🔞 the sea does not like to be restrained...

...except in bed. Header + icon by @minuiko. | Pythia's archival NSFW sideblog for NSFW/18+ things.

[melancholic-pigeon]

Quick update: making @morekissingafterdark mostly archival because I simply don't have the bandwidth to keep this stuff separate anymore (plus I changed my UN and it doesn't really make sense anymore pffft)

I'm adopting the tag #rent lowering gunshots for Adult Things (among other stuff). Use your best judgment and mind that not everything I post is kid-friendly or safe for work, and don't say I didn't warn you etc.

[chutzpahchesed]

Hasan calling Hen “genocidal” is an incredible illustration of DARVO and projection:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Hen Mazzig 🎗️ (@henmazzig)

the article he wrote:

My Jewish family was forced out of our homeland. We must not let Gazans suffer the same fate. - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

You don’t counter the fantasy of erasing Israel by proposing the same for Gaza, writes an Israeli influencer whose family was forced to leav

Hen’s pinned post on IG:

his pinned tweet:

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Oh dear the tankie non-arab streamer living on daddy’s money who tried to kill his ex by siccing the cops on her and verbally sucked off the most physically attractive houthi terrorist he could find is trying to slander his nemesis by… *checks notes* saying that citing a peace activist is the real terror simpiny

[luulapants]

love 2 see discourse about fic authors writing anal sex "wrong" and coming in with first hand (or second hand or ??? accounts) about how it ACTUALLY works as if there is not natural variation in how people practice and enjoy sex.

"they always leave out the cleaning!" RIP, but some people go nasty and like it. yes this includes rimming.

"no one actually does fingering first!" sorry, honey, YOU have never fucked someone who fingered you first

alternately, "with no prep??" mhm yeah some people are just living like that

"no lube??"/"spit as lube??" literally more prevalent than the magical lube stashed in every nearby drawer/glove compartment/pocket

"there's WAY too much emphasis on anal sex in slash fics, people don't actually do it that much, it's too much work" please refer to the guys fucking nasty with no prep in a bathroom stall for more information. they've done zero work.

"actually you need condoms even if you're clean & monogamous to prevent UTIs/mess" please explain to me the HERCULEAN efforts it took to get people to use condoms during the AIDS crisis if they were already using them anyway

"women writing fic don't know how to write anal" I should not have to explain that the vagina is in addition to, not instead of, the asshole

anyway, let's just agree that fic is not sex ed and there are plenty of people out there fucking in ways that you would personally hate

[luulapants]

this is going around again, and it's so so interesting how many people are responding with "yeah, fanfiction is fantasy so you can do whatever gets you off!"

which CAN be true, sure, but "fanfiction sex can be unrealistic because it's just porn" was not what I meant or what I think is even implied by any of the points I made here??

because fiction doesn't HAVE to be realistic, but also fiction is a way to depict and explore the breadth and reality of human experience. my point is that it IS realistic for people to have sex in a variety of ways.

in fact, whether a character fucks safe or unsafe or clean or dirty or careful or careless has everything to do with who they are as a person and their circumstances in the story. sure, write whatever you want, but for readers who know and care about characterization, certain ways of fucking are going to feel more or less correct than others. and it's objectively better writing to write sex based on who the character is than whatever you think is "correct."

idk like yeah sometimes fic is just porn, go nuts, but sometimes someone is actually trying to write about characters that feel real and lived-in.

[morekissingafterdark]

firstly omg this, secondly

"women writing fic don't know how to write anal" I should not have to explain that the vagina is in addition to, not instead of, the asshole

I am CRYING with laughter, thank you for putting this series of words into the universe

[star-anise]

(TW: CSA, kink, sexual assault)

I just want to make an observation about the kink-at-Pride conversation because I think the two sides are super talking past each other. And even though this involves giving a rhetorical tool into the hands of the people who don’t want me to exist in public, I also think it’s too important not to mention.

I was reading through the notes on this post from two weeks ago, June 23, 2019. This was the argument the OP put forward:

kids shouldn’t be exposed to sexual/fetish/kink stuff outside of an explanational/educational context because it is literally psychologically damaging for them to engage with at a young age and being exposed to sexual/fetish/kink stuff can actually be damaging to ANYONE who hasn’t consented to being a witness participant in  

I think the OP has a point, but that point has nothing to do with children, and whether an event is “family-friendly” or “18+” is irrelevant.

Because the thing is, the OP is wrong about the effects of this stuff on children. That’s not what the research about porn and kids says. I was scrolling through the notes to see if anyone else had debunked that claim, and I noticed something instead. Because if you go through the notes, many comments agreeing with the OP are not from about prepubescent children–they’re about teenage survivors of sexual abuse.

Here, I’m gonna anonymously quote some of the comments I mean.

I was exposed to a 16/17 y/os rape fetish when I was 12 under the guise of “fun harmless rping!!!” and it literally has made me totally terrified and uncomfortable with sex like. fuck anyone who defends exposing children to nasty shit like that lol

#i guess i.. a bi trans kid.. who desperately needs support and love and pride from the lgbt+ community #am not allowed to go to pride… because ppl who make the decision to go to pride as Master & pup have more of a right to be there than me. #somebody who would benefit greatly from being around people like myself.. #and somebody who would strongly prefer not to see people crawling on the ground in leashes largely because i was exposed to that #at a very young age! and so its upsetting now for me to see that #but ok…… they have more of a right to be there than me. even tho they could go fully clothed. ok.

What these kids are describing is sexual abuse, ok? Like, seeing a random naked person as a kid = not that bad, but being shown pornographic images by a person in a relationship with you who pressures you to disregard your innate feelings of disgust and acquiesce to their judgment is sexual abuse. (”Wait, Lis,” you say, “Are you saying someone who just hung out on 4chan a lot as a 10-year-old could be considered a CSA survivor?” and to that I point you back to Childhood Events Don’t Need to Be Dramatic to Be Traumatic)

In which case, I can SEE why they’re all flipping their lids over the LGBTQ+ community telling them to overcome their feelings of disgust and acquiesce to our judgment!

This is about trauma and flashback triggers. Like honestly, seriously, if these kids stopped bringing age into it and started talking about PTSD, this discussion would be SO MUCH LESS FRUSTRATING, because then we’d be talking about something that made sense.

Because traumatized people really do get psychologically damaged by reminders of their trauma! That’s a form of harm that actually makes sense! That’s an argument we can really deeply talk about! Although I know fully grown adults who have trauma reactions to BDSM and need to not see it, who are also not helped with this whole “child-friendly/18+” framing.

And YES, we ABSOLUTELY need to talk about making Pride more accessible to people with disabilities, including sexual abuse survivors! Although not all CSA survivors are triggered by kink–there are a lot who are triggered by ordinary gendered clothing, or people who look like their dad, or tractors, or Modest Christian Clothing, or all kinds of complicated and unpredictable stuff. Like, some CSA survivors get groomed with hardcore kinky porn, and some people get groomed with Elsie Dinsmore. What makes something abuse is not the content of the material, it’s the degree to which a child is pushed to put up with it when it’s not pleasurable or interesting and they feel trapped and as though they can’t say no, or their no doesn’t matter.

The solution to this might not actually be banning all kink gear at Pride, but it will probably involve significantly changing how these acts are contextualized. Successfully helping people manage their triggers involves as much empowering them as it does changing the environment. It could involve making material emphasizing the role of consent in BDSM way more prominent. That could involve education about triggers and managing reminders of trauma, it could involve making youth LGBTQ+ outreach REALLY present and REALLY available so these kids have someone to talk to, it could involve putting explicit content notes on the Pride information material like the order of march my city’s Pride hands out, or having someone marching in front with banners so you know when to step aside and dig in your backpack, or, I don’t know, we can figure out a lot of solutions.

But it’s not about the inherent “sexuality” of an act that makes it inappropriate for all children. It’s about the specific reaction of kids who have been abusively exposed to a certain thing being exposed to it again in the place they came to feel safe. 

[jenroses]

both survivor of sexual trauma as a young adult and someone exposed to porn at a very young age, and this may well be the most insightful take I’ve read on this subject. Banners-as-informal-trigger-warnings is fucking genius. 

[vaspider]

I’m all for providing warnings so that people can self-regulate and practice self-care. Being able to separate myself from the HORDES OF DOCTORS IN WHITE COATS makes it possible for me to do the Trans March (we have/have had Doctor Allies come March with us, which is great… but also massively triggering).

… and right after I posted this reply initially, I scrolled down to an unredacted, untagged photo of a deliberate disfigurement of a trans person via surgery. The intent of the poster was good - a warning against a bad doctor - but in a context that doesn’t allow me to opt out, it sucks, because of my specific history.

[aranelsaraphim]

I don’t know.  I still don’t think it’s right to include people who didn’t specifically consent in your scene, which is what you’re doing with that sort of thing.  Going to Pride shouldn’t count as consent.

[star-anise]

The thing I keep trying to grapple with, and I don’t have a good grasp on it, is: What’s a scene? What counts as sexual? What needs consent?

Like, I’m imagining a kind of gradient, from explicitly sexual to nonsexual, and I can’t put my finger on where the dividing line is:

Having sex with someone

Physically demonstrating dominant or submissive behaviour

Wearing clothing that obviously relates to BDSM

Wearing clothing that isn’t obviously BDSM-related unless you look more closely or put it in a BDSM context (collars, corset)

Wearing clothing that isn’t visibly BDSM-related, but wearing sexual or BDSM-related gear underneath (non-visible collar or harness, wearing sex toys under clothing)

Wearing clothing that reminds you of BDSM or sex, but wouldn’t read that way to an outside observer (a favourite pair of heels, a special dress or tie)

Wearing clothing that makes you feel happy and sexy and empowered

Like, I don’t even know that this rank-ordering is correct! The way I would rank it is not the way other people might rank it. Peoples’ boundaries tend to be very idiosyncratic.

I thought that a good rule of thumb would be “You need consent for sexual situations where, if a bystander knew what was going on, they wouldn’t feel violated to learn their gaze had played a part in it” but… in the context of Pride parades especially, that’s so hard to judge, because for, say, an evangelical homophobe counter-protesting the parade, they would probably feel violated knowing I just felt happy and proud in part because I knew they hated me; there is no level of public deviance that would satisfy their gaze.

So then, who are we dressing for? Whose comfort matters to us? Do I dress for the 13-year-old who’s already had to cope with way too much sex in their life, and wants to know you can be LGBTQ+ and not hypersexual, or do I dress for my own 13-year-old self, who thought sex was so shameful you could never show what kind of sex you liked, much less admit to actually having that kind of sex, in public?

This ends up being the kind of quandry where I legitimately think I need more input from people who were really negatively affected by seeing kinksters at Pride to understand; because I don’t have a really good working model of how their reactions tend to work, other than “it’s disgusting”, I really don’t know what aspect of kink display tends to actually cause harm, and what we should actually be adjusting.

[findingfeather]

And very crucially this needs to be done with exactly that in mind: we are starting from a place where our existence itself is already deemed, by many, to be inherently sexualized and disgusting. 

We are starting from a context where seeing two people of the same sex kissing automatically makes a movie R. When watching Sleeping Beauty and her prince kiss and get married is a G. 

So I’m honestly very inclined, given the other behaviours we actively normalize (kissing, hugging, suggestive dancing, suggestive clothing, aggressive gender displays, etc), to be pretty against holding kink to that much more stringent a standard. 

When you hold hands with your partner, when you kiss their cheek, when you wear a wedding ring, when you wear “if lost please return to Katie” “I’m Katie” t-shirts, you are involving viewers in your relationship. You are involving viewers in your sexual dynamic. 

Yes, you are. As much as the person wearing a leash being held by someone else. You’re saying to them “I am in a sexual-romantic relationship with this other person that involves physical intimacy of some degree”, just like that person with the leash is saying “I’m in a power-dynamic relationship with this other person.” 

And if you’re doing it with someone of the same gender as you, or either with or as someone who does not conform to local cultural gender norms in some way, you’re going to be seen as disgusting by some people. You’re going to make them uncomfortable. 

And it is very, very difficult to find a way that the two are SO DIFFERENT from each other that doesn’t paste DIRECTLY onto the arguments that homophobic people make about why kids in school can’t be taught about differing sexual orientations, but saying “oh look he’s got a girlfriend!” about their toddler is fine. 

[elfwreck]

Also: It’s a party. It’s a parade and festival, not a business meeting. It’s going to have behavior that’s not appropriate at school, not appropriate at the job, not appropriate while shopping for groceries on a Saturday afternoon.

It’s open to the public, but like free concerts, the behavior standards are different from “strolling through the park on a random summer day.” It’s allowed to be noisy. To be flamboyant. To be shocking - it’s not like it’s a secret that pride parades are looking for attention, and some of that has always included “Hey yo these FREAKS as you call us are part of your community! We’re always here!” Part of that is intended to annoy the haters; part is intended to normalize the sight of men wearing skirts and glitter, and women wearing leather jackets on motorcycles, and people of indeterminate genders wearing bizarre costumes. Not because they all expect to wear those in their daily lives, but they want the freedom to wear them at special events without being harassed.

Pride is a special event. The standards for what’s acceptable need to not be based on, “what would a 12-year-old normally see if they went downtown and happened to spot a queer person?” 

Part of the value of the shocking outfits and “outrageous” activities, is to refocus the surprise on those instead of the participants. “Here is a man leading another man around on a dog collar” - and the focus is shifted to the accessories, to the way they’re behaving, and NOT on the fact “here is a man in a close, intimate relationship with another man.” That becomes a background detail. 

We’re not going to find any perfect way to protect people with PTSD from running into their triggers at Pride. There are some who’d be damaged by seeing things that remind them of what they endured. There are others who will be helped by seeing the objects and actions related to their abuse, being done consensually by happy people - it can let them separate “abuse” from the physical actions, let them know their abuser was gaslighting them, because now they can see that people doing those things for fun look like they’re having fun. 

That’s not going to be helpful for everyone. But pride parades and festivals, as much as we want them to be inclusive, are never going to be for everyone. They’re huge, crowded, public, boisterous, colorful, loud, and full of cheerful energetic people who want to hug a million strangers. We can work on making them more inclusive, more accessible to people with some disabilities, more welcoming to people with some mental health issues, but the goal cannot be, “all queer people will feel welcome and happy to be here.” We’d like to aim for, “all queer people are happy that this can happen, even if they can’t participate directly.” 

[star-anise]

Damn, thank you so much for this.

[infiniteglitterfall]

As a survivor: there is no way to prevent someone from running into their triggers anywhere.

There is no way to prevent yourself from running into your own triggers anywhere.

And there is no way to predict what other people’s triggers will be.

I’ve discovered LOTS of my triggers by accident. By being in the world, or in a conversation, or reading posts, and going, “oh shit, that triggered the fuck out of me.”

I’ve read LOTS of posts from other survivors talking about how seemingly unlikely, and seemingly unrelated to abuse, their triggers were.

Maybe this is ironic, maybe it’s not, but for YEARS, one of my biggest triggers was people telling other community members to police and censor their language in certain ways.

(This is why I’ve said, in the past, that censoring the word “queer” is hugely triggering for me. I’m reasonably certain anybody who wanted me to censor it didn’t believe me, and assumed I was making fun of them or something.)

There are lots of ways to handle getting triggered. Including, but not limited to, separating the abuse from what’s actually happening now, the way @elfwreck described above.

For me, the bottom line is that trigger warnings for common triggers are great. And we need to spread information about ways to respond to being triggered.

About how to come back from triggers. To recognize the difference between being triggered, being unsafe, and being both triggered and unsafe. To deal with being someplace that doesn’t feel safe for you. To be safe in potentially unsafe situations.

It’s really, really, REALLY common to respond to sexual abuse by trying to control other people. Especially when it comes to behaviors that you associate with sex – whether or not they have anything to do with sex for that person, or in that context.

It’s also really, really awful, for me, to be around people who are either into that level of control, or who are accepting it as reasonable and healthy.

Because ultimately, that’s the same level of control that my abusers wanted, and it’s not something that comes in a safe healthy version.

[abeautifulblog]

Warning: generalizations are used liberally below. Mentally preface all statements with in general and dont yell at me. For purposes of definition, standard is meant only in terms of familiarity and the intent of the distinction is solely to indicate something a reader…

Haha, so I’ve been saying I’m going to write something like this forever, and then yesterday my housemate found that someone beat me to it.

Required reading, friends! So you don’t screw it up if you’re writing fanfic – and so you can suffer along with me if you’re reading it.

My contribution to the smut talk behind the cut. XD (And also one of my Craig-writing friend’s finest moments.) So strap in for –

Keep reading

[extravorganza]

meh, idk about this one, pals. I totally sympathize with being tired of the “one-two-three fingers dick” trope if it’s not your thing, sure. But also anal fingering is… a pretty common precursor to/component of anal play, as a method of getting the recipient to, yes, loosen up. (we’re not talking about “prying” anything open, ffs.) it sounds like it happens not to be this person’s cup of tea, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people who enjoy it very much. I mean, hell yeah for sharing personal experiences and adding depth and nuance to common tropes; not so much here for acting like your personal preferences are the “real” way to do it and anything else is wrong.

[polyamorouspunk]

We need kink at pride because “kink” isn’t just kink. “Kink” is:

That boy wearing jeans that are too tight

Your neighbors and their “friend” that lives with them

Having a beard and wearing a skirt

Wearing any kind of choker

Literally anything else they decide goes against the “norm”, and it can be literally anything. That is why we need kink at pride.

[xkilljoy]

No we don't. Respect ppls boundaries. If respect isn't normal anymore what will be normal then? Anything, no matter how it impacts or scars other peoples lives? Kink doesn't belongs to pride.

[polyamorouspunk]

Look around you. Do you see where “No Kink At Pride” has led? Being transgender is illegal now. Exactly what people said would happen. You know what’s going to be next? Being gay is going to be illegal. Because being gay is not “respecting straight people’s boundaries”. They don’t want to see you. They want to kill you.

[tbposting]

In support of the OP, let me clue the reply poster in to some of how the worldview of conservative bigots works:

If you are trans you are a sex pervert

If you're gay you're a sex pervert.

If you're the world's most chaste and godly nun praying in a convent, who has a lesbian thought once while delirious from a fever, you are a sex pervert.

If you're a family with a white picket fence house, a breadwinner, a stay-at-home parent, two cars, a dog, and whose politics are right wing... if you happen to be a same-sex couple, you're sex perverts and probably pedophiles.

If you're a closeted, self-hating, self-hurting, self-repressing queer going through every torturous form of conversion therapy, who condemns the other queers, who screams at the people who seek abortion help outside Planned Parenthood... you are a filthy, irredeemable sex pervert, a danger to children, and the most sympathy you deserve is transient pity if you admit to struggling.

There is nothing you can do, no behaviour you can engage in, no thought you can have, no clothes you can wear, no existence you can lead that is not an unacceptable sex perversion in the minds of these people. Your existence is kink, and you cannot appease them into thinking otherwise.

The bigoted conservative mind cannot conceive of queerness except as perversion, except as hedonistic degenerate thrill-seeking. They don't know another reason to do any thing, except as an exercise of power over someone else. Their entire world revolves around this idea. Everything is power, everything is control.

Therefore you can never appease them. Your mere existence is to them a totalizing threat, to their worldview, to their sense of normalcy, to their positions of social power, to their patriarchy, to their holiness. The only thing you can do that will ever satisfy them is die.

Which leaves us with this:

Either we have solidarity with our queer siblings - yes including the ones you don't understand, yes including the ones who have that weird sex that you think is fucked up, yes including the cringe annoying ones who "make the rest of us look bad," yes including the fucked up problematic ones who need to change and make amends, but who deserve their human rights whether or not they ever do that.

Because to the bigot, to the conservative, you're every bit as much of a pervert as Jenny Piss Kink and their polycule of submissive puppy-masked gender sluts. You throw your bricks when they come for Jenny, because when they come for the Piss Puppy Polycule, they're coming for you too.

[fierceawakening]

Yep, "Kink" is "those people over there who I don't like."

The people who expel the sadomasochists, if that's who you mean (and if it is just say it, I've heard worse) are eventually going to expel you. It's on the next page of the plan. The one you keep not reading because you want us gone too.

[vaspider]

It’s very important to me that younger queers understand this: to the people who you’re trying to be more respectable for when you say things like neopronouns set the trans movement back or you’re why the cishets don’t accept us or including [aces/bi people with the ‘wrong kind’ of partners/non-binary people/kinksters/non-passing trans ppl/furries/polyam people] just hurts us, can’t you wait until we get all our rights before we talk about some of yours? – to those people? Pete Buttigieg is just a fag.

I'll just keep saying it until it sinks in.

[alfred-e-neuman]

The Gays obliterated XKiljoy so fucking hard their name is just text now. No “Deactivated” no “Nothing is here” blog... just a memory of someone clueless and ignorant. 

[youarestellarverse]

[image description: a purple banner that has the words “work in progress” on it. end of description]

Talking In Your Sleep, Chapter 4

"Aw, shit. We need to go back to Duane Reade." 

The curse is delivered cheerfully. Jason glances up from his sketch and looks at his reference: Percy, totally naked in the kitchenette, frowning thoughtfully at his wrist. 

He catches Jason looking and winks at him, breaking into a grin that only makes Jason blush harder as he lifts his hand. "You held on pretty hard last night, I didn't  get concealer when we went before, and I don't feel like spending my birthday explaining BDSM to my parents." 

"Fair enough," Jason agrees, shaking his head at himself. His ears are on fire; he's not sure if it's because of what Percy just said or how good his ass looks in the early morning light. Either way, Jason starts sketching that familiar curve so his hands have something to do. "How does Shannon feel about that stuff?" 

"What, kink?" Percy smiles, leaning deliberately against the counter. He could teach a class in posing for pinups. "She knows I'm a sub. She also knows I've been working myself into a tizzy over telling you that, and keeps getting on my case about it because it's important to be open with my boyfriend about my sexual needs." 

Percy's red-faced too, now, and Jason feels a little guilty for finding that such a relief. He puts aside his sketch and joins Percy at the counter, pulling him flush. 

"She's right," Jason says mildly, deep in the bass end of his range. "Not that you really had to say it out loud, but I'm proud of you for it anyway." 

His heart feels like it's going to burst out of his chest. 

Percy closes his eyes and leans in against it, surely feeling it thud against his cheek. 

"Damn, dude," he mumbles, grinning. He lifts his head to look up at Jason, winding an arm around his back. "I had a feeling you'd be into it, but I didn't realize you'd be such a natural." 

"I'm an eighteen year old bisexual with an internet connection," Jason counters, his ears roaring. "You didn't think I was doing it accidentally, did you?" 

"Honestly?" Percy huffs with amusement. "I assumed you jerked off to books. Like, The Iliad and rock memoirs and stuff. Things you could pretend you had for school."

"You're less wrong than I wish you were," Jason admits. "I usually got embarrassed before I could even type anything into an incognito window. I can be obtuse, but not enough to completely miss my, you know, inclinations." 

Percy bites his lip around a grin. He stretches up onto the balls of his feet, putting his teeth right at Jason's ear. 

"Aries moon," he purrs, biting between words. "Plus a Leo venus. Of course you're a dom. How did I not peg you the second I looked at your star chart?" 

"Sorry; not my thing," Jason deadpans. 

Percy loses his balance from laughing so hard. Jason, grateful for a second where the focus isn't on him, compensates before Percy actually falls over. 

SIGN OF LIFE!

I finally managed to whip myself into shape (heh). I'm sorry it's been so long! I've been having a heck of a time with meds stuff, but it seems to be mostly sorted, knock on wood.

Also, this will be the last chapter, making 4 total. Can it be? Finishing something I started???

.../knocks on wood again

Total word count: 3232

ping list: @perseusjackson-jasongrace; @elaborateruses; poke me if you want on or off the list!

[trek-tracks]

Star Trek craft book, I am begging you to describe this craft project in literally any other combination of words

[monstersandheartache]

... @stillneedsmorekissing

[mikkaeus]

I-

thank you twitter, this is the only recommended topic post I’ll accept

[kingsofeverything]

[enbyofdionysos]

am i hyperfixating on jim kirk bc he and percy jackson have the same personality??

[enbyofdionysos]

@stillneedsmorekissing 😔✊ cocky, bratty sluts in leadership roles

[joylessmarxist]

I love that when the press asked ava gardner why she married frank sinatra scrawny ass she was just like yeah hes hung. Like a fucking horse

[joylessmarxist]

No wait the direct quote is actually more crass than the way i worded it. Good for her

[buzzlightyearhugecock]

why don’t you shut your fucking mouth and look at the wikipedia page for sucking cock???????????

[pwesident]

alright one sec

[pwesident]

hey it says i gotta have my mouth open for this one boss

[howglorygoes]

updating my Grindr bio

[morekissingafterdark]

I have this Issue.

I can't write balls into my smut.

The only reason for this is a very silly one: I feel ridiculous typing "balls" when I'm writing a sex scene.

It's ridiculous because I don't feel ridiculous at all when I'm reading it in something someone else wrote, but I just can't get past the block!

I mean, I also don't have them, so it's harder for me to conceptualize how they feel, but that would be easier to fix if I didn't curl up into a pill bug and roll away every time I make an attempt to write it out. 😅

Still, I feel somehow...lopsided here.

[olderthannetfic]

I mean there are issues within m/m fanfiction, the problem is the arguments we see take things to the extreme. Either there's no issues and it's just women exploring their sexuality and how dare you mock the things women like! OR It's homophobic how dare straight women fetishize gay men! When in reality there are tropes and trends that do lean more towards homophobia or heteronormativity but there's no space for us (slash fans) to call that out without having to defend against the extremes.

--

This is so hilariously moderate that I think everyone would agree with it if they take it at surface value and don't read into your words.

Anyone who is a veteran of decades of fannish debate will read into your words.

The basic issue is that the conversation people typically want to have about things that are homophobic or heteronormative is pretty 101. They're coming to this fresh with great earnestness, but to someone like me, it's just going to sound like sealioning because we've had these same arguments in slash fandom and in queer communities going back decades.

For example, here are the standard Not Queer Enough bad things that make us just like the breeders according to 80s/90s queer community wank:

marriage

raising children

monogamy

roles of any kind including butch/femme

99% of A/B/O Is Just Het Tho or BL Is Bad Because Ukes wank sounds like all of this over again.

And then there's the eternal fight about whether Pride is for kink and adults and free expression of sexuality or whether it's for corporations and kids in strollers. Conform and kick your less acceptable members to the curb as a political strategy to get rights or be inclusive punk rebels but make fewer strides in legislation? It's a legitimate and eternal struggle in minority groups.

The obsession with Good Representation™ is part of this. So is not liking stuff that overlaps your group with kink and socially unacceptable sexual fantasies. In other words...

RESPECTABILITY POLITICS

.

If somebody sends me an example of a specific fic or trend they think sucks, I'll keep an open mind...

But I can tell you I have yet to hear an argument about any actual fic on AO3 that made me agree it was homophobic or heteronormative rather than just standard porn bullshit that the lizard brain loves.

People are always wringing their hands about shit that is super common in romance novels and erotica and live action pornos alike because audiences love it.

So for example, I really hope nobody expects me to take seriously an argument about m/m fanfic being bad for any of:

penetration = real sex, all other sex = foreplay

virginity is real and matters

ravishment

biology works how is hot and/or convenient to the plot

everyone has a giant dick

safe sex is boring and we're going to pretend STDs don't exist

everyone is a giant nympho slut

everyone is unrealistically monogamous

dick so good it converted someone

kink with zero negotiation first

zero realistic psychological consequences for anything

etc.

Someone's going to go, "Okay, okay, not literally always, but you have to agree that sometimes this trope is bad. Or it's bad that it's like 99% of fics."

No.

No I don't.

At zero times do I agree that it's a problem all porn does the dumb penetration=real sex thing. Yes, it's dumb. Yes, it's unrealistic. It's there because it's hot. If you find it un-hot, write something else.

I'm totally down to have a conversation about which trends are stupid or boring, but homophobic? Heteronormative? LOL.

Fundamentally, every single conversation about problems in m/m fanfic on AO3 starts from the assumption that fic should be looked at from a reader's perspective. This is the reader's whole media diet. They learn queerness from fic. They learn sex ed and biology from fic. They don't have access to other queer media. They're learning the wrong messages. Blah blah blah.

I look at fic as more like someone's porn (or the emotions equivalent) they wrote for themselves in their diary and were nice enough to let others see as a favor. Sure, occasionally, I think "Wow, author, I am so sorry for you that you view bodies and sex this way", but even then, how do I know it's not just that they're a bad writer? The only thing I'm learning from their fic is that some very weird stuff makes me horny. If I have trouble putting that fic in a wider context of realistic queerness or non-fanfic erotica or whatever else, that's my problem, not the writer's.

The only "problem" with m/m fanfiction on AO3 is that I cannot find any first time sex pollen RM/JK A/B/O where they're both alphas and JK is on the bottom and RM feels comedic levels of melodramatic guilt over it while JK's entire internal monologue is just the word "thighs" over and over and over.

[rainbow-femme]

That one post that’s like “Why do people always write characters in fantasy and historical settings with a generic ‘vial of oil’ by the bed?” always bugs me

Like what’s not clicking

It’s sex oil for sex, clearly in this setting that’s what it’s specialized for and why it’s there

“What kind of oil? Cooking oil? Saddle oil? Lamp oil?” No clearly it’s a kind used for this purpose

Why do you want an explanation mid sex scene for the production history of this oil. Why is it weird to you that there’s not an in depth explanation of the history of this oil

Do you read contemporary fiction and say “Um excuse me what do you mean there’s a ‘tube of lube’ by the bed? What kind of lube? Is it machinery lubricant? Surgical lubricant? You didn’t explain as the sex scene happened and now I’m so confused!”

Like. Why is this something that breaks a scene for you.

[sepulchral-pulchritude]

kronk voice:

[verecunda]

lol honestly, as someone who consumes a fair amount of historical fiction set in Roman times, and a corresponding volume of slash fic based on that same historical fiction, I’ve never questioned it, because it’s obviously olive oil. The Romans used that stuff for absolutely every-bloody-thing, so there’s probably going to be a good dollop of it somewhere to hand if you happen to be feeling frisky.

[hiddensandtrap]

Olive Oil goes for Greece as well as Rome. As someone who reads a lot of historical fiction set in Asia, the oil/lube you’re probably going to see get the most use for that part of the world is carrageenan, which is derived from seaweed and is still used in a lot of modern day lubes too. Or clove oil for anal, since it has muscle relaxing properties.

[alexseanchai]

[image: four frames of Kronk from Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove. Kronk says, “Oh right, the oil. The oil for sex. The oil on the bedside table specially for sex. The sex oil.”]

[whetstonefires]

hands up everyone wildly entertained by planning to visualize all Historical East Asian fanfic sex scenes with lube not otherwise specified as reeking of clove

[bottommemes]

bottoms lemme hear yall make some noise !

[caduceussaysfuck]

mmh.,,, ow! hah.. ah… mmmh…

[bottommemes]

never mind !

[mosticonicposts]

certified iconic post