On piracy
pirates have always been, in pedestrian terms, ‘kinda gay’. traditionally the absence of women was blamed, but this i proven utter bullshit by ching shih*’s openly mixed gender fleet, which terrorized china (and anyone who tried to trade with china, including the british portugese and spanish all at the height of their naval power) during the 18th century. They were, most historians agree, the most badass (and largest fleet of) pirates in history; that shit was FULL of queerness kink and polyamory with recorded examples in abundance. (though you may dismiss some of that as cultural divergance/counterculture of the cantonese boat people(and former vietnamese geurillas) from the mainland chinese confucian bullshit going on at the time, or a quirk of being led by a former sex worker and oracle/witch/spymaster, and no, I don’t blame you for the historical crush you just picked up)
so we have a robust epistemology here. now we know. I’m queer because of napster, the DMCA is homophobic, and if there’s a straight girl you’re into; just introduce her to expensive media, log-free VPN’s, and TPB (or rob a merchant ship with her?). she’ll come around after a few terabytes.
*noone actually knows her real name with any certainty., there are half a dozen people bandy about, and ‘ching shih’ translates to ‘mrs. [husband’s surname]’ or something, but it’s the one she tended to use, so I’m gonna respect it even if she might have only used it for political clout (especially after he died).
