“What is with the Blake / Yang hate this week? Folks seem particularly fired up.” I asked this question on a forum because of something I’ve noticed the last few days on discussions about Blake and Yang/Bumbleby/shipping in general. I keep seeing the same answers.  “It ruins the team’s dynamic.”

Welp, I’m pretty certain none of those people would say that Raven/Tai and Tai/Summer ruined the team’s dynamic. Or that Ren and Nora are currently  ruining the team’s dynamic.  What is this holy than thou crusading to protect the sanctity of the team dynamic? Rwby has always been first and foremost about interpersonal relationships. It’s what drives the actual plot. Character growth, failing relationships/friendships. How they change over time, either to grow or crumble. 

“It’s being shoehorned in, for fanwank.” How? How is it being shoehorned in? Give me a narrative breakdown as to where/how/when this occurs? Compare it to the Sun/Blake narrative and show me the glaring differences between the Yang/Blake narrative to prove that bumbleby was never planned yet blacksun was?  (Sidenote. Anyone that has been asked to do this on the forum has yet to do it.)

“Yang showed interest in boys.”“ Yes, yes she passed comment once. In vol 1 episode 1. 8 VOLUMES AGO. She has shown not a lick of interest in guys since. Its almost as if she’s like any normal 17 year old girl who is growing into adulthood and figuring herself out, who might be realising her interest in Blake isn’t strictly platonic and is trying to navigate that whilst also grappling with what that means with regards to their friendship. And dealing with an over arching situation that is, ya know, potentially the end of the world as they know it.  It’s about two years in universe, right? Which is about right of an amount of time for what its happening between them to play out. It only feels like longer to the audience because, well, its taken 8/9 years to tell the story up until that point. 

“The Fans are too loud/vocal/come on too strong.” Ok, this one I agree with, we are loud and vocal and that might come across as coming on strong  (here’s a huge) BUT, there is actually a genuine explanation for why it seems that way.   If you really think about it, objectively. 

Hear me out.  Fans are excited about the potential representation we don't otherwise usually get in media. I mean, if you have 10,000 pieces of media and only ONE of them represents lgbtq people, of course we’re gonna be excited and talk about the ONE quite a bit with others who are like us. This might also be the first time we’ve seen anything like this, or seen ourselves represented in a somewhat positive light. It stands to reason that the other 9999 pieces aren't going to hold our attention as much, esp if its the same hetero romance played out a bajillion times before, right? I mean, if you have a group of people who are constantly represented in the 9999 other shows, their voices are going to spread thinner, right? They aren’t going to be gathered all on one place, talking about the same thing because there are 9999 other choices to connect them to other people. They aren’t going to care as much if their straight ship happens/doesnt happen 

“Hey, I can move onto another piece of media that is churned out by the status quo. No big deal.”

Hetero romances are ten a penny. Flick through netflix, hulu, crunchy roll etc.  Where as if you have a group of people who are only represented in ONE show out of the 10,000 those people are going to gather in one place to connect with others and its only going to seem like they are louder due to the densely packed space.  These same people have been majority silent about the other 9999 pieces of media as their voice isn't usually represented in a positive light - being queer characters are usually brutally murdered or sidelined. (Thankyou Hays Code.)- or not even represented at all. (Bury Your Gays is a trope for a reason, folks.) And we are NEVER the titular characters. We’ve been living on crumbs and subtext for decades! Not to mention showrunners who actively queerbait the hell out of us for ratings and viewership. The almighty Pink Pound as its often referred to in business. “But why do they have to make them gay?” You’re not made gay, you’re born gay. It just takes longer for some people to realise than others. It can be a gradual realisation. And this is quite possibly the case with Yang/Blake, slowly coming to realise their own burgeoning sexualities and attraction to each other.

”Why do they have to be gay?” They don't need a reason to be queer! They just are! Queerness is only a part of a person, not their everything. It’s actually quite refreshing to see Yang/Blake being portrayed as much more than their potential sexuality.  Ask yourself, ‘Why does a character have to be straight? And why doesn’t a straight character have to constantly reaffirm their sexuality? Why is ‘straightness’ assumed by default?’ Heteronormativity, is something that has been perpetuated by decades of media. (helped by the Hays Code with its out of date moral code. To be other is to be punished within the narrative.) That straight is the default setting. It’s not! We exist! Everywhere! We always have and we are going to talk to each other about it when we see a glimpse of ourselves represented in what has been a relative Sahara Desert when it comes to queer content were we are not villainised.   “The romance is detracting from the plot.” Two seconds ago, people were claiming that the romance was none existent. Which is it? But Nora and Ren’s romance that is being held up as a mirror to bumbleby is fine? That Jaune relentlessly pursuing Weiss was perfectly ok. Neptune openly hitting on female characters is fine. 

“I don’t have a problem with LGBT. I just don’t want it forced down my throat.” Again, out of 10,000 pieces of media, this is just ONE show. Nobody is forcing anyone to watch it or participate.  Queer people have had to stomach literal 100′s of years of straight media forced upon them. Since the very conception of the written word and narrative storytelling. In plays, theatre, art, music, tv, film, on billboards, advertising, in places of education and learning etc etc. Queer people are bombarded with it whilst also being surrounded by negativity towards queerness. 

“They are shoving it down my throat!” part two Is hand holding, compassion and expressing concern for another person and comforting them somehow offensive? Renora kissed, not a problem. Arkos kissed, not a problem. Show me in the sand where the line is drawn. What is the difference? Please explain this to me? Why is the expression of queerness somehow offensive? Is this because decades of media have perpetuated the false idea that all queer people are sex crazed perverts? That you’ve been groomed into thinking that queer sexuality is only based in the act of sex itself? That queer sexuality couldn’t possibly be similar to heterosexuality in its expression?

That it couldn’t possibly be about attraction, emotional, mental and maybe one day blossom into physical between two consenting adults, a pure expression of love the exact same as heterosexuality. 

That some how queer love stems from some sort of deviancy or mental health issue. That queer people are some how bad or evil, and therefore their expression of affection is wrong? Oh, I wonder where those beliefs have possibly stemmed from?  “Why are they in my face?” part three.  50% of of the titular cast are potentially queer. Blake and Yang. But if you look at the overall cast ensemble that runs at minimum 16 any given volume, that’s a measly 12.5% (prolly a lot smaller if you actually counted the whole cast that appears in rotation each volume) Also, someone did the math. Blake - a titular character- actually has less spoken lines that Jaune. ffs. B&Y spent neatly a whole two volumes of 8 apart. 25% of the narrative as it stands on entirely different continents. 

I fail to see how it being in someone’s face could be the case.

  “I just don't see it!”

That’s ok and perfectly valid But listen when people who have lived this experience are telling you that their experience is being portrayed on the screen. That they see themselves being represented.  OK, This completely got away from me. In conclusion. They are more straight people than queer people and media often reflects that.   We are usually the silent minority, we are sick of it but we are used to it and we are very excited that things seem to be finally changing.

It’s two characters in an large cast in ONE show out of 10,000. Its a piece of media that, for a change, hasn’t been 100% curated for straight people.  We are often not allowed to play in the sand box and if we are, we’re told to play with the broken toys, be grateful and quiet. So when we are given a sandbox to play in with new unbroken toys, we are gonna dog pile in there and make a ruckas, calling our friends over. What I’m trying to say is, it’s gonna get rowdy.  and here’s something to think about.  “When you are used to privilege, equality feels like deprivation.”  

Let’s Talk Calm-ly about Two Loves

OR: When you’re a grown man who writes stories for a living, you definitely wrote your own weird bedtime story, too. 

The TLDR here is that H has taken one specific listener around the globe, notably to Tokyo and Jamaica. He quotes an old Victorian Poet who was an awful human but who’s lasting legacy is the phrase “a love that dare not speak its name” which is - you guessed it - a reference to queer love. He also is super excited to spend what seems like the foreseeable future with this listener and has bought a little house with a garden of daisies with them and it’s very sweet and domestic. Anyways this is a wild time and it’s all under a cut because it’s...really a lot. 

Anyways I think the people I owe thank yous this times around to are @queenlokibeth​ who had to listen to me scream about this for a while, Astrid, who screamed with me when this came out, and “M” who convinced me to finally get to work in this fandom. And, of course, all of the lovely people tagged below who’s work I used to build my argument. 

1.) Who Wrote “Dream With Me”? 

Well, not H, or so the story goes. Two other people (Steve Cleverly and Sanj Sen) did! I mean, right, okay, for a while I was like...that seems like an odd choice for a man who didn’t want to hand Two Ghosts over to his own band because it seemed too personal. He wrote on every song in both albums’ he’s released thus far, because he seems to be passionate about telling the stories he wants to tell (even if he won’t tell you explicitly what they’re about). But for a while, I was totally going with the flow there, and the rest of this analysis would still stand: the writer of this story definitely referenced a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas and Harry’s own songs. 

However, I then read this fun quote from the Co-founder and CEO of Calm: 

“Well,” he said, “The the Harry Styles one is interesting because that came purely from Harry Styles himself...we took the approach of creating a sort of musical epic poem – he doesn’t sing, it’s spoken with poetry, but there’s a sort of musical sound bed to it and it’s pulling on things and themes that Harry’s fans really adore about him and associate with him. So his story was driven really by him – we really created a concept around him.” 

-  Chris Advansun, July 7th, 2020 via @hlupdate​

And I thought, hmmm. This does not sound like a project that he was not involved in creating. From this point on (July, 7th 2020), I began to think of it as a three way co-collaboration between him and the other two authors. But this confused me a bit, because there was largely a nonreaction from the fandom. I was waiting for an actual transcript, because I always fall asleep to these meditation stories, but it was being referenced to as some sort of Y/N fic, which was...honestly not what I expected, but also not implausible, thanks to the ~lovely~ image this man has had since the age of sixteen. But also, twitter seemed to be concerned by other things at the moment, and no one was analyzing the story. . 

In fact, I messaged a friend the day that this story dropped, because it had been kind of a shit show day on Twitter. Rumors were sort of flying about everyone and everything: had Liam shaved his head? Was he engaged? Had he and Maya broken up? Were Zayn and Gigi engaged? Had they broken up? Did Niall have a girlfriend? (this one was true lol). Were Elounor engaged? Were they pregnant? Had they broken up??? My personal fav was the bald Liam rumor, which he promptly put to rest in LP Act 1 by...having a huge mane of hair. 

So then I thought - huh. Why has today looked like this? I’m not saying that there aren’t days that twitter goes wild because of boredom, because there definitely is - the articles about secret meetings in Italy that are coming out this week (8/12/2020) are proof positive. So that definitely does happen, but it doesn’t usually happen on the days that there’s a lot of content. And maybe I’ve just been starved for content in this fandom, but I would consider a 40 minute video quite a bit of content. 

Then the transcript dropped. I’m using two as references - this one on Wattpad and also @carl-and-pearl ‘s version here (thank you so much for the transcript!!). We’re going to get into a more detailed description of what’s going on in the story, but the first thing I recognized immediately is that it was first person POV. I knew that going in, based on the number of Y/N jokes going around on twitter. Then I read it aloud, and I realized that it read like a letter. Like an experience specific to the writer and the reader. And while that’s not super uncommon to write about an experience from the author’s POV - I listen to a podcast called Nothing Much Happens: bedtime stories for adults which has a similar concept - I thought it was odd that they were trying to include both the author and the listener. I completely understood why the y/n jokes were pertinent. But at the same time, it felt like something had snagged in my mind - like a particularly annoying splinter. 

The conversations I was having around this story - completely based on the content, concept, and my own instinct - was that this story contained specific references to one person. I thought that it did read like a love letter, and that most identifying features would have been taken out, but the essence remained. Which, once I thought about it, was something that H excelled at doing. Think about Sunflower Vol 6 and Adore You and Canyon Moon and even Watermelon Sugar and Golden.  Ask yourself, What do I know about the person they are about? They have skin that browns, they have a secret, they have mesmerizing eyes, they’re willing to dance in the kitchen with him (to dancehall), they have a belly, they’ve been through hard times, they’re witty, they have an accent, and they have lips. I know - super specific right?

So the splinter grew into a thorn - what was I missing? And then - when I was looking for something completely different - I stumbled upon this old interview Harry did with Zach Sang and the Gang Show back in 2017.  For context, he was being asked about Sweet Creature. As you can imagine, it’s hard for people to believe he wrote such a beautiful love song when he hadn’t ever really had a long term relationship (two hearts in one home?? Who did you move in with, you can imagine them asking. When did you have time?). So what did he have to say about this?

"In my opinion,” he explained, “I think most songs are written for one listener. Maybe there's one thing in there that only they'll notice about them.... It's so much easier to say something in a song than it is to say it to someone and I think it's really amazing to be able to communicate through that and be able to wrap up everything that you want to say in three and a half minutes and say it in a song."

- HS, May 3 2017

By this time, please believe that I was screeching. Seeing this felt like he put into words the exact feeling I had about “Dream With Me”. It felt like a nod to someone that I didn’t know, which made the story hard to listen to, tbh. Although, I will say that when I did finally listen to it, it knocked me out and gave me odd dreams so. Once was enough for me haha! 

So my new operating theory is exactly what Advansun said: I think that H was the primary writer/the driving force behind the story. Because of the references I’m about to run through, because it feels like the way he tells stories, and because they admitted to him being more involved than they originally claimed. That’s going to be how I write the rest of the analysis - under the impression that H had a direct hand in the story that was being put forth. However, I think that the analysis itself would stand whether or not he wrote any of it. It would just be a more tenuous reflection of him than I believe it to be. 

2.) How Do I Love Thee? In Two Ways. 

Before I jump into the story, let’s talk a little about the poem that I want to compare it to: Two Loves, by Lord Alfred Douglas.  Let’s be clear this is not at all a defense of who Bosie was - he was a terrible person, particularly in his later years, when he’d converted to Catholicism and turned his back on his younger self, and his partner, Oscar Wilde. He was violently anti-Semitic, and turned his back on his own community. I want to get this out of the way because I very much believe that we should examine artists for who they are. That is, after all, what I am trying to do here. 

But his poem Two Loves has often been used - much to his disappointment, I’m sure - as an exploration of queer love in Victorian times. A line that I will be exploring more deeply in a second was in fact used against Oscar Wilde in his trail for indecency . He attempted - unsuccessfully - to explain it away, but it was too blatantly about their relationship for even the British Victorian society to ignore. I really, really recommend a read of this poem, because it is - despite it’s author - a good piece of work, which explores the themes of shame and love and longing between two men in that time. 

I’m going to start with my own background, as someone who’s analyzed fandoms before. I first came across this poem in the Sherlock fandom, with this analysis by @the-7-percent-solution​, when I was running in that fandom, and she explains the poem brilliantly in just a few lines. I’m going to take a little longer to run through it, but if you want a concise explanation and a brilliant meta, I encourage you to run to their blog and check it out. That fandom taught me most everything I know about catching symbols and recurring themes and “clueing for looks” and I love it desperately, still. 

But we’re here to talk about this fandom, so on with the poem! Essentially, the poem outlines a dream the speaker had: In his dream, he’s standing in a field with flowers - beautiful ones of all kind - and he meets this young man with clear blue eyes and bright red lips and they kiss a bit and have a picnic, and it’s all lovely. If you think I’m kidding, I’m really not. Please, read it for yourself. 

Anyways, after they did they did the whole picnic thing, the speaker and his date go on a walk in this field, where they come across two figures. The first is described as, 

“...fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids And joyous love of comely girl and boy, His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy; And in his hand he held an ivory lute With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair, And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute, And round his neck three chains of roses were.” 

- Two Loves, 1894

The speaker, however, was drawn to the second figure: 

“He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, And yet again unclenched, and his head Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was fiery flame..”

- Two Loves, 1984

Of course, the speaker immediately asks the second man who he is. The second man says, “My name is Love”. The first man corrects him quickly: 

“ He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.”

-Two Loves, 1984

The second man sighs and acquiesces, “Have thy will. I am the love that dare not speak its name.” 

It was, of course, this last line that really gave the meaning of the poem away. It was the line that was put to Oscar Wilde as proof of a romantic relationship, it was the line that went down in history as a way to refer to queer love, and it was the line that first stuck out to me when I was reading “Dream With Me”. 

The reading here is clearly that “Love” is the love that is acceptable to society - easy, sweet, and cherished. “Shame” is the love that happens in secret - beautiful, alluring to the speaker, passionate, anxious ( as can be seen in the clenching and unclenching of his hands), and proud. He refuses to call himself as anything but what he is. The first man may call him Shame, but he refuses the name, and instead, offers a qualifier to his own descriptor. He is still love, he is just the love that can’t be spoken about. 

3.) Walking in Golden Fields of Sunflowers

Now let’s talk about “Dream With Me”. I’m ignoring the first few stanzas (from the line “Have you ever wondered” to “What the two of us can find”.) because those are pretty standard introductory paragraphs to a guided meditation. So we start with the line “Let’s travel now to moonlit valleys...”. 

I’m going to do the same thing I did with “Two Loves” first. I am going to describe literally, in general terms, what happens in the story. Warning, I change pronouns from “they” to “you” because the whole thing confuses me, but note that I’m always talking about the speaker and the listener: 

So after doing the standard intro, the speaker and the listener take a walk through the woods enjoying nature, particularly the grass, the trees, and the blue sky above. You’re already clearly in love. Then you’re magically on a raft, with cherry blossoms all around you. If you want a good visual for that, here’s a site that has pictures from a boat rental in Tokyo where you can snuggle on a raft in the  Chidorigafuchi moat. And then suddenly it starts raining, and they (you) watch the rain for a hot second, and then the scene magically shifts again, and you’re under a porch (although I guess it could be the boat rental’s porch. They do usually have covered areas). 

Kind of furthering that theory, they then lounge by the shoreline, skipping stones and hanging out, looking at the snow capped mountains. In case you’re curious, because at this point I sure was, you can see mountains from certain areas in the city of Tokyo. 

Anyways, then it’s snowing, and you’re magically in a cabin, just chilling by the fire, and you fall asleep again. You wake up somewhere else.

Where are you now? Well, you’re on a tropical island filled with palm trees. As an American, my mind immediately jumps to the Caribbean, but I suppose it could absolutely be in the Mediterranean as well. The island has white beaches, mangroves, a turquoise ocean, and a gorgeous, peaceful atmosphere. 

If you’re curious as to what a mangrove looks like - and I certainly was - they are a group of trees and shrubs that live in the coastal intertidal zone and Jamaica is doing a massive restoration project involving primary school children to regrow this vital part of their ecosystem. More interestingly, there currently exist no mangrove forests in the Mediterranean, so my initial feeling that this scene would take place in the Caribbean was correct. On that note - again, because I was curious - Jamaica has gorgeous white sand beaches with turquoise oceans. 

But I’ve gone off topic again! After you’re minds are “in tune” once more (trying to find a heartbeat, anyone?), you reappear in a meadow, with beautiful flowers of all kind, where you are now walking hand in hand through a field of sunflowers, which give the feeling a “warm and golden hue”. Then you come across a little farmhouse with daisies poking out (clearly I have no way of locating this anywhere in the world, but I assume that the UK has both sunflowers and daisies). It’s an empty house which was loved and left because of the passage of time, which inspires my favorite line in the poem: “ The thought of passing time inspires/A feeling that grows stronger”. It’s just...really sweet to me. 

So, of course, they do what anyone would do when they come across an empty farmhouse, they go inside. And there, they begin to fall asleep, reflecting on all they have just seen, referencing other scenes of the poem: “ Moonlit valleys, Burdened forests, Gazing at the ocean. Summer meadows, Tranquil sunsets steeped in emotion”. 

The next few stanzas are just going to be copy-pasted, and then I’ll go into them a bit, but this is the end of the poem, so they’re the final reflections;

“The tenderness we feel When we are close Two minds as one Surrounds us and connects us But we’ve only just begun.

For now we dream together Of all there is to follow. And know that sleep will keep us safe From now until tomorrow.

Maybe all the memories That we’ve gathered here tonight Are all dreams now remembered Or wishes in plain sight.

No matter what They’re with us now. For this night and forever. And every time we close our eyes They’re yours and mine to treasure.” 

- HS, Dream With Me, via @carl-and-pearl​

And that’s it! The literal story, in short, is that you started in a forest, then went to Tokyo (maybe) and then Jamaica (perhaps) and then back to a field of sunflowers and daisies in the UK (which is also a guess, it could be Italy or France or Idaho for all I know, but let’s call it an educated guess). 

4.) My Dream Journal

So now that we know what happens in the story, how do we interpret this? Well, There are a few lines in the poem that I want to draw your attention to: the first takes place in the first part of this story, when you’re still in the forest. This is, I must say, the most direct reference to Two Loves in the whole poem/song/story. Both works are describing a walk in the woods with your loved one, and, in a fun reference in the middle of the story, Dream With Me says

The shimmering reflection Shows us smiling from above. But what we think But dare not speak is L-O-V-E love.

-Dream With Me, 2020

Remember that line I mentioned before? I am the love that dare not speak its name. Right, so that’s almost a direct quote. It also has a really fun nod to “I Would” (Would he say he’s in L-O-V-E?/Well if it was me then I would), but I digress. 

This first part of the narrative, I feel, really sets up what the rest of it will look and feel like, in the same way that “Golden” sets the tone for Fine Line. (You didn’t think I was going to make a post about Harry and NOT mention Golden, did you?? If you did, I’m disappointed!!). So  let’s take a look at what’s happening, and the language he’s using to describe it. 

One of the best things about this poem is how vivid it feels. Of course, I’m about to argue that it’s vivid because it was based in reality, but let’s talk about the sheer amount of detail he uses to describe the place he’s walking through. The valley (canyon lmao) is moonlit, the grass and the leaves make mosaics of green, you’re walking by the heather (the symbolism of heather is good luck, admiration, and protection), the sepia sunlight breaks through the trees. 

You know what it kind of sounds like? Sweet Creature. You’re about to roll your eyes at me! I can feel it! But listen, okay?  

“Sweet creature Running through the garden Oh, where nothing bothered us But we're still young I always think about you and how we don't speak enough”

Which, to be honest, sounds like what they’re doing. They’re walking through the garden in the sun, not daring to speak about the Love that he (they both) feel, and instead refering to it in veiled Victorian terms. 

And then we head to Tokyo! I know that you’re about to ask me why I think it’s Tokyo versus...idk, anywhere else? Well, for one, he went to Tokyo (to let it go) publicly in 2019. He was there for a few months, and there are some great pictures of that time: 

Look! Here he is with his club owner friend and his dog, and a fun red bandanna! But let’s be honest, the dog really steals the show here. But wait! there’s more! More dog content, too!

This was on Jan 31st, 2019, and he’s taking the dog for a walk! Very cute! If nothing else, he spent a lot of time with dogs in Tokyo! And the city fits the description of the story. So I feel rather comfortable with my interpretation that this first date is a memory of this trip - or another - to Tokyo. 

So what did “you both”do in Tokyo? Well, chill on a raft while the cherry blossoms flutter around you, clearly. You also refocused your purpose. What did he do in Tokyo in 2019? Well, he took time to think about and write songs for the album he was about to go record. Kind of like refocusing on what’s next, right? And then, in the story when “you both” had time to think amongst the lake and the water and the rain and the moon, and you’d come to the conclusions you needed to, you left. What did he do when he did the things he needed to? Well, he left, too. 

And where did he go? Well, in real life, I suppose he went to do his job. But, in the story, you’re meant to be falling deeper and deeper into sleep, so it’s sort of like traveling backwards, you see? Like counting down to one. So you end up on this island with turquoise ocean and mangrove forests. I’m calling this Jamaica. Why? Well, the description fits, for one, down to the four types of mangroves that exists within its ecosystem. 

And - probably the biggest reason - I can place him there, too. Here’s him in 2017:

I added this picture because the water around him....looks rather turquoise, doesn’t it? Kind of like he’s enjoying his time on a tropical island by the beach?? Oh, and here’s another one!: 

The red bandanna makes a comeback! 

So what are you doing in Jamaica, according to the story? Well, you’re hanging out, basically. Enjoying the beach and each other, of course!  What else? To be exact, “[Your] thoughts dovetail and unify/ In tune two minds together”. I’m so glad that you’re tuned like an old guitar now! Congrats! Really happy for you! 

What was he doing in Jamaica three years ago? Why, he was recording his first album, or so the story goes. I’ll tell you something: finding press for that album was literally the most difficult part of this whole analysis. I got a fair bit of the tattoo roulette with Kendall Jenner, and some things about Carolina, but the interview with Zach Sang took me like an hour and a half to find again to link. The fact that a lot of it has been buried is...not great, for posterity purposes. He’s going to want that one day. 

But I’ve gotten off track again! We gotta go back and finish our story, right? What happens now? Well, this does: 

hahahaha okay, I’m really sorry, but I had to. I’m not, actually, making it up though! According to the story: 

“ As minutes turn to hours We drift off somewhere new. And visualize a stairway To a door we now walk through”

- Dream With Me, 2020

So maybe Louis was just...demonstrating for you. 

Anyways! Where do you walk out to? A golden field full of sunflowers. You walk for a minute, then come across an old house with daisies popping up out of the garden. And that’s where the story ends. I guess you’ve made that farmhouse feel like home. 

Now to the little reflection he does on the outro. The lines I want to bring your attention are: “The tenderness we feel when we are close two minds as one surrounds us and connects us but we’ve only just begun” and “Maybe all the memories that we’ve gathered here tonight are all dreams now remembered or wishes in plain sight.”

Let’s talk about the first sentence first. In the context of finding a home that could be a shared home, and a future, this is very much an “end of the story, beginning of our lives” sort of thing. You’re back from all over, and it’s time to settle down, and see what’s next. 

And now the second sentence. I think this is the one that really drives my point about this story being a collection of memories he has - that’s what he calls it. The story is “gathered memories” that might also be called “remembered dreams” (think of how people say of vacations, “oh it was a dream!”) or you might call it “wishes in plain sight”. This feels in line with the rest of the story. In this stanza, he’s sort of letting you in a bit. If I’ve read this right - and I really think that I have - he’s giving the larger context for the story. It’s a collection of memories he’s had with someone he loves. 

5.) Cool! Can you prove it? 

I mean, I’d argue that if you read this far, I have proved it, but let’s make some more links, shall we? This was called a “muscial epic” that was “driven by him”. I’d argue that if I know my Victorian literature (thank you, Sherlock!), then he definitely does. Then there’s the fact that he quoted it, so. That did happen. And he knows what it means. And even if he didn’t, there were two other people on the story. Someone was more than capable of catching that one, and the fact that they didn’t speaks to intent. They want you to think of that phrase when you read this poem. They want you to think of that walk in the woods while you’re going on this one. 

And, as for my assumption that this is for and about one person, well. Think about it. He said that he writes his songs for a single listener. I’m not saying it’s the same listener each time, let’s get that right, but it is always just for one person. With that, and with the assumption that he’s been involved in the writing of this story, I’d say that the same rule applies. He went with someone to Japan and Jamaica (J^2 haha). And, if I had to guess, it was the same person. 

Why, you ask? Well, for one, if that weren’t the case, then this poem would no longer be for one listener, it would be for multiple. And, for another, imagine how awkward it would be to listen to it with his current partner and have to explain “oh, yeah that was the super romantic vacation I took with someone else” . And, I suppose that because I think that attitude of “refocusing” and “dovetailing” and “tuning” and getting excited about imagining all of the tomorrows with your partner speaks to a long term relationship breathing easily, you know? 

I’m also going to argue that describing the aura around the house as “golden” was intentional, especially when paired with the location - in the middle of a field of sunflowers. Those are both direct references to his songs. And those two songs are particularly linked by the number 28. The third song that features 28 is Fine Line the song, but that’s a different story. Anywho! “Golden”’s bridge just repeats the word ‘golden’ twenty eight times (if you go here , you can count the bridge) and “Sunflower Vol. 6″ ends the song with 28 “boops” (believe me, I wish I was making this up. I’m not.). So then, once again, you’ve linked a story to two already linked songs. 

And, even if you don’t buy the intentional repetition, they’re linked another way, aren’t they? The color scheme and the sun symbol. Sunflowers were named because of their sun-like appearance. They turn to face it. They symbolize loyalty and adoration. And then, of course, the sun is - say it with me - golden. And it - like the person in golden - waits in the sky, beautiful and dangerous and constant. And here that symbol is, in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. At home. 

This whole story feels like you’re taking the time to find that heartbeat that you think you might have lost, and sort of coming back to a space where you understand that this is what you want, now and forever. It feels like finding a home that could be yours forever, and it feels like walking through some of the moments that remind him of that. 

It really is rather lovely, if you think about it, especially since he has a tendency to attribute “home” to people rather than place, in his songs. So it’s like. Going all around the world and always being at home. 

So I went down some t*rf tags the other day to find which blogs I should block, as you do, and of course in order to avoid accidentally blocking people who were mocking the ideology or sarcastically agreeing with it, I actually read the posts there and scrolled down some of the blogs.

And with some of the things I saw... it made me understand how they reel people in. In some of the stuff they said, I understood them. I understood their struggle, and their anger, and I got how their feelings could make them burst out the way they do in their blogs. Also the fact that many of the blogs I scrolled down and blocked were by women between the ages of 15 and 19 didn’t help. That’s the exact age where you do the most reckless, the most emotional, and the least experienced thinking. It’s when you think of something and immediately think you’re right, because you’re not developed enough, neither mentally, nor emotionally, nor from the aspect of life experiences, to know better and reflect on how well developed your thoughts are.

And to see them act the same way older t**fs do, like in the ages of 26+... it’s fucking scary. It genuinely feels like a cult, where teen women, frustrated with the misogyny they experience, come to a website to vent out their feelings about that and find passionate adult women agreeing with and supporting them and saying that they’re in the right to hate men and trans women... it solidifies their at then immature thoughts.

Like, give me one (1) cis woman who during her mid- or late teens didn’t hate men, even for just a few months, in reaction to being treated as lesser just for having a female body. Just one. I specifically did. I was, for a couple of years actually, believing the bullshit going around that “Girls are more mature than boys”, that “Girls love truly, boys only want sex”, that “Women are statistically smarter than men” etc etc. But then you grow up, you reflect on those thoughts and you go like “Damn older people are right when they say that teenagers do stupid stuff sometimes”.

And that’s the thing with being a teenager; it’s the time to do mistakes, it’s the time to screw up, to vent out your frustrations, and when you grow older and have more life experience, look back at how you used to think and say “Wow, cringe. Good thing I grew out of that.” Absolutely not saying that everything teenagers do is stupid, if anything, most people start discovering themselves at that age. But that’s it; it’s a start. And on that road you’ll make mistakes, you’ll reflect, you’ll change your mind, you’ll learn, you’ll grow. The things that you start connecting with as a teenager which you keep on in your adult life also change, in the way that you look at them deeper, you understand them differently... it’s like with favourite films. Any movie you love as a teenager and as an adult, you’ll have a different mindset on the two occasions. Even if it brings you back to those times, you still have developed and you see it in a different way. Both ways may be positive, or fundamentally similar, but they’re still different, maybe one is the evolution of the first; it’s still not 100% the same. Because you grew up. It’s kinda sad, in a way.

So the issue I have with indoctrinating young women into the t**f ideology from so early on, is that it’s an ideology based on hate. By saying that women are only those who experience misogyny, you’re basically normalizing misogyny and abuse, and averting the blame. You’re saying that it’s expected from men to be misogynistic, and that women should band together against the oppression... instead of looking into why men are misogynistic and looking how you can inspire change in that. It’s victim blaming, basically.

By saying that “trans women are not women because they don’t grow up experiencing the effects of misogyny and patriarchy on themselves” (in a way that’s bullshit but as a cis woman I can’t expand on that, read trans women’s stories instead), you’re putting the responsibility of erasing misogyny on trans women. And again, you’re normalizing the abuse, and you’re defining your gender by the abuse you went through.

Like, fuck no. I was bullied for more than half my school life. It has impacted me greatly, many of the emotional scars I carry them still, my character has been affected by the abuse I went through, but by fuck no does it define me. I choose to try to be kinder. I choose to see abuse as wrong. I choose to be an educator so that I can help bullying stop being a thing in the schools I’ll be teaching. And not because I feel ashamed, or that I pity children who are being bullied, but because I want to make this world a better place, because I believe in teaching the younger generation into not perpetuating any kind of hateful ideology.

That’s not what t**fs do. They just say they hate men and perpetuate the idea of female supremacy... as if women, even women who are privileged in every way other than having a female body, can never do wrong.

Like on one hand, they deify JKR who said that “I am not a victim, I do not pity myself and I’m growing out of my trauma strong” in a very, very victim-shaming way, and on the other hand they define their femininity on the fact that they’re victimized by the patriarchy. Make it make sense.

And in general, it is still an ideology based on hate. When you take a group of people that are struggling both on the inside (either through gender dysphoria or through the pressure of not feeling free to express themselves) and on the outside (either because they’re bullied if they act “out of the gender norm” or because of transphobia if they come out), and you hate on them, when you put the entire responsibility of erasing unrealistic expectations on beauty and appearance for women on that specific small group that’s in a fundamentally disadvantageous position... bro I don’t know what you call it, I call it targeting. You have your frustrations with the patriarchy and sexist men, and because those people won’t listen to you - mostly because they’re privileged and assisted in that by the system they create - and you take it out on a group of people that’s just trying to live their lives in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone.

Like, I saw someone being upset by people comparing t**fs to nazis because she’s Jewish and I’m like... how the heck can you not see the similarities? How can you grow up Jewish and not see that it’s wrong to target an entire group of people, massively hate on them, say that they “have an agenda” just because they want to be themselves and aren’t hurting anyone? How can you not see that cherry-picking the unkind or misled ones and defining the entire group by those few people is wrong?

In fact, how can you not see that “trans women are perpetuating Hollywood’s beauty standards for women” has the exact same basis as “immigrants of colour are stealing white people’s jobs”?

And you may say, “Lillpon, you’re doing the same with t**fs right now. You’re going out there and blocking them after having said you hate blocking people” and I’ll say, I am not hating on them. As I said, I’m scared by seeing how many of them are teenagers, but at the same time, it’s telling. It’s a cult-like mentality, it finds people who are frustrated with how they are treated, who feel wronged, who feel they’re in an unjust world, and it takes those feelings and targets it to one specific group or characteristic. For t**rfs, that’s the XY chromosome set. For neo-nazis, that’s non-Caucasian races. The whole “finding young people who are alone, who see that the world is unjust, who feel no-one listening to them and indoctrinating them to an ideology of hate” is point-blank exactly how neo-nazi groups work. Here is a very interesting TED talk on the matter by a former neo-nazi, if you’re interested.

Also, I never said I hate blocking people, or that I think it’s wrong. I just don’t think it’s something to be proud of, and in fact I’m not proud for blocking those people, I even feel a little guilty as I understand how many of them are just victims of indoctrination.

You’ll say, “But Lillpon, a lot of neo-nazis are spoiled, privileged white men! How can you know how privileged t**fs are??” And to that, I’ll turn communist and whisper in your ear, “The privileged are few. They’re the minority. And they depend on the lower classes fighting against each other so that people forget that it’s the privileged who make all the laws and standards that hurt all the lower classes.” To that extent, you can never, never know who truly hides behind the blogs and twitter accounts with “r*dfem lesbian” on their bio. There are many occasions, especially on twitter, where accounts that claimed to be queer poc were found out to be run by straight white men.

... So, who can guarantee that everyone running a blog with “r*dfem lesbian” on their bio is actually a cis, lesbian woman? And again, on its basis, it’s the same.

Neo-nazism is putting the blame on people of colour; that not only causes a rift between neo-nazis and poc, but also between neo-nazis and white people who oppose them. It’s in fact a pawn so that the white people in power - the people who are responsible for the problems poc and lower class white people face - can avoid having everyone against them. They give poc and less-racist lower class white people a scapegoat.

T**f ideology is putting the blame on people born in male bodies - absolutely no matter what their character is. Again, that causes rifts between t**fs and cis men, t**fs and trans people, and t**fs and cis women who support trans rights. Instead of focusing on seeing how we can stop cis men from being sexist - which of course will inconvenience the men in power who rose so high because misogyny is holding women back - we’re fighting against each other. It’s again, a pawn, a scapegoat, to distract us from blaming the one who’s truly to blame.

If anything, if you’re a t**f, the fact that what you do is helping the white men in power - because absolutely nothing you or your friends can do can affect them in a negative way - should be a reason by itself to not be a t**f. But what do I know.

VIC DO ALL THE ASKS BC I LOVE U AND WANT U TO HAVE FUN

*SWEATS* AYE AYE CAPN

cw for like some common lgbt+ topics such as dysphoria violence discrimination etc just. tread carefully if u get triggered easily by bad lgbt experiences

What do you identify as and what are your pronouns? -im a gay trans man and my pronouns are he/him but they/them is also acceptable!

How did you discover your sexuality, tell your story?-oh wow i originally thought i was a lesbian because i didnt even know what transgender was i just thought wishing i was a man meant i was butch and then i met my friend donnie in eighth grade who told me he was trans and it was kinda a huge slap in the face but with a sack of gay bricks? and i found out i dont like women through actually having sex with cis women and finally realizing it. really wasnt for me so now im just a gay man as opposed to queer as an umbrella term but i periodically refer to myself as such

Have you experienced being misgendered? What happened and how did you overcome it?-oh yea i literally was misgendered today i just kinda brush it off but it can be hard sometimes especially when people know im trans and do it

Who was the first person you told, how did they react?-i first told donnie about my gender, it was a thing where i went to bed the night i met him and was like  .. wait holy fuck and then the next day i was like BRO HOLY FUCK but sexuality? i dont really know???? it was so long ago it was honestly probably my group of friends on kik that i had in 2013 (u were included in that mister!!!!)

Describe what it was like coming out, what did you feel?-im not actually fully out but the first time someone who was an adult knew about my trans-ness was what really set in for me the fact that i could come out one day; my friends mom referred to me as seance (and like. obviously she respected my gender she has a trans kid) but it was just super jarring bc no adult had known yet abt my identity in any way and as a result i was rlly glad it was nighttime in that car bc i cried almost immediately; the first time i came out on my Own was to my cousin and he laughed in my face so that was pretty damn awful and its kinda funny cuz the bastard is bi so u would think hed have been accepting but n0pe!

If you’re out, how did your parents/guardians/friends react?-im out to my friends now ! and the reception was generally positive bc i think i do an ok job at picking ppl to be around in terms of morals so there was little bad reception

What is one question you hate people asking about your sexuality?-i hate when ppl ask if im gay as in for men or gay as in for women because im trans, i am a man so when i say im gay i feel like that should be easy enough to put 2 and 2 together but when they ask that i feel as if they still view me as a woman

Describe the style of clothing that you most often wear.-emo of the gods themselves it is absolute scene and emo vomit and i love it; its seriously hard for me to wear dresses and skirts without dysphoria and just general discomfort but i own a couple anyway bc theyre cute i just. never wear them

Who are your favourite lgbt+ ships?-my main thing at the moment is gerard/frank/grant morrison bc i love poly fics very dearly and gerard/bert because bert mccracken deserved better than gerawrds internalized homophobia lol

What does makeup mean to you? Do you wear any?-makeup to me is an androgynous thing so i wear eyeshadow a lot and lipstick sometimes, eyeshadow is easier on my eyes than eyeliner bc im allergic to a lot of makeup thats on the heavier side so if i put on eyeliner my eyes will water and burn throughout the day but with eyeshadow im mostly ok; other opinion is that makeup on Anyone can be sexy as hell if they do it for fun and wear literally what they truly want and not just what they think is accepted or what they Should wear

Do you experience dysphoria? If so, how does that affect you?-oh yeah my dysphoria is pretty debilitating if im gonna be honest; i used to have very little problems with it because my hold on reality was loose at best (before i was medicated to clarify) but now that i am almost completely Here my dysphoria is pretty bad and even just like. the knowledge that i have breasts is pretty awful; a few weeks ago i put on an outfit that i have to wear a victorias secret bra to fit properly in and just one look in the mirror had me sobbing and i had to change my clothes before i could leave the house and i havent worn a bra since because just the thought of showing off my chest makes this stark fuckin dread shoot through my veins but i also have dysphoria in regards to my voice that i discussed at my last trans therapy group meeting actually ; my voice has a tendency to bounce around my octave range so sometimes ill be like. excited then hear what i sound like. and ruin it for myself immediately u kno? im not even gonna talk about my dicksphoria bc thats just. awful. 

What is the stupidest thing you’ve heard said about the lgbt+ community?-ohhhhhhhh my god u know what? ive heard..so much .. that im gonna instead take this opportunity to mention my mother genuinely thinks dnd is satanic

What’s your favourite thing about the lgbt+ community?-the fact that were so strong. we are so fucking strong we deal with violence and opposition constantly and at staggering rates yet we stay strong and we continue loving through all of it, whether its in dark corners in secret or loudly in the streets we continue loving and do so with all of our beings because we know its our own truth and well gladly go to hell if it means we got to love on earth (not that everyone believes in hell or the idea that us gays go to hell but my point stands)

What’s your least favourite thing about the lgbt+ community?-we have this audacity to create divide (to the fault of mostly cis white gay men thank u very much) when what we need to do is love each other because we are different but at the end of the day we all need to remain in tandem and as a family or we will never get to where we need to in terms of acceptance and that means being uplifting and protecting our trans sisters of color, our disabled lgbt members, our autistic lgbt members, our anything past cis white gay man because we all need recognition, we all need love, and to exclude any letters of lgbt is to tear ourselves down and set ourselves on fire

Have you ever been to your cities pride event? Why or why not?-no :((( no one would drive me in the past and i dont think ill have a way to get there this year either

Who is your favourite lgbt+ Icon/Advocate/Celebrity?-brian molko! my bisexual, androgynistically-inclined father who birthed me at the tender age of 16 when i found placebo

Have you been in a relationship and how did you meet?-ya theres been a few and i dont rlly like to talk abt my relationships with anyone unless theyre online relationships so im just gonna leave it at that

What is your favourite lgbt+ book?-pantomime by laura lam! its one of if not my favorite book to this day

Have you ever faced discrimination? What happened?-y a every damn day bitch ! example is when i was deadnamed by my psychiatrist while she knows full well what my name is the other day; another is the countless times i get called a lesbian ???? and when strict lesbians ask me out i get a very bad taste in my mouth (i understand full well that sexuality is fluid, these are lesbians that spit the ‘penis is gross blegh’ rhetoric)

Your Favorite lgbt+ movie or show?-uh im just gonna say preacher bc its my favorite show altogether n cass is bi/pan/something similar

Who are some of your favourite lgbt+ bloggers?-@ble3dmagic is my boyfriend in crime (not rlly thats a joke) and @musicalsense​ is my sunburnt Brother

Which lgbt+ slur do you want to reclaim?-queer! i also use f*ggot a lot when talking about myself and my friends that are ok with it

Have you ever gone to a gay bar, or a drag show, how was it?-i went to a drag show and it was so amazing and one of the first times i felt accepted in my own community that i cried

How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that mean to you?-well i identify as a man with no leaning towards womanhood or nonbinaryhood in any way, its just . man . but in terms of Expression i am quite androgynous bc i can rlly appreciate femininity (NOT the same as womanhood) and being a man to me means just that ive always wanted to grow up with that “gender role” like i always wish i was raised as a stereotypical parent would raise a son and ive always been more interested in stereotypically masculine things and people since i can even remember and i feel like puberty was just this unpreventable spiral into something i didnt want. i didnt want it at all . this is tmi but when i got my first period i cried my eyes out bc the idea of being called a Woman repulsed me so much and since i didnt even know that being trans was a concept i was just this scared puppy full of confusion and fear aimed at myself because all the stuff i heard i was supposed to be proud of the change but i wasnt i was so ashamed of it and the idea of being called a woman made me sick to my stomach and i just wish i could go back in time and hold myself and tell me itll be alright 

Are you interested in having children? Why or why not?-absoLutely not i hate kids (and by that i mean i hate being around them and the culture that surrounds having children; i do not treat kids like shit and i do not act like hating children is a personality trait; i get migraines and usually the second a child starts screaming or crying i am on the floor of my brain writhing in dire pain and i have absolutely no desire to support another human life when frankly i cant even support myself; its also just not a lifestyle i want to live)

What identity advice would you give your younger self?-god so fucking much. so fucking much. so many things i wish i could say to myself

What do you think of gender roles in relationships?-i think if someone wants to adhere to them then hell yea go ahead just dont expect others to do it or try to tell other people its a Norm or something; theyre for the most part christian in nature so i dont have any desire to follow them myself, i want a relationship (if any) thats more of a coexistence if that makes sense, like. roommates plus dick

Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender?-i always used to anxiously chew on the idea that my chest dysphoria is just me holding disdain for the shape and size of my breasts but let me tell you. the second i put on my binder for the first time i immediately started crying because i was so overwhelmed by the fact that i was looking at something one step closer to myself and i know full well i am never going to have that doubt again. this week has been exponentially cathartic and therapeutic for me

What is something you wish people know about being lgbt+?-i want the cisheteros to know that nothing they learn about us is new. everything about us has been around for so so long but has been silenced and erased to the point where a lot of us dont even know many things about our rich and beautiful history

Why are proud to be lgbt+?-honestly? its hard for me to not just straight up say im not proud of my identity. its taken me years to stamp down the plain grieving toward my identity and wishing i could have the easier path but frankly? the fact that i am choosing this path of hardship and hell on earth just to be who i truly am i think speaks volumes of my pride in my identity at this point; further back in my archive by a few years my posts are littered with sentiments of bitterness wherein i stated that i hate being trans and not just cis but i like to think ive finished hating myself for my identity. i like to think im proud now. to ask me why is to ask too much of me, all i know now is that i am proud and thats enough for me right now.

IN PRAISE OF DOCKING, THE FRENCH KISS OF GAY SEX

Our fucking is often defined by its intensity — which is why docking stands out as an intimate and almost poetic act

by Mitchell Kuga

If you’d asked me as a kid what I thought sex between two adult men looked like, I would have described something similar to docking: two erect dicks pressing into one another, with all the erotic implications of a Chinese finger trap. As an adult, docking — a sex thing where one or both partners wraps their uncircumcised foreskin around the other’s penis — seemed like more of a comical idea about gay sex, rather than gay sex itself.

Then, late one night while scrolling through Pornhub-dot-com-backslash-gay, I landed on a video called “Buddies Docking Penises and Cumming.” With a staggering 1.6 million views, the nearly five-minute clip is shot with the mise-en-scène of all good amateur porn: the empty plastic bottle next to the toilet, an errant camera strap, etc. Filmed from above, the two “buddies” stand facing each other, penises erect. I watched as penis No. 1 wrapped its uncut foreskin around the head of penis No. 2, as if it were hibernating for winter, and then as the foreskin of penis No. 2 jerked over the head of penis No. 1, producing a visible suction effect as the foreskins threatened to separate. Visually, their nearly identical girths and matching skin tones created one long virtually seamless penis: a penis No. 3.

As a circumcised person myself, there was an aesthetic appreciation to penis No. 3 that I recognized almost immediately, similar to the platonic admiration I experience watching fisting porn: Bodies can do that? But as the hands belonging to penis No. 2 delicately jerked the conjoined foreskin of penis No. 3 back and forth and back and forth, that admiration turned shockingly erotic. “I’m going to cum,” penis No. 2 exclaimed, between ASMR-like panting.

And as he did, so did I.

At first, I felt silly getting off on the penile equivalent of scissoring. But like the narrative arc of that vulvar sex position — which went from being a comical manifestation of the male gaze, to something queer women were proclaiming was actually really pleasurable — I discovered that docking delivers a distinct kind of erotic pleasure. “It’s the French kiss of gay body contact,” says R.J., a pseudonymous uncircumcised gay man from North Carolina. “It’s frottage” — a non-penetrative form of gay sexual activity— “with a passport.”

He stresses docking’s tenderness, particularly in a gay community whose seventh most searched for Pornhub category last year was “rough sex.” “There’s not a lot of poetry in gay sex,” he says. “In so much of what we do, there’s this intensity — you don’t just get fucked, your hole gets destroyed. There’s a lot of banging and pounding; it’s this very insistent, aggressively hungry sex. But [docking] isn’t any of those things, right? It’s nice. It’s this moment of true intimacy.”

The mechanics of docking are tricky, he explains — it requires both penises to walk an erotic tightrope. If either penis gets too erect or too flaccid, the foreskins detach. “So it only has this moment,” he says. “And if it turns you on too much, it ends.” Docking’s ephemeral nature is all part of its charm, though; R.J. compares it to sprinkles on a cake rather than the icing. “You’re already getting icing if you’re having sex, but this is a little extra,” he says. Coupled with the sensitivity of the foreskin, “it’s not like there’s a half hour of docking. It lasts like a few minutes.”

He also relishes being able to offer uncut partners a rarefied sexual experience, particularly in a country like America where circumcision rates hover around 75 percent, one of the highest in the world. (Docking with one circumcised penis is known as “half-docking.”) “In a community where everyone is sort of trying everything, it’s one of the only things people haven’t tried yet because there’s a systemic limitation on it,” R.J. explains.

At the same time, he stresses the importance of maintaining agency over his foreskin, particularly with cut partners. “If there was a Grindr profile that said ‘Looking to dock,’ I’d be like, Hard pass. There are definitely people who respond too eagerly. I don’t want to be fetishized,” he says.

As a circumcised kid growing up in Seattle, self-described “reality hack turned porn star” Jack Mackenroth recalls seeing uncircumcised penises in the swimming pool locker room, and thinking they were “kind of gross.” But over time, owing in part to a relationship with an uncircumcised man from New Zealand 15 years ago, he’s developed what he calls a “foreskin fetish.” “I don’t want to fetishize any group of people specifically,” he says. “But some people like feet, I like foreskin. I love to play with it. I just do.”

Mackenroth, who competed on Season Four of Project Runway, recently experienced his first docking session, which he filmed for his OnlyFans account with an uncircumcised man he met on the site. “We were taking his enormous foreskin and jacking off my dick, like a Fleshlight sort of thing,” says Mackenroth. “It’s a turn-on, but it doesn’t really feel like you’re having anal sex or that someone is masturbating you. It’s more of a visual turn-on for me.”

Today, he considers circumcision “genital mutilation,” and, as such, he’s been aggressively attempting to restore his own foreskin for the last year. He describes the process of stretching — at first using a device specifically made for the process, then switching to a homemade contraption he’s constructed out of fishing weights and duct tape — as “not super comfortable,” though it also provides a particular kind of thrill. “It’s the fantasy of Oh, I’ve got this big pendulous cock, which I don’t. But when you add a pound-and-a-half to it, it feels like it,” he says. Before he started this restoration process, Mackenroth felt excluded from docking. “It does say in the Urban Dictionary, which we all know is god’s word, that both guys have to be uncut,” he explains.

I Grew Back My Foreskin, and You Can Too

But over the last couple of decades, he’s become less judgmental and more sexually expansive, the rules he once clung to slowly dissolving. The day before we spoke, he filmed a docking scene with a man whose penis was injected with medical-grade silicone, a form of body modification that once turned him off. Inserting his penis between the man’s engorged foreskin was “basically like fucking his dick,” he says. “His foreskin was like a warm fleshy donut.”

It’s hard to talk about docking without talking about the politics of foreskin, particularly as it relates to “intactivism,” the anti-circumcision movement that developed in the 1990s. A sense of grief fuels many intactivists, who see circumcision as a form of  “genital mutilation” that’s hindered them emotionally, spiritually and sexually — and has even altered their sexuality.

“I’m bisexual with a fetish for uncut cock. I can’t help but wonder — if I wasn’t cut, would I still have that fetish, and would I be fully straight?” says a 21-year-old student named Sebastian (not his real name) on Reddit. “I don’t really know what to do about it, but it’s taking over my life, and it totally could’ve been avoided if I just wasn’t fucking circumcised. I want kids and a family, I don’t want to be craving foreskin when I’m old.”

Though he usually considers himself the dominant partner in bed, Sebastian takes on more of a submissive role with uncut guys. “They have something that I don’t,” he tells me. “Which makes it more attractive.” Docking is one of the ways he fulfills his fetish, in part because he says having another man’s foreskin wrapped around his penis approximates the feeling of being intact. He’s also — surprise! — a big fan of docking porn.

According to statistics provided by Pornhub, docking remains an incredibly niche category, accounting for only 0.002 percent of daily searches, or around 3,000 searches per day. To my surprise, women are disproportionately interested in it, and are 46 percent more likely to search for docking than men. After “cock docking,” the second most popular docking related search is “futa docking,” which is short for “futanari”: a form of 3-D anime porn depicting women with humongously enlarged penises that also became popular in the 1990s (what a decade).

To find out more I went — where else? — to Reddit, where I solicited insight into futa docking and its relationship, if any, to regular ol’ dick docking. I gratefully received this response, which I’ll paste here in all its glory, because I can’t think of a better way to end this piece:

“At least for me, futa docking is a sort of erotic absurdism — taking sexual ideas and warping and exaggerating them. There’s a gradual progression to reach this point: normal porn leads to hentai, which leads to futa, which leads to larger futa, until the girls have dicks large enough to stick another dick inside of it. I personally don’t think it’s as outwardly ‘sexy’ as it is just interesting, although I’m sure there are certainly people who do find it completely arousing.

“As for its relation to cock docking, I think they’re two completely different fetishes. Cock docking, from what I’ve seen, is more about the foreskin in a somewhat more advanced form of frotting. Futa docking, being unbound by the laws of nature, is all about the insertion — the aforementioned absurd and impossible nature of it. If you want a real-life equivalent, futa docking is more like r/sounding (a link I recommend the faint of heart to avoid).

“Again, this is all my own opinion. Don’t assume I’m trying to speak for everyone here in my reply. This seems like a really fucking weird subject for an article, so, uh, good luck, I guess.”

something new - May 23,2020

hello world! am trying to clean up my life and get some answers in areas i’m uncertain of. thought I would finally share some of my thoughts and ramblings so I can look back later and see some of those thoughts categorized here.  TW; i’m just venting and bitching a lot about life. 

@me If you don’t bother asking or finding answers to the questions you need in order to live your life best - who can you really blame? It takes energy and it definitely isn’t easy, but if you want better of yourself - do better.  disclaimer, @anyone who I have hurt from my ignorant and numb ways, I am sorry for my carelessness. I am trying to do better and I finally feel comfortable in my identity. Thank you to those who have been patient and are still with me. Anyways. 

Today I googled “what are your responsibilities as an adult” and wanted to share them for anyone else who has had a rough idea and may be curious, but has never thought to actually search this themselves. Psychology Today bucketed these 6 useful headings below

Rationality

Formulating and Implementing goals 

Equality in Relationships

Active versus Passive

Non-defensiveness and Openness

Personal power

The excerpts below are for me to reflect back onto. If you’re interested hearing my words scroll to the very bottom. 

“As an adult, own your life and destiny. If you remain a child in your adult life, you look at the world around you as dominating, controlling, and dangerous. That’s a miserable life.” The major deterrent to living an adult existence lies in the fear of growing up. This includes the fear of breaking imagined connections with parents, being alone, standing out as an individual, having a strong point of view, recognizing one’s value and confronting the inevitability of death, the ultimate separation from self. To live like a child in an adult world is itself a defense against death anxiety. In one story, a woman revealed how, in an attempt to preserve the illusory connection to her parents, she recreated her father in her husband and her mother in close female friends. She went on to describe why she held on to her identity of being “the bad child” for so many years. To hang on to this old identity with all my might, for many years, was so compelling … why? All I can answer to this is remaining a child, although miserable, is farther away from the agony of aging and death. So the compelling draw is hard to let go of. Of course, I still have my moments of childish reactions, but I’m learning to catch them, notice the almost physical feeling that comes on, and stop it before I engage. I will make mistakes, but I plan to forge forward as an adult, and search instead for equality. Nonetheless, this leaves me very alone. And the aloneness leaves me anxious, and sad … but it’s real. And life as an equal, although painful, is fuller. And I’m ready for the challenge. In summary, living in the child mode is largely chaotic and dysfunctional, whereas living one’s life as an adult is generally more adaptive and successful. Retaining a child’s frame of reference has numerous disadvantages: For example, people who operate from this perspective often find it difficult to formulate their goals and priorities in life and tend to feel helpless and victimized. They blame others for the problems they encounter rather than taking responsibility for how people react to them. In reality, people largely determine the course of their lives and determine the way that others respond. Lastly, reacting to life in a childlike manner can be quite emotional but often lacks a depth of genuine feeling. MAY 21, 2020 - MONTREAL  I haven’t prioritized the time to put into words how I’ve felt since I transformed my internal and external presenting identity, career, physical home, support system, and self-acceptance. Wow. Mouthful- huh? No wonder it always felt too big to tackle. I feel more alive in the last year than the last five years of coasting in university. I thought that was just how it goes. You have structure, you have a certain assumed end vision, perhaps it was lazy to not think bigger but when you are processing so many new opportunities, fear of failure and being kicked out, and stimuli - its a fucking lot.  Thursday, May 21 felt like a turning page. It’s summer in Montreal and finally inching closer to my 1 year anniversary here. I moved right after Toronto Pride because a close friend got us the opportunity to walk with her company. Hot take, marching with a corporate company at Pride where you have to be semi-conscious of how you are presenting your identity is not the most pride-esque thing. If you’re confused, imagine being high or any form of intoxicated around your manager. Not sure this flies with every manager and its understandable. I think the neighbours are fucking again. Or they are literally hammering. Who knows.  Back to me, why am I googling adult responsibilities? I feel like i’ve been in child mode the entire last year. The psychology today piece actually really helps summarize a lot of my instability and confusion. Let me explain before you judge. I had an adult mode saved, I did. I had an adult mode saved with 5 years of leadership opportunities from a university I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at. I have zero regrets with my university experience, I really do. I sought out all the things I wanted to try but the one thing always creeping at the back of my mind was hating myself. I thought that was just 2008 news, who cares. I let it stay numbingly in the background and focused on any external stimuli. I never thought to question my gender, or presenting identity because I never thought I resonated with the queer/non-binary/trans/any kind of queer people I saw represented (which was the extremely limited characters on glee). This was never talked about in a Chinese Canadian household. If anything, the more i reflect on my childhood the more I am able to objectively see the surroundings I had are not "normal;”. They just are. They are one timeline, one version, one culture, one kind. The fact I was surrounded by people smaller than me (literally physically observation of weight) were just life decisions. Wasn’t intentional and it really in fact fucked me up with weight insecurities. BUT the great news is that these were just life decisions. Not right or wrong, I am pivoting now and trying my best to balance a new big kid job, create a new support system, work on my family relationships to forgive and let go of years of inflicted trauma, and breathe. (David told me recently my future me will thank myself for sorting myself out now so I can enjoy the rest of my life. I hope so).  I am working back on myself and trying to relearn which parts of me and my personality I loved without the self-hatred I anchored so much to my physical identity. Another friend recently shared a piece on displaced anger. I think that really helps summarize this displaced hatred I have been struggling with for so long. Fuck shame and certain messaging we are bombarded with by media for instilling this at such an early age. Heartbreaking. 

I haven’t shared this with anyone but I think to this day my sister’s unconscious mistakes of ignoring me and not supporting me when I needed her most have fucked me up the most in adulthood. I struggle communicating with my deeper relationships because this was never encouraged when I was younger. Coming out and wanting to talk about girls was never met with excitement or enthusiasm. I don’t care if you didn’t know how to talk about it with me, was I expecting too much to see some degree of interest or care? 

I can’t separate how much of me needs to validate this explanation and the part of me that needs to just grow up and get over it. Maybe its a combination of both. I’m a pisces that was surrounded by 3 capricorns, can we give me a break? 

I’m getting irritated and impatient with myself as i write this. I feel like there is just so much shit it pains me and I don’t know how to share. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I pushed people away so I could sort myself out without any other overwhelming variables or complications. Now so much has happened, who has the time or patience to hear this? I’m tired. This is the third official city i’ve made a home out of and its been the hardest one yet. I think i am also realizing I made most of my friends out of people that don’t initiate or invest similar amounts of energy into me as I do into them. I never held it against them, but growing up is just internalizing and understanding you really don’t have unlimited time. I should let some simply fizzle out. Bleh. Anyways, relearning how to be me that isn’t positive and bubbly all the time. This is 100% me overcompensating for my high-functioning depression that used to leave me feeling numb or indifferent. I don’t know how to reconcile the two huge pendulum swings of emotion. I don’t want to be stepped all over and I want to be assertive without fearing its bossy. I want to be me and I need to give myself some time to explore that.  

Apparently in Denmark, the friends they grow up with are the friends they stick with for pretty much life. Didn’t know it is very North American to have friends in university and separate friend groups from other areas of your life. Beginning to think this is too exhausting, I’d like to simplify this!!!!!!!!!!! 

Final thing. I think a large part of my struggles come from not being honest or vulnerable with my new family about the shit I endure because i’m so used to dealing with it solo. Thus, they only really hear the highs and wins. This makes it really tough on me sharing when asian culture includes ‘saving face’ and suppressing emotion to be private. The environments I put myself in simply accomodate this outdated preference. Anyways, thank you Tumblr for being a space for me to release all of this out. No wonder I have terrible headaches, who the fuck wants to deal with thisss.