor. in a way this is about every codependent friendship between girls that has ever veered towards obsession

- vita & virginia (chanya button) - a biopic abt virginia woolf and vita sackville-west specifically, people have very mixed feelings on it but i personally love it to bits.

tv shows:

- black sails - anne and max’s storyline in black sails is the most visceral and lovely wlw story i’ve seen in tv or film… there are specific tws i would heed for max’s arc in the first season which i’d be happy to elaborate on, but their story is beautiful

- first season of killing eve is still unmatched 😔 second is still quite nice, if not as good. third is hm. the ending scene has whimsy to it. never watch the fourth.

things my gf loves that i still haven’t read/seen:

- portrait of a lady on fire - i just know it will Get to me so i’m waiting for the right mood to watch it

- this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar & max gladstone - same reasoning!

things i’ve started but haven’t had a chance to finish yet:

- little blue encyclopaedia (for vivian) by hazel jane plante - a beautiful (but sad, and also about grieving, hence it’s taking me a while) trans wlw story. quaint and quiet and wistful.

[chelseahotelntwo]

Hi!! I was tagged by my dearest Daphne @swimmingblues to do this tag game on books 📚 💕💖 thank you so much for tagging me!!💜💜🫂💕💖

• Last Book I Read: Normal People by Sally Rooney

• Book I’d Recommend: White Oleander by Janet Fitch and Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

• Book I Couldn’t Put Down: White Oleander by Janet Fitch (I really loved this book!!!)

• A Book On My TBR: Millennium: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (I really need to read it because I adore the movies)

• A Book I’ve Put Down: Batismo de Sangue by Frei Betto (I will get back to it someday!)

• A Book On My Wishlist: Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen

• A Favorite Book From Childhood: probably O Enigma da Casa de Vidro by Ganymédes José

• A Book You Would Give To A Friend: Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda

• A Book Of Poetry/Lyrics You Own: A Mão Esquerda de Vênus by Fernanda Young (it's so fucking good!!!)

• A Non-Fiction Book You Own: A Ditadura Escancarada by Élio Gaspari

• Currently Reading: The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch

• Planning On Reading Next: I don't know yet... maybe Other People by Martin Amis

I'm tagging: @lavander-yarn @angria @bloodiedpunk @devilsketttle @aincompleta @delirium-to-delight @didyoulookunderthesofainhell @inaviolentnature @boydaugther @olivesjaw 🦋🧶💖💜🫂💐

[blood-choke]

Don’t know if this has been asked before but do u have any book recs for exploring butch identity, lesbian-ism, and queerness in general? Love your work by the way! Both blood choke and northern passage are my top favs right now and the way you navigate and explore gender identity is just chefs kiss

thank you!

i've recommended a few books here and there... stone butch blues, obviously, and then s/he by minnie bruce pratt, the persistent desire: a butch/femme reader, transgender warriors by leslie feinberg, whipping girl by julia serano, sister outsider by audre lorde, we both laughed in pleasure by lou sullivan, gender outlaw by kate bornstein... some of these are dated of course but still worth the read. when it comes to reading dated queer literature i always approach it with compassion and remind myself that the community was different back then, and the community will be different twenty years from now, and that it's worthwhile to understand these differences and respect them. also a lot of these authors have huge catalogues of work, i'm just suggesting their more well-known pieces.

some more "modern" books i'd suggest are gender failure by ivan coyote and rae spoon, tomboy survival guide by ivan coyote, black on both sides: a racial history of trans identity by c. riley snorton, hijab butch blues by lamya h, the will to change: men, masculinity, and love by bell hooks, miss major speaks with toshio meronek, my lesbian experience with loneliness by kabi nagata, burning butch by r/b mertz, the secret diaries of miss anne lister (not modern but the presentation is)

i haven't read all of these myself, most of these are lifted right from my to read shelf, but hopefully you see something that interests you! also keep an eye out for content warnings, i think a few of these are pretty heavy reads.

for the older work i always suggest checking if it's on the internet archive (i think almost if not all of them are, i'm just too lazy to look and link them myself rn) there's also the digital transgender archives which are fun to explore!

[eoieopda]

Oo we doing horny headcanons at jade hq??? Okkkkk

Your thoughts on bts as needy/horny boyfriends while you’re a busy working independent woman lmao 👀

JADE HQ ☠️ omfg. love that, love you. let’s fuckin gooooo

namjoon is sending you the horniest poetry known to man. it’s all deep cuts that only he knows about. the authors he’s quoting have mostly been dead forever (and half of them were sapphic), but he’s got their eroticism locked and loaded. you ever receive audre lorde’s recreation as a sext? now you have! you’re rolling your eyes at that big-brained motherfucker, but you’ve also never been wetter, reading pablo neruda talk about… a whole almond??

seokjin commits to the bit. you’re in a meeting, receiving a photo series that tells a story. oh, there’s his lil smirking selca. then, his neck and — what’s this? bare collarbones? a photo of clothing left in a trail down the hallway in his apartment. an empty shower, water running. most maddening is the photo of a steamed up mirror where he’s written “you done yet?” in condensation because he knows 1) you’re not done, and 2) that you can just barely make out his reflection in the fog. bastard.

yoongi is subtle. he’s sending you context-free pics of him doing shit with his hands because he 👏🏻 knows 👏🏻. he absolutely did not need to show you the iced americano he’s holding, but he does need you to see how his hand wraps around it and makes the veins in his forearm stand out. in case you weren’t picking up the hints, he gets a little more blatant. it’s game over when you get the tangerine slice leaking juice all over his fingers. RIP to you, bestie.

hoseok is thankful you work from home because you’re both accessible and distractible. he knows you’re on a Teams meeting, and that he’s not visible on webcam from the other side of your laptop. you know that you have to control your expression when he’s walking around your apartment naked with a semi, like it’s just a normal monday afternoon for him. your coworkers wonder what tf is wrong with you when your pupils visibly dilate during a boring presentation, which you haven’t glanced down at for the duration.

jimin got tired of his whining going straight to voicemail, so he’s going straight to your office. security at the front desk doesn’t recognize him, but he walks with such confidence and determination that they don’t even question that he belongs there. and your secretary? well, they’re easily charmed — and jimin’s easily charming. he’ll be waiting for you to get back from whatever’s on your schedule. try and ignore him in person — see what happens 😌 rest assured, you’ll be cancelling your next appointment. something came up.

taehyung is the king of whimsical daytime nudes. he knows you hate unsolicited dick pics as a concept, so he’s going to find the stupidest, most creative ways to let you know what’s waiting for you when you come home from work. we’re talking shit taken on a self-timer, standing naked behind a potted plant, thick dick™️ peaking through the leaves. is it ridiculous, cracked, and kinda cringey? yup. is it effective? in a way that makes you question what’s wrong with you ✨

jungkook is impatient. you’re hard at work, typing furiously to meet a project deadline. meanwhile, he’s closing your laptop, ignoring your complaints, lifting your whole body out of your desk chair, and carrying you off to the nearest fuckable surface — couch, bed, counter, whatever. you can finish your shit when he takes a post-nut nap 💕

[duckiemimi]

there's this tweet about jjk opinions and i came across this one. i badly want to know your take on this, only if you're comfortable to do so!

"gojo definitely wants to change the system and cares about the youth but he is still serving the system and some of his methods and part of his mindset regarding the students end up unintentionally perpetuating and catering to the traditional jujutsu society"

hi!! thank you for asking me this!!

there’s a quote by Audre Lorde that describes this perfectly:

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”

perhaps using a statement on racism and homophobia to point out characterization is a little dramatic, but since jjk (and media in general) is essentially commentary about the actual society we live in, i thought it was fitting.

i’ve talked about what i presume geto’s motivations are before, that staying would mean being complicit in a system that preys on the very thing it needs to sustain itself. i think the way he saw it at the time was that the foundation of a long-standing institution cannot be uprooted from the inside, especially with the same methods used to build it.

but unlike the institutions that chain us in the real world, organized jujutsu is needed. perhaps not as it is now, but its base functionality as a shield against uncompromising non-human creatures is crucial to the survival of the human race as a whole—as in, without distinction between sorcerers and non-sorcerers. so as long as humans, non-sorcerers, exist, emotions that contribute to the creation of cursed spirits will exist, too.

i think the problem with gojo’s mindset stems from his isolation from community, and how it narrows his parameters on what can be done. as he was before, he couldn’t fathom bringing about change beyond what he experienced throughout his life at the time (a limited point of view). he lived his entire life as a tool for the very system he was trying to change. he wasn’t just inside the system, he was embedded into it since birth, a baby-shaped building block.

as hungry as he was for change, if he continued to see through his vision without looking through anybody else’s eyes besides the six he owns, then he would’ve ended up running in a tail-eating circle, perpetually wearing himself out for virtually nothing. in a sense, he’s similar to geto this way. they were both adamant about their own views without truly consulting the community they were apart of. with great power comes great arrogance, conscious or not.

but i’d argue that gojo has changed, is still changing, and will continue to change in the future. while i’ll need more than just an epic battle between him and sukuna, i’d say that without the skeleton of the system now (the head of the beast cut off, overthrown), he’d see more ways to create a better one from scratch, no blindfold on. and especially now that he’s with his allies—interdependence and connection are very important lessons in his character arc.

now imagine a system created by collaboration! a system made by sorcerers for sorcerers, and maybe in the far future, one made by sorcerers and non-sorcerers for sorcerers and non-sorcerers!

[turnip2001]

tagged by my darling friend @cheribi .. heart u melmel

fav color(s): lavender always, but recently ive been drawn to .. mineral green, icy blue & any shade of pink but especially an earthier shade or a baby pink

last song: apres-ski by david fleming .. as for non-instrumental then get ur freak on by missy elliott

currently reading: i suppose this isnt the question, but i just finished hijab butch blues by lamya h. a few moments ago which i enjoyed v much..! im currently parsing through glitch feminism, play matters & a collection of audre lorde works that was gifted to me by my sweet friend and partner, k

currently watching: ahh . lego masters season 3 w my roommate & best friend 👍🏾

currently craving: poppy seeds, roasted brussel sprouts .. Spinach pasta with sunflower seed pesto instead of nuts .... a cinnamon bun with fig in it . soup dumplings (I ❤️ U food ... 3 meals n 2 snacks a day and dessert if ure nasty .. <- words im trying to live by)

coffee or tea: tea thank you : &)

tagging: .. @angelwisps @bugmistake @la0hu @audarcy @cloverkiss @fruitskies .. if u wish !

[doberbutts]

thank you for just being a breath of fresh air, your blog always feels so calm and measured with all the topics you cover so thoughtfuly you have taught more about feminism then my 10 years n this website and now have got me reading so many good feminist books wondering if you had other recommendations outside of Bell Hooks, Audre Lorde and Gloria Anzaldua

So the problem with my brain injury is that names (and dates) are very, very difficult for me, so I'm sure the answer is yes but considering my brain goes 🤷‍♂️ head empty 🤷‍♂️ when trying to remember the names of the coworkers I see every day sometimes I'm going to have a really hard time answering asks like this, because I have gotten several.

Honestly, I think a good read through pretty much any bookstore's black politics section will serve you better than any internet curated list. Kimberly Crenshaw's intersectionality theory borrows heavily from WEB Dubois (it's almost word-for-word but he did not consider gender to be an important aspect, and iirc also did not mention sexuality), who borrowed his theory from escaped slaves, many of whom are lost to time and we will never know their names.

Much of modern black theory is similarly cumulative- you need to understand the whole to understand the piece. You won't understand Audre Lord or bell hooks unless you understand the theory they're speaking and writing in communication with, what came before, what came after. The laws and restrictions and oppression from which this theory sprang up. The lived experiences of the people who took the time to craft this theory and work towards a better tomorrow. Their strengths and their shortcomings. Where they succeeded and where they failed.

Any schmuck can give you a book list. But I think you need to understand multiple perspectives to really get it. Even perspectives you may not agree with, or want to critique. So go to a book store or a library and peruse their black politics section, and start learning that way.