Unsilenceable

feminist philosophy / i say lots of words

[heringstuff]

So I just saw this reddit thread and am disgusted. A mother is upset that her son is watching rape porn, that her daughter saw it, and that the children’s father is okay with it. Most of the commenters think she’s the one in the wrong and even scold her for “kink shaming” her son.

[revofem321-deactivated20181127]

Men’s dicks mean more to them than women’s lives.

Why would someone get sexual pleasure from hurting them? Why would someone want to be misogynistic towards women “just for fun”? Why would someone be aroused by rape and sexual pain?

Also, BDSM is not a sexual orientation. Sexual orientation refers to which sex(es) you’re attracted to.

Men aren’t trustworthy, the vast majority of them hate us. They see their dicks as more of a person than actual human females (women).

Porn shouldn’t be accepted. Rape on camera shouldn’t be accepted. Sadism on camera shouldn’t be accepted. Misogyny isn’t acceptable, no matter the case. The fact that all of this stuff is accepted is because society, especially men, hate women.

[lez0mbie]

porn has become so normalised that men don’t see how a woman and her daughter would be offended by a boy watching and getting off to women being raped and abused. that’s sick.

[hotdogeteria-deactivated2023092]

some of yall need to get it drilled into your heads that being a lesbian has nothing to do with how you act or dress or what you like to eat or watch on tv you just have to be a female homosexual and if you realize that youll feel a lot better and also come off as way less annoying

[pillarsalt]

hairy women that aren't marooned ,disabled or homeless show the world how little they respect the feelings of people around them and so are naturally treated with less respect which is what these goofballs want anyway it makes them feel unique

why would someone have feelings about my body hair 🤨 control yourself?

[pillarsalt]

[vampisbian]

this is so sad to me :(( women r silenced lesbians r raped bc they r too afraid to speak up bc they know the trans adjectives innocence is worth more than her

[laysplaining]

i really think you can give yourself something akin to dysphoria w things unrelated to gender too. i think it may be the same feeling that otherkin and fictionkin people describe, and uhhhhh not to expose myself but yeah i was a hardcore kinnie and still dabble in it, and the feeling is a YEARNING for a different body and a different self, a yearning to not just be your boring cringy lonely self, bc you tried to fix and like that one but it's just too much work and it's annoying

i think also that any body modification or identity changes eventually gets boring, or at least neutral. you change your pronouns online or even irl, it makes you nervous, bashfully happy when someone uses it, giddy with emotion, etc it consumes your days until everyone uses them long enough then it all loses its spark and you have to focus on normal life again. there's a feeling of boredom followed by sudden thrilling nervewracking excitement when they (and i include myself in that) think of a higher stake like "omg should i legally change my name again? should i change my pronouns for the millionth time? what if i'm genderfluid instead of agender? what if i'm bigender instead of demigirl? what would it feel like? omg let me get into the mind of what those identities would feel like let me meditate and see if the ~vibe~ matches my true inner self let me journal on my blog let me go thru the tumblr tag of it to see if all the memes speak to my soul!! ugh this isn't big enough actually, this hasn't changed my life radically and fixed all my life problems and self-esteem yet, should i go on hormones? should i get surgeries? should i tell loved ones that i know will be bigoted and once they show themselves as transphobes i'll have to cut them off? bc my trans friends will reaffirm that they're as bad as abusers? should i get bottom surgery too?"

there's a fun secretive feeling of anonymity, a persona, a simulacrum. almost an OC of your ideal self you get to work on for sooo long until the changes happen, and by then you're emotionally attached to that OC, you want to be them So Bad. it's special rebirth. and many of those ppl are desperate, like i used to be. desperate ppl will grasp at anything they think will fix it, especially if luck is involved like hrt/surgeries where you don't actually fully know what the result will be and if you'll even like it, and if you don't you'll just be an ugly boring detrans reject. that's HIGH STAKES and for a mentally unwell person struggling w dysphoric symptoms it's addictive as hell and it makes you feel so special and makes your life finally feel thrilling like a movie, you're finally interesting enough, and you'll finally be attractive enough after all the surgeries and hormones and with the cutest name and the most fitting pronouns and everybody will love you forever and will protect you from the big bad meanies who you should never talk to ever <3

[laysplaining]

EXACTLY THIS 👏👏

and other really good points that i relate to:

[swagfulcatcowboy-deactivated202]

Stop saying gay people are deviant. Stop saying we are different. Even stop saying we are better than straight people. I don’t want to be special, I don’t want to be weird. I want to be normal. I want to be a person who is just gay and that is so normal and fine it’s not an issue. My heart hurts when I see people call us weird. Calling me queer. It others me so much I don’t tell people I’m gay. I don’t want to be your lesbian friend, I want to be your friend. I want to be normal. Usual. Regular. Boring even. I like video games. I make drawings in paint. I read books. I have blonde hair. I’m a lesbian. All of these are the same they are just some details about me and they are not reasons I am special or different or weird or a freak. Stop calling me weird stop comparing me to BDSM stop comparing me to pedophiles stop saying I’m different than straight people. I don’t want to be different I want to be the same.

[bizarrolord-deactivated20241123]

The real question is, why is “normal” such an aspirational thing to be when almost no one can actually manage it?

So you’re statistically not “normal”. Who fucking cares? You’re you first and people can either take you or leave you. Own up to your weird shit (unless it could put you in danger or get you fired). I know you want to blend in; so do I. But honestly, you can’t change how society sees you as a “deviant” and you can’t control how other people ultimately see you if they’re there making preemptive judgements based on group membership instead of getting to know you. (And honestly, it’s their loss if they can’t see past that.)

[swagfulcatcowboy-deactivated202]

#why are you ppl like this#you see someone saying they wish gay ppl could be seen as normal by everyone else (which they are) and your first#instinct is going “NOOOO EMBRACE YOUR WEIRDNESSS!!!1!1!!11!!” like there’s no weirdness to embrace lmao#they shouldn’t have to be ok with homophobia dumbass. yes thinking gay ppl are inherently weird is homophobia btw#and they don’t have to just accept it and “own it” idk if you know this but part of the fight for rights and acceptance of gay ppl by#the world at large is to get to be perceived as just regular ppl. hets are seen as regular ppl#“almost no one can even manage it” straight ppl are seen as normal by default actually no one thinks they’re freaks for their sexuality#that’s literally it. like are you ppl dumb or do you just like to pretend to be so you can make your weird preachy tone deaf additions#you’re not helping anyone you’re not being nice you’re being insensitive and ignorant#and homophobic<3

these are such good tags @peaknormal i just have to reblog them here. Thank you to everyone who can read and comprehend my post <3

[insaniquariumfish]

A significant portion of people nowadays do not have even a basic understanding of what gender is or what the phrase “gender is a social construct” actually means, and this lack of understanding is poisoning all discourse on the subject of sex and gender as well as semantically mangling the language that we use to discuss these things.

“Man,” “woman,” “male,” and “female” are not genders. “Masculinity” and “femininity” are genders. People are not assigned male or female at birth. People are assigned masculinity or femininity at birth. The state of existing as a man or woman is not determined by gender and has nothing to do with gender. Gender is everything that is culturally associated with men and women besides the state of being a man or woman itself. Gender is “boys don’t cry” and “girls wear dresses.” Gender is not “boys are male and girls are female.” That is sex, which is a biological category, and not a social category, like gender is. A gender is not something you can identify your way into being, because gender is a social phenomenon that is socially constructed and socially imposed, and therefore has nothing to do with your personal internal thoughts, feelings, or desires. Gender is an act you perform, not an identity you feel. How gender applies to you is something that the people around you determine for you, because that is how social constructs work. You are only a feminine/masculine person if the people around you perceive you to be feminine/masculine. Whether you are male or female, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing to do with how you are perceived by others, or even by yourself. You are the sex that you are even if people mistake you for being the other sex, just like an amputee is still an amputee even if people can’t tell that their leg is prosthetic.

Gender is not objectively real, because it is based in subjective and arbitrary social norms that differ depending on culture and time period. No one is innately a gender by virtue of some psychological or neurological property present at birth, any more than they are innately a criminal or a geek or a celebrity or any other social category by virtue of some psychological or neurological property present at birth. Sex is objectively real. You would still be the sex that you are even if no one alive, including you, understood the concept of sex or had the means to determine it, just like you would still be the height that you are even if no one understood the concept of height or had the means to measure it. Meanwhile, you would not have a gender if there was no one who understood the concept of gender, because gender exists only as a concept, and a highly subjective one that is constantly in a state of being redefined, at that, and gender does not describe or indicate any property of objective reality.

[insaniquariumfish]

If you experience dysphoria regarding your physical body, that is not gender dysphoria. Yes, everyone, up to and including academics, calls it gender dysphoria, but this term conflates gender and sex and it has therefore been used erroneously from the start. Gender is not the body, and gender has nothing to do with one’s sex characteristics beyond sex characteristics being the factor based upon which gender is assigned. Body dysphoria is sexual dysphoria, because it is dysphoria regarding one’s physical sex. This is why the term “transsexual” used to be used, and ironically now that it has been phased out, we no longer have a word to refer to people who experience sexual dysphoria. Physical traits that typically indicate sex are not gendered traits, because gender is, as I previously mentioned, everything that is culturally associated with sex besides the traits that actually, physically indicate sex. When a nonbinary person says that they are neither male nor female because they prefer not to perform or identify with either the masculine or feminine gender (or prefer to perform/identify with both), what they are really saying is that they understand how stupid, arbitrary, and harmful the expectation to perform gender is, but because they are unable to free themselves from the mind prison of gender, they still describe this experience in gendered terms, and they still equate the state of being a man or a woman with gender, so to them not performing/identifying with masculinity or femininity, or performing/identifying with both masculinity and femininity, means that they must not be a man or a woman.

Gender dysphoria is not a mental health condition or even symptom. Gender dysphoria is perfectly normal and healthy, because all it is is discomfort regarding the social norms and expectations that constitute gender being imposed upon/expected of oneself. This is something that nearly everyone experiences to some degree or another. The people who label themselves as having gender dysphoria are simply people who experience this discomfort to a much more significant extent than is typical. Having gender dysphoria does not make you a fundamentally distinct category of person from other people of your sex, it does not require that you adopt any new or special labels or terminology, and it does not determine whether you are a man or a woman. A woman who rejects femininity is still a woman, because being a woman has nothing to do with femininity, i.e. gender. A man who embraces femininity is still a man, because being a man has nothing to do with femininity, i.e. gender. 

Sexual dysphoria, on the other hand, is a mental disorder, because it is the same kind of psychological phenomenon as other forms of physical dysphoria. Someone who thinks they look like an alien despite appearing perfectly ordinary, someone who thinks they shouldn’t have any arms, someone who thinks they are overweight despite being underweight, and someone who thinks they should have a penis instead of a vagina, are all experiencing various forms of body dysphoria, which is not normal or healthy. The first line of treatment for any form of body dysphoria should be therapy and medication and not dramatic and irreversible alterations to the body. Living a healthy and happy life despite experiencing sexual dysphoria, and without medically transitioning, is possible in many cases. Saying that something is a mental disorder is not hateful. If you think that it is a bad thing for someone to have a mental illness, or if the idea of being mentally ill offends you, then that belief is coming from your own ableism.

[kragehund-est]

replace all instances of "cateye sharp enough to kill a man" -> "sandwich so tasty he stopped being a misogynist" there would be no functional difference in meaning.

[kragehund-est]

misogynists are not intimidated by your ability to appeal to them. you will not gain their respect by serving them within their own structures.

confidence is not the same as empowerment. you might take pride in performing your gender role well, but it will not give you any real power. there are much more stable ways to gain confidence anyway. why rely on physical looks which are shallow and based in other's subjective perceptions, rather than solid competence that comes from within?

[killrockstar]

literally stoppp this "im just a girl!" shit. well grow the fuck up. be an adult

[killrockstar]

"omg op why do you hate fun"

[flashdyke]

your challenge, "butch-loving horny lesbian," is to write a 500-word erotic story about vanilla sex with a butch lesbian who is not transitioning in any way, is not a gender-conforming man, and is not at this time using sex toys that you can describe as though they are a penis. Write about how you are physically attracted to this woman because she is female and masculine, and is very comfortable with this.

[antiporn-activist]

What’s an adulting task you wish you had learned before going to college? Making a list for my kid. Thx

[refusetobesilent]

How to follow a recipe. This means understanding what the things in recipes mean, but also the basic skills that recipes don't explain (dicing an onion, things like that)

Anything financial: How to file your own taxes. How to budget. How to get a credit card. What to do when something goes wrong (fraud, etc)

Documents: Which ones you need when and how to get them, as well as what to do if they're lost or stolen

How to talk to professors when you have questions

HOW TO SAY NO. How to say no to men who won't take no for an answer. How to say no to a boss that wants you to work overtime during finals week. How to say no to friends who are just a little more invasive than you're comfortable with. All of that. No is an important word. Also, basic physical self defense.

Then some things that I learned before college but that my friends didn't, which are equally as important:

How to use an ATM, how to set up direct deposit, how to get a job, how to work at a job (this only applies to people like my friends who didn't already have a job, but those are important skills)

All of the basic study skills

Basic interpersonal problem solving (what do you do if your roommate leaves a moldy sandwich on your desk?)

What to do when you're sick. When do you go to the doctor? When do you go to urgent care/emergency room? What information and documents do you need before you go? How do you describe your problem in such a way that the doctor can help you? When do you need a second opinion? How do you get a second opinion? How does health insurance work (US especially)? What can you do for the most basic things at home without going to a doctor (cold, flu, stomach bug, headache, etc)?

I hope your kid doesn't need this one, but basic hygiene. How to take care of yourself (like brushing teeth twice a day, flossing, flushing the toilet when you're done, washing hands with soap and water).

[blissfulascension]

“You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.’”

—Erin McKean

[tumbler-polls]

Anon said: "Days of Girlhood" by Dylan Mulvaney is loved by some, while others are deeply offended by it. I wonder what Tumblr users think 🤔 The video: https://youtu.be/77rRP_Sk3JI?si=LIbPMWCSAHmH2xNt

What are your thoughts on Dylan Mulvaney's new song?

I'm a cis woman and I think it slays

I'm a cis woman and I think it's sexist and offensive towards women

I'm a cis woman and I have mixed feelings about it

I'm a trans woman and I think it slays

I'm a trans woman and I think it's sexist and offensive towards women

I'm a trans woman and I have mixed feelings about it

I'm someone else and I think it slays

I'm someone else and I think it's sexist and offensive towards women

I'm someone else and I have mixed feelings about it

I'm out of the loop / See the results

Voting ended onMar 28, 2024

[our-queer-experience]

its a banger song and if you get offended by a trans woman making songs about her experiences and compare it to blackface you should shut the fuck up actually. idk how you could be offended by dylan just having fun. until you guys treat cis women saying the same exact thing the same ill defend her with all i’ve got. also can some actual trans women vote here because i think their opinion matters more than. um. people who the video is pretty irrelevant to.

[offwhitemage]

I love it when women. Women are my favorite. Let women.

Everyone with a lived experience of femininity experiences it differently. Everyone has their own scope and breadth of experience. Of those experiences, everyone will feel differently about them. One person's trauma may be another's treasured memory. One person's euphoria may be another's dysphoria. Finding joy in femininity is what unites us in our identities as women, not what we find joy in about it.

It is not your (or my, or society's) role to police what womanhood looks like from the outside. If someone shares their experience of womanhood, your job is to trust that they understand their own experience and experience their story. Add to your own experience library through them. Broaden your understanding of what womanhood can look like. Maybe you want to incorporate part of their experience into your life. Maybe through hearing their story you come to appreciate your own even more. What makes this crazy fucked up world we live in wonderful is *that* we all have unique experiences and perspectives!

Dylan is finding her joy as she lives her life as a woman, and that's beautiful!

[pussy-in-biome]

Excuse me, finding joy in femininity is absolutely NOT what unites women and it's misogynistic to say so. Have you ever met a butch woman? Or just any gender-nonconforming woman? Saying all women are feminine or all women enjoy performing femininity is so reductive and sexist.

[cumaeansibyl]

“It’s important to show that a heroine can be girly/ladylike/feminine and still kick ass!”

yes, because we’re so overwhelmed by butch women protagonists in media

[feelingfivebyfive]

but the first is still important?? like why cant we have both and recognize that they’re both important???

[schmackarys]

yeah exactly and a lot of people think that a heroine has to be masculine in order to be brave or successful or deserving of respect and that reinforces patriarchal stereotypes because it’s forcing a woman to act like a man in order to be treated as if she’s worth something, as if women just being women makes them less than men. So it’s fine to have masculine women as long as you make it clear that feminine women are not less than her. i’m side-eyeing op so much rn

[enoughtohold]

two things here

1) there’s no way for a woman to “act like a man.” the idea that by being strong, or assertive, or skilled in male-dominated fields, or not wearing makeup or jewelry, or whatever else you’re alluding to, a woman is “acting like a man” is itself sexist.

2) feminine women—women who meet at least basic societal standards of femininity—are the absolute default in media. they are the vast majority of characters on television (for example). the number of women tv characters i’ve seen who appear even remotely butch/masculine is in the single digits, and that’s including minor characters, and almost all of them are in shows with lesbian themes. the total number of women tv characters i’m familiar with is in the hundreds at least.

in this context, saying “it’s important to show that a woman can be feminine and still be awesome!” doesn’t make sense, because feminine women are basically the only kind of women who get to be characters at all. women characters as a whole are of course chronically underdeveloped, but when women on tv get to be awesome, they are virtually always feminine.

it would make much more sense to say “it’s important to show that a woman can be awesome!”

it would also make a lot of sense to say “it’s important to show that a woman can be butch and still be awesome!” because it’s rare for butch/masculine women to be represented at all and when they are they are usually minor characters who don’t get to do much.

but when you say ”it’s important to show that a woman can be feminine and still be awesome!” it just reveals a lack of awareness of the utter dominance of feminine women characters in media. and it’s a slap in the face to all the actual butch/masculine women who just want to see a woman like them be a main character, just once in a while, just at all.

[prokopetz]

Rape is the only crime on the books for which arguing that the temptation to commit it was too clear and obvious to resist is treated as a defence. For every other crime, we call that a confession.

[prokopetz]

I’ve gotten more angry asks about this post than I have actual reblogs.

[imreallybad-deactivated20150610]

When the titles of popular porn videos are the same as titles of articles describing vicious rapes/murders/kidnappings you know porn is irredeemably evil

[imreallybad-deactivated20150610]

I should not have to see a link called “girl is kidnaped by a group of men and savagely tortured” and wonder if it’s porn or a crime article (it was porn)

[imreallybad-deactivated20150610]

I’m gonna reblog this again even tho people are being asshats about it bc this is important and true and I will not be silent about it or apologize for speaking about this industrialized rape culture.

[genderisareligion]

You were right

[jorindasfate]

Sexuality and gender has been turned into aesthetics and personalities instead of just neutral traits and I hate it. It makes people think genders are accessed through buying the correct products and personality must reflect a sexuality. This is definitely also largely because of how normal it has become to use queer, a literal synonym for weird or strange, as an umbrella term for same sex attraction and everything people make up to expand the definition of it. Everything that's outside of the norm, everyone with an interesting personality, must suddenly be "queer" in some way. I saw a video of Rhea Ripley and the top comment was "HOW IS SHE STRAIGHT". Can we not. I can't believe we have to dial the talk back to elementary school level but just because a woman possesses "masculine" traits (in this case muscles and self confidence which are actually completely neutral traits) doesn't mean she's a lesbian! Being same sex attracted is a neutral state of being and has nothing to do with appearance or personality. Can people be normal and not spew homophobia with a "queer" hat. I swear this is why so many heterosexual women identify as trans men or non binary because they cannot fathom the idea of being gnc without being "queer" in any way. This was an incoherent rant but hopefully I got my point across.