"The Bible and Sexuality," by Karen R. Keen

In my opinion, this little primer could be developed into a sturdy textbook for Christians on all sides of this hot topic today. #TheBibleandSexuality #KarenRKeen #NashvilleStatement #BiblicalSexuality

The Bible and Sexuality, by Karen R. Keen, Durham, NC: Contemplatio Publishing, 202.116 pages. What Does the Bible Say About Sex? A slim volume, easily read in an afternoon, or evening, Keen writes with a spare yet approachable style exploring what the Bible has to say about sex, including same-sex encounters. Originally intended as a primer for her college students, Keen explains that her…

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Progress being made in Africa

I want to introduce a disability concept that I've been calling paradoxical stigma.

What is paradoxical stigma? It's the stigma against:

1) The actually disabling traits of a disability that's in the spotlight for the parts of it that are convenient to accommodate, and/or

2) The diagnosis of such a disability itself,

Due to the assumption that the spotlight renders it "destigmatized" and no longer in need of support.

As of right now, at least around this corner of the internet, the most obvious examples of this are autism and ADHD. It's become disturbingly common for people to treat those like Diet Disabilities That Don't Actually Count. It's been really interesting to watch the popular attitude about these disorders shift from "autism is either a tragedy or an excuse depending on 'severity', and ADHD is just a myth used to drug kids into complicity instead of teaching them actual skills", to "actually these are real disorders that affect people in all aspects of their lives", to "I GUESS they're real disorders but honestly EVERYONE has them can't we worry about more SERIOUS ones?" and...not in a good way.

It comes up...partially as a legitimate backlash to people with these disorders who think that invisible disability and/or neurodivergence begins and ends at their experience, and...yeah, that's a problem all right, in fact if I had a dollar for every asshole who looked at my struggles with things like keeping my space clean or not fucking up my medication doses DUE TO ADHD and went "well I have the same diagnosis and I don't have THAT problem to THAT extent, obviously you're just lazy and careless", or saw me having an AUTISTIC meltdown and called it "bullying" or worse because I get loud and insisted that I NEED to CONTROL that CHOSEN BEHAVIOR if I want to not be a Bad Person, or heard about how AUTISTIC overstimulation defense measures play into my trouble with cleaning and insisted that well THEY'RE autistic too and don't have that specific problem so this is clearly weaponized helplessness because I just don't WANT to learn to do better, I'd...probably have a lot more assistive tech. I also get really, really frustrated and upset when people use RSD to mean "if you ever criticize me that's the height of ableism, no matter how much I'm actually fucking up and hurting you" - especially since it's so often invoked as a defense against being lightly criticized for ACTUALLY harmful behavior and as much as it sucks there IS no substitute to make that more emotional-dysregulation-friendly beyond basic kindness in criticism. That attitude exists. It's bad.

And yet, theoretically, I think we could all agree that the response to that should NEVER be to reinvent the old "ugh, those aren't REAL disabilities, those are just EXCUSES that LAZY PARENTS make for kids being kids, what they need is DISCIPLINE" stereotype of the 90s-2000s, just now aimed at those same kids as adults, in ostensibly supportive spaces - or arguably worse, to revert all our understanding of support needs to the externally judged high-functioning/low-functioning dichotomy.

What really sets this apart as paradoxical stigma, rather than just garden-variety lateral ableism, is that 1) we CAN theoretically all agree that reinventing those stereotypes is a terrible response, yet many people do it anyway, and 2) these stereotypes are invoked not only because of that intracommunity misbehavior, but both within and outside of disabled spaces, because of the illusion that you can bring up those disorders and have them taken seriously because fidget toys and stim videos and weighted blankets are popular now. An event having quiet rooms, or backlash to Autism Speaks being visible outside of autistic spaces, will be taken as "proof" that autism stigma is over forever and anyone who complains about it is just a whiner who doesn't know how good they have it...even when what they're complaining about is, say, being barred from migration. Paradoxical stigma is enacted by people who think that they, alone, are standing up against someone who's throwing others under the bus to continue to progress their own limited agenda...when in fact they're speaking a very popular shitty opinion, that MANY of the people making that claim would disagree with HEAVILY once separated from the "crab bucket reflex".

As a personal example, the result is that when I'm looking for assistance, I'm...hesitant to bring up those diagnoses, because I know I'm going to be written off as "obviously a high-functioning low-support needs scammer who just doesn't WANT to CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY and EARN things" - even by people who otherwise agree that people should be allowed to survive even if they truly are the living strawman lazy bum who has nothing wrong with them but just WANTS to lay around eating junk food and doing drugs all day, AND that disability deserves to be respected, isn't black-and-white, and affects everyone differently; somehow when these combine in the context of my diagnoses that have had a very sanitized version of themselves "destigmatized" on TikTok, they cancel out into blatant reactionary sentiment indistinguishable from what I'd hear from my shitty token Republican uncle.

So, that's paradoxical stigma. Feel free to use the term if you find it useful.

the thing about rejoined is that star trek had often addressed issues of queerness and homophobia, but only ever in allegory and never explicitly representing actual queer characters. it would have been so easy for them to present the issue of reassociation as an allegory for homophobia but with kahn having a male host so that jadzia could still maintain her heterosexual presentation, but they didn't. it's a perfect example of alluding to today's societal issues while also representing the people affected by them.

hi i made a tier list of how homophobic rezero characters are

hello in the spirit of valentine's day and the very welcoming community here on rezero tumblr i decided to make this with the help of my lovely mutuals.

milex and 'white nights' by dostoevsky

if you love milex do not, for the love of god and the well-being of your mental health, read 'white nights' - i am crushed and utterly inconsolable, and the fact that this whole story fits so well with the lyrics of 'killing the joke' and 'the meeting place' and the la cigale performance has me wanting to cry until tomorrow, and i can't keep all these thoughts to myself.

for those that don't know, it is the story of a man who meets a girl and falls in love with her; unfortunately, the girl is in love with someone else and is waiting for him to come back to her; and in the end, she returns to her lover, but wants to remain friends with our nameless character.

the two characters meet during the night, always in the same place - 'but I want to see you tonight'

the man can't sleep, he is too excited about their next night when they'll meet again; he even goes back to their meeting place on his own: - 'he struggles to sleep at night and during the day/he's worried she's waiting in his dreams/to drag him back to the meeting place/his love had left him there' - 'he's crying out from the meeting place/he's stranded himself there'

things taking a wrong turn is indicated by grey and gloomy weather, rain and dark clouds - 'cause the clocks count down and we're in for bad weather'

the man confesses his love to the girl, despite knowing that she can't love him, knowing that what he is going to say "is all nonsense, all impossible, all stupid! I know that this can never be, but I cannot be silent" - 'why do I always have to go killing the joke?'

the man has been lonely all his life and has been unsuccessful with women, but despite his loneliness and despair, he manages to make the girl laugh multiple times - 'but I, I live a lonely life / but I, I know I'm a funny guy'

at the end, she writes him a letter, asking him to forgive her for leaving him - 'her voice still echoes/ I'm sorry I met you, darling, I'm sorry I've left you'

nastenka's lover has been away for a year, but before he went, he promised her that when he comes back, he'll marry her. but when he does comes back, he doesn't go to her and the girl begins to doubt his love for her - this is when how our character finds her. in her misery, she wants our narrator to come live with her and tells him that she will love him; but after discussing their plans, her lover turns up - and tell me that this does not remind you of la cigale:

"Come along! Look at the sky, Nastenka. Look! To-morrow it will be a lovely day; what a blue sky, what a moon! Look; that yellow cloud is covering it now, look, look! No, it has passed by. Look, look!"

But Nastenka did not look at the cloud; she stood mute as though turned to stone; a minute later she huddled timidly close up to me. Her hand trembled in my hand; I looked at her. She pressed still more closely to me.

At that moment a young man passed by us. He suddenly stopped, looked at us intently, and then again took a few steps on. My heart began throbbing.

"Who is it, Nastenka?" I said in an undertone.

"It's he," she answered in a whisper, huddling up to me, still more closely, still more tremulously.... I could hardly stand on my feet.

"Nastenka, Nastenka! It's you!" I heard a voice behind us and at the same moment the young man took several steps towards us.

My God, how she cried out! How she started! How she tore herself out of my arms and rushed to meet him! I stood and looked at them, utterly crushed. But she had hardly given him her hand, had hardly flung herself into his arms, when she turned to me again, was beside me again in a flash, and before I knew where I was she threw both arms round my neck and gave me a warm, tender kiss. Then, without saying a word to me, she rushed back to him again, took his hand, and drew him after her.

I stood a long time looking after them. At last the two vanished from my sight."

and despite all this, the man is not angry with her; the last thing he'd do is hurt her in any way; he wishes her to be happy - and realises, that all his life, he's only been truly happy during these nights with her:

"my god, a whole moment of happiness! is that too little for the whole of a man's life?"

which hits even harder if we read the epigraph of the story:

"Or was his destiny from the start

To be but just one moment

Near your heart?" (Ivan Turgenev)

god this was so cringey shut up all you've ever seen regarding women has been a smelly rat in the mirror and distorted photoshopped images of women with big boobees you know nothing

I went on tiktok to just watch some silly Odysseus videos but then I mostly saw people going like "Yeah, maybe Odysseus cried on Calypso' island every day but honestly he had that coming after what he did Achilles and Patroclous/Circe!!!" and "Everything that happens in Odyssey is deserved cuz he took Patrochilles to war!!!" and "I feel so bad for Circe and Calypso and Penelope, they deserved better!!!"

For fucks sake I beg you, read anything different from Millers bs and like educate yourself- And please stop goddamn saying that rape victim. deserved it.

Circe probably didn't give a flying fuck, Calypso is a rapist and abuser and Penelope deserved everything she wanted and SHE WANTED ODYSSEUS

I think I've had enough internet for today, imma go wash my eyes with bleach. Anyways sorry for ranting here, i hope you don't mind it lmao

It's alright. I absolutely understand the vents about the whole thing. :'D No one deserves to be a victim of such a thing no matter WHAT they've done. I hope your eyes are okay after the bleach

Like Odysseus does so many fucked up things but Calypso and Circe? He is the victim. Period. It's very clear that Odysseus is in extreme distress on Ogygia. And Circe wasn't some sort of FwB situation. There's fear and numbness in the language he uses when talking about it. There's so much victim blaming and it SUCKS.

While back then it probably wouldn't be considered SA but now? It clearly is.

Even then, Odysseus' journey was kind of about "temptation" or just straight up "Die or get out of my sea." From Poseidon. "I don't want you in my waters so I'm gonna try and give you things that will keep you on land or just kill you."

Immortal goddesses wanting you would be many people's dream come true but not for Odysseus. And I think that's the point. His determination, how he clawed his way back into the arms he never wanted to leave in the first place, is incredible. Many people would've given up and just started a new life but he never would because no life he could ever create would compare to the life he had before. Even if it's different, it's what he's always wanted.

He literally tells Calypso "I'm not stopping until I'm home. I don't care if I suffer more until I do. I'm going home."

“Mighty goddess, do not be angry with me over this. I myself know very well Penelope, although intelligent, is not your match                                          to look at, not in stature or in beauty. But she’s a human being and you’re a god. You’ll never die or age. But still I wish, every moment to get back to my home,                                                       to see the day of my return. And so, even if out there on the wine-dark sea some god breaks me apart, I will go on— the heart here in my chest is quite prepared to bear affliction. I’ve already had so many troubles, and I’ve worked so hard                                  through waves and warfare. Let what’s yet to come be added in with those.”

(Book 5, Johnston)

Circe's a goddess and what happened is nothing like Dionysus and Ariadne and Apollo and Hyacinthus for example. Circe never gave Odysseus a crown of stars and he would never go out of his way to kill 120 people for bothering her. They did not love each other and he can't refuse as she's a goddess.

If you interpret them sleeping together the entire year,(It's only explicitly said that they had sex once so that's what I go with personally.) that doesn't mean he was happy with it! Even then, the whole situation is not what a healthy FwB should look like! I'm asexual and even I know that no one in a FwB situation should have to BEG in any way that basically says "Please let me go or kill me" with supplication!!! The fact that he leaves so quickly he forgets one of his men? The fact that during Elpenor's funeral, he doesn't greet Circe himself? He was avoiding her. Wouldn't he want to get "one last night together" during Book 12 if they were fwb? 🙄

It's bonkers to me that people hate him for being a "cheater" when A.) having multiple lovers wasn't uncommon in Ancient Greece, and B.) the two people he is explicitly said to have "cheated" with, weren't his choice. He wasn't actively searching for pretty women either!!!

As mentioned, while it was common for men to have many lovers, Odysseus never had any listed unlike some of the other men. (not bashing any of them. I'm just making a point in comparison.) He also has no other children besides Telemachus in Homer's works. There's no evidence of him having other lovers other than speculation. (funny enough, I once read somewhere that the reason why Odysseus is so mean is because he doesn't "bond" enough with the other soldiers. 😂)

Does that mean he didn't have other lovers? Technically, Nope! It's just never explicitly stated either way. He has slaves but none were ever said to be concubines or that he sleeps with them. He has deep bonds with his fellow soldiers but that doesn't mean he sleeps with them. That doesn't mean people can't write or talk about him doing so even though it's not mentioned! Just like it also means that someone can write him not doing so as there's nothing that says it either way in Homer's Works! :D

It's fucked up when people say "He didn't try to leave Calypso enough" or something of the like. It just tells you how A.) they didn't read the Odyssey or have piss on the poor reading comprehension or B.) ...you should probably stay away from that person...

With Circe though??? I can understand the confusion but digging deeper and looking at the text, he wasn't having a good time. Or at the very least was walking on Eggshells the whole time. I hate bringing up that essay over and over again but like...I literally wrote everything there.

I also don't like how people take Circe's morally gray-ness away from her. Let her do something fucked up to be fucked up!!! Let her traumatize Odysseus!

Idk, I kind of hate that I'm "known" for this but I relate to this idiot asshole a lot and it means a lot to me that his story, despite what happens to him, has a happy ending :'D

That whole thing about "historians will call them good friends :)" people have talked about why historians won't use labels etc before and. It's just as inappropriate to call someone from the 18th century straight as it is gay. For the exact same reasonings

Men can have vaginas. Women can have penises. Being a lesbian is not about "only liking pussy". Being gay is not about "only liking dick". Those are transphobic and intersex exclusive statements.

The "sex" in "sexuality" is not referring to assigned sex at birth or the most common presentations of assigned sex genitalia. It refers to sexual attraction. Queer sexual attraction is gender and/or shared queer experience based. Gender is not the same as assigned sex at birth or genitalia. If your personal sexual attraction is based on assigned sex at birth and specific genitalia and you use a queer sexuality label you are appropriating that label and participating not only in transphobia and intersex exclusion from queer communities but also in homophobia.

Stop appropriating queer sexualities and then trying to kick out people who actually belong under that label because you want to make a little exclusion based bigot club for yourselves.

Love, Victor - 3x01

I love Joe so much because he's gay but he doesn't fit the idea so many people have about being gay, from penetration to gay bars, and he finds himself stuck in a world where he doesn't see anyone else inhabiting and it's just him. Just him, alone, even when he falls in love, because what the world says he's supposed to be and supposed to like isn't him.

Ugh, the amount I understand and adore Joe because it's so hard to look at the life you're expected to live if you label yourself and realize you don't want it... and realizing that the label that fits you doesn't help because there are so many things and expectations attached to that label.

Joe just wants to be gay and not go clubbing and not have penetrative sex but he can't say that because it's seen as unacceptable, it's seen as not being gay, and he doesn't know how to say those things to Army who does like those things and does fit the expectations of the label and who expresses that he enjoys all those things that Joe Doesn't.

Alex going and talking to him was needed because Joe needed to tell someone and we know that Alex can accept him and not just accept him, but support him and help him be honest with Army. Because Army needs that honesty, he needs to be told.

It's about being honest with the people you love, honest about what you want and don't want, communicating because you love them and trust them and want them to know you, not just doing things because you feel an obligation because of a societal label.

hey girlie it’s me, sam winchesters gay lover, your mootie 🥰🥰🥰 i just wanted to let you know, that your tags on the post about that wincest video are based and i agree with every word, hashtag slay couldn’t agree more i loved reading your essay in those tags heart ❤️

omg thank you!!! i'm basically only capable of talking in essays whether people want me to or not, unfortunately

i just have a lot of feelings on this topic and the whole "canon or not canon" argument is weird to me; the themes are pretty darn clear in supernatural (it is NOT known for its subtlety) so idk man. they don't have to kiss to be canon. and they don't have to have a romantic relationship to be canon either. how many times do they get into relationships with other people only for it to be treated as cheating/betrayal/abandonment, only for them have to give up that relationship in order to reaffirm their devotion to their brother

that's just what the text says. i'm not under any kind of delusion that they have some secret sexual or romantic relationship, but that doesn't change that sam and dean are each other's most important person regardless of that. which is really awesome imo, that romance isn't treated as more important than whatever horrible thing they have with each other, and that they don't have to consummate their relationship with romance/sex in order for it to be the most important one they have

(and of course there's romantic/sexual subtext, like parallels and metaphors and misunderstandings and jokes, but to me that just provides a solid foundation for presenting this relationship between them as the most important even though it's not romantic or sexual—because this language of romance is the only one we know, really, when it comes to writing important relationships between characters. it's the only one we know in our own personal lives, to a large extent. so you use the romance/sexuality to symbolize the actual bond they have. which is so much worse lmao)

anyway i think spn is fairly unique in this way because of how no other relationships can really ever stand parallel to the one they share; even in other shows that center male friendship, romance is allowed to coexist with brotherhood. for sam and dean, it's not, and that becomes a point of tension and conflict and resolution many, many times over the course of the show. so like yeah!!! just because it's not romantic or sexual doesn't mean it's not canon, in the sense that their relationship is the point of the show, and it is the most important relationship they have. they chose each other above all else, every single time. yknow, it's "the epic love story of sam and dean" and all that

Absolutely death gripped clenched trying not to comment on reductive posts on ancient greek homosexual relationships