root is alive

[hustleinatrap]

[hlprs-deactivated20161227]

Fun fact-check: Virtually all of the dead “lesbian and bisexual characters” were lesbians.

Virtually all of the “lesbian and bisexual characters” who got happy endings were bisexual.

Bisexual women are not and have never been targeted by this trend.

NAME THE PROBLEM: Lesbophobia.

NAME THE VICTIMS: Lesbians.

[randomnerd192]

While you’re right about that trend, I feel like maybe your reasoning is a bit off. Yes, it’s incredibly damaging for us lesbians to continue to only see us killed off, but I believe that it’s also damaging for my bi friends to keep seeing that they will only get a happy ending if they are with a male, you know? They keep seeing that the lesbian that the bi character loves is killed, only for the bi character to be set up with the usually way more poorly written and unattractive straight male option. And while killing off lesbians is damaging and trust me, I’m not trying to diminish that point, we can’t keep claiming that bi girls aren’t impacted by this at all, because they are. Bi girls and lesbians both are being told that if they’re not there for a male, then they’re worthless, hence why so many female/female relationships are destroyed on tv.

Tldr: bi girls only get happy endings because their lesbian lives are killed off and they’re set up with the straight male option, which is damaging to bi girls because it tells them their female crushes are invalid and they have to end up with a male to be happy

[hlprs-deactivated20161227]

I agree that this may be damaging, but it isn’t anywhere near as damaging as lesbians literally seeing ourselves get killed off constantly, in everything, everywhere, while bisexual women get to live and be happy. I also don’t think it’s all that damaging considering that bi women are attracted to men (so “ending up with a man” isn’t a tragic, horrible outcome for them, and studies show that it’s a statistically likely outcome, seeing as something like 90% of bi women end up with men).

The thing is that when bi women talk about this as a “wlw problem” or whatever, they don’t mean “let’s acknowledge and talk about the ways this effects lesbians and bi women differently, let’s acknowledge how terrible this is for lesbians and also how it kind of hurts bi women too”, they’re saying “let’s erase the difference between these harms and pretend that we are harmed not only by the same things lesbians are, but to the same degree and in the same way, so that we can talk over lesbians, make our voices the only voices heard, and appropriate lesbian struggle and suffering in a way that alienates and erases lesbians from visibility and from the discussion of something that almost completely and totally disproportionately hurts lesbians specifically”. And that has always been the point of this “wlw” nonsense.

So like… tbh I can’t bring myself to have all that much sympathy for bi women in this situation, since they’re actively trying to downplay and erase lesbian suffering from this equation and pretend that our oppression is their oppression despite the fact that it objectively is not.

And yes, I’m definitely, definitely still bitter about the fact that in the wake of Lexa’s death, in the wake of over two dozen lesbian deaths on television in the space of a couple of months, the only voices that were being heard, the only authors whose articles were being publicized and shared, the only people being interviewed about the situation were all bisexual, and every last one of them talked about this being a “wlw” issue, or a “queer women” issue, and every single one of them made the conscious choice to erase lesbians from the equation despite the fact that lesbian characters were dying by the dozen while bisexual characters got to live and love and be happy.

So frankly, in the wake of all that… the fact that bi women might see on television that bisexual women end up with men, which is statistically true, isn’t even a blip on my problem radar next to the mass deaths of every lesbian in television media. And I don’t see much of a point to advocating against this most mild form of harm against bi women when bi women have shown absolutely no intention of advocating against harm against lesbians, and in fact have shown a serious and disturbing propensity towards appropriating harm against lesbians, claiming it as their own, and erasing the lesbians who are being harmed completely so they can feel like they are more oppressed than they actually are.

[the-little-secret]

[lovefreedompowerlove]

As domination becomes more complete, it becomes less visible. There are numerous examples of ways that heterosexual practice establishes male domination in women’s most private and personal spheres: ‘normal’ sex is carried out in the missionary position, in which the man is on top. … Sex is defined from men’s perspective and is what gives men pleasure. It is considered acceptable for a man to pressure a woman to have sex. … Men blame women for male sexual arousal, saying men cannot control their sexual urges. Men see women as objects for their sexual gratification. Men tell women they should perform sexual acts women don’t want to perform because it makes men feel good.

Dee L. Graham with Edna I. Rawlings and Roberta. K. Rigsby, Loving to Survive: Sexual Terror, Men’s Violence, and Women’s Lives (1995), p.111. [PDF] (via lovefreedompowerlove)

[8-bitstories-deactivated2020062]

[rad-feminism]

White women find it easier to promote finding empowerment in femininity and beauty because whiteness is the ideal for beauty toward which women of the global majority have to strive for. It’s almost always white women promoting empowerment through looking sexy or attractive because they have seen that their faces are the ones that are the standard for being beautiful. Brown and black women don’t get that luxury.

[traumasuggestions-blog]

You abused me as an excuse for your problems.

[california-aries]

Sex, a word potentially so inclusive and evocative, is whittled down by the male so that, in fact, it means penile intromission. Commonly referred to as ‘it,’ sex is defined in action only by what the male does with his penis. Fucking—the penis thrusting—is the magical, hidden meaning of ‘it,’ the reason for sex, the expansive experience through which the male realizes his sexual power. In practice, fucking is an act of possession—simultaneously an act of ownership, taking, force; it is conquering; it expresses in intimacy power over and against, body to body, person to thing. ‘The sex act’ means penile intromission followed by penile thrusting, or fucking. The woman is acted on; the man acts and through action expresses sexual power, the power of masculinity. Fucking requires that the male act on one who has less power and this valuation is so deep, so completely implicit in the act, that the one who is fucked is stigmatized as feminine during the act even when not anatomically female. In the male system, sex is the penis, the penis is sexual power, its use in fucking is manhood.

Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women (via california-aries)

[acoolsuggestion]

hey heres a cool concept: treat the people that are important to you………like they are…..important to you

[wordsnquotes]

Don’t become who hurt you.

Unknown (via wnq-writers)

[thelovejournals]

And whether you like it or not, I belong to you.

Franz Kafka, Letters To Felice (via thelovejournals)

[thehomoschedule-deactivated2019]

you are not obligated to

be someone’s counselor and help them with all their problems if its bad for your mental health

be there for someone 24/7

remain friends with someone who emotionally drains you

maintain negative relationships because you’ve been close for so long, because you’re related, or anything else

do anything that makes you unhappy or puts your health at risk

[qlmondmilk]

[lightheartedsuggestion]

Give yourself time to heal. Let time stitch your open seams, let time wrap its arms around you and pull you away from the raging present. Have faith in time.

[fangirlinginleatherboots]

shoutout to people who cant/wont turn in their abusers because

they dont have proof of abuse

abusers were upstanding members of society

their abuse was legal

no one believes them

their abusers are old, dead, disabled, ill, or on their deathbed

their abusers are family members

they cant remember details of abuse

they didnt uncover abuse until later in life

they were abused by organizations

they dont know the names of thier abusers

theyve been threatened into staying quiet

they arent mentally stable enough to endure the investigation

and whatever other reason. people dont have to turn in their abusers for their abuse to be legitimate. so many of us cant prove what happened to us and are only left with the disorders that came with the horror we dealt with growing up.

it makes me sad that im seeing so many trauma survivors feel that they have to justify not taking abusers to court. some of us cant, some of us shouldnt, and some of us wont. please respect all survivors regardless of how they approach legal justice over abuse.

[taavot-deactivated20170404]

I know there’s a widespread lack of understanding/context on this, but “butch” and “femme” are not a spectrum with every possible experience falling in between them somewhere. they are not just synonyms for “masculine and feminine”. it’s more than that. butch is not synonymous to “gender nonconforming” and femme is not the same thing as “gender conforming”. 

butch and femme are a distinct identity framework that developed around certain forms of expression, presentation and interactions between women who loved and had sex with each other and that remains true now. butch falls within the category of gnc womanhood, but there are things specific to butchness that are not shared by every gnc woman. likewise, femme women may be feminine, but are not gender conforming. there are gender nonconformances that femme women share, culturally indicated behaviors, markers of expression etc that femme women engage in that do not read as gender conforming - which is why I can often (not always but often) tell a femme woman from a straight woman. not to say that one can always read an identity from stereotypes, but indicators/signals are a thing.  

the “futch spectrum” post(s) that went ‘high femme, femme, futch, butch, stone butch’ or w/e, was brought up as a lesbian tumblr joke, but ended up confusing a lot of ppl about what butch and femme are. ppl who took that spectrum seriously got this perspective of it as “super girly, girly, in the middle, not girly, really masculine” which is… not at all how butch and femme work as identifiers. if you don’t identify as one or the other you don’t have to pick an awkward spot on a spectrum between them because those things aren’t a spectrum. you’re either butch, femme, or neither and being neither and not identifying with that framework is just fine and not uncommon. 

I think in order for ppl to understand more about how “butch” and “femme” came into use (especially in the gay bar scene among other related places in the 60′s), and what those identities entailed, it’s important to read literature, for example, like Stone Butch Blues. that’s only one title and there are others but that’s the first one that pops into my head. feel free to reblog with others. the way butch and femme developed in the time portrayed in that literature are not necessarily reflective of the exact way they are today, but it does give a background context, and introduces the concept that not every gay woman identifies as butch or femme and that’s been true since the start of their use.

summary: the butch/femme framework is a specific cultural dynamic. there’s variety within it, and sub-groups and labels that different femme and butch women use to describe themselves. but even with that variety, not every gnc woman is going to fit within a butch narrative (or want to at all). femme women are gnc to certain degrees. many women are not either. and u just can’t equate “femme” and “butch” with masculine and feminine, or with an all encompassing spectrum that everything falls in, because it doesn’t. 

[butch-femmeily]

More things to read: Persistent Desire & Boots of Leather Slippers of Gold

[taavot-deactivated20170404]

thank you! 

[taavot-deactivated20170404]

to add some things of import re: the origin and development of butch/femme culture historically

-butch/femme were not only specific to the bar scene but also surrounding / related places like drag shows, ball culture, on the street, in working class jobs where many butch women worked, etcetera. butch/femme was a very working class framework in its origin, and upper class lesbians in academia at the time often fought to distance themselves from it because they saw it as “regressive” or associated with a certain scene. many communities of black gay women also used this framework.

-many butches worked factory or other industry jobs that were mostly male dominated, and were the lifeblood of those workplaces, but were excluded often from unions. 

-there were many femmes in the bar scene, although not all femmes, who were also sex workers, colloquialized as “pros”.  this overlap showed up very visibly in the bar scene.

-butch womanhood was viewed / defined as ppl who were women, who loved other women, and presented themselves in ways that were socially marked as masculine or non-feminine (including clothes, hairstyles, certain coded mannerisms and behaviors, jobs, etc). 

-some butch women made the decision to go on hormones / get top surgery / etc even though they did not view themselves as men, either to pass for safety or to try to alleviate intense dysphoria. this decision was viewed with a lot of complexity in their communities and there was some conflict around it.

-ppl who identified as femmes were women who took pride and care in feminine presentation, but did not do so for the sake of men. they wanted to be seen and interacted with (romantically/sexually) by other women. many went to bars seeking out the specific companionship of butches, or defined their femmeness by “wanting to be with a butch”. the reverse was also true of a lot of butches (going to bars to seek out femmes to interact with). 

-there were butches who saw other butches romantically, and femmes who saw other femmes, but this was rarer in the 60′s, 70′s etc, and some femme/butch women saw those relationships as a defiance of the framework (i.e believed that the butch/femme framework was meant to have that polarity / that polarity was a central piece of it). I think there are still some of these intracommunity issues today but it is more common for butch/butch femme/femme relationships to exist and be looked upon with acceptance.

-police often raided bars at this time looking for people who didn’t meet the minimum requirement of “three or more articles of their “proper” gendered clothing”. this meant that a lot of transfem amab people, drag queens, and butches were the biggest hypervisible targets of police violence and sexual violence. this violence defined and affected butch/femme subculture viscerally. it also brought these groups together in solidarity and shared relationships. 

-lastly, the book Stone Butch Blues is available officially as a free pdf due to the author’s death and in honor of the 20th anniversary (i think?) edition. it can be found at lesliefeinberg.net  I think it’s a really important text re: understanding butch/femme as a framework and the women who identified with it and gave it its foundation during its early stages. It’s been a source of a lot of my info. Leslie Feinberg hirself was a working class butch lesbian who lived these experiences that she wrote about. I learned a lot from reading it. again the current definitions of butch/femme aren’t going to be identical to the experiences highlighted in a book set around the 60′s, but it is the origins of butch/femme, there are still things about butch/femme identity that are very similar, and u cannot remove the terms from that historical context. 

[ceanothusspinosus]

Also, “stone butch” tended to mean “butches who did not choose to receive sexual touch”, not “super masculine”. An essay here: https://www.autostraddle.com/butch-please-sticks-and-stones-151966/ .

[taavot-deactivated20170404]

yep! I know, I was putting “super masculine” in quotes up there to talk about how ppl misconstrue that identity, not to imply that that is actually what it means. thank u for the comment (although autostraddle is not always the best source lmao)

[heirloomparasite]

you're all fucking sick, why this obsession with sex? if they id as asexuals so what? why do you want them to have sex so bad? why do you care? you have fucking issues, leave people the fuck alone. they don't want to have sex reasons are irrelevant, they don't need to, if they want to id as ace so be it, fucking hell, and to think this comes from radfems! the last people i thought it would come from, are you feminists or mras?

okay, first of all, calm down. you’ve misinterpreted everything and worked yourself up to embarrassing levels lmao.

second of all, think twice before you call a bunch of gay people ‘sex-obsessed,’ thanks.

i don’t have a problem with people identifying as asexuals. my problem with people who identify as asexual is that a lot of them who are political are incredibly homophobic. 

but let’s talk about the words you’re putting in my mouth here. let’s be very, very clear, because i don’t want to be misunderstood on this. 

i don’t think anyone ever has to have sex if they don’t want to, regardless of orientation. 

no one has to have sex, ever, with anyone, unless they want it.

clear?

i think sex repulsion is not something that needs to be “fixed.” i’m totally supportive of sex-repulsed people of every orientation not having sex.

but i think that the asexual label is obscuring a lot of problems. 

did you see how many lesbians came forward and told me they used to identify as asexual because of internalized homophobia and heteronormativity? 

do you know how many young people, like i’m talking 14, identify as asexual because they’ve been fed a pornified idea of human sexuality that of course no one could identify with, giving them an unhealthy relationship with sex?

do you know how many times i’ve heard asexual-identifying kids talk about coming out as asexual to their moms and their mothers saying they must be asexual, too, because they don’t like sex? it’s not because everyone inherits asexuality through their mothers! it’s because so many straight women have been having unsatisfying and even coerced piv for all their lives because men don’t care about female pleasure.

i don’t need someone who self-ids as asexual to soul search and then go have sex. i just want the discussion around sex repulsion and dissatisfaction with sex and misunderstanding sexual and romantic attraction to shift. we need to do a lot of talking about a lot of different things and right now, the way people talk about asexuality is getting in the way of that.

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

7 Key Insights on Self Love

1. I need to affirm and to validate myself as it’s hard to accept validation from others if, deep down inside, I don’t believe it’s true.

2. My time is valuable as anybody else’s so I need to prioritise what I need to do.

3. I can’t give to others, and help to build them up, if I’m not taking care of my own self first.

4. I need to remember that I’m worthy of love, of success, opportunities, and knowing happiness.

5. My opinions are as valuable as anybody else’s. It’s up to me to decide and to choose my own beliefs.

6. I don’t have to explain why I do what I do (unless you’re the police or have some authority!)

7.  My past does not define me - I’m free to change and grow, to try on different “me”s, and to set inspiring goals.