I see a lot of posts going around talking about the need to be critical of fanfic, and how we gotta watch out for the messages we’re sending
Well, here’s one thing I’m gonna need us to be critical about:
Every statistic I’ve ever seen says fanfic authors are heavily female (or nb)
And Tumblr, which is a fairly US-centric cross-section of fandom, is filled with this discourse about fanfic writers who create pornography
I need us to stop and think about why we’ve decided that fictional sex is the most damaging thing anyone could ever find on the internet
I need us to think about the culture we live in, which encourages us to be sexually available (to straight men) but punishes us if we (sluts) enjoy it
Because here’s the thing: fanfic is not coming from a position of power and prestige in our society
It is a niche genre primarily written by women, for women, for free
And it is a place where many of us do find power in exploring our own sexuality (or asexuality)
Even when that exploration takes us to gritty, horrifying (or cathartic) places
I’m going to need us to think long and hard about why we’re prioritizing fictional characters over the needs of real women
And I’m going to need it to stop
Fandom purity wank is absolutely about control over women and women’s sexuality. There’s nothing ambiguous about it.
Just think about the hot-button issues in the fannish community, the topics that consistently and reliably get people worked up into a lather, the themes that provoke the nastiest conflicts and inspire the most dedicated resistance movements. Think about the fights that are most likely to spill out over their cyber boundaries and start affecting people in the real world – in public harassment at cons, in doxxing and ‘outing’ to family and employers, in malicious legal allegations.
It’s about sex. It’s always about sex.
From the constant tantrums over ‘problematic’ shipping to the righteous doxxing of ‘pedophiles’ (which in current tumblr parlance means anyone who draws or writes canonically underage characters in romantic or erotic scenarios), fandom’s big efforts at moral reform always seem to revolve around restricting and controlling the sexual expression of the majority-women community. You won’t meet many people who stay up past their bedtime to scream at strangers on the internet about unethical portrayals of non-sexual violence – unless, of course, they suspect the women involved in its creation are getting off on it. You’ll struggle to find an anti blog dedicated to the insidious social ills of torture whump fic, or goopy hurt-comfort where all manner of human suffering is put on display for the viewer’s enjoyment. The purity crew dress up their agenda as a desire for collective self-improvement and raised moral standards, but they don’t seem too worried about aspects of public morality that don’t somehow tie back into sex. What they’re upset about is the same thing conservative minds have been upset about since basically the dawn of time – there are women out there in the world doing icky sex things without the permission of their communities.
And these people, these moral guardians, they’ve gotten really good at couching their fundamentalist views in progressive language. They don’t say ‘you’re to blame if you provoke men to rape’ – they say ‘your fic normalises sexual violence and contributes to rape culture’. They don’t say ‘women ought to be chaste’ – they say ‘your fantasies are socially harmful and you owe it to the world to be more self-critical’. The messages are the same and the desired outcomes are literally identical.
The core assumption underlying all of it – an assumption that I’m sure our puritan forebears would find deeply comforting – is that women’s sexual expression is a matter of public concern, and that women are directly responsible for upholding the moral standards of their communities by restricting themselves to a narrow repertoire of publicly controlled, socially condoned sexual outlets. Anything beyond that repertoire is a grave moral breach.
To anyone who’s reading this – and there’s always a few – thinking, “this is just deflection! [X hot-button topic] is really bad and harmful!’, I’d like to encourage you to sit back for just a moment and think about why it is, exactly, that you feel the best and most important place to wage your war against moral corruption is in one of the only pockets of popular media that women unequivocally control. Of all the spaces in the world where you could be fighting for your view of a better society, you’ve chosen a place where women come together to share the fantasies that mainstream culture refuses to let them indulge. Why?
“…women come together to share the fantasies that mainstream culture refuses to let them indulge.”
I was just telling a friend of mine I attribute my (fortunate) comfort with my own sexuality to a chance encounter, at a very young age, with a paperback titled “My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies,” by Nancy Friday. Found it in a stack of mystery novels, and man, I remember blushing so hard… It was reading all these fantasies other women had that normalized what, at that young age, I considered to be pretty extreme desires, all in the context of this authority saying, “Anything you fantasize in the privacy of your own head is perfectly natural and okay.” She asked hundreds of women to share these fantasies so that others could read them and see we aren’t alone; most everyone has these thoughts and fantasies and desires, and that’s perfectly fine. Since then, I’ve discovered fan fiction as a whole universe of people’s fantasies writ large, and goddamn it, that is perfectly fine. Anyone who wants to argue the point and try to stuff us all back into the cramped cupboard of shame should have a talk with Ms. Friday. I believe she’s still around.
Agreed. Women are shamed for exploring dark themes everywhere else. Fandom does not need to be a safe haven for people who never want to hear about that: the entire rest of the world is a safe haven for anti-kink, anti-sex, anti-woman feelings.
Ship and let ship, don’t like don’t read, and your kink is not my kink and that’s okay: these are the maxims that make fandom a welcoming, creative space.
“Fandom does not need to be a safe haven for people who never want to hear about that: the entire rest of the world is a safe haven for anti-kink, anti-sex, anti-woman feelings.”
There are a lot of corners of fandom that need this (metaphorically) branded on their foreheads.
When I first started in fandom over a decade back the predominant attitude (at least in the fandoms I was in) was ymmv… your mileage may vary…. can we go back to that please.
it is incredible to me that writing pornography about minors somehow fits in to this otherwise interesting and informative post about “problematic” fandom behaviour
telling pedophiles to quit it is not a bad thing btw
Molesting and abusing children is literally pedophilia. Grooming children for molestation and abuse is literally pedophilia. Viewing and disseminating actual child porn is literally pedophilia.
Teenage shippy fanfiction is not literally pedophilia. It’s not even figuratively pedophilia, and I don’t buy for one split second that any of the people trying to derail this post with ~but think of the children~ actually believe that the entire Harry Potter fandom is a malicious network of predators. It is so, so incredibly belittling of CSA survivors to equate their actual real-world suffering with the benign hobbies of fucking Katniss/Peeta shippers. It is so, so cynical and disrespectful to use real live vulnerable children as a weapon in your goddamn ship wars.
Pedophilia is not a joke. It’s not an accusation to sling at anyone who pisses you off on the internet. It’s an incredibly real, incredibly serious issue and I am so, so tired of seeing it trivialised.
man it’s amazing how microsoft managed to completely fuck themselves out of the best position they could possibly have been in in the gaming industry
like, back in 2008, “Xbox” was synonymous with “video games.” you didn’t say “wanna come over and play video games,” you said “wanna come over and play xbox”
then the xbone incident happened and that just fuckin’ flew out the window. like, almost overnight all of their brand recognition and loyalty just dropped. it’s wild.
tbh that’s more a reflection on the consumers than anything
video games is a business where most of the base will ditch you the moment one thing doesn’t happen one minute after it’s said it was supposed to be done
companies may fuck up, but there’s really no loyalty or general logic anymore. it’s just “what’s the most perfect thing I can get at this moment in time” and “if it isn’t 110% perfect, fuck it all”
I feel like you’re underestimating the power of console brand loyalty, as well as how severely Microsoft fucked up with the announcement and launch of the Xbox One. (If anything is a powerful testament to the power of brand loyalty, for instance, it’s the never ending Nintendo apologia even during the low days of the WiiU.)
Deep brand loyalty has been ingrained into videogame culture since the days of the SNES and the Genesis. An entire generation of marketing was built on taking potshots across the road at the other company, trying to make them look bad while making yourself look cool. Things got a bit muddied when the aborted Nintendo+Sony deal resulted in Sony entering the console market on their own in earnest, but the folding of Sega and Nintendo’s refusal to stop doing their own thing (the graphical prowess of the Gamecube was kneecapped by their insistence on using weird proprietary discs based on mini-DVDs) meant that we eventually wound up once again with a heated two-horse race between Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s new Xbox. PS2 had the library advantage, but Xbox had superior hardware and much better online support, not to mention Halo.
The tension between the two only grew stronger in the following generation, where Sony fell into the same trap that Nintendo did (weird proprietary hardware in the form of the Cell Processor that wound up scaring developers away) and lost ground to the Xbox 360, with Nintendo not even pretending to compete on account of going for the grandma audience with the Wii. This left the core console market as a two-sided affair, which is the perfect recipe for an “us versus them” brand war. The Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format war also factored into a strengthening of the battle lines, as did the general perceived demographics of the consoles. The PS3 was the Japanese anime game device, whereas the Xbox 360 was the American multiplayer shooter platform. You either picked one or the other, and brand loyalty shitposting hit an all-time high, with arguments about consoles exploding or having no games on them.
As much as I love the PS3, there’s no denying that the Xbox 360 was the clear winner in the North American market. The only reasons the PS3 didn’t crash and burn with its disastrous price and lack of library were because it got Metal Gear Solid 4 and because the early Xbox 360s had a catastrophic overheat failure rate, which made the expensive PS3 a slightly more appealing option once word of the overheats got out. By the time Microsoft ironed out the hardware problems, the PS3 had finally gotten more games on it, but it still wasn’t enough to defeat the 360 in terms of sheer popularity. 360 was easier to develop for and had the killer app of Halo 3, and the rest is history.
The Kinect is partially to blame for Xbox’s downfall, but not just for existing. The Kinect circa Xbox 360 wasn’t a massive success, but neither was the PS3′s Move controller+EyeToy setup. It was a case of both companies experimenting with motion controls after the Wii struck gold, but doing it too little and too late. Where the problems hit was when Kinect was included as a mandatory part of the Xbox One. In theory this was a good idea for developers since they could count on the Kinect being part of every unit and thus develop for it more confidently, but this backfired due to the Kinect itself being unpopular with the Xbox’s core demographic and inflating the price of the Xbox One, making it $100 more expensive than it would be without. On its own, this would have been an awkward handicap, but not insurmountable. The biggest shot in the foot for Microsoft was that they paired it with absolutely anti-consumer policies.
When the Xbox One was announced, the plan was that it had to be always-online to work, and wouldn’t support used games. Always online is a tall order for some customers (especially those with data caps), and always online with a mandatory camera+microphone device is extra skeezy. The used-games lockout was also very anti-consumer, since it would also potentially prevent you from sharing games with your friends. The real kicker though was when consumers asked about an offline option for the Xbox One, they were told that Microsoft already had a product for people who couldn’t have a constant internet connection: The Xbox 360. They essentially told all their customers to fuck off and stick with the old hardware if they didn’t want to be constantly online. The fact that marketing focused more on TV apps, sports, and media box stuff instead of gaming only further seemed to tell the core gaming audience to piss off.
The sum of all this is that Microsoft was announcing a console that was more expensive than it needed to be to accommodate a peripheral that the core audience didn’t want, all the while seeming to actively antagonize the core gaming audience who would buy it in the first place. That’s enough to give people pause about where their loyalties lie.
The final nail in the coffin was Sony’s response to Microsoft’s tone-deaf announcement. Having been humbled down from their high-horse during the PS3 days and eager to regain ground, the PS4′s announcement was pretty much a direct “take that” at Microsoft. Their console was announced at a price $100 below the Xbox One with no mandatory motion bullshit, and their presentation on how to share games on the PS4 was a simple 3 second demonstration of physically passing the disc from one person to another. There was no used games lockout, no always online bullshit, and no wasting time on sports and TV to the detriment of games. Hardware wasn’t a limitation either, since both the PS4 and Xbox One were based on x86 PC architecture and had more or less comparable specs. Microsoft couldn’t even rely on Halo to move consoles because the IP got handed over to 343 Industries, who proceeded to shit on the lore and alienate Halo fans. It could also be argued that the popularity of multiplayer shooters had given way to what we now know as the Soulsborne genre, and PS4 had Bloodborne as its killer app for added incentive.
As one might expect, the combined effect of Microsoft pushing their audience away and Sony eagerly pulling them in resulted in many people flipping to PS4, leaving Xbox One in the dust. While Microsoft eventually realized the error of their ways and tried to reverse course by axing the Kinect and disabling always-online via a patch (ironic considering you need internet to download a patch in the first place), the damage had already been done and they lost loads of market share.
To add insult to injury, Microsoft since then seems to have been intent on digging their grave even further. While Halo has lost the draw it used to have, Microsoft still had some tantalizing exclusives up its sleeve, such as the Remake and Remaster of the cult hit Phantom Dust, Crackdown 3, Cuphead, and the Platinum-developed Scalebound. Microsoft evidently decided this gave them too much of a chance to recover, so they cancelled the Phantom Dust Remake after sabotaging it with changing goalposts (reports say they cancelled it BEFORE announcing it publicly, which is extra baffling), released the Remaster for free on Windows 10 (probably to get people to upgrade to Windows 10, which was facing its own consumer crisis), released Cuphead on Steam instead of as an Xbox exclusive after a long status of being MIA and presumed cancelled, left Crackdown 3 also MIA, and most terrible of all cancelled Scalebound and ended their partnership with Platinum only to later announce it was un-cancelled and being developed internally by what we can only assume is a much less capable mercenary crew of devs frankensteining together the existing assets into some kind of shambling mess.
The Xbox One’s downfall isn’t just consumers being fickle, impatient, or impossible to please. This is quite possibly an example of full on corporate suicide, where a company completely out of touch with what their core demographic wants proceeds to push that demographic away, and burn any possible bridges back for good measure.
This is an amazing in-depth look at the dive that Microsoft has taken over the past few years, but what baffles me the most (in the best way, I assure you), is the fact that this was pulling the receipts on everything Microsoft fucked up on, to prove the last guy wrong, in a very well-structured and down-to-earth manner that engaged me. Moontouched-moogle just shot out an essay on a whim whereas I can’t do that with a week’s worth of planning.
One factual error: It’s a commonly-held myth that the seventh-gen war was between Sony and Microsoft, with Nintendo knowing it couldn’t possibly compete.
Also, I don’t think the above summary realizes just how savage the prie point of the PS4 was. Like, forget the game-sharing demo, that was attempted murder right there.
March, 1995. In Las Vegas, a new trade show is happening, specifically aimed at the video game market. The Electronics Entertainment Expo is a major success, and one of the highlights are the new product announcements.
Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske is sure he’s got this one in the bag. His company’s doing well, and they have a brand-new console that flat-out outperforms its nearest rivals – and not just on paper. Notably, it’s capable of vivid and smooth colour and detailed shading in a way nobody else can match – and it’s faster and has more RAM. People have been drooling over this thing since it was released in Japan last year, and they’ve got a solid handful of launch titles. Plus a secret weapon.
They do a fairly impressive launch reel, and then he pulls out the big guns: Originally scheduled for launch in September, Kalinske tells the excited crowd that the Saturn is available in stores right now for $399 – less than half what some people had paid for imports, and less than the expected launch price of Sony’s console!
Next is Sony’s launch presentation. It’s unclear how they can possibly follow up on that – this is a new entry into the console market, its hardware is definitely weaker, and it hasn’t shipped yet. But Sony’s representative, Steve Race, has a plan. He steps up to the podium, looks out at the audience… and sets his notes down.
“$299.”
He turns around and walks away.
And that’s how Sony straight-up murdered Sega as a hardware manufacturer. Now think about that, and then think about the XBOne/PS4 pricing. That wasn’t just a business move, it was a threat.
beauty standards are all bad but one that sticks out to me is the idea that women should be free of body hair, because literally no-one has naturally no body hair like what are we trying to emulate here?
oh, except children
oh
Boom. I’m pretty sure this started because of sex workers in France – shaving to appear younger because then they could charge more, since young girls were more valuable to their clientele, especially if they were virgins. And from there it spread until it became a beauty norm in the West. Rising hemlines and sleeveless dresses in the 20s probably went a long way to making it mainstream.
*Pinches bridge of nose*
Tumblr…I get that you can’t go a day without doing this crap but it isn’t even eight o’clock in the goddamn morning!
And since I’m exhausted and this is exhausting, I’m making this history lesson short:
SHAVING HAS EXISTED SINCE 30,000 BC AND HISTORICALLY, MEN HAVE ACTUALLY SHAVED MORE THAN WOMEN!
So why did they all start shaving?
A number of reasons, none of which are linked to pedophilia you complete and utter—seriously tumblr what the hell?
These reasons include but are not limited to:
– Religious Reasons
– Convenience (it’s sort of hard to maintain body hair in the BC’s.)
– To keep lice and other bugs from jumping ship
– To keep germs from spreading
– What do you do if you have literally only a river nearby in which you bathe but you also have this body hair that keeps getting coated in dirt and grime? Simple. You remove the body hair. Dirt and grime rolls right off your smooth skin. Crisis solved.
It’s worth noting that people shaved different ways, including plucking, straight up pulling out your individual hairs with your bare hands because you were that much of a badass, and using various rocks/glass to shave.
Then you have Alexander the Great who was more paranoid than Alastor Moody and was like, “People could grab our beards during battle!” and so he made himself and all of his soldiers shave.
Then Julius Caesar came along and was like, “I look horrible with this beard but what do I look like without it? D a m n. Okay new fashion trend.” And everyone in Rome plucked out all of their body hair which sounds extremely painful and probably led to him being stabbed 23 times.
But that’s the point. Even back in BC, it became a fashion statement, created by men for men, specifically one of the most influential men in history.
And in the last two thousand years of history, body hair has gone in and out of fashion, sometimes seemingly overnight. In fact, hair in general has gone in and out of fashion, which is why people eventually started wearing big giant wigs so that they could just take it off and put it on depending on the morning.
So then in the 1900s (essentially yesterday as far as history goes) these magazine companies came along and were like, “Ladies, you know how men have spent the last 30,000 years or so going through this trend of stripping all of their body hair off for the sake of fashion because smooth skin looks badass just look at Caesar? Have you c o n s i d e r e d?” Now with that being said it’s important to know that flappers in the 1920s still rocked leg hair if they wanted to because they didn’t care they were too busy being badass.
But you know, flappers were the outliers. People who followed fashion now had these magazines saying that the newest fashionable thing was this. Razor companies picked up on this fashion trend in the mid-1900s and were like, “Oh yeah. Shaving everything is awesome, women. You should shave everything and you should buy our razors to do so.” And since it’s historically proven that people follow trends, women shaved everything for decades and still do. Give it a few years and suddenly looking like Cousin It from Addams Family will be the newest trend.
Now obviously this simplifies things because yes, there are extremely sexist men out there who have bought into these capitalistic fashion trends and somehow have gotten it ingrained that yes, in order to look sexy, women do need to shave because gosh gee golly dee this newspaper says so. But it’s no different than men seeing an ad for makeup or a new dress and being like, “Jiminy Crickets, Sally, you should try this.”
Were women forced to undergo trends due to internalized sexism (thinking they needed to be better than other women) and blatant sexism (men weighing in on what is sexy or not)? Absolutely. Are we still forced to undergo those trends? Eh, no, not really, but some people really want us to. And that sucks.
But the point is that shaving does not not NOT have pedophilic roots.
tl;dr: Shaving does NOT have pedophilic roots!
(Actually, I don’t care if it’s too long, go back up there and read because you all need to learn something.)
Sources:
– Being a History Concentration which gives you the power of knowing random history facts while forgetting your mother’s name.
Honestly I think both the historical observation of non-gendered hair removal (which dates all the way back to the stone age) and the connection of the modern double standard to promote sexual infantilism of adult women are both correct.
It’s two separate points and they’re not mutually exclusive.
Honestly “queer” is so useful for people like me w/ a “complicated orientation” b/c instead of having to say I’m “asexual panromantic” and explain what that means, I can just say “I’m queer” and it tells you all you need to know (that I’m not straight).
yeah sure good for you but don’t ever ever use that word for someone who doesn’t identify as it themselves, it’s not an umbrella term for everyone. also “pan/ace” would definitely work, even if you don’t want to use it, other people could. i use ace lesbian and definitely not the q slur.
Wow its almost like they were just talking about using it on themselves for individual reasons and you butted in to be an ass and be condescending because you think you’re superior for not using queer, then you called their identity a slur right to them. But that can’t possibly be what you were trying to do, right?
Anyone is allowed to use it for themselves, I never said no one should do that if that’s what they want. Queer is a slur though. I just want people to be aware of that, I have no idea if OP is aware of that or not but some people using that word aren’t. I’m tired of people including me and other people who don’t want to be included in that word, and before anyone asks, I never meant that OP did that, because I literally have no idea if they do.
Queer is a slur as much as any other LGBT+ word, I just want you to be aware of that.
“Gay” is used as an insult. It is used to be demeaning. Its used to discriminate. And yet its used as the all mighty umbrella – gay rights, gay marriage, gay community – when discussing the entire community.
Gay gets used as a slur. Queer gets used as a slur. But I don’t walk up to gay people and say “your identity is a slur, you know that right” or get pissed when they say “the gay community” when they mean the whole community.
Personal identity and preference in terms, even harmful words that get used as slurs, are not questioned; except for the word Queer.
Queer gets shut down. Queer people get others in their faces saying “your identity is a slur!” Queer people don’t have the freedom to identify in a community, but are forced under other terms against their will due to hypocrisy and double standards.
So if you’re not going to come onto gay people’s posts for the same behavior, maybe critically analyze why exactly you feel the need to be so condescending to Queer people, specifically on posts that ONLY have to do with personal identity. Why you feel the need to insist to Queer people that their identities are slurs, to directly slap away the power of reclaiming a word from them by demanding it remain in the hands of the Straights as a perpetual slur.
I think an important difference between gay and queer is however, that queer started out as a slur used against members of the community and continues to be used as a slur in many places. Whereas gay began as a word the community chose itself to describe itself and was then later used by homophobes and heterosexuals in general in a negative way, meaning however, that gay doesn’t hold the same negative connotations as queer for many people simply because it was our word that they took, and not a word that they forced on us to make us “strange” or “other” like queer means.
That’s…. Not true. People think so because the history before gay was reclaimed is way older (older than any love community member’s lifetimes, probably,) but gay had the exact same origins.
It was meant to denote sexually perverse people, most frequently sex workers and those who hired them. Anyone who participated in anything but married, vanilla, straight sex might have been referred to as “gay,” including any suspected LGBT person.
The word (already being one frequently used on the community,) was reclaimed as a community identifier when the community wanted to disconnect from the clinical and diagnostic implications of “homosexual.”
There is record of queer being reclaimed and used as a personal identifier literally before the popularization of gay. Both words are reclaimed slurs with negative histories, and BOTH are used as slurs against the community still to this day.
The more recent history of the mid to late 20th century more prevalently favored queer as a slur, as is represented in our media. However its clearly undeniable that the switch back to gay as the popular community slur (along with the ever present f slur,) happened in the 2000s. Which is trying to be denied and rewritten by the anti queer crowd, who completely ignore the words popularity with community members who actually lived through when it was a popular slur.
Yes to all of this. When it comes to words for “not straight” there are hardly any choices that didn’t originate as ways to stigmatize or pathologize us. We are all using reclaimed slurs to describe ourselves.
Also, queer is reclaimed in a particularly empowering way. It doesn’t just mean “same-sex attraction” but encompasses a whole spectrum of attractions and gender orientations. It’s a word that says to asexuals, pansexuals, bisexuals, trans folks, genderfluid and genderqueer and genderless folks and people who are still figuring themselves out, “hey, you’ve got a home here. We don’t need to categorize you to love you.”
This is important because there are a lot of divisions within the LGBTQ+ world, and in particular cis gay men and cis lesbians often overlook or exclude trans, bi and asexual people. Queer is the only word that not only demands equal acceptance for everyone, but leaves the door open for words and descriptors that haven’t even been invented yet.
Somebody else pointed this out earlier to me, and of course I’ve lost the post, but it’s really suspicious that of all the reclaimed slurs, the one that gets the most pushback is the one that is most radically accepting of all identities
“hey, you’ve got a home here. We don’t need to categorize you to love you.”
Lmao yeah! the pushback against this idea is overt and disgusting and I don’t trust anybody who perpetuates it.
Queer is an ideology and an identity, historically and now. It is an umbrella for that ideology and an umbrella for those identities, historically and now. They can’t be conflated (with LGBT) and it’s super fucking disingenuous to pretend one is just the tarnished besmirched dirty slur version of the other. They’re different. In my particular work for example, Queer bioethics is different from LGBT bioethics and conflating the two will muddle any discussion you try to have about them because they lead to literally opposite conclusions in some cases.
Yeah I freaking love pancakes
Wait wrong post
By far the best addition to this post
This is one of those things where I feel like an old.
Like, *the* slogan I associate with pride is, “We’re here, we’re queer – get used to it!”
There was a TV show called “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” that was total mainstream pap. (Not that the show wasn’t riddles problematic elements from the concept out, but ‘queer’ in the title was clearly meant as a positive.)
I just have a hard time processing queer as anything but reclaimed.
They actually shot “Queer As Folk” in my city!
TERFs and radical gender/sexuality bianarists are flooding social media and blogging sites with propaganda smearing the word queer in the hopes of silencing all of us who don’t identify with their hate politics. I fought hard to reclaim the word queer in the late 80s and early 90s, and it’s the one word that doesn’t worship exclusion. Which is why these people are trying to convince you not to use it. fuck that noise. there is literally no word i could use to identify my sexuality that hasn’t been thrown at me in hatred, fear, and violence. No way am I giving up the one of those that allows me to talk about all of my community without trying to put people in boxes they don’t fit in.
I will never not reblog this post. Queer, queer, queer here.
“Queer” has been claimed by queer people as a self-descriptor since at least 1910. It’s an insult to those historical people (and all the generations of queer historical people who have identified as queer since then) to pretend that the people using it as a slur owned it more than the queer people who used it as a self-descriptor.
Source: George Chauncey, “Gay New York,” page 101
They don’t want us to use queer because they don’t want to be lumped in with anyone who’s not cis gay or cis lesbian. So fine. You don’t like the word queer? You don’t want to be in the “queer” community? Get the fuck out, then. Y’all don’t welcome us in your community anyway, so we’ll just have our own.
And it’ll be queer as fuck.
I fucking love the word queer ❤
Or, to put it another way, using a great old slogan of the community: I’m not gay as in happy, I’m queer as in fuck you.
Yes yes yes yes yes! These younglings today don’t know their queer history but feel so free to comment on it. Trying so desperately to assimilate into straight culture by turning your nose up at queer, and all the people who take refuge under its umbrella. Queer accepted me when nobody else would, not even the LGBT groups.
Queer is full of the types of people who don’t make good poster children for the middle class assimilationist cis gay couple just looking to get married and have some kids. Queer forces us to realize the fight didn’t end with gay marriage, and cis gays are gonna have to step out of the spotlight sometimes, and realize cis gays have privilege, and fight for someone with less. Trans people, nonbinary people, people in nontraditional relationship structures, aromantics, asexuals, sex workers. Heck more and more bisexual people these days are switching over to queer because the amount of biphobia in the so-called lgBt community is so alienating, and also because so many of us feel the term bisexual reinforces a false gender dichotomy and we’re too tired of jokes about kitchenware to use pansexual.
Part of what I love about the term queer is that it does make people uncomfortable. It makes them aware of their privilege, exposes certain biases, even within the LGBT community. What’s so wrong with a movement that strives to fight for everybody, huh? Huh?
Proudly bi, proudly queer, and being part of this movement when I was young was an honor.
Text of a manifesto originally passed out by people marching with the ACT UP contingent in the New York Gay Pride Day parade, 1990. –
An Army of Lovers Cannot Lose
Being queer is not about a right to privacy; it is about the freedom to be public, to just be who we are. It means everyday fighting oppression; homophobia, racism, misogyny, the bigotry of religious hypocrites and our own self-hatred. (We have been carefully taught to hate ourselves.) And now of course it means fighting a virus as well, and all those homo-haters who are using AIDS to wipe us off the face of the earth.
Being queer means leading a different sort of life. It’s not about the mainstream, profit-margins, patriotism, patriarchy or being assimilated. It’s not about executive directors, privilege and elitism. It’s about being on the margins, defining ourselves; it’s about gender-f— and secrets, what’s beneath the belt and deep inside the heart; it’s about the night. Being queer is “grass roots” because we know that everyone of us, every body, every c—, every heart and a– and d— is a world of pleasure waiting to be explored. Everyone of us is a world of infinite possibility.
We are an army because we have to be. We are an army because we are so powerful. (We have so much to fight for; we are the most precious of endangered species.) And we are an army of lovers because it is we who know what love is. Desire and lust, too. We invented them. We come out of the closet, face the rejection of society, face firing squads, just to love each other! Every time we f—, we win.
We must fight for ourselves (no else is going to do it) and if in that process we bring greater freedom to the world at large then great. (We’ve given so much to that world: democracy, all the arts, the concepts of love, philosophy and the soul, to name just a few of the gifts from our ancient Greek Dykes, Fags.) Let’s make every space a Lesbian and Gay space. Every street a part of our sexual geography. A city of yearning and then total satisfaction. A city and a country where we can be safe and free and more. We must look at our lives and see what’s best in them, see what is queer and what is straight and let that straight chaff fall away! Remember there is so, so little time. And I want to be a lover of each and every one of you. Next year, we march naked.
guys. if you go to college and want to study our history and current political climate etc? do you know what that department is called? “Queer Studies”. So could you fucking stop, you little babies.
An old and homely grandmother accidentally summons a demon. She mistakes him for her gothic-phase teenage grandson and takes care of him. The demon decides to stay at his new home.
It isn’t uncommon for this particular demon to be summoned—from
exhausting Halloween party pranks in abandoned barns to more legitimate (more
exhausting) ceremonies in forests—but it has to admit, this is the first time
it’s been called forth from its realm into a claustrophobic living room bathed
in the dull orange-pink glow of old glass lamps and a multitude of wide-eyed,
creepy antique porcelain dolls that could give Chucky a run for his money with
all of their silent, seething stares combined. Accompanying those oddities are
tea cup and saucer sets on shelves atop frilly doilies crocheted with the
utmost care, and cross-stitched, colorful ‘Home Sweet Home’s hung across the wood-paneled
walls.
It’s a mistake—a wrong number, per se. No witch it’s ever
known has lived in such an, ah, dated,
home. Furthermore, no practitioner that ever summoned it has been absent, as if
they’d up and ding-dong ditched it. No, it didn’t work that way. Not at all.
Not if they want to survive the encounter.
It hears the clinking of movement in the room adjacent—the kitchen,
going by the pungent, bitter scent of cooled coffee and soggy, sweet sponge
cakes, but more jarring is the smell of blood. It moves—feels something slip
beneath its clawed foot as it does, and sees a crocheted blanket of whites and greys
and deep black yarn, wound intricately, perfectly, into a summoning circle. Its summoning circle. There is a small splash
of bright scarlet and sharp, jagged bits of a broken curio scattered on top,
as if someone had dropped it, attempted to pick it up the pieces and pricked their finger.
It would explain the blood. And it would explain the demon being brought into
this strange place.
As it connects these pieces in its mind, the inhabitant of
the house rounds the corner and exits the kitchen, holding a damp, white dish
towel close to her hand and fumbling with the beaded bifocals hanging from her
neck by a crocheted lanyard before stopping dead in her tracks.
Now, to be fair, the demon wouldn’t ordinarily second guess
being face-to-face with a hunchbacked crone with a beaked nose, beady eyes and
a peculiar lack of teeth, or a spidery shawl and ankle-length black dress, but
there is definitely something amiss here. Especially when the old biddy lets
her spectacles fall slack on her bosom and erupts into a wide, toothy (toothless)
grin, eyes squinting and crinkling from the sheer effort of it.
“Todd! Todd, dear, I didn’t know you were visiting this year!
You didn’t call, you didn’t write—but, oh, I’m so happy you’re here, dear!
Would it have been too much to ask you to ring the doorbell? I almost had a
heart attack. And don’t worry about the blood, here—I had an accident. My favorite
figure toppled off of the table and cleanup didn’t go as expected. But I seem
to recall you are quite into the bloodshed and ‘edgy’ stuff these days, so I
don’t suppose you mind.” She releases a hearty, kind laugh, but it isn’t
mocking, it’s sweet. Grandmotherly. The demon is by no means sentimental or
maudlin, but the kindness, the familiarity, the genuine fondness, does pull a
few dusty old nostalgic heartstrings. “Imagine if it leaves a scar! It’d be a
bit ‘badass,’ as you teenagers say, wouldn’t it?”
She is as blind as a bat without her glasses, it would appear,
because the demon is by no means a ‘Todd’ or a human at all, though humanoid, shrouded
in sleek, black skin and hard spikes and sharp claws. But the demon humors her, if only
because it had been caught off guard.
The old woman smiles still, before turning on her heel and
shuffling into the hallway with a stiff gait revealing a poor hip. “Be a dear
and make some more coffee, would you please? I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Yes, this is most definitely a mistake. One for the record
books, for certain. For late-night trips to bars and conversations with colleagues,
while others discuss how many souls they’d swindled in exchange for peanuts, or
how many first-borns they’d been pledged for things idiot humans could have
gained without divine intervention. Ugh. Sometimes it all just became so pedantic
that little detours like this were a blessing—happy accidents, as the humans
would say.
That’s why the demon does as asked, and plods slowly into
the kitchen, careful to duck low and avoid the top of the doorframe. That’s why
it gingerly takes the small glass pot and empties it of old, stale coffee and carefully,
so carefully, takes a measuring scoop between its claws and fills the machine
with fresh grounds. It’s as the hot water is percolating that the old woman
returns, her index finger wrapped tight in a series of beige bandages.
“I’m surprised you’re so tall, Todd! I haven’t seen you
since you were at my hip! But your mother mails photos all the time—you do love
wearing all black, don’t you?” She takes a seat at the small round table in the
corner and taps the glass lid of the cake plate with quaking, unsteady, aged hands. “I was starting to think you’d never visit. Your father and I have
had our disagreements, but…I am glad you’re here, dear. Would you like some
cake?” Before the demon has a chance to decline, she lifts the lid and cuts a
generous slice from the near-complete circle that has scarcely been touched. It
smells of citrus and cream and is, as assumed earlier, soggy, oversaturated
with icing.
It was made for a special occasion, for guests, but it doesn’t
seem this old woman receives much company in this musty, stagnant house that
smells like an antique garage that hadn’t had its dust stirred in years.
Especially not from her absentee grandson, Todd.
The demon waits until the coffee pot is full, and takes two
small mugs from the counter, filling them until steam is frothing over the
rims. Then, and only then, does it accept the cake and sit, with some
difficulty, in a small chair at the small table. It warbles out a polite ‘thank
you,’ but it doesn’t suppose the woman understands. Manners are manners
regardless.
“Oh, dear, I can hardly understand. Your voice has gotten so
deep, just like your grandfather’s was. That, and I do recall you have an affinity
for that gravelly, screaming music. Did your voice get strained? It’s alright,
dear, I’ll do the talking. You just rest up. The coffee will help soothe.”
The demon merely nods—some communication can be understood
without fail—and drinks the coffee and eats the cake with a too-small fork. It’s
ordinary, mushy, but delicious because of the intent behind it and the love
that must have gone into its creation.
“I hope you enjoyed all of the presents I sent you. You
never write back—but I am aware most people use that fancy E-mail these days. I
just can’t wrap my head around it. I do wish your mom and dad would visit sometime.
I know of a wonderful little café down the street we can go to. I haven’t been; I wanted to visit it with Charles, before he…well.” She falls silent in her
rambling, staring into her coffee with a small, melancholy smile. “I can’t
believe it’s been ten years. You never had the chance to meet him. But never mind
that.” Suddenly, and with surprising speed that has the demon concerned for her well being, she moves to her feet, bracing her hands on the edge of the table. “I may as
well give you your birthday present, since you’re here. What timing! I only
finished it this morning. I’ll be right back.”
When she returns, the white, grey and black crocheted work with the summoning
circle is bundled in her arms.
“I found these designs in an occult book I borrowed from the
library. I thought you’d like them on a nice, warm blanket to fight off the
winter chill—I hope you do like it.” With gentle hands, she spreads the blanket
over the demon’s broad, spiky back like a shawl, smoothing it over craggy shoulders
and patting its arms affectionately. “Happy birthday, Todd, dear.”
Well, that settles it. Whoever, wherever, Todd is, he’s
clearly missing out. The demon will just have to be her grandson from now on.
this is so sweet. it made me want to hug someone.
i had to
I WOULD WATCH SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE
Okay but she takes him to the little cafe and all of the people in her town are like “What is that thing, what the hell, Anette?” and she’s like “Don’t you remember my grandson Todd?” and the entire town just has to play along because no one will tell little old Nettie that her grandson is an actual demon because this is the happiest she’s been since her husband died.
Bonus: In season 4 she makes him run for mayor and he wins
I just want to watch ‘Todd’ help her with groceries, and help her with cooking, and help her clean up the dust around the house and air it out, and fill it with spring flowers because Anette mentioned she loved hyacinth and daffodils.
Over the seasons her eyesight worsens, so ‘Todd’ brings a hellhound into the house to act as her seeing eye dog, and people in town are kinda terrified of this massive black brute with fur that drips like thick oil, and a mouth that can open all the way back to its chest, but ‘Honey’ likes her hard candies, and doesn’t get oil on the carpet, and when ‘Todd’ has to go back to Hell for errands, Honey will snuggle up to Anette and rest his giant head on her lap, and whuff at her pockets for butterscotch.
Anette never gives ‘Todd’ her soul, but she gives him her heart
In season six, Anette gets sick. She spends most of the season bedridden and it becomes obvious by about midway through the season that she’s not going to make it to the end of the season. Todd spends the season travelling back and forth between the human realm and his home plane, trying hard to find something, anything that will help Anette get better, to prolong her life. He’s tried getting her to sell him her soul, but she’s just laughed, told him that he shouldn’t talk like that.
With only a few episodes left in the season Anette passes away, Todd is by her side. When the reaper comes for her Todd asks about the fate of her soul. In a dispassionate voice the reaper informs Todd that Anette spent the last few years of her life cavorting with creatures of darkness, that there can be only one fate for her. Todd refuses to accept this and he fights the reaper, eventually injuring the creature and driving it off. Knowing that Anette cannot stay in the Human Realm, and refusing to allow her spirit to be taken by another reaper, so he takes her soul in his arms. He’s done this before, when mortals have sold themselves to him. This time the soul cradled against his chest does not snuggle and fight. This time the soul held tight against him reaches out, pats him on the cheek tells him he was a good boy, and so handsome, just like his grandfather.
Todd takes Anette back to the demon realm, holding her tight against him as he travels across the bleak and forebidding landscape; such a sharp contrast to the rosy warmth of Anette’s home. Eventually, in a far corner of his home plane, Todd finds what he is looking for. It is a place where other demons do not tread; a large boulder cracked and broken, with a gap just barely large enough for Todd to fit through. This crack, of all things, gives him pause, but Anette’s soul makes a comment about needing to get home in time to feed Honey, and Todd forces himself to pass through it. He travels in darkness for a while, before he emerges into into a light so bright that it’s blinding. His eyes adjust slowly, and he finds himself face to face with two creatures, each of them at least twice his size one of them has six wings and the head of a lion, one of them is an amorphous creature within several rings. The lion-headed one snarls at Todd, and demands that he turn back, that he has no business here.
Todd looks down, holding Anette’s soul against his chest, he takes a deep breath, and speaks a single word, “Please.”
The two larger beings are taken aback by this. They are too used to Todd’s kind being belligerent, they consult with each other, they argue. The amorphous one seems to want to be lenient, the lion-headed one insists on being stricter. While they’re arguing Todd sneaks by them and runs as fast as he can, deeper into the brightly lit expanse. The path on which he travels begins to slope upwards, and eventually becomes a staircase. It becomes evident that each step further up the stair is more and more difficult for Todd, that it’s physically paining him to climb these stairs, but he keeps going.
They dedicate a full episode to this climb; interspersing the climb with scenes they weren’t able to show in previous seasons, Anette and Honey coming to visit Todd in the Mayor’s office, Anette and Todd playing bingo together for the first time, Anette and Todd watching their stories together in the mid afternoon, Anette falling asleep in her chair and Todd gently carrying her to bed. Anette making Todd lemonade in the summer while he’s up on the roof fixing that leak and cleaning out the rain gutters. Eventually Todd reaches the top, and all but collapses, he falls to a knee and for the first time his grip on Anette’s soul slips, and she falls away from him. Landing on the ground.
He reaches out for her, but someone gets there first. Another hand reaches out, and helps this elderly woman off the ground, helps her get to her feet. Anette gasps, it’s Charles. The pair of them throw their arms around each other. Anette tells Charles that she’s missed him so much, and she has so much to tell him. Charles nods. Todd watches a soft smile on his face. A delicate hand touches Todd’s shoulder, and pulls him easily to his feet. A figure; we never see exactly what it looks like, leans down, whispering in Todd’s ear that he’s done well, and that Anette will be well taken care of here. That she will spend an eternity with her loved ones. Todd looks back over to her, she’s surrounded by a sea of people. Todd nods, and smiles. The figure behind him tells him that while he has done good in bringing Anette here, this is not his place, and he must leave. Todd nods, he knew this would be the case.
Todd gets about six steps down the stairway before he is stopped by someone grabbing his shoulder again. He turns around, and Anette is standing behind him. She gives him a big hug and leads him back up the stairs, he should stay, she says. Get to know the family. Todd tries to tell her that he can’t stay, but she won’t hear it. She leads him up into the crowd of people and begins introducing him to long dead relatives of hers, all of whom give him skeptical looks when she introduces him as her grandson.
The mysterious figure appears next to Todd again and tells him once more he must leave, Todd opens his mouth to answer but Anette cuts him off. Nonsense, she tells the figure. IF she’s gonna stay here forever her grandson will be welcome to visit her. She and the figure stare at each other for a moment. The figure eventually sighs and looks away, the figure asks Todd if she’s always like this. Todd just shrugs and smiles, allowing Anette to lead him through a pair of pearly gates, she’s already talking about how much cake they’ll need to feed all of these relatives.
P.S. Honey is a Good Dog and gets to go, too.
the last lines of the show:
demon: you’re not blind here – but you’re not surprised. when…?
anette: oh, toddy, don’t be silly, my biological grandson’s not twelve feet tall and doesn’t scorch the furniture when he sneezes. i’ve known for ages.
demon: then why?
anette: you wouldn’t have stayed if you weren’t lonely too.
demon: you… you don’t have to keep calling me your grandson.
anette: nonsense! adopted children are just as real. now quit sniffling, you silly boy, and let’s go bake a cake. honey, heel!
Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”.
There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.
or the one where the bridge never came out for Javert’s suicide and so he just pretended to stab himself and then lay there until the lights went out
best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere
During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well
Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.
Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.
So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).
This is wild from start to finish
I was in Peter Pan once and one night at a performance, the adhesive holding our Hook’s mustache on was wearing off. It was near the end with a big fight scene and when he got attacked, he let his mustache fall and went “YOU RIPPED MY MUSTACHE OFF!” in a scandalized tone and it added a new note of hilarity to the whole scene (which was supposed to be funny anyway)
In my seventh grade play, which was a midsummer night’s dream, Thisbe didn’t have a sword so she stabbed herself with a coathanger
My junior year we were doing Romeo and Juliet and after Juliet poisons herself it was supposed to go dark and she’d get off the stage. well the light crew accidentally turned them back on and Juliet who was sitting up slammed back down on the wooden bed with a loud bang. To which my theater teacher says into the com “zombie Juliet” and everyone who heard that had to keep as quiet as possible while our eyes were filling with tears.
i attended my county’s performing arts high school majoring in vocal studies, (mostly geared towards musical theater and opera styles) and once a year we got a field trip to new york (we were in jersey, so it’s not exactly far). we would do one touristy thing, an actor’s workshop with friends of our teachers working in various performing industries in nyc, and then see a show.
my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.
in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.
so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-
everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.
the lesson: sometimes there are fuck ups you just can’t recover from.
During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?
Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.
The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.
Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.
Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.
Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.
Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.
Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.
Sunday Night:
Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise – apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.
Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.
In a dress rehearsal for Peter Pan, Wendy forgot one of her lines and started singing the star spangled banner and the audience was singing along and people got emotional
Once during the closing night of our high school production of south pacific, we were havin our pre-show pep talk, and our director reminded everyone (mostly seniors) not to go off script to try to be funny. Of course we had one lead who decided to ignore this advice. So during one scene where the sailors were “fishing” at the edge of the stage, he decides to pull up his rubber fish, make a comment about how it wasn’t big enough, and throw it back into the “ocean”, which of course, was the audience.
Now, this probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if he had gently tossed it, since it would have landed right behind the pit. But naturalt, he decided that this fish had to break free in the most dramatic way possible, so he winds up and chucks this fucking foot-long rubber fish with all of his strength.
So now imagine the stage crew, all of us huddled together, silently screaming as this limp fish goes sailing over the heads of the audience in what looks like a low-budget reenactment of free willy, only to slap some poor parent across the face.
I swear, you could almost hear the chorus of “mmmm whatcha saaayyy” rising from all those backstage.
From that moment on, all rubber fish were ferociously guarded by yours truly, under the direction of our stage manager.
This post gets better every time it shows up on my dash
My Junior year of high school our drama club put on Peter Pan,which involved the construction of a small boat fashioned out of scrap wood,plaster and an old wagon. A few of the actors who were cast as pirates had to ride the boat-wagon down the aisle to the front of the theatre,which had a concrete floor that sloped. About halfway down the brake they were using to control their speed gave out,and they crashed into the front of the stage at high speed.The entire boat imploded. The actors just sat there in silence for at least a full 10 seconds in the midst of the wreckage before my friend Adena screamed “ABANDON SHIP” and they all jumped out and took off running.
My school once did a parody of Cinderella and I was Cinderellas dog. At one point Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, and the dog had to flea the ball. I thought going down the stage steps wasn’t dramatic enough for “fleeing” so I launched myself off the stage and landed painfully in the center isle about three rows in accompanied with a very, very loud thump of face on concrete where I laid there like a dead fish for a while. At this point Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother got to me, not knowing what to do they stepped over me and continued running. But Cinderella had forgotten to loose her shoe so half way out of the room she chucked it back where it hit me in the head. I bolted upright and ran shrieking hysterically out of the room. A moment later the Prince came down to where the shoe was picked it up, looked dramatically at where I had exited and said “I hope that dog’s okay.” completely forgetting his line.
This may be my all time favorite post.
I was once in a production of “Hello Dolly!” and the two leads were complete jokers and would prank each other during rehearsals all the time. The rest of the cast never thought they would do that during a show, but they told the chorus (separately) that they each were planning to add some tongue into the final kiss between Dolly and Horace. Of course, we told neither of them about the other’s plan, so during the very last show, we were all waiting in the wings to see what would happen. What happened was we ended the show with the two leads violently frenching each other on stage as the curtain dropped. They started dating two weeks later.
Last year we did “Once Upon a Mattress” and the jester was supposed to do a somersault off of a stack of like 3 mattresses and then the minstrel and Lady Larken would be covered up with a blanket, but during one show the jester knocked down one of the mattresses and we had no time to fix it so we had to throw the mattress on top of them
In my Freshman year of high-school we put on a performance of Les Mis. In said play there’s the scene where Javert and Valjean confront each-other by the bedside of the now dead Fantine. well, Javert Had his prop weapon (I can’t remember if it was a sword or truncheon,) but Valjean didn’t have his. So we the Crew decided during our builds that we’d rig up a chair to break so our Valjean could use one of the broken legs as a club kind of thing. For all of our shows it went off without a hitch, but for the last one we decided to have some fun.
Originally we really just weakened one of the legs so it would break off after our Valjean hurled the chair on the floor, but for the final chair we too saws and cut into everything. All the legs, the back poles, everything. We cut it just enough so that our Valjean would be able to sit in the chair and not break it, but when he tossed it on the ground? Chaos.
And that’s what happened.
All we told him before the show was “When your toss the chair on the ground, give it your all.” And so when the scene came all of the crew gathered behind the legs and assorted hidden places of the stage to watch. When our Valjean hurled the chair to the ground it shattered. Wood and splinters went in practically every direction and I’m sure that I even saw our Fantine flinch as she feigned death. There was no chair leg left for him to use.
So we all got to witness as our Valjean fended off Javert with naught but a splinter.
Fun times.
THERE ARE BETTER STORIES EVERY TIME I LOVE THIS POST SO MUCH
Back in high school our drama department was putting on a comedy, whose name escapes me now, but the intro starts off telling how the hero was born. The two actors playing his parents came out from either side of the stage and joined in the middle and waved at the audience while the narrator spoke the story. At one point he states ’ they had a bouncing baby boy…’ and a toy baby was literally thrown on stage with a ’ AWAAA’ baby sound effect, then was caught by the father and given to the mother.
Now the first show went off without a hitch.
The second show, my friend was the stage hand that threw the baby on stage.
My friend was also the star quarterback for our football team.
Second show comes on, actors meet in the stage and wave, narrator says his line… And from right stage with the sound effect on cue this baby doll was fucking HURLED into the air about 10 fucking feet and dropped like a sack of wet rags down to the actors and the father actually CAUGHT it first try.
I have never in my life seen the 8D face on an actual person until that day.
IT GOT BETTER
god this post is long but I have one more to add:
I just finished a music theatre prep program where our choir teacher was a head music director for a number of shows that ran in the toronto theatre district and one of the first shows he was involved with was the lion king
so the actors are in maybe their third week of previews, its a sunday afternoon show. They had a wooden puppet for the baby Simba that the actor could put their thumbs into the back of to move its little paws. they affectionately called the pupped “Stiffy”
on this specific day my choir teacher is doing his typical job when he hears a commotion backstage. He heads up to mainstage where the actors are coming off after finishing circle of life, the gorgeous, moving opening song that finishes with baby simba held high in the air while all the animals are cheering. the actors are fucking hysterical.
He asked what happened and one of the actors said that right at the climax of the opening, as baby simba is being held over the cliff, “They dropped Stiffy”
When I was Mrs Potts in beauty and the beast our Lumiere went to make his entrance before be our guest and when he ran on stage his shoes lost traction and he fell squarely on his back losing both his candle head and wig…. With out skipping a beat he turned to the audience and said “it looks like I am becoming human again a little earlier tonight” queue audience dying with laughter and all of us staying completely in character.
my youth theatre once did David Copperfield and there was a scene where wine was poured out, and so they had to use prop wine, i.e apple juice. What they didn’t count on was one night where the ‘wine’ was poured out but it had started to rot. Cue actors sipping at mouldy, lumpy wine and trying not to die.
same theatre, but an adult production, I once heard of a play where a huge wardrobe was the centerpiece of the stage. One night, this actress had a part where she has to fling open the doors, and she did this brilliantly apart from when one of the doors flew off, sailed through the air and landed by the front row.
All right we all know I can’t pass up a post full of theatre disaster stories so here’s one I don’t think I’ve told yet:
Closing night of an already disastrous production of Little Shop (yeah, that one where I got kicked in the face with a severed foot and cracked three ribs falling off a platform). I’m puppeteering the plant and time comes to gobble up Mushnik. Now he’s supposed to go headfirst down a slide between my legs and then crawl out through the trapdoor at the back of the pot. This was the worst ‘swallow’ of the whole show because our Mushnik was wearing this monstrous fatsuit and we’d both been working our asses off and it just made the whole thing one big hot sweaty awkward ordeal. Anyway, it’s mostly gone okay. Then closing night happens.
Closing night Mushnik bellyflops down the slide and then just stops with his huge padded ass between my knees and I’m like “Buddy what the heck are you doing down there” and after about fifteen seconds of this weird uncomfortable silence I just hear this tiny voice from somewhere under my butt go “Oh my god the trapdoor’s locked.” And the thing is, I have to keep moving the plant around and trying to puppeteer it but I can’t because I basically have a guy the size of a Sumo wrestler squashed between my knees. We have no way to communicate with anybody except Mushnik scratching at the door like a damn cat hoping that somehow one of the crew will happen to hear him and realize the door isn’t open. Obviously that doesn’t work so to make a long story short I spent like half an act spreadeagled over a dude in a fatsuit like I’d laid an egg or something and trying to kind of still wiggle in time to the music as much as possible. Finally when we’re both about to suffocate or just pass out from the sheer heat of being stuck inside what basically amounted to a foam cocoon the guy who’s supposed to unlock the trapdoor in the first place realizes he hasn’t seen Mushnik backstage even though he’s been DEAD for like four scenes and he comes running and yanks it open and Mushnik just straight up falls out and lies facedown on the floor going “I HOPE YOU DIE IN A FIRE” until they finally dragged him away.
Of course we then spent the next like year making inappropriate jokes about that time I had fat Chris between my legs for half an hour with 300 people watching.
How are there more than just two genders?
How is it that gender is different from sex?
Why would you consider gender to be a social construct?
How is gender a spectrum?
Why do you feel the need to disassociate gender and sex when biologist have already proved that gender and sex are the same thing?
Personally speaking, I don’t understand why anyone would want to try and push gender identity shit down other people’s throats in the most radical way possible, but it’s fucking annoying as hell. To think that you know better than what biologist have studied for years makes me question your intelligence.
Here’s some food for thought people:
XX chromosomes = Female
XY chromosomes = Male
Penis = Male
Vagina = Female
Testosterone = Male
Estrogen + Progesterone = Female
Gender = Sex
Until you can come up with a reason as to why gender isn’t biological and why I’m a piece of shit for not believing your bullshit, then please stop trying to change around shit just because you hate to hear the opposing voice and accept the facts as they are.
This is an open response to those who believe in the multiple genders/gender spectrum bullshit.
oh boy, you’re in for a hell of a ride. and don’t worry, there will a TL;DR at the bottom of this post just in case you’re too lazy to read the evidence (that you specifically asked for, just saying) or are simply unwilling to have your ignorant worldview dismantled by actual concrete facts.
but first, let’s look into the social construction of the gender binary and gender itself.
the narrow-minded idea that there are only two genders has been continuously debunked by biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and doctors alike, first of all. second, gender and sex aren’t necessarily the same thing, but they are both the same in the sense that they are both social constructs made to describe natural phenomenon, not actually based in any scientific reality. much like the concept of species; it’s a
model, and no model is an actuality.
gender is only your sense of, and internal mental relationship to
masculinity, femininity, and androgyny, which can be expressed through words,
behavior, or clothes. in other words, it is simply an intimate and personal
sense of self in relation to gender, gender roles, and one’s physical body. it
does not actually have anything to do with biology—even less so than sex. suggesting your gender relies solely on your genitals is not only transphobic, but is also very
harmful for people who are intersex.
ultimately, your gender is in your head and it is mutually exclusive from your physical body. there is truly no
scientific, biological, or medical basis for any sort of binary system of
gender, and in fact the gender binary completely contradicts the laws of
natural human variation.
The Yogyakarta Principles on The Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity further elaborates on the definition of gender to be “each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience
of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal
sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or
function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress,
speech and mannerisms.” the principle 3 of this document reads as follows: “A person of diverse sexual orientation and gender identities shall enjoy legal capacity in all aspects of life. Each person’s self-defined sexual orientation and gender identity is integral to their personality and is one of the most basic aspects of self-determination, dignity and freedom”.
– “If gender is the
cultural meanings that the sexed body assumes, then a gender cannot be said to
follow from a sex in any one way. Taken to its logical limit, the sex/gender
distinction suggests a radical discontinuity between sexed bodies and
culturally constructed genders. Assuming for the moment the stability of binary
sex, it does not follow that the construction of ‘men’ will accrue exclusively
to the bodies of males or that ‘women’ will interpret only female bodies.
Further, even if the sexes appear to be unproblematically binary in their
morphology and constitution (which will become a question), there is no reason
to assume that genders ought also to remain as two. The presumption of a binary
gender system implicitly retains the belief in a mimetic relation of gender to
sex whereby gender mirrors sex or is otherwise restricted by it. When the
constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of sex,
gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequence that man
and masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and
woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female one.” (p.g. 10)
•
Justin Clark,
“Understanding Gender”
(2015)
– “Western culture has
come to view gender as a binary concept, with two rigidly fixed options: male
or female, both grounded in a person’s physical anatomy. When a child is born,
a quick glance between the legs determines the gender label that the child will
carry for life. But even if gender is to be restricted to basic biology, a
binary concept still fails to capture the rich variation that exists. Rather
than just two distinct boxes, biological gender occurs across a continuum of
possibilities. This spectrum of anatomical variations by itself should be
enough to disregard the simplistic notions of a binary gender system. But
beyond anatomy, there are multiple domains defining gender. In turn, these
domains can be independently characterized across a range of possibilities.
Instead of the static, binary model produced through a solely physical
understanding of gender, a far richer tapestry of biology, gender expression,
and gender identity intersect in a multidimensional array of possibilities.
Quite simply, the gender spectrum represents a more nuanced, and ultimately
truly authentic model of human gender. (p.g. 1)
– “Like other social
constructs, gender is closely monitored and reinforced by society. Practically
everything in society is assigned a gender—toys, colors, clothes and behaviors
are just some of the more obvious examples. Through a combination of social
conditioning and personal preference, by age three most children prefer
activities and exhibit behaviors typically associated with their sex. Accepted
social gender roles and expectations are so entrenched in our culture that most
people cannot imagine any other way. As a result, individuals fitting neatly
into these expectations rarely if ever question what gender really means. They
have never had to, because the system has worked for them.” (p.g. 1)
– “We understand that gender—the ways that society molds us into proper girls or boys, men or women—is complicated. Gender depends on lots of things—upbringing, culture,the stories fed to us by television and movies, hormones, and power struggles.” (p.g. x-xi)
– “…there is a naivete about the way we ignore the fact that some people don’t fit neatly into the either-or of gender. I believe that gender is rather a continuum than an either-or proposition.” (p.g. 108)
there are
no limitations on who you are, how you feel, or what identity you construct for
yourself, therefore people can and do construct more gender than the two traditional
ones, and all of them are valid. plus, the simple fact that some people don’t
identify as one of the two binary genders is proof that there are other
genders. if someone identifies are nonbinary, then nonbinary people exist. it’s
that simple. even if that’s just one person, it exists in society, ergo it is.
now this is a fun one; let’s move on to the social construction of “biological” sex.
even if gender was the exact same thing as sex, neither would be a binary or a scientific absolute. while modern science measures “biological” sex by these 5 specific measures,
1. chromosomes (male: XY, female: XX) 2. genitalia (male: penis, female: vulva and vagina) 3. gonads (male: testes, female: ovaries) 4. hormones (male: high testosterone, low estrogen, low progesterone; female: high estrogen, high progesterone, low testosterone) 5. secondary sex characteristics (male: large amounts of dark, thick, coarse body hair, noticeable facial hair, low waist to hip ratio, no noticeable breast development; female: fine, light colored body hair, no noticeable facial hair, high waist to hip ratio, noticeable breast development)
very few people actually match up with all five categories. estimates by the
Intersex Society of North America notes the frequency and prevalence of intersex conditions, and puts the total rate of human bodies that “differ from standard male or female” at one in 100, while biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling estimates this number to be around 1.7%. both of these estimates are somewhat outdated, so the actual number of intersex people in the world may be much higher.
humans naturally fall along a wide spectrum of variation; it’s a normal and expected biological occurrence. in fact, the more we study sex, the more we discover that reality does not fit the narrative. our estimates of how many people have chromosomes that don’t fit in the XX=female/XY=male binary continue to grow as we actually test people’s chromosomes more often (esp. since most people don’t actually know what their chromosomes are).
there are lots of people out there with XY chromosomes, testes, a vulva, a vagina, female secondary sex characteristics, and female hormone patterns; there are people with XX chromosomes, testes, a penis, male secondary characteristics and male hormone patterns; and there people with both male and female secondary sex characteristics or hormone patterns at the same time, regardless of their genes, gonads, or genitalia. these people are technically intersex assuming that the two sex system is absolutely true. however, in order for the binary to even be considered real, every single person on earth must completely match up on all 5 markers of sex, all the time. that’s not what happens in real life. in real life, there are literally tens of millions of people whose very existence defies the socially constructed concept of a two sex system.
there is no immediately obvious way to settle what sex amounts to purely biologically or scientifically. deciding what sex is involves evaluative judgments that are influenced by social factors. in actuality, the only thing in your body that has a “biological sex” in any real sense is your gametes, which 1) some people don’t even produce, 2) which your body can easily stop producing, and 3) which are a very minuscule part of the rest of your body. the rest of your body, including your genitals, has no “biological sex” at all.
moreover, as far as medical issues are
concerned, treating common correlations as discrete categories is very harmful
to people who don’t fit in those categories. modern medicine acknowledges that chromosomal
sex, gonadal sex, hormonal sex, morphological sex, and behavioral sex
(extensive overlap with but not the same as gender and/or gender role) are
different and need to be considered differently under different circumstances. no one thing is biological sex. there is no reason for a male/female binary of
it; not only is it intersexist and transphobic, but it’s just bad science.
citations from other works of literature:
•
Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the
Construction of Sexuality (2000)
– “We stand now at a
fork in the road. To the right we can walk toward reaffirmation of the
naturalness of the number 2 and continue to develop new medical technology,
including gene ‘therapy’ and new prenatal interventions to ensure the birth of
only two sexes. To the left, we can hike up the hill of natural and cultural
variability. Traditionally, in European and American culture we have defined
two genders, each with a range of permissible behaviors; but things have begun
to change. There are househusbands and women fighter pilots. There are feminine
lesbians and gay men both buff and butch. [Transgender people] render the sex/gender divide virtually unintelligible.” (p.g. 101)
– “Because of their
loyalty to a two-gender system, some scientists resisted the implications of
new experiments that produced increasingly contradictory evidence about the
uniqueness of male and female hormones. Frank, for example, puzzling at his
ability to isolate female hormone from ‘the bodies of males whose masculine
characteristics and ability to impregnate females is unquestioned,’ finally
decided that the answer lay in contrary hormones found in the bile.” (p.g. 191)
– “…not everyone responded to the new results by trying to fit
them into the dominant gender system. Parkes, for example, acknowledged the
finding of androgen and estrogen production by the adrenal glands as ‘a final
blow to any clear-cut idea of sexuality.’ Others wondered about the very
concept of sex. In a review of the 1932 edition of Sex and Internal Secretions, the British endocrinologist F. A. E. Crew
went even further, asking ‘Is sex imaginary?… It is the case,’ he wrote, ‘that
the philosophical basis of modern sex research has always been extraordinarily
poor, and it can be said that the American workers have done more than the rest
of us in destroying the faith in the existence of the very thing that we
attempt to analyze.’” (p.g. 191-192)
•
Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet, Language and Gender (Second Edition) (2013)
– “People tend to think of
gender as the result of nurture—as social and hence fluid—while sex is the
result of nature, simply given by biology. However, nature and nurture
intertwine, and there is no obvious point at which sex leaves off and gender
begins. But the sharp demarcation fails because there is no single objective
biological criterion for male or female sex. Sex is based in a combination of
anatomical, endocrinal and chromosomal features, and the selection among these
criteria for sex assignment is based very much on cultural beliefs about what
actually makes someone male or female. Thus the very definition of the
biological categories male and female, and people’s understanding of themselves
and others as male or female, is ultimately social. Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000)
sums up the situation as follows:
labeling someone a man or a woman is a social decision. We may use
scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs about
gender – not science – can define our sex. Furthermore, our beliefs about
gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first
place. (p. 3)
Biology offers up
dichotomous male and female prototypes, but it also offers us many individuals
who do not fit those prototypes in a variety of ways. Blackless et al. (2000) estimate that 1 in 100 babies are born with
bodies that differ in some way from standard male or female. These bodies may
have such conditions as unusual chromosomal makeup (e.g., 1 in 1,000 male
babies are born with two X chromosomes as well as a Y, hormonal differences
such as insensitivity to androgens (1 in 13,000 births), or a range of
configurations and combinations of genitals and reproductive organs. The
attribution of intersex does not end at birth–for example, 1 in 66 girls
experience growth of the clitoris in childhood or adolescence (known as late
onset adrenal hyperplasia).” (p.g. 2)
– “…the human X
chromosome carries a large collection of male sperm genes.” (p.g. 909)
– “Currently, there is a
broad popular, scientific, and medical conception of the X chromosome as the
mediator of the differences between males and females, as the carrier of
female-specific traits, or otherwise as a substrate of femaleness… associations
between the X and femaleness are the accumulated product of contingent
historical and material processes and events, and they are inflected by beliefs
rooted in gender ideology.” (p.g. 927)
– “In truth, humans come in an amazing number of forms, because human development, including human sexual development, is not an either/or proposition. Instead, between “either” and “or” there is an entire spectrum of possibilities. Some people come into this world with a vagina and testes. Others begin their lives as girls but at puberty become boys. Though we’ve been told that Y chromosomes make boys, there are women in this world with Y chromosomes, and there are men without Y chromosomes. Beyond that, there are people who have only a single unpaired X chromosome. There are also people who are XXY, XXXY, or XXXXY…There are babies born with XYY, XXX, or any of a dozen or more other known variations involving X or Y chromosomes. We humans are a diverse lot.” (p.g. xi-xii)
– “Nondisjunction can happen with any chromosome, including the sex chromosomes X and Y. A single sperm or egg may end up with two, three, or more X chromosomes, and a single sperm may hold more than one Y chromosome. In truth, sperm and eggs come in variety packs. If that alone isn’t enough to derail the simple XX/XY, female/male idea, a mystery known as anaphase lag can also cause developing sperm or ova to lose an X or a Y chromosome along the way. And even after fertilization, sex chromosomes can be lost or gained. And even among men with the normal 46,XY karyotype, the size of the Y chromosome can vary. That means that my Y chromosome might be three times the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Y chromosome. Here certainly, quantity matters; perhaps size does as well. The end product is a panoply of possible sexes by any definition, an array of human beings as grand and as varietal as the fragrances of flowers: 45,X; 47,XXX; 48,XXXX; 49,XXXXX; 47,XYY; 47,XXY; 48,XXXY; 49,XXXXY; and 49,XXXYY.” (p.g. 62)
– “Intersex people are not a few freakish, unfortunate outliers. They are instead the most complete demonstration of our humanity… We, as a society, are very hard on people who don’t fit out preconceptions, especially our preconceptions about sex. What intersex people have shown us is the truth about all of us. There are infinite chemical and cellular pathways to becoming human. […] Sex isn’t a switch we can easily flip between two poles. Between those two imaginary poles lies an infinite number of possibilities.” (p.g. 163)
•Anonymous Author, “The Problematic Ideology of Natural Sex” (2016)
– “Around the world, over the past four or five hundred years,
people have been cajoled, threatened, beaten, imprisoned,
locked in mental hospitals, put in the stocks, publicly humiliated, mutilated,
and burnt at the stake for violating one or more of the precepts of ‘[Biological] Sex.’ That’s the sure sign of enforced ideology, not a true natural law.”
– “While these gendered
binaries play out in social life in reasonably clear ways, they also seep into
places conventionally seen as immune to bias. For example, they permeate sex
science. In her paper ‘The Egg and the Sperm’ (1991), the anthropologist Emily
Martin reported on the ‘scientific fairy tale’ of reproductive biology.
Searching textbooks and journal articles, she found countless descriptions of
sperm as active, independent, strong and powerful, produced by the male body in
troves; eggs, in contrast, were framed as large and receptive, their actions
reported in the passive voice, and their fate left to the sperm they might or
might not encounter. Representations in this vein persisted even after the
discovery that sperm produce very little forward thrust, and in fact attach to
eggs through a mutual process of molecular binding. Martin’s point? That
scientific knowledge is produced in culturally patterned ways and, for
Euro-American scientists, gendered assumptions make up a large part of this
patterning.”
– “In Gender Trouble (1990), the feminist theorist Judith Butler argues that the insistence on sex as a natural category is itself evidence of its very unnaturalness. While the notion of gender as constructed (through interaction, socialisation and so on) was gaining some acceptance at this time, Butler’s point was that sex as well as gender was being culturally produced all along. It comes as no surprise to those familiar with Butler, Martin and the likes, that recent scientific findings suggest that sex is in fact non-binary. Attempts to cling to the binary view of sex now look like stubborn resistance to a changing paradigm. In her survey paper ‘Sex Redefined’ (2015) in Nature, Claire Ainsworth identified numerous cases supporting the biological claim that sex is far from binary, and is best seen as a spectrum. The most remarkable example was that of a 70-year-old father of four who went into the operating room for routine surgery only for his surgeon to discover that he had a womb.”
– “Looking to other
times and to other cultures, we are reminded that sex is to some degree
produced through the assumptions we make about each other and our bodies.
Modern science is moving towards consensus on sex as a spectrum rather than a
simple male/female binary, and it is time to start casting around for new ways
of thinking about this fundamental aspect of what we are. Historical and
anthropological studies provide a rich resource for re-imagining sex, reminding
us that the sex spectrum itself is rooted in Euro-Western views of the person
and body, and inviting critical engagement with our most basic biological
assumptions.”
•Asia Friedman, Blind to Sameness: Sexpectations and the
Social Construction of Male and Female Bodies (2013)
– “Thomas Laqueur argues
that in the past, specifically prior to the 19th Century, male and female
bodies were seen very differently than they are today. They were perceived as
more similar than different, and instead of two sexes, there were just two
variations of one sex. Laqueur further demonstrates that the shift in
perception to seeing the sexes as two categorically different things was not
the result of gaining more scientific knowledge, since many of the relevant
discoveries were actually made after the fact… So the question for Laqueur is,
if it was not due to advances in specific scientific knowledge of sex differences,
what was responsible for that shift from seeing one to seeing two sexes? And
his answer is essentially cultural change. He argues that sex or the body is
the epiphenomenon, while gender, what we would normally take to be the cultural
category, is what is primary. Marian Lowe makes a similar point when she argues
that ‘if race, sex, and class were not politically and economically significant
categories it is likely that no one would care very much about biological
differences between members of these groups. To pay attention to the study of
sex differences would be rather peculiar in a society where their political
importance was small.’” (p.g. 45-46)
– “Further, regarding chromosomes,
keep in mind that XX and XY are 50% the same, and the egg and the sperm
actually have the same sex chromosomes every time both contribute an “X” to
make a female. Sarah Richardson offers a much more scientifically precise
version of the same fundamental argument in her critique of recent accounts
claiming significant genetic variation between males and females.
Sex differences in the genome are
very, very small: of 20,000 to 30,000 genes, marked sex differences are evident
in perhaps half a dozen genes on the X and Y chromosome, and, it is
hypothesized, a smattering of differently expressed genes across the autosomes…
In DNA sequence and structure, sex differences are localized to the X and Y
chromosomes. Males and females share 99.9 percent sequence identity on the 22
autosome pairs and the X, and the handful of genes on the Y are highly specific
to male testes development. Thinking of males and females as having different
genomes exaggerates the amount of difference between them, giving the
impression that there are systematic and even law-like differences distributed
across the genomes of males and females, and playing into a traditional
gender-ideological view of sex differences. (Richardson, Forthcoming: 8-9)
The essential point is
this: Males and females are much more genetically similar than different.” (p.g. 206)
basically, “biological sex”
is just as biased, unscientific, and subjective as the concept of gender is,
and to base sex or
gender on chromosomes or genitals or some other arbitrary feature is to ignore
and marginalize the truth. there are millions of people who have
different genitalia or lack them all together, individuals who are infertile,
people with differing karyotypes (i.e. XXY, XXX, XYY, X, etc) or chimerism (a
body where some cells are of one karyotype and others are of another), and
there are people with all kinds of secondary sex features or
genetic/epigenetic/biological conditions. these are all normal, natural
variations of the human body that aren’t inherently connected to each other. to
say sex or gender is defined by any of these features is erasive, intersexist,
transphobic, and entirely contrary to what actual scientists, biologists, and geneticists have been saying for decades.
not to mention, the idea of a gender binary is a very, very recent concept solely rooted in colonialism and racism, not science.
in fact, the idea of third and nonbinary genders is as old as human civilization. (the list below is a very VERY brief history of nonbinarism):
§ 2000 BCE: in mesopotamian mythology, among the earliest written records, there are references to types of people who are neither men nor women. in a sumerian creation myth found on a stone tablet from the 2000 bce, the goddess ninmah fashions a being “with no male organ and no female organ”, for whom enki finds a position in society: “to stand before the king".
§ 1800 BCE: inscribed pottery shards from the middle kingdom of egypt, found near ancient thebes, list three human genders: tai (male), sḫt (“sekhet”) and hmt (female).
§ 385-380 BCE: aristophanes, a comic playwright, tells a story of creation in which “original human nature” includes a third sex. this sex “was a distinct kind, with a bodily shape and a name of its own, constituted by the union of the male and the female: but now only the word ‘androgynous’ is preserved.”
§ 77 BCE: genucius, a roman slave is denied inheritance on the grounds, according to art historian lynn roller, of being “neither a man nor a woman.” he is “not even allowed to plead his own case, lest the court be polluted by his obscene presence and corrupt voice.”
§ 1871: british administrators pass the criminal tribes act in india, effectively outlawing the country’s hijras—a community that includes intersex people, trans people, and even cross-dressers. celebrated in sacred indian texts, hijras had long been part of south asian cultures, but colonial authorities viewed them as violating the social order.
§ 1970: mexians in oaxaca state establish vela de las intrepidas (vigil of the intrepids), a festival celebrating ambiguous gender identities. the zapotec culture embraces a third-gender population called muxes. muxes trace back to pre-columbian times, when there were “cross-dressing aztec priests and mayan gods who were male and female at the same time”.
§ 2014: india’s supreme court recognizes the right of people, including hijras, to identify as third-gender. the court states, “it is the right of every human being to choose their gender.”
the idea of third and nonbinary genders is as old as human civilization, because gender is socially constructed and therefore subjective. thus, people’s ideas about gender have changed over time and between cultures, and continue to change.
this binary gender system of ours is comparatively very new, and has been
forced upon the rest of the world by white europeans in destructive and
violent invasion, genocide, and complete appropriation and destruction of the original cultures
of each land. really, it is the binary system that is unnatural. multiple genders have always existed in this world. and despite the best attempt of european colonialists, they continue to exist today, indicating that it is part of human nature to not fit in a neat binary and instead have multiple genders.
even within the united states, multiple native american tribes have a system that includes up to six distinct gender categories.
– “…gender itself is a colonial introduction, a violent
introduction consistently and contemporarily used to destroy peopks,
cosmologies, and communities as the building ground of the ‘civilized’ West.”
(p.g. 186)
– “As global, Eurocentered capitalism
was constituted through colonization, gender differentials were introduced
where there were none. Oyeronkk Oyewhmi has shown us that the oppressive gender
system that was imposed on Yoruba society did a lot more than transform the
organization of reproduction… many Native American tribes
were matriarchal, recognized more than two genders, recognized ‘third’
gendering and homosexuality positively, and understood gender in egalitarian
terms rather than in the terms of subordination that Eurocentered capitalism
imposed on them. Gunn’s work has enabled us to see that the scope of the gender
differentials was much more encompassing and it did not rest on biology.”
(p.g. 196)
Like Hinduism, many other religious traditions speak of deities and humans who are neither men nor women, including the androgyny of the Judeo-Christian Adam. But those are very old stories that have passed through many hands. Much may have changed or been lost in translation. A better way to test the foundations of the two-sex mythology would be to look at the peoples of our modern world and see if such beliefs are universal among human societies. Do people raised with different worldviews see the sexes differently? The answer is an emphatic yes.” (p.g. 144)
•Justin Clark, “Understanding
Gender” (2015)
– “This diversity of gender is a normal
part of the human experience, across cultures and throughout history. Non-binary gender diversity exists all
overthe world, documented by countless historians and anthropologists. Examples
of individuals living comfortably outside of typical male/female expectations
and/or identities are found in every region of the globe. The calabai, and
calalaiof Indonesia, two-spirit Native Americans,
and the hijra of India all represent more complex understandings of gender than
allowed for by a simplistic binary model.” (p.g. 2)
– “Colonialism as practiced by Western
culture is used to erase traditional non-binary roles of gender orientation and
systems of sexuality, i.e. the Two-Spirit. Identifying as Two-Spirit becomes
not just a traditional way of expressing Indigenous beliefs of gender
orientation and sexuality but a political identity in resistance of
colonialism. Through the use of inherently violent, assimilative measures,
these traditions of the Two-Spirit in Indigenous societies are lost in many of
our communities and are replaced by the Western gender binary and spectrum of
sexual orientation. As this paper will show, this plays into the colonialist
logic of white supremacy and how it relates to the Indigenous body, colonizing
Two-Spirit identity.” (p.g. 1)
– “When Europeans came to Turtle
Island, much of their culture, their ideals, their beliefs and institutions
came with them through the continued centuries of settler-colonialism. Building
their own nation upon this land, they were able to more permanently construct
and impose their culture upon others. The Western colonization of the Americas
brought forth many institutions which sought to erase and displace Indigenous
cultural traditions and beliefs. Through the use of violence, forced
assimilation, demonization of Indigenous beliefs and then appropriation of
Indigenous culture, the subjugation of Native sexuality and gender roles have
continued unquestioned in the minds of the settler and of our own people. It
can be said and will be shown, that the Western binary is a system of
oppression and repression and is actively a form of institutional violence
against the Two-Spirit. This is all connected to the idea of white supremacy
and domination over Indigenous bodies and beliefs, of colonization of our very
selves. Thus an analysis of colonization and white supremacy is not complete
without an approach towards Two-Spirit identity in our own communities.” (p.g.
1-2)
– “Before
the colonization of this land, there were as many as six traditional gender
orientation roles among numerous tribes. However, due to boarding schools erasing
these traditions […] the Christianized related the existence of the Two-Spirit
as sin… The Western Gender Binary is thus superimposed upon all cultures and
their histories seen through the gaze of not only male dominance but a
male/female paradigm that does not account for the existence of third, fourth,
fifth and even more varieties of non-male/female expressions and identities. The Western Gender Binary does not see the Two-Spirit, the Western Gender
Binary only sees a Man acting in ‘Unmanly’ ways or a Woman acting in
‘Unwomanly’ ways… As part of the settler mentality, we can see these actions as
colonial violence against the Two-Spirit and are also the results of genocide.
To reiterate previous statements, the Western gender binary is a form of
superimposed and universalized colonialism upon Indigenous bodies and minds.”
(p.g. 5-6)
•Anonymous Author, “The Problematic Ideology of Natural Sex” (2016)
– “…we have ignorance of the long and violent history of the imposition of the Ideology of Natural Sex under European colonialism. The genius behind framing an ideology as ‘natural’ is that its history erases itself. Why would anyone study the history of something natural and eternal? We don’t study the history of covalent bonds in chemistry or cumulus clouds in meteorology. And so we don’t study the spread of European binary sex ideology under colonialism. If you do, you’ll find that all over the world before European colonialism there were societies recognizing three, four, or more sexes and allowing people to move between them—but that’s a subject for another post. Suffice it to say that societies were violently restructured under European colonialism in many ways, and one of those was the stamping out of nonbinary gender categories and stigmatization of those occupying them as perverts.”
to say
that nonbinary genders don’t exist would not only be historically and scientifically incorrect, but it would also be saying that the cultural traditions
of hundreds of cultures are invalid, it would be ignoring millennia of history,
and it would be insisting that only the white european standard of gender,
which was used to justify colonialism and was forced onto indigenous people via
genocide and forced assimilation, is “correct”. trying to enforce western
concepts of gender on other cultures is an act of racism and imperialism, and
presumes that one group somehow knows more about the human condition, which is,
on all levels, factually as well as historically and ethnically wrong.
TL;DR:
neither gender nor “biological” sex is innate or binary, and the vast majority of biologists, scientists, doctors, psychologists, historians and anthropologists have been debunking these ignorant claims for decades and proving that both of these concepts are socially constructed. and since gender is completely subjective, nonbinary genders have existed since the dawn of human civilization, even dating back to mesopotamia, the VERY FIRST human society, at that. there are many countries today where there are officially more than two genders recognized, and there are multiple languages that are entirely gender-neutral. the gender binary itself is an entirely european theory based on a complete lack of understanding of science, and was only recently forced on the world via colonialism and genocide. saying that nonbinary genders aren’t real is an act of transphobia, racism, and imperialism, and is the same as saying that thousands of cultures around the world, millions of personal experiences, and entire societal structures throughout history are not real, which is not only dehumanizing, but makes no sense. it is literally part of human nature and basic natural variation to not fit into oversimplified binary categories.
but you know, curse those special snowflakes, or whatever.
EDIT: this is the final UPDATED version of my original response, please reblog this edited version of my post instead if you’ve already reblogged (any of) my previous/original version(s).
Sorry for putting such a long post on everybody’s dash, but this is something that everyone can put aside 6 minutes to read.
-Got a free salted caramel frappacino from the suspectedly gay barista, Parker
-Sold a bra to the mom of a sixteen year old girl who was cringing the entire time
-Had a very engaging conversation with a three year old boy about colors. We both like blue.
-Served an old woman who I thought had an impressive mustache, but it was just nose hair
-Watched her and two other women with her get trapped between two sets of automatic doors because they did not understand how to open them. How they got through the first set, I still do not know.
-Sold fifteen gallons of kitty litter to a soccer mom who refused to break eye contact
-Got a second free starbucks drink. This one was a pumpkin pie one that wasn’t even on the menu. I like this barista man.
-Gave dozens of children stickers. Several of them squealed when they got them. This is the best part of my job.
-Sold an old man $200 of furniture and got him to sign up for a Target credit card. Before he finished the last step, he turned and walked away with his cart without a word.
-He still hadn’t paid. I called him back and he apologized, saying “sorry, sometimes my diabetes makes me do that.” He didn’t finish getting the card.
-A woman came up with $220 of items. After a wad of coupons and a stack of free gift cards from other promotions, her total went down to $55. I want her to teach me.
-Saw a girl skipping down the aisle in what can only be described as a pink princess fairy wedding dress. She was filled with happiness and if I hadn’t been on the clock I would have taken her. At the very least, I want that outfit for my own.
-Got approached by a large man named Jason. He told me not to steal. I will take this advice to heart.
-Met a woman referred to only as The Cat Lady. She asked if I wanted her to buy me a keychain from Ross. I told her I had no keys. She nodded solemnly and walked away, whispering their exact location inside Ross, just in case.
-Got called into the HR Head’s office at the end of my shift. I was expecting to be yelled at for some reason. She and another lead showered me in compliments for ten minutes straight, saying a lot of managers had been saying great things about me all day. Not what I expected, but I’ll take it.
Day Two:
-Intimidating farmer man in overalls and pigtails came through my checkout. He bought a bucket. He spoke no words. He made no eye contact. He left me with questions.
-Three college boys came through, each buying spandex and makeup wipes. They spoke no words. They made too much eye contact. They left me with more questions. I question when this job will provide answers.
-A three year old came through, pushed by his personal chauffeur. He bought one small Spider-Man onesie. He carried out the entire transaction on his own. He was the most polite customer I have had so far.
-Three people walked away without their change. Only two returned.
-A man bought thirty light bulbs with a coupon. He told me he did not need thirty light bulbs. He just likes coupons.
-He then walked to customer service, claiming to have returned several things he did not mean to. He then walked a lap around the store and left. He did not leave the store with his light bulbs. They were nowhere to be found.
-A customer came through looking nervous. She leaned over the counter. She whispered to me. Someone had pooped in the baby supplies aisle. All evidence pointed to it not being a baby.
Day Three:
-Two children came through the line. They were chanting to their mom through heavy streams of tears. “WE WANT STICKERS MOMMY.” There were no stickers at any of the registers. They continued crying. I failed my people.
-An old woman bought five bottles of wine and a large bottle of vodka. Her license told me she had lived through World War II. Her smile told me she was still living.
-I sorted through the candy in the checkout lanes. I was meant to set aside candy that had expired in the last month. A box of Kit Kats was found that had expired in February of 2015. One was missing. I hope the poor sap is okay.
-Clearance school supplies have arrived. A man bought 71 spiral notebooks for $6. A woman bought 110 folders for $4. I hope they meet each other. I would like to see the child of two math problem characters.
-A bearded man named Rusty came through. I sold him a bottle of Crystal Light powder and a gallon of water. The powder was empty. The water jug had an inch of pink water left in it. How long has he been inside the store already. His beard intimidated me too much to ask.
-An elderly man in a fedora pushed two full carts into my lane. They were both filled to the brim. He bought 52 12-packs of Mountain Dew. 12 were diet. He repeatedly told me he was 80 years old. As I handed him his receipt, he leaned in and whispered, “I’m going to get DRUNK.” He pointed at his carts, smiled at me, and scurried away with his definitively alcoholic purchase. I wonder if he knows. I wonder if he cares.
Day Four:
-The store is having a 10% off your entire purchase sale. I have a coupon to scan if anyone asks for it. I scan it if people don’t ask for it if they’re nice to me. I don’t scan it if they’re rude. Power is a new sensation. Power is a good sensation.
–
Because of the sale, we have been flooded with guests itching for a bargain. When I need to go on my break, the manager has to stand in front of the line and tell people to go somewhere else. As the line died down, I prepared to leave. A new wave of people approached. She whispered to me “run as soon as you can.” I did not see her after my break.
-An old man comes through the line and loudly announces that “this is a cash thing. No cards!” His clarity is appreciated, but also questioned.
-A young man follows him. He jokes, “this is a card thing. No cash!” His smile shows he was a kind man. His joke shows he was a dad.
-A confused teenager follows after. He whispers, “……….cash”. He thinks he has to announce his payment type. I do not correct him.
-Children continue to handle their own transactions. This makes my day good. One girl had her own wallet and told me “thank you for your help, sir”. This makes my day great.
–
Five hours into my shift, I discover small figurines of Bambi and Pluto behind my register screen. Knowing that I am experiencing the happiest place on earth for a bargain price is nice.
-A customer purchased hard salami. The store sells a product called hard salami. How anyone can work or shop here with a straight face remains beyond me.
-A small girl waits in the cart as her mother pays for her transaction. She decides she had enough. She shouts, “Let me out of here!” She attempts to leave the cart. She realizes the walls are too tall. She sits down and accepts her fate with a shocking level of grace.
-A grown man sees a coloring book on a shelf. He calls after his wife, who has already walked away. “There’s a coloring book here. This is just pitiful.” No one has any response for this.
-I met a man who looked like Harry Potter if, instead of getting out of the cupboard at age eleven, he stayed in there for fifteen more years with nothing but Red Bull and My Chemical Romance albums.
-A woman gets 69 cents back in change. I know that I will likely get reprimanded if I make a 69 joke to a customer. I do not speak to the customer any further. I am trying to decide if it is worth losing my job or not.
-A little girl in basketball shorts kicks the candy rack multiple times. I expect her to turn around and show that she is throwing a fit. Instead, she seems calm and please. She is having the time of her life. I look forward to seeing where life takes her.
-A child in my lane gets a toy. A child in the next lane yells at him for having a toy when he does not. Toy-having child prepares to throw the toy at toy-lacking child. Parents pick up their respective children. Thus ends the Baby Feud of 2016.
Day Five:
-I open my register. An octogenarian woman approaches. She purchases bras and lingerie. I cry on the inside. It is too early for these images.
-A small girl helped me put her parents bags into their cart. Every time I hand her a bag, she digs through it, announcing which things are hers and which are her parents, and putting her parents’ items in the cart without the bag. They did not earn the bag and she treats them accordingly.
-A group of old people came on a field trip to Target and spent ten minutes discussing the new Jungle Book movie before buying a copy. Their reviews were overwhelmingly positive and gleeful.
-The DVD ran $18.94. The group banded together, pulling out every coin they could find to ensure they gave me exact change. They must have had ten dollars in coins between them. The strength of their teamwork inspired me. The depth of their pockets confounded me.
-A fly flew directly into my nostril before bouncing around and making a swift exit. I was more impressed by its aim than bothered by its decisions.
-A woman seemingly stepped out of the 19th century prairie to purchase a frappucino. I think her dress was handmade. Her head scarf still had a price tag.
-An old couple came through my lane to purchase gardening tools. Anytime one of them turned their back to the other, they would be tickled without warning or mercy. I believe I have just had a glimpse into my future.
-A very angry old man pulled two full carts through. He purchased a Twix bar, a bottle of Diet Pepsi, 36 pairs of underwear, and 262 adult diapers. I believe I have just had another glimpse into my future.
sparksoffandommagic 