#I have to contribute to being queered into oblivion | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 years

Text

uttertrashdumpster asked: Here's a story I think you might want to check out: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/23/law-student-protests-stifle-speakers-yale-uc-hastings It's pretty interesting that the events turned out differently at the two schools. You might find it interesting to take a closer look at the open letters that the students wrote to the administration as well.

[ Sorry, while responding, Tumblr ate your Ask when it hung up while I was saving a Draft. (Anyone else get that?) So I've had to recreate your question here.]

It's honestly kind of amazing. These schools appear to be on the verge of Evergreening themselves into oblivion.

In 2015, Yale memorably exploded into insanity over Halloween costumes.

youtube

This played out as a mirror universe reality where the administrator who sent out an email containing links to dozens of racist stereotype and caricature images, scolding students not dress like any of them drew no reaction, but the professor who students can, and have, decide what is right on their own, without being infantalized by the administration ended up having to quit, but not before her husband spent three hours in front of a crowd of triggered, fragile, crying student fanatics, who wailed that they were literally dying.

Yale did absolutely nothing about this. Why would it, when its own administrators orchestrated it in the first place? Worse, it rewarded some of the more unhinged Puritan ringleaders.

So it should be no surprise to fast-forward a few years to two more incidents, and find one of them occurring at Yale.

The Yale one did proceed. The mob shouted over the top of the speakers, including physical threats (“I’ll literally fight you, bitch.”), were told to leave, and they did but then continued to disrupt the event from the outside, shouting and banging on the walls from the outside to make it as difficult as possible for the speakers. There's plenty of footage of all of this.

One of the speakers had her own security for exactly the reasons demonstrated by the mob.

The ringleaders then had the gall to release a statement condemning the police security, which was there for self-fulfilling reasons, and held up LGBT students as a sort o ideological human shield.

https://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Open-Letter-to-YLS-Administrators-on-Police-Presence-in-SLB.pdf

We write today because, in addition to the deeply disrespectful presence of ADF on campus and the faculty moderator’s dismissal of our peaceful action as childish, armed police officers were called into the Sterling Law Building in response to our exercise of peaceful protest.

Police-related trauma includes, but is certainly not limited to, physical harm. Even with all of the privilege afforded to us at YLS, the decision to allow police officers in as a response to the protest put YLS’ queer student body at risk of harm.

The language is of course the usual hyperbole of "trauma" and "harm" by the police merely being there. This language is deliberate. If security staff simply being there can be construed as "harm" and causing "trauma," then they can justify escalating it to actual physical harm. You say something I don't like, I punch you in the face, and we're even.

We are saddened and appalled that a group of YLS’ most vulnerable students were put in danger

In mental health circles, this type of alarmism is referred to as "Catastrophizing" and it's one of several cognitive distortions that contribute significantly to depression and anxiety.

https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety/catastrophizing

Catastrophizing is when someone assumes that the worst will happen. Often, it involves believing that you’re in a worse situation than you really are or exaggerating the difficulties you face.

For example, someone might worry that they’ll fail an exam. From there, they might assume that failing an exam means they’re a bad student and bound to never pass, get a degree, or find a job. They might conclude that this means they’ll never be financially stable.

These students are literally making themselves crazy by not only acting like, not only insisting that an exaggerated hypothetical is the reality, and not only insisting that it's a moral obligation to think this way, but making it a moral deficiency if you don't.

And I'm not being hyperbolic here. It's the classic Church Lady mentality.

This mentality actually creates the same problem it claims to be battling in the first place. What we've learned from experience with Xianity is that the more you tell someone that they're broken, helpless, incapable and "nothing without god," the more they believe it and become it.

The more you tell people that they're a victim and at risk, the more they will adopt a victimhood identity and become as fragile and incapable as you presumed them to be in the first place.

Victimhood and a persecution complex have become both moral and social currency.

Nobody was in actual "danger." Except, of course, the speakers. There was a brief altercation between a guard and someone described as "trans," and while it's implied by the letter that this was entirely the result of transphobia, there's no evidence given (remember, these are law students) that it was anything other than two people getting in each other's space in a charged situation.

And let's not forget, the "most vulnerable students" were part of a large, aggressive mob.

If you want to talk trauma and harm of LGBT and racial minorities, I can't think of many more consistently successful ways of inflicting it than teaching and reinforcing how helpless and disempowered they are. Except, perhaps, setting society itself up around the notion of them being less-than, as SocJus activists are demanding. Which, of course, is what groups like the KKK advocated.

Using this, you need never defend your claims or tactics, you simply cry about it, and make it a false dichotomy that you either agree with them or you hate the children. It's particularly useful because it avoids the problems of saying something like "I will be harmed" and having to explain how and why. Instead, you simply point to "these people over here" who you are protecting.

And functions as a form of moral Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy in the process.

What the letter does try to do is attach the presence of security for the speaker to some kind of police/security endorsement of the speaker's position. Kevin Costner wasn't there to defend or promote Whitney Houston's music, he was there to protect her.

We urge YLS to change any policies or practices that invite police officers onto our campus in response to peaceful student protests. We also ask that the administration, in collaboration with students, work to build explicit policy that such a response is unwarranted, regardless of who summons police officers.

Remember, these students created the situation where security was required in the first place. Basically, they're demanding that they be able to intimidate anyone they disagree with away from appearing at all, because such a person will not be able to engage anyone to protect them or their right to freedom of speech. And framing it as a moral imperative.

While continuing to gaslight by calling it "peaceful." Repeat a lie often enough...

This is also a pre-emptive strike. They knew they'd get bad publicity from the event, and so went on the offensive. Nowhere in the letter is there any concession that some in their group went overboard, or a recognition that the event was completely legitimate at all. They were right about everything: it was wrong to hold the event at all, and it was wrong for the speaker who brought her own security to take measures to protect herself.

So, while the event, which was on freedom of speech, did proceed, it was an ironic portrait of Woke ideological possession.

This is a real Yale Law School t-shirt, from the Office of Student Affairs. That is, it's not simply a particular group of students. The institution itself has been captured by ideologues.

At the UC Hastings, the event was shut down by the mob, by yelling over the top of their target, and at one point, physically intimidating him by standing right next to him as he attempted to speak. This, they claimed, was their "free speech."

Again, the open letter that came out of this concedes nothing, and again admonishes the university that the mob was in the right the whole time.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeictijjeSEA9ZIw5PM5M8iHFrQsEV7MoPI2cyW8uBKppfaUQ/viewform

We also write to reiterate that the overarching issues faced by Black students, students of color, and other marginalized communities on the UC Hastings campus are rooted in the prevalence of white supremacy and misogyny, and are not tied to the single Federalist Society event.

This is textbook Critical Race Theory language, and was absolutely pervasive throughout Evergreen State College before it notoriously melted down in 2017.

As Sensoy and DiAngelo say in "Is Everyone Really Equal?"

“STOP: When we use the term White supremacy, we are not referring to extreme hate groups or “bad racists.” We use the term to capture the all-encompassing dimensions of White privilege, dominance, and assumed superiority in mainstream society.”

The dominance and superiority they're referring to is that of liberal, secular values, like evidence, reason, logic, individualism and neutral principles of law.

This would seem to be ironic for law students. But Critical Race Theory attributes these to "whiteness" and "white culture" and therefore "bad." Rather than embracing Enlightenment values as universal, and beneficial to everyone throughout the develoment of the Modern Era.

Am I exaggerating? No, I'm not.

From Delgado and Stefancic, in "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction."

Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

Simply take a look at the retracted NMAAHC infographic in all its racist and illiberal glory to see this is no misrepresentation.

A reminder too, that this protest was law students opposing values espoused in the US Constitution. No accident.

Marginalized students do not feel welcomed on this campus, and our concerns have not been adequately addressed.

Keep in mind, this is the same law school US Vice President Kamala Harris attended. In San Francisco. California. This is not some backwater town under the stranglehold of Strom Thurmond or David Duke.

It can also hardly be surprising that they don't feel safe when there is this sort of rhetoric flying around the campus of pervasive, yet unquantified "white supremacy."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0W9QbkX8Cs&t=1m58s

"There ware all these allegations of white supremacy at Evergreen, and every so often somebody, sometimes me, sometimes it was somebody else, asked about, okay, where is this white supremacy? Can we see it? Can we evaluate it?

And this faculty member said, to ask students who are suffering from white supremacy to tell us about the instances of white supremacy is itself racism.

And she said we must stop asking them because we are inflicting harm on them asking for evidence.

And the phrase she used, she said to ask for evidence of racism is racism with a capital R."

It is an article of faith that simply saying "white supremacy" is accepted unquestioningly. Again, this is particularly ironic for law school students.

WE DEMAND:

(1) No disciplinary actions will be taken against students who exercised their free speech rights on March 1, 2022.

Let's carefully note that they're all too eager to hide behind their constitutional rights in order to deny others theirs. The crux of this demand is that they must be allowed and endorsed by the administration to go about their agenda without challenge or accountability.

"We will hold other people responsible for what they do and say, but but must not be held responsible ourselves." This is made all the worse when they claim to be speaking on behalf of minorities, and particularly non-white people.

The students who took the faculty hostage - yes, hostage - during the Evergreen siege demanded, and got, the same immunity.

(2) UC Hastings administration will work to transparently create an on-campus event procedure, similar to procedures done at UCLA Law, where student organizations provide substantial information regarding their event including information on the potential volatile nature of events and a dedicated staff member who helps student organizations execute thoughtful and enriching programs.

We want veto power, or at least the ability and authority to influence or affect events we don't like.

(3) UC Hastings administration will add additional student seats to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group and Campus Climate Advisory Committee and current and future students serving on DEIWG will be justly compensated for their time and work as DEIWG research assistants.

More administrative bloat that reinforces a particular political position (Wokeness). Also pay us for this.

(4) UC Hastings will prioritize the hiring of tenured and tenure-track faculty members who have a specialization in Critical Race Theory, Race and the Law, and/or Identity Subordination with an emphasis on anti-Blackness, as other UC law campuses have done.

(5) UC Hastings will require students to complete a Critical Race Theory or race and law course as a graduation requirement, similar to the requirement recently instituted at UC Berkeley School of Law.

You may have thought me bringing up Critical Race Theory at all was a stretch. Surprise! Critical Race Theory everywhere.

Let's be clear here though. This only makes sense in the context of wanting to change how people think. Particularly making it mandatory. It's therefore almost certainly not the case that they're aiming for all students to know about it, but to believe it's true and adhere to its dogma.

This is even more apparent when you notice the remaining demands (I won't list here) which are all about dropping a dumptruck of money on the DEI industry to basically act as overlords

What's telling and remarkable about this, aside from lack of personal accountability and self-awareness of some of the most privileged people at one of the most privileged institutions in one of the most privileged countries in the world, is how certain they are about making these demands. They know they've achieved cultural and institutional hegemony, and if the administration declines, they will go ahead and ruin it.

Either reputationally, or literally razing it. Remember what I said previously about "trauma" and "harm"? "You say something I don't like, I punch you in the face, and we're even." That's what that means. It's authoritarianism, and that only works when you actually hold power.

Read it again and pay attention to when it switches back and forth from playing the helpless victim to making authoritarian demands with certainty and clarity. This is a symptom typical of certain personality disorders. Someone taking the strategic position of the put-upon victim then makes threatening demands about how you are to make it up to them. Jesus, for example.

The correct answer to this list of demands is simple. LOL, no. Sit down and get back to class.

I predict that if the UC Hastings administration capitulates to this mob, and I expect they will, at least to most things, even if not all, then it will only be a matter of time before it either implodes like Evergreen or descends into a reputational black hole anyway.

What might be even more troubling is that there's signs that neither of these two incidents are aberrations.

If you really want to be troubled, here's an even deeper rabbit hole to go digging down into.

P.S. I presume it goes without saying that I don't have to agree with what the speakers have to say in order to expect that they should be allowed to exercise their freedom of speech to say it?

#ask #Yale Law School #UC Hastings #law school #ideological capture #woke authoritarianism #wokeness as religion #woke #woke activism #wokeism #cult of woke #corruption of education #academic corruption #freedom of speech #free speech #religion is a mental illness

14 notes · View notes

thatheathen · 3 years

Text

youtube

Dave Chappelle LIED About Daphne Dorman

Well damn. This is interesting. It's almost as if we shouldn't take the word of an aging aggrieved comedian who tokens a trans woman to hide behind to make transphobic "jokes" then complains being criticized for what they say contributing to that transphobia.

Oh but we triggered trannies are just too sensitive and don't understand the complex nuance of Dave's craft... Give me a fucking break. I watched the whole special and it didn't impress me much, in fact it made Dave C. seem more ignorant of trans people and trans issues.

So in the wake of the backlash "team TERF" Dave tries to play like a canceled victim when people got upset over what he said in his special. Why are edgy comedians these untouchable people that dare not be criticized or its the end of free speech or whatever? I never wanna see a free speech absolutist type comedian get offended by anything lol! Wouldn't that be funny if they did? Does irony beget irony?

Dave didn't get canceled, a black queer Netflix employee was fired though. Very BLM of Netflix by the way. Of course that Netflix employee "deserved" to be fired as they "leaked" info which didn't happen as Netflix said it did so naturally everyone believes the white cishet Netflix heads over black queer people; people that Dave Chappelle refused to address the existence of in his special framing the LGBTQ+ community as this white-owned and white controlled group which is just beyond irresponsible and intellectually lazy.

Nobody is ever held accountable for their shitty behavior at Netflix regarding transphobia and then gaslight us into oblivion, fire people who disagreed with Dave's stand-up special all in hopes to silence the naysayers and trans people in general.

Trying to cancel Dave's special (which I don't agree with) only emboldens the rightwingers fears who hate trans people with a passion already, claiming that the big mean left or evil LGBTQ community loves to cancel people for no reason or cancel anyone over trans/gay jokes... Again, more evidence that we're not allowed to have mild disagreements, criticize, or be angry at cisgender heterosexuals even if we might be wrong on something so the bigots just paint us all as some mindless angry liberal mob to justify their bigotry disguised as free speech.

But isn't it interesting that Dave Chappelle misled people and/or exaggerated about Daphne being "dragged" on twitter (ya know, that non-real place Dave calls it unless it's someone praising him) to be one of the sole reasons that led to Daphne's suicide despite there being no actual proof of this? Makes you wonder what else Dave doesn't actually know or has misled people to believe because he's such a defenseless victim with a massive platform after all. Very unfair you see. Dave Chappelle is an attention seeking moron to my mind raking in the Netflix cash cuz controversy sells.

Special thanks to SpringsInMyStep on twitter for their extensive research and massive thread on this subject. Highly suggest folks read through it all before going off at them or Abigail Beck. And like clockwork, Abigail's video certainty got Dave Chappelle fans big mad pointing his lie out lmfao!

12 notes · View notes

woman-loving · 3 years

Text

Reception of Gender Diversity in Indonesia and Women’s Erotic Literature

Selections from "Between sastra wangi and perda sharia: debates over gendered citizenship in post-authoritarian Indonesia," Susanne Schröter, Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs (RIMA), 48(1), 2014.

In Indonesia, we encounter a somewhat paradoxical situation where gender deviance is tolerated in many quarters while there is, at the same time, an increasingly repressive-patriarchal gender mainstream. This becomes particularly apparent in the issue of acceptance of queer lifestyles. After the end of the New Order period, the emerging liberalisation in the urban areas included that aspect as well. A group called Q-Munity has organised an annual queer film festival, the Q!Festival, in Jakarta since 2002 and activists join in public debates, trying to reduce prejudice and to put an end to discrimination. Within the women’s rights network, Kartini, a training manual was developed to strengthen the position of non-heteronormative life models (Bhaiya und Wieringa 2007), and Siti Musdah Mulia proclaimed in the newspaper Jakarta Globe of 23 September 2009 that lesbian desire was created by God just like its heterosexual counterpart and hence must be accepted as natural. Until today, her statement triggers controversial discussions within Indonesia and beyond.

As could be expected, this unusual awakening was criticised by Islamist hardliners as an adoption of Western decadence. Performance venues of the Q! Festival were repeatedly raided by ‘goon squads’ and in 2010 Surabaya became the site of an éclat that was even covered by the international media. It was sparked by plans of the Asian branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association to hold an international conference in March of that year. There had been similar conventions before in Mumbai, Cebu and Chiang Mai. The organisers were eager to be as discrete as possible in order to avoid protests. There was to be no Gay Pride Parade, and the organisers planned to publish a press release only on the last day of the event. Due to an unlucky coincidence, however, the local media learned about the planned event in its run-up and there were quick reactions by Islamic organisations. Statements were issued by religious authorities, claiming that homosexuality is irreconcilable with both Indonesian culture and Islam. Such language immediately mobilised the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam) and the Indonesian fraction of Hizb-ut Tahrir[14] to take militant action against the organisers. As a result, the local authorities prohibited the conference and those participants who had already arrived were besieged at their hotels by the mob until they were brought to safety under police protection (Vacano 2010).

These incidents appear to be at odds with the supposedly tolerant attitude towards gender variances in Indonesia as described by anthropologists such as Boellstorff (2005), Peletz (2009), Davis (2010) and Blackwood (2010). These scholars base their claims on the existence of so-called third and fourth genders rooted in local social orders. An often-cited example of this are the Bugis of South Sulawesi who use five gender terms: besides women and men, there are calalai (masculine women), calabai (feminine men), and bissu (ritual experts and shamans who are ambiguous in terms of gender). The bissu have always particularly attracted the attention of anthropologists, who interpreted them as a culturally-accepted variant of non-binary gender. In the Bugis system of gender categories, they are classified as calabai, that is, individuals with a male body and a feminine or ambivalent habitus. They are viewed as embodying a pre-Islamic, double-gendered Supreme Being which is attributed the ability to mediate between humans and spirits; hence, they act as healers and shamans. There is some debate, however, among anthropologists about whether the existence of this phenomenon can actually be interpreted as an indicator of tolerance and liberalism. Birgit Röttger-Rössler, who has done fieldwork among the Bugis, is sceptical, and even objects to applying the term ‘third gender’. According to her, calabai are ‘institutionalised, socially-accepted variants or subcategories of the male gender’ (Röttger-Rössler 2009:287, translation mine). She adds that these types of transgenderism can by no means be interpreted as a negation of heteronormative gender concepts. The reverse is true: they reinforce the latter. As Röttger-Rössler sees it, the order legitimated by this exception is not only ‘defined clearly and rigidly’(Röttger-Rössler 2009:287–8), but also asymmetrical, putting women at a disadvantage.

On top if this, the mere existence of a local ‘third gender’ does not allow the conclusion that local communities are generally characterised by a liberal attitude towards gender issues. This becomes particularly evident when modern phenomena of transgression, which are usually referred to as queer, meet local forms of deviance. The mobilisation of queer activists in Indonesia and the resulting Islamic counteroffensive is a well-documented example of this.

The same applies to shifts in local gender structures that were triggered by the general climate of open-mindedness after the end of the New Order. In the year when the conference in Surabaya was wrecked by conservative moral ideas, there was also a remarkable public debate on local Indonesian transgenders who are subsumed by the collective term of waria.[15] The debate was sparked by a ‘Miss Aceh Transsexual’ beauty pageant held in February 2010. Many people in Aceh have ambivalent and contradictory attitudes towards waria. On the one hand, they view the latter’s existence as a disgrace for the community; on the other hand, waria are tolerated half-heartedly, not least because men secretly relish their sexual services. Waria often use their beauty parlours and hairdressing salons as brothels and engage in prostitution in the semi-clandestine red light district of the capital Banda Aceh. It is obvious that neither Aceh society nor the police intend to actually eliminate this option for extramarital sex, which is punishable under current legislation. Representatives of the authorities, however, take advantage of the waria’s extralegal status and arbitrary arrests as well as rape in police custody are common. Everyday discrimination, humiliation, and assaults by the sharia police are rampant. In the wake of the devastating tsunami in 2004, which was interpreted by Islamic clerics as a warning to disobedient believers, waria were repeatedly expelled from their homes and businesses because their neighbours feared that their presence might evoke the wrath of God to descend upon them again.

In Indonesia, both the human rights and the Qur’an and Sunna are invoked in the discussion about whether or not the existence of waria is legitimate. In Aceh, more importance is attached to the religious narratives of justification, however, than to secular reasoning, because Islam is viewed as the measure of all things. In the end, phenomena that are incompatible with the commandments of Allah will not gain acceptance. The experts disagree, however, about what is compatible with Islam, particularly if waria make their appearance in modern contexts. The pageant mentioned above, where they performed in burlesque costumes, sparked a pan-Indonesian controversy which dominated the headlines of the local and national press for several days. Well-known politicians, activists, and Islamic clerics piped up to express their opinion. The majority of the religious contributions condemned waria as being immoral and sinners, while secular commentators came to their defence, referring to minority rights.

I had the opportunity to discuss that issue in March 2010 with students at the State Islamic University (Universitas Islam Negeri, UIN) in Yogyakarta and at the Gadjah Mada University (UGM) which is also located in Yogyakarta. The Islamic students, in particular, engaged in a lively debate about whether the Qur’an makes a clear statement about the matter and what the prophet Muhammad said about it. This was their sole criterion for tolerating or condemning waria. On the personal level, the subject did not trigger any emotions in them; it was a purely matter-of-fact discussion without any recourse to moral categories. My colleague Sahiron Syamsuddin, a respected Islamic scholar with whom I held the event, eventually made an important point. He said that three gender categories were already known in Muhammad’s time: men, women, and khunta--transgenders who resembled the waria. He went on to explain that the third gender had fallen into oblivion due to subsequent patriarchal developments. This was acceptable to the students. Sahiron’s reasoning is typical of so-called ‘progressive’ Muslims who attempt to substantiate liberal ideas with little-known data from the Islamic past or new interpretations of the Qur’an and Sunna.

As becomes apparent from the abovementioned examples, upon closer examination, the much-cited Indonesian open-mindedness with regard to gender variances turns out to be a restrictive straightjacket into which some phenomena can be fitted, while others cannot. Transgender individuals are tolerated and may even hold respected positions, provided that they stay within narrow, strictly-defined social confines or already-accepted cultural constructs. Above all, they are expected to be inconspicuous. As long as a beauty pageant is held in a village, whether or not the event is made into a scandal depends on the social relations between the individual actors. At the national level, it is not possible to rely on such local relations. Other narratives of justification then take effect, particularly narratives backed by Islam. It appears that only a minority of the Indonesian Muslims subscribe to progressive interpretations of the Qur’an and the Islamic traditions, and my colleague Syamsuddin would certainly have had a hard time if rhetorically-versed Islamists had participated in the discussion. According to a study conducted in 2013 by the Pew Research Center, 93 per cent of all Indonesians disapprove of homosexuality. Thus, in terms of tolerance, the country is behind Malaysia (86 per cent) and Pakistan (87 per cent) and at the same level as Palestine. As has been noted by Jamison Liang, homophobia is on the rise (Liang 2010). This development is due not only to the strength gained by a conservative, partly militant Islam, but also to the fact that by now there is a public debate on the issue of gender deviance.

----

The virulently liberal face of Indonesian culture, despite Islamist zealotry, is also represented by the genre of female erotic literature. Called sastra wangi (fragrant literature) it caused an international sensation.[12] Writers such as Djenar Maesa Ayu, Ayu Utami, Fira Basuki, Dewi Lestari, and Nova Riyanti Yusuf picked out incest, extramarital sex, and homosexuality as central themes. They were not afraid of giving drastic descriptions of sexuality and they played offensively with the breach of all social conventions (Hatley 1999; Listyowulan 2010). One of the most prominent examples is Ayu Utami’s book Saman, of which more than one hundred thousand copies were sold in Indonesia. The novel is about the sexual adventures of three young women from good families, about split identities and the transgression of patriarchal moral ideas. Shakuntala, one of the protagonists, deflowers herself with a spoon and feeds the hymen to a dog. Later, she enters into a lesbian relationship in which she takes the male-connoted part. These are the scandal-provoking parts of the novel. It also has, however, another, political dimension which centres on the priest Saman. During a conflict, he takes sides with oppressed rubber farmers who are struggling against dispossession. He is denounced as their leader, arrested and tortured.

[cw for discussion of incest, child sexuality/assault]

In Djenar Maesa Ayu’s Menjusuh Ayah (Suckled by the Father), a woman recounts the sexual childhood experiences she had with older men, including her father. She states that as a baby she was not fed her mother’s milk, but her father’s semen. When she confronts her father with that story, he accuses her of lying and hits her with his belt. She insists, however, on her version of the past. The first-person narrator tells the reader that her father eventually refused to feed her any longer. Hence, she turned to his friends as a child. ‘I liked the way they slowly pushed down my head and allowed me to suckle there for a long time’ (Ayu 2008:95). When one of her father’s friends penetrates her, she kills him: ‘I am a woman, but I am not weaker than a man’, she writes, ‘because I have not suckled on mother’s breast’ (Ayu 2008:97).

[end cw]

The new erotic women’s literature led to a controversial discussion in Indonesia. The term sastra wangi itself alludes to the public erotic self-staging of the women, which was eagerly picked up by the media. Many stories about the young writers opened with exact descriptions of their looks, mentioning the high heels, the strapless t-shirts, the long loose hair, or the fact that the audience smoked and consumed alcohol during the readings. Like the provocative titles and texts, the media stagings brought fast fame and high sales figures. On the other hand, the women were accused of using sex as a marketing strategy. Not surprisingly, criticism of the taboo breaches came from the religious side, while secular-urban intellectuals mostly appreciated the new literary awakening. Saman won several awards, including a writing contest of the Jakarta Art Institute in 1997 and an award of the Jakarta Art Council (Dewan Kesenian Jakarta) for best novel in 1998. In 2000, Ayu Utami won the Claus Award in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, there has been some reserve on the part of literary scholars. Katrin Bandel criticises the unquestioned male perspective of the sastra wangi (Bandel 2006:115), Arnez and Dewojati find fault with the virulent phallocentrism (Arnez and Dewojati 2010).[13] Positive appraisal, however, prevails in the overall judgment. According to Arnez and Dewojati, the issue of whether sastra wangi can be called emancipatory is still controversial, but nevertheless ‘it can be claimed that in modern Indonesian literature such an open discussion of sexuality and female desire has not taken place before, especially not in such an outspoken language’ (Arnez and Dewojati 2010:20).

#lgbtq #indonesia #islam #trans #gender pluralities #waria #calalai #calabai

6 notes · View notes

secret-blacklight-domain777 · 4 years

Text

Drew McDowall speaks to Chloé Lula about new solo album Agalma and the reissue of Coil’s 1999 opus Musick To Play In The Dark

21 years after its initial release, Coil’s Musick To Play In The Dark is being remastered and reissued by US label Dais. The release coincides with ex-member Drew McDowall’s fourth solo album Agalma – which he describes as an extension of the ritualistic practices that were “woven into Coil’s DNA”. Like the industrial group’s later work Agalma drips with spectral textures, angelic backing vocals and glitchy cinematic sweeps formed from warped field recordings and modular processing. Here, he reflects on finding inspiration in solitude, the insidiousness of the patriarchy and the power of synchronicity in music and in life.

Chloé Lula: Musick To Play In The Dark has been hailed as the point at which Coil pivoted from “sun music” to “moon music”. According to Jhonn Balance, it was motivated by a desire to “let in things you had shut out before: the feminine. The tidal. The cyclical”.

Drew McDowall: Musick To Play In The Dark kind of put the stamp on a process that was happening for a couple of years with Coil. Balance and Sleazy’s music was considered kind of solar as it related to an album like Scatology with a queer, male energy. During the period that I was involved as an official member, from about ‘94 or ‘95, we began investigating lunar energies, like with Moon’s Milk or Under An Unquiet Skull, one of the Solstice/Equinox 7"s, I think the driver behind this shift was our distaste and distrust of the patriarchy, both from a cultural point of view and from an occult point of view. Musick was a conscious effort to tap into lunar, traditionally feminine energies. And in an occult sense, to move away from the ostensibly solar, patriarchal, hierarchical Crowleyian aspect of the occult into the more fluid, chaotic, unconscious practices of Austin Osman Spare.

Not a lot of people know this, but Balance and Sleazy would always say grace before a meal, and they would always give thanks to the Goddess. They did that almost as long as I knew them. I kind of liked that. So it was about those energies that only really come out in the dark, that are less blatant and present and in your face. It was a process, it wasn’t a sharp delineation. But Musick was when that crystallised, and in that sense it was an album that was completely moon music.

What were your specific contributions to the album?

It was really fragmented. I’d moved to New York after living in London for 15 years, and was dealing with a lot of chemical issues, drug issues, whatever. I went back to work on Musick, but my imbalance had gotten so extreme that I could only be awake during the nighttime hours and was asleep during the daytime. Their studio was in Weston-super-Mare, this decrepit seaside town. They’d gotten sick of London, and they wanted to get Balance away from all of the temptations that he was prey to. It was kind of an attempt to save his life, really. They had this huge Victorian mansion on a hillside overlooking this wonderful bay, the River Severn.

Balance, Sleazy, and Thighpaulsandra worked in the studio on the bones and the structure and the stratum of these tracks during the day, and I would stagger out of whatever comatose stupor I was in in the evening and just take what they’d done and process it and rework it. It was a way I wasn't used to working with Coil, but I think it added something – some kind of psychosis or strange pathology to the recordings. Back then – this was ‘99 – granular synthesis wasn’t really readily available. We’d gotten a hold of some prototype stuff that was really not very easy to use. They didn’t have the nice interface that you have now. But that was part of the fun. I was also taking things and running the material through different filters and synths that we had in the studio. I would leave the files on one of the computer desktops and go to bed. We’d cross each other’s paths in the morning, have breakfast and chat for a bit, and then I’d go to sleep while they worked for the rest of the day.

I’ve read that what you generated through granular synthesis was intended to sound like a fire. What was the idea behind that?

It was almost a kind of ritual aspect, like being around a ritual fire, or a primitive fire, and tapping into what we were and where we came from. If memory serves me right, those were some of the conversations that we had, fire being this idea of being in a glade or an opening in the forest around a fire, and having that sound, the smell and the sight of it. We could only really capture the sound of it, but hopefully we managed to create the effect of the whole experience.

You’ve mentioned to me that you like to go to upstate New York when you want to work on your solo material now. How do isolated settings, like the Catskills or Weston-super-Mare, impact your ability to tap into highly creative states?

We [Coil] loved to get out of the city and go to places like Avebury. We would take day trips or trips for a couple of days and visit stone circles. Back then, in the mid- to late-90s, they weren’t quite the Instagrammable tourist hellholes that they are now. So you could really get to these places that you weren’t allowed to be in, and you’d either cut through a fence or just walk into these places that weren’t even fenced off, for the most part. Getting out like that was a lot of our inspiration prior to doing any recording. Especially when we all lived in London, it was so vital to get out and get into the forests and connect with Pan. That was part of Coil’s methodology, and I kind of carried it over into the way that I work now. If I’m not recording upstate, I’m doing a lot of the pre-recording meditation there and getting myself ready, either psychedelically or mentally or physically or whatever. Or even doing some of the recording if not the whole album. The album that Nicky [Hiro Kone] and I did [The Ghost of George Bataille] was recorded entirely upstate in the Catskills.

You helped remaster both volumes of Musick. Is there anything notably different about these reissues?

We remade Musick into a double album and added a really beautiful etching on one side. All of the Dais reissues sound even better than the originals, thanks to Josh Bonati who remastered them. Corners were cut a little bit in some of the original packaging, and the print quality wasn't as good back then. So not only does Musick sound better, but it looks absolutely gorgeous because we got all of the original files for the artwork and gave them the kind of high-resolution, beautifully packaged reissue that it deserves.

What was it like to revisit the material? Are the guiding principles behind it still relevant 20 years later?

I think they might be even more relevant today, if anything. There’s this massive pushback into this really regressive patriarchal state worldwide. Obviously we see it here in the USA, but in Poland, Hungary – all of those places. It feels like patriarchy’s last death spasm. Unfortunately, as we all know with male rage and white rage, the death spasm can take everything down with it. And while it’s unquestionably a good thing that it feels like its death spasm, we should be aware that it will try to destroy the planet in its desire to not give up power. I think that’s in the nature of patriarchy. It would rather burn the planet to cinders than cede its position. Patriarchy and white supremacy both being intermeshed in the same thing. Things felt apocalyptic back then too, do you know what I mean? But now there is no hiding from as it really feels like everything’s spiraling and whiplashing into oblivion.

I really hadn’t listened to Musick very much, because the process of making it was often very traumatic. And dramatic. I didn’t hear it until about two years after it was released. So when we were listening to what we had during the process of having it remastered, it was kind of mind-blowing. There are moments of darkness, but there are moments of really delicate sweetness, like “Broccoli”, where Sleazy is singing in his soft and sort of adorable voice about vegetables.

I hear similarities between songs like “Are You Shivering?” on Musick and “Agalma II” on your new album. There’s so much going on in their sense of depth, space, and evolution, and their allusions to familiar instruments combined with granular glitch.

That wasn’t deliberate, but it’s kind of inevitable. I added to Coil’s DNA, but Coil added to my DNA as well. There’s something we tapped into that I want to keep exploring. That never changes – this feeling that the work is never done, the mission is never complete. You can always go deeper or explore more, or take it in different directions.

In past interviews, you’ve talked about how your music as part of Coil and as a solo artist has aimed to trace various dissociative states.

I disassociate very easily. And rather than fighting it, I try to use it as a wellspring – as fertile ground for the work that I do. That’s always been a process, and always been part of the work or part of the inspiration for the work. I took my inspiration from those states that we all experience, that we can’t really put a name to. There are moments that fall short of language, and when we try and pin these moments down, it feels like we’re trying to hold water in our hands and it’s slipping out, and we feel adrift. So the idea with Agalma was to try and capture those moments. I guess the closest that I could come to putting a word on it was trying to capture the feeling of the sublime. Not just beauty, but joy, terror, dread. It was partly that. And the working title of the album was Ritual Music. That’s another thing that’s kind of been woven into my DNA from being with Coil. All of the music that we did was ritual music, and everything I’ve done since then has been a form of ritual music.

Agalma feels improvisational in its sense of chaos, but controlled enough to indicate planning, arrangement, and methodology. How did you put it together?

I’m not a very rigorous conceptualist. For me, it’s really trial and error and serendipity. Some of the inspirations or methodology might be that I’ll take the particular architecture of a dream and translate that sonically. Or it might just be a process of iteration, which is really my main workflow: manipulating what I’m doing to the point that something else is revealed in it, something that was trying to get out – that I was consciously cajoling or persuading to speak to me – or else something that just pops up unexpectedly, and I’m like, “This is where this piece is trying to take me”. I might take something through the modular and put it through different processes on the computer, then send it back into the modular. A lot of what I find really rewarding is field recordings. There are a lot of field recordings in my work that don’t even sound like field recordings. I kind of like that, where it’s not immediately apparent what something is.

What were some of the field recordings you used on this album?

I was in Naples a couple of years ago staying in this incredible apartment building that was carved into the side of a hill. I spent hours just recording in the marbled hallways. I got a ton of really good field recordings that I then shaped using the modular. You can’t really listen to it and say, “Oh, that sounds like a voice”. It just sounds like traces and resonances of something. But it’s really hard to pinpoint what it is you’re listening to.

Eight out of nine tracks on Agalma feature contributions from other artists. How did you choose who to work with?

This album started to take shape in my head last year, before I started recording. I really wanted to work with people that inspired me. I wanted to work with people I had that sense of trust with. I didn’t give anyone any guidelines, but everything just gelled in a way that felt really magical and weird.

We’ve talked quite a bit about subverting the patriarchy and being an outsider. Are your collaborations motivated by a desire to mine that feeling of operating from the margins?

That’s interesting. All the collaborators on the record are friends. That was one of the important things. My personal connections with people are always predicated on the idea of this affinity of outsiderness. Alterity. When I meet someone I like, I get the sense that they’re also kind of an outsider. Even if it’s not, like, explicit, there’s always a strand. For this record, it just felt that those were the voices who I really felt a presence with.

One of the feelings that I was also trying to explore and skirt around the edges of, or have in some way in my brain, was the sense of the sacred, and to really reconnect with that idea. And not in any religious terms. That’s something that was very, very much part of Coil. Even though their focus changed for me, I still see it as going back to the albums that preceded my involvement. Coil always had a strong sense of the sacred, and it wasn’t in any Sky God sense. It was in the sense of a sacred materiality. Like “sacred” in the Bataille sense of the word. That’s always been part of my work, but with this I wanted to make it more up-front.

It’s powerful when the act of following a kind of altered, oneiric logic leads to moments of synchronicity.

Those moments have to be valued and not just dismissed as coincidence or something mundane. There are moments of just huge resonance that we’re often not aware of at the time – like the moment feels loaded in a way that we can’t immediately put our finger on. But sometimes months or even years later, we see them as points where our life changed and we started on a different path. We do ourselves a huge disservice to just write them off to chance or happenstance or accidents. What they are I don’t know, but I think they’re much more meaningful than just randomness.

Agalma is available via Dais now. Musick To Play In The Dark is released on 27 November

By Chloé Lula

2 notes · View notes

operationwell · 4 years

Text

Body Neutrality Makes Space for Steady Worthiness

There isn’t a day that goes by where I do not judge my body in some way. Some days more than others. I also can’t remember a time where I didn’t care about my appearance. I recognize the ways that this self-critique has been ingrained not only in my hard-wiring, but also in my programming, and my entire environment. I was born into a female body, my body was subject to unachievable and patriarchal standards of beauty from a very young age. I do not remember exactly when I began hating my body, but I do know that it started exactly when I swallowed the belief that I had to be the best, kindest, most soft, most beautiful girl I could be. I was told to deny all the parts of me that the world didn’t like, didn’t find appropriate. I, like nearly all young girls today, Began controlling my body and my appearance with a self hate so powerful that the parts of me that didn’t fit in the box (the too loud, the too sensitive, the too strong, the too quiet, the too smart, the creative, the masculine, the queer, the uncanny) were shrunk and silenced and near the edge of oblivion.

So this body and its home and its street and its neighborhood and its town and its city and its region and its country and its continent and its entire physical world is drenched in a narrative that the authentic is never right, it needs to be edited and cropped and photo-shopped until it no longer resembles the self, and begins resembling the what is valued by the powers that be. Think about this for the same amount of time you would usually give to making your body, your clothes, hair, skin, size fit into the world’s boxes.

The people in power – who are they? Don’t fool yourself. They are way more than just Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump. Of course, we must note that the concentration of financial power within the top 1% gives control of so much to the hands of a few, and this disproportionate allocation of resources alone will shift the lives of nations. However, power is not only found in money. The powers that be are hierarchal and intersectional in nature. The power of wealth when combined with white supremacy and colonialism has and will extinguish entire ways of living, speaking, growing, and working. The power of patriarchy mixed with physical strength has and will objectify, devour, and strip not only women but also queer folks of their humanness, their agency, their creativity. The powers that be are based on the intersection of identities. The most notable of these identities are race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, legal status, socioeconomic status, education level, age, citizenship status, trauma history and countless other identities that may fall outside these lines. These identities interact with one another, as the humans of the world are collections of both oppressed and privileged identities in each of these categories. We are a patchwork, a maze, some sort of puzzle you may find in a Sunday New York Times. We make sense, but we are complex. Too complicated, maybe, for many to even attempt at solving us. But if you have sat with me thus far into this argument you might have the clues, and the patience enough to be still, to bring your ear and your heart to the source of the pain, and to know the truth. Thank you for being here this far.

The world’s boxes are plenty. They are fairly detailed, too. They exist in polarities, they ask that you fall on either end of a spectrum. The want you to be black or white, girl or boy, rich or poor, an American or a terrorist, a republican or a democrat, a native or a colonizer, a good neighbor or a felon, worthy or not worthy. Not one human is born untouched by complexity. No body is an empty vessel. I exist as a key that simply doesn’t turn any one lock, we all don’t fit.

Welcome. This is my work. My inner work. The job I have dedicated most time and energy into for the last 2 years. I have researched and formed an understanding of my existence. I looked to the world for answers to questions I had of myself for years. I wanted to better know my heart by believing with every ounce of my being every belief I could get my hands on. I researched the major religions of the world. I went to temples. I got on my knees and prayed. I spent weeks in silence and reflection. I wrote and cried and moved in praise. I was disgusted and overjoyed at once. I was alive. I believed in everything.

I wanted to better know my purpose so I invested myself in communities and conflicts in order to help foster healing and understanding. My purpose has always been to put my heart and my ears quietly next to the suffering. To listen. To proceed accordingly. I went into the world and invested. I tried to live my purpose. I did. Every time. But it was not enough. I needed a better job, or I wasn’t making as sweeping of an impact as I had hoped, and I needed to contribute more. I love my need to grow but I must ask myself with intention, when will I be enough? When will my contribution be acceptable? And who makes those decisions? Is it me or is it the powers that be?

I was seeking answers in the world when I needed to seek answers in myself. My work has been severing the connection between my productivity and my worth, which is difficult being a member of the working class in a capitalistic society. My work is creative self-discovery, it is working and moving and acting with intention, it is letting truth guide my words and my hands, it is admitting fault, it is forgiving, it is knowing that my body is a vehicle for love.

When I embrace an incredibly complex understanding of my situation and its many contexts, I am better able to see the ways that the world has taught me to silence my authentic self. My work is to love my body, not for what it is, but for what it holds. I will love my body as it is the keeper of my compassion, my intellect, my hope. It is the keeper of my health. This is how I must relate to it. I must ignore all discussion of the way it does or doesn’t fit into the world’s boxes. This chatter is irrelevant to how my body feels and operates, it is just noise that has kept me hating myself for years. I will regard my body as a something unattached from my worth.

“Body positivity says, I love myself because I am beautiful. Body neutrality says: I love myself and that love has nothing to do with the way I look. I am much more than this body. This body is a vehicle for my existence. My worth is separate from it and because of that, my worth is steady. I am simply here, being in this flesh and bones.” – Emma Zeck

I will hold this truth of my worth with me. I know that my body will change. My body has done nothing but change since the start of my existence in human form. My body will continue to grow and shrink and age and adapt and wrinkle and sag as I come into contact with time and stress and trauma and nurturing. I know my body will change as I seek out holistic health. I have worried in the past about gaining or losing too much weight, about my cystic acne returning, about “keeping myself together” and not “letting myself go”. I no longer worry about my body changing. I know it will. I remain here in neutrality, knowing that my appearance does not always transparently display my self-love. In fact, my self love exists apart from my body. My worth is inherent, and does not falter when my body changes.

1 note · View note

richincolor · 5 years

Photo

Interview with Dahlia Adler

When I was a teen, Edgar Allan Poe creeped me out, but in the most delightful way. I can't wait to dive into this new anthology His Hideous Heart. An amazing group of authors have re-imagined his stories and now the collection is out there in the world waiting for readers to experience the chills. Today, the editor and contributing author, Dahlia Adler, is here to share about this intriguing collection and her work in publishing. His Hideous Heart: Thirteen of YA’s most celebrated names reimagine Edgar Allan Poe’s most surprising, unsettling, and popular tales for a new generation. Edgar Allan Poe may be a hundred and fifty years beyond this world, but the themes of his beloved works have much in common with modern young adult fiction. Whether the stories are familiar to readers or discovered for the first time, readers will revel in Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tales, and how they’ve been brought to life in 13 unique and unforgettable ways. Contributors include Kendare Blake (reimagining “Metzengerstein”), Rin Chupeco (“The Murders in the Rue Morge”), Lamar Giles (“The Oval Portrait”), Tessa Gratton (“Annabel Lee”), Tiffany D. Jackson (“The Cask of Amontillado”), Stephanie Kuehn (“The Tell-Tale Heart”), Emily Lloyd-Jones (“The Purloined Letter”), Hillary Monahan (“The Masque of the Red Death”), Marieke Nijkamp (“Hop-Frog”), Caleb Roehrig (“The Pit and the Pendulum”), and Fran Wilde (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).

As a YA author, editor, and blogger with family relationships to maintain, could you share a few things you've learned about balancing many roles? The number one thing I've learned is honestly that balance is kind of a myth. There's no way to do everything perfectly and make everyone happy. What's worked for me is choosing what my priority will be at any given time and then backburnering things as possible. So, for example, when I knew I really wanted to finish writing a novel, I took a hiatus from blogging inasmuch was possible and took advantage of the fact that my in-laws come over every Sunday to see my child and put my butt in the chair for as solid a time block (usually 3-4 hours with of course some interruptions) on Sunday mornings as possible until I was done. When I take on extra blogging, it means writing is gonna get backburnered. Consistency is important and so is being firm on your boundaries.

What should we be expecting with His Hideous Heart -- mild creepiness, full on terror, or something more in between? It really does run a gamut, in the same way I don't think everyone realizes Poe's story did. In addition to the Gothic horror he's known for, he's also called the father of the modern detective story, and of course some of his works were far more melancholy than terrifying. I think all of his different facets are captured really well in the collection. Certainly, though, even in the ones with happy endings, you're not gonna find sunny beach reads! Why do you think Poe's stories continue to fascinate readers after so many years? Because his themes have never stopped being relevant or interesting. They're so many of the darkest parts of humanity that we don't necessarily get to live out; they're some of our worst fantasies. Getting to live them out through literature, getting to take action against someone who drives us nuts or mourn ourselves into oblivion, is both a safe and satisfying way to explore them. It takes a brave writer to put that out into the world and I think it takes brave writes to adapt them and say, "Here's how we're still feeling those things in our current world."

How did you choose which story you would re-imagine? Well first off, I took a backseat to the others, because they're all masters of dark fantasy or thrillers or horror and I am...not exactly known for any of those things! So I was only selecting from what they did not. And then from there, "Ligeia" was such an easy choice, because I knew I was going to stick my romantic contemporary strengths as best I could, and I saw immediately how that story would play out if I did. It didn't even feel like a selection process; the idea was just...there, waiting for me to grab it.

What were some of the challenges and rewards of editing an anthology? It's always a challenge to corral that many authors, and it's just logistically complicated. There are a lot of contracts and payments and agent negotiations and I don't think people realize that it's very rare for editors not to be responsible for that (as opposed to publishers). So that in itself is a lot of work before you even get to the editing, deadline enforcing, mapping over everyone's copyediting and proofreading corrections, etc. But I have so much natural curiosity about the industry, especially as someone who's been working in it for over a decade, that I really wanted to learn how more things on this side work, so that was actually a big reward for me! As, of course, is getting to read all these amazing stories early and working with such amazing authors. I really could not have asked for better.

What was the process for finding contributors? This actually half happened on Twitter, where the idea arose and people I think are fantastic in these genres chimed in that they'd be interested, and then half happened in email, when I realized this project was actually going to happen and I wanted to make sure it had as many of my favorites as possible. Honestly, creating lineups is my favorite part of anthologies, so I just went straight to the authors I absolutely love who write in Poe's genres and asked them to join up. It was thankfully easy!

Could you share a few books you've been recommending lately? ALWAYS. I've had a lot of reason to recommend By Any Means Necessary by Candice Montgomery, which has the college setting I know a lot of YA readers are looking for, plus a killer voice, great romance, awesome friend group, and covers really relevant topics. Another upcoming favorite is The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake, which is a Sapphic reimaginging of Twelfth Night that I always pitch as perfect for fans of The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum and How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake, both of which I love. As part of my Patreon for LGBTQReads, I have sort of a "book concierge" service, where I help readers find the perfect queer book for them, and so far Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi and Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan are in the lead over there; all hail the f/f YA Rom Com! And, obviously I've been getting some Horror/Spooky requests too, thanks to both His Hideous Heart and the fall season being upon us, and my standby faves there are The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco, Mary by Hillary Monahan, Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, As I Descended by Robin Talley, and Wilder Girls by Rory Power.

Just for fun, since you are involved with publishing in a variety of roles, would you share one of your strangest experiences in the industry? Oh man, it's really hard not to respond to this with anything I...shouldn't. But I'll go with an embarrassing one that also involves one of the only times I have ever lied at work. My first job out of college, I was an Editorial Assistant at Simon & Schuster. There was an event for an Entourage book, by which, yes, I do mean a show based on the horrid show I was extremely into once upon a time and that fully influenced the character of Josh Chester in my Daylight Falls duology, but I digress. Anyway, I went to the event, which was about 10-15 blocks away from the office, and I reallllly wanted a signed copy, but I also reallllly didn't want to take more than an hour for lunch because I was terrified of my boss. And since I worked there, I knew the name of the editor on the book, and I maybe used that to pretend I was her assistant so I could skip the whole line and then get my book signed. MAYBE. I cannot confirm or deny.

Thanks so much for sharing with Rich in Color. We look forward to reading these shivery tales. Thank you so much for having me!!

Dahlia Adler is an Associate Editor of mathematics by day, a blogger for B&N Teens and LGBTQ Reads by night, and an author of Young Adult and New Adult novels at every spare moment in between. Her novels include the Daylight Falls duology, Just Visiting, and the Radleigh University trilogy, and she is the editor of the anthologies His Hideous Heart (Flatiron Books, 2019) and That Way Madness Lies (Flatiron Books, 2021). Dahlia lives in New York with her husband, son, and an obscene amount of books, and can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @MissDahlELama.

2 notes · View notes

preevelynn-blog · 5 years

Text

ManyVids Interview

Tell us about your cult:

I am the High Priestess of the Cult of Yith. We are a cult that is dedicated to learning all there is about consensual sexual perversion and deviancy. We accept every kind of gender identity and expression and sexuality. The main goal of our cult is to collectively have as many different kinds of sex and orgasms as possible for the sake of knowledge. We only condone fully consensual sexual interactions and fully condemn any kind of nonconsensual sexual act. The Yithians collect data on all the different kinds of sexual activities that our cult members are a part of and they add it to their grand libraries that hold knowledge from infinite places and times.

The Yithians are a species of highly evolved extraterrestrial (and sometimes terrestrial) beings who can swap their consciousness with individual creatures through not only space, but also time. A Yithian living on prehistoric planet earth could potentially swap bodies with Genghis Khan, or Abraham Lincoln, or a random person living in the year 2045. They can swap their consciousness with creatures and beings from anywhere in the universe at any time. This is how I first came into contact with them. They must have taken control of my body in the past because I now exist in strange dreams that involve them. I understand that all they seek is knowledge and I’ve always seen knowledge as power, so I’ve created the Cult of Yith to use my own talents as a sexual deviant to help the Yithians gain knowledge about human sexuality. It’s very convoluted, I know. The bottom line is that if you join the Cult of Yith and you have interesting, fun, consensual, and unique sex eventually when the Yithians come back to Earth and claim their rightful place as rulers of the planet, we will be given the role of librarian in their grand libraries for our contributions. Plus your life will just be better with a religion that fully supports your odd kinks.

What role does music play in your life?

Music plays many different roles in my life. The biggest role music plays in my life is that of a way for me to communicate. Music is also a friend, an enemy, a religion, and many more things. I am almost always listening to music unless I am sleeping and I create music every single day. It has a near constant presence in my life. I create music for all the porn that I make. It may not be very good, but it’s something I made and that makes me proud. My favorite art has always been art that is provocative and socially conscious. I think in American society right now we need to be pushing for sex work to be more protected, socially and legally, and music is a great medium to do that. Music can be a wrapper for a message that makes a message an easier pill for humanity to swallow. I love to make music that focuses on and is influenced by sex work, intersectional feminism, and the rights of genderqueer people while theatrically wrapping it all up in a recognizable package, such as the imagery of a religion or cult. *hint hint nudge nudge* Music, and all art forms that I indulge in, are a way for me to unapologetically say what I want to say.

What do you see as the major issues facing the LGBTQ+ community in adult entertainment?

I think one of the most glaring issues faced by LGBTQ+ people in adult entertainment is the remaining stigma around trans and gay performers and the silence of many cis industry members about this topic. Performers and managers steer away from gay and trans people for a lot of different reasons and some of these reasons are direct reflections of a past that’s already been thoroughly gutted and exposed as idiotic and queerphobic. There are some very stark differences between how cis and trans performers in the adult entertainment industry are treated. For example, segregation between cis and trans women is alive and well on MyFreeCams to the extent that MyFreeCams doesn’t allow trans women to perform on their site even though they are supposedly a “women only” cam site. In their rules and wiki there is a lot of trans exclusionary language. On their wiki it says “Natural-born women” only and on their official site rules they say nothing about disallowing trans women, but they do say “No men.” So if a trans woman can get through the background check (Which I did because they don’t ask for a picture of your genitals) and gets banned from the site, what rule did she break? It’s pretty safe to assume she only broke the “No men” rule even though she isn’t a man. MyFreeCams won’t address the issue at all and when I got banned from their site my account was deleted, they took all the money I had earned during my show, and I never got a response as to “why” I was banned. Their silence protects them.

This is a really important issue because MyFreeCams is probably the biggest cam site in the world and they sponsor so many huge events and conventions related to sex work. So you’ll have safe spaces and events for MyFreeCams models that are essentially spaces and events for women, but trans women are excluded. MyFreeCams is a huge part of the industry and they should treat all women equally, we should demand better from the large companies that represent the different aspects of sex work. Just a reminder to all cis models on MyFreeCams, 40-50% of your hard earned money is going to supporting this behavior. I understand you might not have the privilege to leave, but that’s not stopping you from emailing MyFreeCams asking why trans women aren’t allowed, or from putting them on blast on social media. On other issues too, we should not be silent. When MyFreeCams is transphobic we need our cis allies to call them out and be loud because they don’t care about what trans people think. If you’re an ally and your manager is being homophobic don’t be silent, call them out. Homophobes and transphobes don’t care about queer people, they will mostly only listen to other cisgender straight people. Power structures are torn down from the top, not the bottom. Please help.

What are your favorite fetishes? Are there any you got into thanks to making content? Any you keep for your private life and don’t film?

I think my favorite fetish is blasphemy targeted at Roman Catholicism. I got into blasphemy from doing private shows for ministers and active church goers who wanted me to really dig into their religion and basically replace their God with myself. I was raised Roman Catholic and I find the King James version of the bible to be very problematic and anti-queer, so I revel in the opportunity to tackle something that often puts me down. Whenever I do one of these shows I often start by detailing to my submissive the passages in the bible that condemn me as a trans woman, specifically the ones in deuteronomy, and explaining how their God wanted me to be in league with the devil by creating me this way. Then I will go on and explain how Satan and I are converting God’s own angels and humans against him by helping them to see the light of sexual deviancy. Then we do all kinds of naughty things in MY name instead of God’s name.

I find it refreshing and empowering to fight against something much more powerful than myself that actively oppresses me and people like me. The Catholic church is one such force and I revel in the opportunity to not only voice my opinions about the Christian mythos, but also to get someone who is a part of it to realize how anti-trans their own book can be. It is beneficial and positive for both me and the submissive and every single submissive I’ve done a blasphemy show with has returned more times than I can remember for the same experience.

Who are your: musical heroes, adult entertainment heroes, and political heroes, and why?

I don’t really have many heroes. I think some of my biggest influences when it comes to music and porn are Marilyn Manson and Natalie Mars. Marilyn Manson’s provocative style just really makes my inner goth girl squeal, and I think Natalie Mars is just so gosh darned physically talented. I wish I could take the things in my butt she does.

What is the most heartwarming thing you’ve ever seen?

That scene at the end of the Witch where the girl talks to the goat.

What is the most annoying question that people ask you?

It’s not a question, but I hate when guys want to talk about how they are straight, but they would still fuck me. Like, yeah… duh… if you were gay you would probably want to fuck a man?

What is something that a ton of people are obsessed with but you just don’t get the point of?

Ariana Grande

What sexual fantasy would you like to make a reality through making an adult vid?

I would love to recreate the exorcism scene from the Exorcist, but instead of Regan and two male priests I’ll be possessed and two sexy female nuns will fuck the devil out of me.

Say something to your fans:

I appreciate you all and if you respect and support me I respect and support you. <3

Fast 10:

The Best Topping/Ice Cream Combination Is:

Spaghettieis from Germany

One piece of entertainment I wish I could erase from my mind so that I could experience it for the first time again is:

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

If I could have an orgy with anyone on Earth it would be the following people:

Marilyn Manson (1994 version), Katie Marovich from CollegeHumor, and Peter Steele (Also 1994 version).

If you wanted to talk dirty to me you should say:

Describe giving me oral sex and then cuddling me.

The sexiest outfit I own is:

A lace bodysuit that one of my biggest supporters of the name Ser_Koopa bought me!

This sex toy I love and this sex toy I dislike:

I love my fleshlight and I’m not a fan of plastic prostate massagers.

If I could time travel I’d visit this era:

1994 for the metal or some time in the future when I’m not living way below the poverty line and I’m comfortable.

The best way to start the day is:

Yoga!

One thing I wish I knew more about is:

Stocks and investments

The one major sex tip I have for people is:

Communicate. It’s always a good idea to ask someone if they are ok during a sexual experience.

1 note · View note

theconservativebrief · 6 years

Link

As a deeply jaded Harry Potter fan, I sometimes have to make a conscious effort to focus on the positives. So I think it’s worth noting that I didn’t have to try too hard to find some positives to focus on in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

The second installment in the Harry Potter prequel series is now in theaters, and with it, author J.K. Rowling, who writes the screenplays, has introduced a host of serious wrinkles in her own established universe. The plot is confusing, disjointed, and seemingly devoted to setting up a convoluted storyline that will play out in future installments.

Watching the film feels a bit like being dropped into the middle of a very thick novel that’s full of words whose meanings you don’t know. And this holds true no matter your level of Harry Potter fandom; Rowling does a ton of worldbuilding on the fly, and expects viewers to roll with it and figure things out as they go. That’s difficult to do, and it makes The Grimes of Grindelwald hard to review, because it’s so obviously laying the foundation for some future film.

But even given all of that, there are things to like about it; and the things to like are, I think, pretty interesting things!

The Crimes of Grindelwald picks up where the first Fantastic Beasts film left off: with the dark wizard Grindelwald (the controversial Johnny Depp) sitting in jail after infiltrating the American magical congress. (Why he wanted to infiltrate it in the first place wasn’t ever fully explained, but it clearly involved being generically evil.)

In the opening moments of the new film, Grindelwald dramatically escapes prison, leaving Professor Dumbledore — an inexplicably de-camped Jude Law — to decide how to respond. Dumbledore, who was canonically in love with Grindelwald as a teen and may have once been in a relationship with him, is either unwilling or unable to fight him now, in adulthood, so he sends our hero Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to battle Grindelwald in his stead. This involves finding the one person who can effectively fight him: Credence (Ezra Miller), who we encountered in the first Fantastic Beasts film as a frightened orphan, confused about his identity and unaware of his own tremendous magical abilities.

The Crimes of Grindelwald then follows Newt as he attempts to locate Credence in Paris. It also follows Grindelwald as he attempts to locate Credence, and as he launches what must be the most hastily assembled and disturbingly muffled political allegory ever thrown together by a writer capable of much greater nuance than this. The driving force of The Crimes of Grindelwald’s plot — though it’s difficult to refrain from putting sarcasm quotes around “plot” — is for Newt to find Credence before Grindelwald can, because the implication is that whoever gets to Credence first will have the best chance at deploying his magic as a weapon for their side. (More on what those sides are fighting for in a moment.)

Along the way, the movie gets sidetracked by a tangled web of subplots. Characters keep tossing around fragments of prophecies whose origins are never properly contextualized and whose predictions are never fully explained. There are baby-killings, cases of mistaken identity, mysterious characters with mysterious backgrounds, dramatic flashbacks, and several different moments that disrupt the established canonical timeline of the Harry Potter universe in ways that are sure to break the brains of Harry Potter fans across the internet. There’s even a giant Chinese fire-dragon cat-thing that needs to be dealt with. (It’s cute!)

But none of these subplots further the narrative beyond providing an occasional dramatic reveal that ultimately goes nowhere. Characters show up, deliver backstory and dramatic revelations, and then, more often than not, die. The effect is basically that watching the The Crimes of Grindelwald feels like staring at that spinning top from Inception for two hours straight before eventually realizing it’s never going to fall over, because it doesn’t have enough mass to upset its inertia. There’s just no story, no substance . And what little substance there is essentially forms dramatic exposition for the next Fantastic Beasts movie.

It’s especially unfortunate that this wheel-spinning for the sake of expository setup was one of the chief complaints of critics who reviewed the previous Fantastic Beasts film. But the previous film had so much more actual plot than this one that by comparison, The Crimes of Grindelwald feels extra-flimsy and empty. At least in the previous film, there was a set of clearly achievable objectives involving the rounding-up of a bunch of fantastic beasts!

But. But! Do we watch Harry Potter movies for the plot, or do we watch Harry Potter movies for the wizarding world? Because The Crimes of Grindelwald contributes beauty and a solid sense of setting and depth to the Harry Potter universe, and it deserves credit for that.

One of the things I continue to admire and love most about the Harry Potter film franchise in its latter-day installments is how director David Yates, who has helmed all of the movies since the fifth one in the main franchise, remains fully committed to J.K. Rowling’s vision, no matter how obscure it might get. And let’s be real, Fantastic Beasts is a totally new franchise arc that’s headed who-knows-where, and Rowling’s vision is deeply obscured in The Crimes of Grindelwald.

Yet Yates, with the trademark mix of sensitivity, detail, and emphasis on sumptuous worldbuilding that he’s deployed in each of the six Harry Potter films he’s directed so far, manages to make things work on his end. The Gilded Age wizarding world, Art Deco with a splash of steampunk, moves from vintage New York to London and Paris over the course of the film, and it looks as lovely and inviting as ever.

While the magical elements can feel a bit paint-by-numbers at times, it’s clear that Yates, Rowling, and longtime Harry Potter screenwriter-turned-producer Steve Kloves are still thinking deeply about how to keep the details of this world feeling unique and magical. And I think, for the most part, they do feel magical; that is, they feel like a world I enjoy spending time in, even when I’m exasperated by the lack of story.

It helps that Fantastic Beasts’ characters are, for the most part, characters I enjoy watching. It’s hard to overstate just how unique Redmayne’s Newt Scamander is within the annals of fictional heroes. Not only is he plainly and unremarkably neurodivergent, but he subverts typical onscreen representations of masculinity in refreshing and unexpected ways. Rowling seems to have written him by consciously sidestepping the tropes of toxic masculinity, and the result is that Newt, however overshadowed he is by plot dramatics, always feels like the answer to the questions she’s trying to ask about violence and propaganda and side-taking.

Unfortunately, those questions aren’t very well-posed. Grindelwald’s dark wizardry is a tangled mishmash of World War I-era fashion, militant Fascism disguised as leftist rhetoric, and concern-trolling about Nazis and World War II, designed to appeal to pureblood wizards of all races, including at least one character who’s coded Jewish. What Grindelwald’s actual politics are beyond wanting Muggle genocide is anyone’s guess, but given that this film is arriving during one of the most politically confusing and polarized eras in recent history, it’s mildly worrying that Grindelwald’s actual message is as vague and “insert-your-own-ideology” as possible.

And then there’s Grindelwald himself. The sheer number of characters in The Crimes of Grindelwald means we spend less time with Newt and his core group of friends than before, but we arguably spend the most time with Grindelwald. And though Johnny Depp’s performance is notably subdued (for Depp, at least), Grindelwald still feels like the series’ flamboyant gay villain (a stereotype that’s exacerbated further due to how toned-down and butch Dumbledore has become) — he’s always standing a little too close to his potential allies, always tacitly seducing them into joining him on the dark side, always being framed by the film as representing something irresistible and innately evil.

It’s weird and uncomfortable to watch, and I wish I felt like more of that weirdness and discomfort is because Grindelwald is a Nazi and not because he’s queer. (All of this potential association of Grindelwald’s evilness with his queerness is built into the narrative of the Harry Potter books, but given that so far, there are only two known queer characters in the entire wizarding universe, and given that one of them is an evil genocidal Aryan and the other one is in love with the evil genocidal Aryan, we can be forgiven for feeling a little queasy about how things are playing out.)

But commenting too critically on The Crimes of Grindelwald could, at this point, amount to unfair speculation. Rowling is clearly in the middle of juggling eight or nine plot points at once, as she loves to do, and it seems somewhat futile to do anything more than stand back and let her at it, until we finally have a coherent 10-hour film that we can judge as a whole. What we clearly don’t have in The Crimes of Grindelwald is a movie; instead, we have a heavily fragmented, not terribly coherent piece of something larger.

Whether that other, larger thing eventually coalesces into the sparkling magical story we came for, or whether it disapparates into oblivion, remains to be seen. But for Harry Potter fans who’ve put their trust in J.K. Rowling for all this time, the best thing I can say about The Crimes of Grindelwald is probably this: It won’t make you want to put your wand away any time soon.

Original Source -> Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald feels like a giant prologue for some other movie

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

0 notes

natxoxposts-blog · 6 years

Text

QUEER PostMoDeterimnist THEORY

Queer Theory/Modernism vs Postmodernism/Determinism/Feminist Theory

QUEER PostMoDeterimnist?

Queer Theory: Queer is an umbrella term of peculiarity because it has no set stone identity on sexual identity and can include anyone who identifies to one of the following: lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Or it can also be used by people who don’t label themselves but find themselves apart of this spectrum or someone who is QUESTIONING their sexuality and identity, which can explain the use of the letter Q in queer. The purpose of the queer theory introduced through multiple sources by reappearing in critical and cultural contexts. The theory is used to reshape our two gendered identities for uniting rather than queerphobia. Theorists worth mentioning who helped establish the theory we recognize today are, Micheal Foucault, Gayle Rubin, Eve Kosofsky Sedgweck, and Judith Butler.

Their contributions:

Micheal Foucault

Foucault argued on the biological and social identity and that everyday notions can redconfine the gender norms of masculinity and femininity which causes oppression.

Gayle Rubin

Gayle Robin contributed through her essay “Thinking Sex,” in support to Foucault's theory based on actions against norms being the lead to oppression because society is hierarchically organized. In her essay, “A Traffic for Women” she states,

Sex is sex, but what counts as sex is equally culturally determined and obtained. Every society also has a sex/gender system - a set of arrangements by which the biological raw material of human sex and procreation is shaped by human, social intervention and satisfied in a conventional manner, no matter how bizarre some of the conventions may be.” (Rubin, 32)

Eve Sedgweck

“Epistemology of the Closet” was Sedgwecks contribution as she argued sexuality in understanding our culture through various texts.

an understanding of virtually any aspect of modern Western culture must be, not merely incomplete, but damaged in its central substance to the degree that it does not incorporate a critical analysis of modern homo/heterosexual definition. (1990, p. 1)

This reference argues the incoherence of westerns definition of sexuality, therefore it must be redefined rather than create a binary system within gender identity.

For some some people, the preference for a certain sexual object, act, role, zone, or scenario is so immemorial and durable that it can only be experienced as innate; for others, it appears to come late or to feel aleatory or discretionary. For some people, the possibility of bad sex is aversive enough that their lives are strongly marked by its avoidance, for others, it isn’t. For some people, sexuality provides a needed space of heightened discovery and cognitive hyperstimulation. For others, sexuality provides a needed space of routinized habitation and cognitive hiatus. (1990, p.25)

This passage takes into regard our individuality and cultural differences as a concept to the queer theory is cultural intelligence because it is not a affair within limitations, it is universally contradicted.

Judith Butler

Butler focuses on feminist issues, however there is direct intersections between her ideals of feminism and the queer theory in her book Gender Trouble which looks at gender identity through performativity, the physical attributes that many don’t have the accessibility to.

...the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being. (Butler, p.33)

Our composed norms of appearance should be destigmatized because we constantly judge on appearance. For an example we have classified lesbian women into two categories, those who present themselves through “masculine” traits and those who are extremely “feminine”. Therefore appearance interferes with distinction, “Very distinctions between the natural and the artificial, depth and surface, inner and outer through which discourse about genders almost always operates.” (Butler)

Modernism vs Postmodernism: Modernism is the drastic change in culture during the late nineteenth century and early 20th century which could be shown in art, literature, music and architecture.Postmodernism began after modernism as it was redefined to postmodernism during the late 20th century because there was a paradigm shift of art into philosophy, school of thoughts, critics, art and architecture through questioning ideologies acquired.

The queer theory itself is a result to postmodernism because for generations sexuality has always been under debate and the theorists mentioned beforehand came forward with their art for social change. “Our working hypothesis is that the status of knowledge is altered as societies enter what is known as the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as postmodern age.” (Lyotard) This was extracted from A Report on Knowledge by Jean-Francois Lyotard. There is a significance in knowledge and understanding and postmodernism contradicts theories to enhance accurate, scientific data beyond biblical teachings against queer teachings.

Modernism consisting of queer art yet it was not identified or praised over therefore it is difficult to re-confine in but it is existent during the twentieth century. “The Queer British Art (1861-1967)” suggests homosexuality in displayed in art as the exhibition in London is being decoded due to the fact that being queer was unthinkable and prior, males hide their identity through slang to identify one another and build a community. Therefore art work could have possibly been a hint yet not directly stated because of the fear of death. Edmund Dulac’s “Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon as Medieval Saints,” from the 1920’s display two man, one holding a peacock feather. The mythology behind the peacock feather is as a protector, what do these men fear for sitting naked side by side as shown in another art piece I've attached featured in the gallery?

Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon as Medieval Saints

Henry Scott Tuke The Critics 1927 Courtesy of Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum (Warwick District Council)

Determinism: It is looking at current status quo that remain fixated as our futures are defined by our pasts, yet that does not me the chain cannot be unbroken. Based on my theory of QUEER PostMoDeterimnist I would like to acknowledge the presence of determinism and the fact that we constantly define our futures based on our past, but refuse to resolve the status quo. The queer theory has not been addressed and it dates back to religious beliefs and attribute still associated and present today which creates a feud in arguing the notions of gender identity because of the unchanged nature of “deviance” attributed with religions.

The theory of Determinism, in which the will is determined or swayed to a particular course by external inducements and forced habits, so that the consciousness or freedom rests chiefly upon an oblivion of the antecedents of our choice. (Tomson, 1855)

This supports the fact that everything can be explained and determined. Our history and acts of ignorance towards queers support this idea because it is still present and to overcome it we must overcome the determined future to outrule the past and contradict the theory of determinism. The Bible is constantly used to condemn LGBTQ members is under the Christain Bible Saint Paul says, “you shall not lie with a man as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” But the Bible is abruptly told through storytellers, who avoid topics concerning sexuality in our historical evaluation, but that does not mean it was not present.

We will tell you that 20,000 years of evolution of, societal evolution, has taught us the same thing that a society that embraces homosexuality is a society that will not last much longer. Anybody who’s studied history knows that. (Michael Savage, 2006)

But as well it can support the idea that being queer has always been present, an unchangeable entity to contradict those against it that claim they must “heal” LGBTQ members. For that to be done we must decode our historical roots through modernism. It was present even before the nineteenth century and found in 7th century B.C.E art.

Sexual and romantic relationships between older males were ridiculed at various times in Greek and Roman history, as in the case of Julius Caesar's affair with King Nicomedes of Bithynia. The negative feelings toward such relationships arose from a belief that an adult male who assumed a passive role in sex was likely to do the same in his political life. This certainly was not true in Julius Caesar’s case. (Williams, 1999)

Many of the historical artworks and artists acknowledges today to support the fact that same sex marriages were actually honored at one point therefore it should be honored today but we ignore historical content and rather than focus teachings within texts on sexuality we focus on the metanarratives, instead we read about riots and ancient cultures. Has any of us learned about gay rights movement in San Francisco? Do we acknowledge that Susan B. Anthony, who fought for women's rights to vote was most likely lesbian? Why did we fear an alliance of feminism and sexuality?

Feminist: The sociology of feminist theory is focusing on of issues concerning female that are generally overlooked such as stereotypes which can interfere with queer identities, oppression economic inequality exclusion, the list is never ending.

The feminist focus to this theory is generally to unite two historical marginalized communities in hopes of addressing the status quo. Society recognizes Queers and feminists but what about queer women, women who identify as lesbian, transgender or bisexual and face confliction between both LGBTQ communities and for being a female. In reference to Laverne Cox, a transgender who faces issues women and LGBTQ indivudals encounter. Feminism will not only bond women, but members struggling to find their identity because feminism is not about female dominance but equality to allow anyone who identify as a female to abide in women empowerment and shift away from gay liberation for their own identity.

Human and sexual life will always be subject to convention and human intervention. It will never be completely “natural” if only because our species is social, cultural, and articulate [...] but the mechanisms and evolution of this process need not be largely independent of conscious choice. Cultural evolution provides us with the opportunity to seize control of the means of sexuality, reproduction, and socialization, and to make conscious decisions to liberate human sexual life from the archaic relationships which deform it. Ultimately, a thoroughgoing feminist revolution would liberate more than women. It will liberate forms of sexual expression, and would liberate human personality from the straight jacket of gender. (Rubin, p.52)

The mid 90’s “Lesbian Avengers”: a group of lesbian women who came forward because they felt on gay rights were issues of focus. While fighting for their sexuality they fought for general women rights such as “free the nipples’ as they went out shirtless and behaved “deviant” and un women like as they recruited other women while partying, in the club etc.

Examples of queer feminists:

Ellen DeGeneres

Sandra Bernard

Camille Paglia

Questions of Concern

Why have we created a barrier between LGBTQ communities and feminist? Are feminist refusing to abide individuals who gave up their freedom and rights as a male?

What truths are being hidden in modernism?

What doe these truths reveal? Does it reshape determinism to be a positive theory or extract or negative?

Who reshaped our ideals of sexuality? Was it present during biblical times? Why is it not mentioned in bible?

How are queers who identify as a women oppressed by not only men but other women?

How can we rewrite the bible to met our modern needs? Or had the bible already been altered? Or simply did we ignore old history? How do we decide out history? Who is writing our history? How to reveal our true historical roots to use determinism to our advantage...

Are all lesbians feminists? Are all feminist lesbians? How do we overcome these stereotypes?

The primary focus of this theory will surround queer women who experience segregation against women including sexism concerning their sexual identification and gender as a whole. This theory will attempt look into the depths of postmodern and modern work to extract the proof of queer communities in our history to support the theory of determinism and contradict religions today to prove queer to not be a “new” idea but in the roots of our history to determine why it is acceptable and not against god's doing. Support my hypothesis of false determinism based on false historical teachings that exclude sexuality not because it was non-existent but it was not spoken about therefore oppression is constantly present. We are determined by religion and must address the status quo against queer and women who are oppressed.

Viewing the present and Future…

To understand the present we must understand the past, therefore truths must be found. This theory will allow us to distigmatize stereotypes. Modernism theory is used to bring back art as a platform to fuse society, not only within the boundaries of my theory focusing on female queers, but humankind. Kodie Shane is one of the few artists who defy gender roles and looks beyond one's gender being our main focus and defining who we are for us because “you gotta be you—all the way,” she says. Songs and artists like Shane should be recognized in mainstream.

This song presented by Aquilo tackles queer issues and stereotypes through oppression and hatred against individuals who represent ideals against norms,

youtube

My theory will help revamp mainstream art to expand our minds into understanding our historical past and uniting communities. This theory is not attack a specific group, nor is it attacking the government or religions it is only revealing hidden truths because individuals truths have been alter.

Determinism will be used to define the future into its natural roots to reimburse our ideas of relationships and sex to the time of Adam and Eve, maybe not through postmodern views but through the technique of modernism in art to be proof and postmodernism work to be the support.

Ultimately goal is not to strive for perfection because we live in a world of imperfections and countercultures vs subcultures, but the hope is to up-bring a paradigm shift to how we define queer and females in works to disconnect it as a group based identity, but rather solemnly equally associated in society without fear. For the future to be determined on our past, we must leave expanding art to be deconstructed just as generations before us has because ultimately we will never reach a “perfect” universe of acceptance to all.

Annotated Bibliography

“A Queer Overview of Judith Butler's [Gender Trouble].” Angel Daniel Matos, Ph.D., 20 Jan. 2014, angelmatos.net/2013/09/18/gender-trouble/. Judith Butler's work that contributed to the evolution of coming out as queer, through appearance and overcoming historical ideologies. Modern artists such as Lady Gaga being used as a example as she dresses like a male. She looks into gender performativity to identify us and illustrate a picture.

Crossman, Ashley. “What Is Feminist Theory?” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, www.thoughtco.com/feminist-theory-3026624

Society is shifting away from male dominance and a pathorical system and is promoting equality and justice. To contradict issues that revoke oppression, inequality, injustice to girls and women within present day and tracing back historically. This article looks at social theories focusing on women and away from men. Looking and gender differences, gender inequality, gender oppression, and structural oppression found in strains of the 20th century and today.

Hoefer, Carl. “Causal Determinism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 23 Jan. 2003, plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/.

This encyclopedia helps understand the main focus of determinism within society today through a historical introduction to examples. Defining determinism as “The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.” Yet coming to a conclusion the theory is still under review and open to new ideas therefore it is not fully constructed.

“How Gay Artists Expressed Forbidden Desire in Code.” Google Search, Google, www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cnn.com/style/amp/queer-art-tate-britain/index.html.

This article looks at modernism and how it presented forbidden love. LGBTQ communities found ways to find one another without being killed or discovered but to form a group based identity of a group who countercultured solidified norms. Today we can deconstruct the meanings behind many of the artworks, to be beyond beautiful art but art determining or working to understand their identity and question sexuality.

“Queer Art: 1960s to the Present.” Art History Teaching Resources, 23 Dec. 2016, arthistoryteachingresources.org/lessons/queer-art-1960s-to-the-present/.

A gallery of queer art in modern day and Greece history. It has two goals:censorship and visibility. To reveal queer and LGBTQ communities that were concealed in the 20th century, hidden identities but truths found in art, answering where the truth is found?

“Queer Theory - Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.” Carbon, Energy, Greenhouse, and Atmosphere - JRank Articles, science.jrank.org/pages/10943/Queer-Theory-Eve-Kosofsky-Sedgwick.html.

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick looks at art in the 20th century based on the piece, “Epistemology of the Closet” and looks at contradictions in sexuality and identity. Looking at cultural differences that create a binary between hetrosexuality and homosexuality.

Scrum_Jet. “Gayle Rubin, The Traffic in Women (1975).” Selected Tales, 26 Apr. 2013, purpleprosearchive.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/gayle-rubin-the-traffic-in-women-1975/.

0 notes