For some reason (cough, kyriarchy) it is considered a mark against a female fan to be sexually attracted to a person (or, horrors! persons) involved in that which they are a fan of. It is said that a true fan cares not for looks, but for talent, as though those were somehow mutually exclusive.
What saddens me most about this sentiment, even beyond its unnecessary and exclusionary policing of fandom, is that it means the people expounding it separate who they view as attractive from who they view as talented. I mean, I can understand occasionally being superficially attracted to someone, but always? To never find talent or beliefs or ideas or style or courage or determination sexy, either alone or in combination with aesthetic appeal? That means you can’t ever really be attracted to people- just bodies and images. Which is alright- as long as you don’t try to have relationships with actual people.
(Talking about something that is not my own experience, feel free to correct me)
There seems to be a debate about whether demisexuals are “queer” or oppressed. I would say to the first thing: YES. Demisexuality is not the dominant sexual ideology, therefore it falls under the queer umbrella. Are they oppressed, I can’t say. On one hand, I don’t know of anyone who has faced job or housing discrimination based on that identification. On the other, being surrounded by a culture that treats you as freakish, calls you mentally ill or emotionally immature, or acts as though you are just “acting out to get attention” is alienating and anxiety-producing. Saying “these people don’t belong in our queer label” reminds me of the false specter of “men pretending to be women” that reactionary “feminists” level at trans-inclusive spaces.
I don’t think people say they’re queer so they can go flaunt their privilege at the best dance parties. I think they say it because they’ve been rejected by mainstream society and want to find people that understand and accept them.
I don’t understand all these posts that are like “YOU CAN TOO EAT VEGAN CHEAPLY LOOK AT MEEEE”
If someone tells me they can’t do something, I just, you know, BELIEVE them because I don’t know their life and circumstances.
There is one thing right now that the most extreme left and moderately right-wing blogosphere is reporting on equally: racism, particularly anti-semitism, within the Occupy movement. While the right wing is covering it in an attempt to discredit the movement as a whole, that doesn’t make it any less true. While your enemies may be hypocrites for calling you out for their stock in trade, it doesn’t mean their criticisms are complete fabrications.
The problem here is the response to these callouts. As in my discussion of individual activists, people are quick to leap to the movement’s defense. “Most of us aren’t like that, those are just wingnuts!” But saying “wingnuts will be wingnuts” in defense of your movement is being the teacher saying “boys will be boys” when female students are harassed and abused. And whether it’s wingnuts yelling about “Jew bankers” or staunch defenders of liberty being dismissive of trans* activists it boils down to the same thing: people being given a free pass because they are marginally “on our side.”
But if people engage in these and even more abusive behaviors; if these attitudes are considered acceptable anywhere in the movement, the movement will destroy itself from the inside out. Whenever someone is more concerned with how their group appears to the press than their group actively seeking equality for all people, they have turned from the path of justice.
All too often, bringing up concerns of racism, sexism, homo- or transphobia, ableism and the like is wrongly treated as derailing. But as I’ve said before, any time you refuse to discuss these concerns and safety issues you not only limit the movement but harm its legitimacy. Because conservatives are not creating the footage of racist tirades- they are showing actual movement participants. And sometimes activists do abuse other activists- sometimes because they are informants and sometimes because they are simply replicating the dominant culture. In both of these cases, we should not be worried about media damage control or blaming victims. We need to go to the racists, the sexists, the abusers and apologists, and say, “We do not stand with you. You support the very things we fight against, and you are not to count yourself among us.”
We shouldn’t counter bad press with spin and apologies- we need to eradicate that which is harmful to ourselves and our cause. When we see or hear oppressive words or actions, we have to call them out. If we don’t feel safe doing so, we need to tell someone who can. Spread the word. And when we hear accusations against people and groups, even those we love and/or support, we have a duty to everyone to find out the truth before leaping to the defense or offense. Because our loyalty should be not to any one person or group of people who describe themselves with the same terms as us, but to humanity as a whole. When it is made clear that abusers and oppressors are not welcome, more people will feel safe, and indeed will be more justified, in joining us.
[Trigger warning: mention of assault]
When you speak out about something, someone is always there to tell you to “just leave” if you don’t “like it.” People tell you to attend another school, get another job, live in another country. Don’t try to make anything better, just go.
Of course, most of us can’t “just leave” any of those things, because we don’t have the money or time or legal access; because we have people we support financially or mentally, because there is nowhere to go without that problem.
But most importantly, we shouldn’t have to go. All people have the right to be safe and respected wherever we are.
Because it’s not a question of “not liking it.” If I go to a party and they’re playing music I don’t like, then OK, I either tolerate it or I leave. If I go to a party and get assaulted (which, of course, has happened to me and most female-bodied people I know) I’m not going to just leave because I don’t like it. I may be forced to leave if nothing is done about my assailant and I no longer feel safe, but the onus should never be on the victim.
People with privilege tend to complain about activists wanting “special privileges.” Of course, these “privileges” are basic rights- rights which reduce the privilege of those already in power. And unfortunately, activists with privilege may reproduce this dynamic on smaller scale, by making less-privileged activists unwelcome in their meetings or events.
I understand that occasionally people need to engage in behavior or language which could be harmful to others, in spaces both physical and online. But then you need to warn those attending/reading, etc. that this place is not open to all people. Because that’s what you’re doing, if you make a space where people can, for example, smoke indoors. You are limiting people’s participation. And if you want a place that is purposefully exclusive, go ahead. But don’t pretend it’s democracy, or anarchy, if your space is not handicapped-accessible. If women and trans* people are ignored in group discussions. If you post pictures or use language that can trigger people without warnings. If you’re making a racist joke “ironically”.
This is America, you have the right to be a douchebag. And I have the right to tell you you’re being a douchebag, and to stand here repeating that you are a douchebag until you “just leave.”
Being fat positive does not mean I want everyone to be fat, or feel pressure to become fat
Being trans-positive doesn’t mean I want everyone to identify with a gender not culturally associated with their genitalia, or feel pressure to undergo gender reassignment surgery
Similarly, being sex positive doesn’t mean I want everyone to have sex, or feel pressure to have sex
While all of these movements have the word “positive” in them, the first two refer to identity whereas the third refers to activity.
Although the aim of sex positivity is not to pressure anyone into sex, and I have no issue with the stated goal of removing stigma and shame around sexual activities, I have seen sex-positive activists ACTIVELY SHAME friends of mine for being virgins or “prudish.” Presenting sex as a positive rather than a neutral thing automatically excludes people who can’t enjoy sex for various reasons. While I don’t agree that sex positivity = rape culture, I do feel that a movement created to fight dominant narratives of sexuality in this culture should be more supportive of all types of sexuality- including people who are asexual, vanilla, monogamous, etc.
Fighting against the restrictions of our current culture should never mean belittling or alienating people you may perceive as more mainstream, or assuming that people different from you are brainwashed or broken.
Why our heroes disappoint us, and what we can do to stop it.
Stop having heroes.
There’s nothing wrong with being a fan. I think we should be fans of people’s skills and talents, their ideas, their hard work and dedication, even their looks and style. The problem is when we hold people up as examples, not of being good artists or advocates, but as being good people- thinking they are more worthy beings than we are.
We live in a hierarchical society, and this hierarchy operates within the frame of capitalism. Rather than bloodlines translating directly into capital/power (usually), those with salable talents or qualities are made into commodities and form a cottage industry producing their image as much as, say, creating any art or drafting legislation.
Because we still have the rhetoric, if not practice, of equality, we are told we too can be great, like them. That we must emulate, rather than create ourselves, and that we must support the people who claim to fight for us, rather than fighting ourselves. We are sold these heroic figures (and how do you learn of someone who isn’t being sold by someone?) and so we come to venerate those whose skills we admire, or whose opinions we agree with.
When these heroes subsequently do something antithetical to our morality or politics, we’d like to believe they didn’t. We claim, and often truly believe, that they were set up, hacked, or misquoted- because we don’t want to think we are fools, deceived into praising someone unworthy and wasting our time on them. If the evidence of their guilt becomes incontrovertible, we rationalize their actions for the same reasons. Suddenly we claim we never thought this particular issue/transgression was serious, or we try to derail discussions about our heroes (why does it even matter when this terrible and completely unrelated thing is going on?) or we just throw fallacious arguments at those debating us until they tire out.
What it comes down to is that we would rather give up our own convictions and undermine our own scenes or movements than criticize (who we thought was) one of our own because we have been taught that we don’t matter, only leaders do. We may have wasted time worshipping someone, but we only waste more time and direct energy away from our own actions and creations by defending them.
To whomever may be reading this: I humbly request you to not post old photos to Facebook.
Nostalgia is not unwholly without merit; there are occasionally times when things really were better in the past or somewhere else (as in its original meaning for homesick mercenaries.) But I would say it’s generally a particularly unhealthy form of escapism as, with our current level of technology, we travel through time in one direction only. There’s also the fact that the past was definitely worse than you remember. Your brain has to do things like block out trauma and drop boring bits so you can function day-to-day. And a happy memory for you may be a miserable one for your friends or loved ones.
Sure, people may ask you to remove or untag pictures because they are unflattering or embarrassing or want to pretend certain things never happened- but sometimes it’s because they remember. They don’t wish to be reminded of poverty, abuse, or episodes of mental illness. They don’t want to think about how pretty they look in that photo, the one taken when they were starving themselves.
A photograph is not objective- it shows what the photographer wants you to see of what the subject is willing to show. Sometimes we smile in pictures because we are happy, and sometimes because it’s easier than explaining why we can’t.
Screen Daily reports that the “Jane Eyre” lovebirds will join Tilda Swinton in playing vampires in Jim Jarmusch’s still-untitled movie, described as “crypto-vampire love story, set against the romantic desolation of Detroit and Tangiers.” The director tells Screen Daily, “I’ve been imagining this film for years. I can’t wait to now realise it with these remarkable collaborators.”
Detroit is so romantic, the abandoned schools are just so, like, inspiring?
And staying in a food desert will make it easy to watch those pounds!!!!
Seriously, though, I’m sure the production will bring some money into Detroit, which is good, and I’ll admit to being an on-again, off-again Jarmusch fan. But his work comes from such a well-off white male perspective: poverty porn of run-down places in America, exoticized looks at foreign countries, and absolute fucktons of every kind of appropriation. I used to think of his work as being dryly absurd and mildly progressive in a “look, everyone’s the same!” kind of way, but the more analysis I apply the less that satisfies me.
(Source: swintons)
