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woman-loving · 3 years

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“The SAM” and its critics

I guess I won’t make it a whole thing, but here are my thoughts on the “split attraction model.” (NB: This perspective is based on my own recollections and interpretations, but I don’t know all things. Different versions of the story may exist.)

To begin with, the term “split attraction model” was coined circa May 2015 by critics who were trying to name a phenomenon they took issue with. Going forward, “critics” will refer to this group who first coined the term, but they are not the only ones who criticize the language, components, or universalism of the “split attraction model.” (Example from theacetheist with lots of links.) The particular criticisms I’m concerned with developed around the time that monosexism discourse was dying down, and a group that had been critical of “monosexism” was exploring new topics to complain about. (I was one of the complainers, to be clear; that is not a disavowal.) Here are a couple sample posts from May-July 2015: one, two, three, four. Note the anons mentioning they can’t find anything about the “split attraction model”--that’s because there was nothing else written using that language!

Grumblings were eventually arranged into the sequence of words, “split attraction model,” and that term took off among critics who used it as a vague gesture toward a set of grievances. As I remember it, one of the primary targets was the paired sexual-romantic identity format, e.g. naming one’s orientation as --sexual --romantic. Also as I remember it, criticisms were primarily concerned with its use beyond ace/aro people, focusing on what might be considered bi-range “mixed orientations” like “bisexual heteromantic” or “homosexual biromantic.” It wasn’t too uncommon to see people say that these paired identities could work for ace or aro people, but didn’t otherwise make sense.

I believe connections were also made between these identities and the creation and cataloguing of specialized identities that detailed to whom/what and how/whether one experienced attraction. The people who advanced or approved of these projects, and the approach to sexuality/gender that seemed to motivate them, were scorned as “mogai.” Although I too scorned “mogais,” I never looked too closely at any “mogai” blogs; “mogai” was a category based mostly on impressions. The use of other subtypes of attraction (e.g. sensual, aesthetic, platonic, which may have been previously popularized among ace/aro people) as the basis for orientation-like labels such as “heteroaesthetic” or “homosensual” also provoked consternation, although I couldn’t tell you if these labels were ever seriously adopted by a significant number of people. As I understand it, “romantic orientation” was also popularized among aces, although this and other concepts that took inspiration from it were being used on tumblr by a mixed and overlapping group of ace/aro/lgbtq people.

Sometimes when critics invoked the “split attraction model,” they were imagining all of this as a single model of orientation, in which (they presumed) a “complete” orientation (as they were used to thinking of it) would entail listing out --sexual --romantic --sensual --aesthetic and whatever other dimensions people created. But I think that often times critics would be thinking mainly of the paired sexual-romantic identity format, which was more commonly used.

The objections were many. A lot of these revolved around the way “sexual orientation” and --sexual terms were defined by people who also used “romantic orientation,” --romantic terms, and other parallel dimensions of orientation and identity.

Critics were used to “sexual orientation” and “sexuality” naming something that encompassed erotic/sexual, emotional/romantic (e.g. being “in love”), and social/kinship (e.g. dating, marriage) elements. Likewise, they understood terms like “bisexual,” “homosexual,” and “heterosexual,” as well as “gay” and “lesbian,” as inclusive of all these elements. And, in fact, this is the typical way in which these terms are used by gay/bi people and activists and by almost anyone writing about these subjects in a serious way. Gay/bi people have often had to demand recognition for the emotional and social aspects of their relationships and desires, or (alternately) for the sexual aspects, and so there was some significance attached to affirmation of their integration. Critics didn’t believe that all elements always occurred together, however. There's general recognition that sexual interest can occur apart from being “in love.” And while there’s more social skepticism over this possibility, many of these critics would have also agreed that you could be “in love” without sexual interest. (Some critics identified as ace and/or sex-repulsed.)

Critics sensed that when “sexual orientation” and --sexual terms were being paired/contrasted with “romantic orientation” and --romantic terms (and others), the meaning of the former were narrowed to only refer to specifically sexual and not emotional/social components. And I think you can, in fact, see that reflected in how "sexual orientation” is explained by some people who use both orientations (and others). A while back I compiled a sample of definitions of “sexual orientation” from a few college LGBTQ groups and compared them with a few definitions from AVEN and AVENwiki, and the difference is apparent. (Some of those entries have sense been edited in response to my post.)

So I think there was a real difference in how people were using “sexual orientation” and --sexual identity terms. The critics were using them in the broader, mainstream sense, while others were using them more narrowly. For record, I don’t think the narrower version is objectively “incorrect” or anything like that, and I can understand why some people would like to use it. But it is different from how the terms are usually used, and how a lot of gay/bi people and others would like to see them used. And reading “sexual orientation” in the narrower sense when it was intended to be used in the broader sense can result in a very loaded misunderstanding. The same is true for words like “bisexual” and “homosexual.” There was a lot of concern that calling oneself “bisexual” would be interpreted as exclusively sexual-related information.

The use of “homosexual” itself was also criticized. This was (with reason) identified as a stigmatizing term that a lot of gay people didn’t want to be called. But within the “split attraction model,” this term, in its narrower re-sexualized sense, seemed to be the “correct” term for gay people.

There was also concern about who was adopting “homosexual.” Critics who were coming from anti-monosexism circles tended to value solidarity between lesbians and bisexual women and didn’t see either group as privileged over the other. But they also accepted that there was a fairly clean boundary between these groups, and that keeping this boundary unambiguous was important. The “mixed” sexual-romantic identities such as “homosexual biromantic” blurred the distinction between gay and bi, and were thus unintelligible until they were translated as “just a gay person” or “just a bi person.” This translation could go either way. When translated as “just a bi person,” “homosexual biromantic” was perceived as bi people appropriating a gay identity, and a disrespectful one at that.

A clear division between “oppressed” gay/bi people and “privileged” straight people was also a key point in critics’ social-political worldview, and this mixed identities also blurred this divide, resulting in potential “just a (homophobic) straight person” readings. A “heteromantic bisexual” could be a straight person who just used gay/bi people for sex, and was further obscuring their privilege and homophobic by presenting themselves as non-straight.

Unprocessed internalized homophobia and biphobia were seen as explanations for the adoption of these identities (for either “just gay” or “just bi” translations). The use and promotion of these terms (among advice blogs or through LGBTQ glossaries, for example) was also seen as limiting the ability for young gay/bi people to work through internalized homophobia and biphobia. Having doubts about whether one could have a sexual or emotional relationship with someone of the same gender were seen as common uncertainties among young and newly-out gay/bi people, resulting from the suppression of same-gender possibilities by a heterosexist society. There was a perception that questioning people were being actively encouraged to accept these uncertainties at face value as natural, enduring aspects of their orientation. Even simple exposure to these identities could set people back in their self coming out process, and some people reported how adopting these identities had been a roadblock on their own journeys.

In conjunction with all this, there was a perception that these models of orientation were gaining ground and displacing the models they favored. It seemed easy for current and past broader uses of “sexual orientation” to be overwritten with the narrower version, and thus have the speaker’s meaning completely distorted. I think part of this sense of threat was due to the paired sexual-romantic identities--and other specialized identities that were being developed--following a very empirical-sounding format. It seemed easy to read these terms as a cutting-edge classification of newly observed patterns of human “attraction” and “orientation.” Models that didn’t include them could easily be read as lagging behind and incomplete, their omissions attributed to ignorance rather than an alternate vision of what was meaningful and important to name. This all seemed to lean hard on on a “scientific,” essentialist model of sexuality. And actually, critics themselves sometimes drew on a similar model of sexuality to justify the divisions they saw as important (e.g. between gay and bi). Unfortunately, although critics saw these paired and specialized identities as a clear folly of “going too far,” I think they found it difficult to explain why these terms that sounded even more “sciencey” and comprehensive (= authoritative), were actually wrong.

Anyway, I guess that’s about all I have to say on it for now. Feel free to let me know if you think this story is accurate or inaccurate.

#split attraction model

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frankendeers · 5 years

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Kylux and the Queer Literary Tradition

So, I have seen a lot of people talk about Kylux in terms of queer fetishisation or even labelling it a “crack ship”.

The discourse has somehow made Kylux out to be this straight-girl fantasy where two men are simply shipped because they are white and handsome. Such an unfavourable interpretation completely takes away from many Kyluxers being queer and/or poc themselves as well as shaming straight people for seeing queer potential where it’s not canonically stated to be. Since the comic came out, there has been much elation because it finally “confirms” some of the things that appeal to Kyluxers, therefore justifying the ship. I don’t think, however, that Kylux has ever been anything but rather conventional in its queer subtext. Kylux falls in line with a long tradition of homoerotic aggression between two men. I will try to put this into words as eloquently as I can.

First, let’s talk about how Kylo Ren/Ben Solo and Armitage Hux are queer coded on their own before moving on to their relationship.

Armitage Hux is almost comically queer coded. The act of feminising a villain to subtly convey to the audience that he is gay and therefore “morally reprehensible” has been a practice since the Hays code era (in some respects even before that -as the Victorian Age marks the beginning of our modern understanding of gender and subsequently, its subversion). He is seen to be physically weak, petty, moving and snarling and “bitching” in a way society would stereotypically ascribe to women.

His British Accent, at least from an American point of view, already marks his sexuality as ambiguous. This is not helped by the fact that he speaks in an abnormally posh way, alienating himself from the common people.Hereby, the movies draw a well-established line between decadence/queer and pragmatic/heteronormative.

In the “Aftermath” trilogy Brendol Hux states his son to be “weak willed” and “thin as a slip of paper and just as useless”, robbing him of his masculinity – no matter how ridiculous of an endeavour this is when talking about a four-year old boy. Hux is very early on criticised for not fitting into a socially expected form of manhood. This is especially evident when one compares him to his resistance rival, Poe Dameron. Now, Dameron has his own set of queer coding, but he is shown to be what is commonly viewed as “acceptably queer”. He is masculine, trained and proactive. When he ridicules Hux at the beginning of The Last Jedi, there is this juxtaposition of the helpless, feminine villain and the dashing, superior male hero. Hux is supposed to be judged as vain and arrogant while Poe takes risks and although reckless, is somehow to be admired. Further, Hux is constantly abused. He is thrown into walls letting out high pitched screams, runs away in the face of danger (as seen in the recent comic) and is pushed around by his own subordinates. His strength lies in being cunning and calculated, not stereotypically masculine virtues.

Hux’s destructive powers, his monstrosity so to speak, also follow a long-standing tradition of queer villainization. Harry Benshoff’s The Monster and The Homosexual articulates this as follows:

“[...] repressed by society, these socio-political and psychosexual Others are displaced (as in a nightmare) onto monstrous signifiers, in which form they return to wreak havoc […]” (Benshoff 65).

And what other, than a socio-political Other, is Armitage Hux - the Starkiller?

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, too, is touched by the mark of queerness. It is no coincidence that despite his raw power and muscular physique, Kylo Ren has not been adopted by hegemonic masculinity in the same way Han Solo has, for example. When the logical is traditionally seen as masculine, the realms of pure and unfiltered emotionality is feminine. And Kylo Ren is unrestrained in his vulnerability, his tears, his pain – People make fun of the dramatic ways he gives words to his feelings precisely because it is regarded as weak, as whiny, as “womanly”. His long curly hair, full lips and dress-like costume only strengthens this impression. Kylo Ren is an amalgam of masculine aggression and feminine expressiveness. Some of his outbursts even remind of the pseudo-illness of hysteria. The gendered lines are blurred and unclear in Kylo Ren, diffusing any efforts to appease the binary. Benshoff describes this as a form of queer existence which does not only constitute itself in opposition to what is considered normal but “ultimately opposed the binary definitions and prescriptions of a patriarchal heterosexism” (Benshoff 63).

Both are not easily categorised. They are patched up by multiple, gendered signifyers. Kylo Ren’s masculine body in contrast to his femininized fashion. Hux’s slender body with his stiff and masculinised military get-up. Hux’s toxic tendency to avoid showing his emotions while also being shown as weak, womanly, cowardly. Kylo Ren is an excellent warrior, yet simultaneously being prone to emotional outbursts. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s famous work Monster Theory (Seven Theses) elaborates upon this further, while acknowledging that queer figures are most commonly depicted as the monstrous Other:

“The refusal to participate in the classificatory “order of things” is true of monsters generally: they are disturbing hybrids whose externally incoherent bodies resist attempts to include them in any systematic structuration.” (Cohen 6).

Nonetheless, many queer people feel empowered by these figures. Lee Edelman theorises in his polemic No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive about the nature of queerness as a force of cultural resistance. According to Edelman, the queer must always refuse societal expectations of a perpetual future and embrace the death drive instead. In this sense, queerness stands in direct opposition to futurity as it negates any meaning in sexual reproduction and marriage (cp. Edelman 13). When Hux destroys planets, when Kylo Ren proposes to burn it all down “The Empire, your Parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi”, they are not merely killing the past. They are also negating the worth of categories that make up future and present alike. They are resisting the heteronormative values of production.

Now that we have the puzzle pieces that illustrate how Hux and Kylo are queer figures in on themselves, it might be interesting to examine how they work together.

In her text “Epistemology of the Closet”, Eve Sedgwick talks about a common gothic trope where two men are caught in a feud full of mutual hatred. In this case, both men are mirror images of one another, making them especially vulnerable to the other’s advances: "[…] a male hero is in a close, usually murderous relation to another male figure, in some respects his 'double', to whom he seems to be mentally transparent."

Kylo and Hux are very clearly mirrors of one another. Aside from the gendered oppositions I have already illustrated, they are each other’s double in every sense of the word. Born on opposite ends of an age-old war. Both caught in complicated relationship with their fathers whom both have killed out of opposite motivations (loving them too much vs. hating them with a passion). They represent the opposite ends in the binaries for logic vs. spirituality, restraint vs. wildness, control vs. sensuality, technology vs. nature etc.

This shot from The Last Jedi shows both of them mirroring each other visually, henceforth strengthening this impression.

They are "mentally transparent" to each other, because they are different sides of the same coin which Snoke tossed around to his whims. Even their aggression takes on erotic forms. It is hard to deny the homoerotic implications in choking another men to make him submit, forcing him onto his knees. The breaching of personal spaces and looming over each other, the obsessive need to prove one’s own worth to the male other with which one is engaged in a homosocial bond:

“The projective mutual accusation of two mirror-image men, drawn together in a bond that renders desire indistinguishable from prédation, is the typifying gesture of paranoid knowledge.” (Sedgwick 100).

And through all of this, I have not even talked about the collaborative potential between the two of them. Their instinct to protect one another despite insiting the opposite. How both of them could overcome their trauma by engaging with the other, who suffered so similarly under family obligation and Snoke’s abuse.

Works Cited:

Benshoff, Harry: “The Monster and the Homosexual.” In: Harry Benshoff (ed. and introd.)/Sean Griffin (ed. and introd.): Queer Cinema, the Film Reader. New York: Routledge 2004. Pp. 63-74.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)." Jeffrey Jerome (ed. and preface) Cohen: Monster Theory: Reading Culture (1996): 3-25.

Edelman, Lee. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. ,2004. Print.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky-Sedgwick. Epistemology Of the Closet. Berkeley, Calif. :University of California Press, 2008.

#Kylux #Armitage Hux #Kylo Ren #Ben Solo #General Hux #Hux #Benarmie #Kylux meta #sw #sw meta #sw analysis #tfa #tlj #long post #long text #hux comic #huxlo

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wisdomrays · 3 years

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TAFAKKUR: Part 274

GEN-ETHIC ANXIETY AND SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE GENOME PROJECT

The Genome Project was started at a research institute known as HUGO, which is short for the Human Genome Project, in Montreux, Switzerland on October 1, 1990. This important project, with consequences that are not yet understood, was beyond human imagination at the time it was established, and is expected to provide answers to many questions in our minds.

With the full extent of its use not being understood at the time of its establishment, the project emerged mainly with the pharmaceutical mission to predict, detect, treat, and cure diseases that were caused by genetic anomalies by identifying the genetic information in the human organism.

The desire for such a project was something akin to, or even beyond, the desire to climb Mount Everest, for it aimed to find out something that was unknown at the time. In such fields of biology as cell biology, immunology, and neurology the specialists need genetic information from human organism. The genetic information that an individual organism inherits from its parents can open a door to answer the questions of how an individual develops, how long an individual will live, or how the various species on Earth have lived over many generations.

New developments followed one upon another with the emergence of the Human Genome Project. When the famous Scottish sheep, Dolly, was cloned in 1997, it still seemed to be theoretically impossible to clone a human being. American scientists cloned an ape named Tetra which shared 98 per cent of the same genetic information as human beings. Soon after this, the scientists began to suggest that that all that remained to be cloned was humans.

Dr. Richard Nicholson, the editor of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics, noted that there is no danger in cloning humans, as long as the techniques of doing so are kept under control. If a dictator, however, were to get hold of this information, they would be able to produce an army of genotypically identical soldiers.

The most exciting scientific study of recent years of the Genome Project is that it is trying to develop a complete gene map of an individual organism. According to scientists, a human body has between thirty thousand and fifty thousand genes. All genetic features identifying an individual are found in the gene sequences of the DNA molecules. Eye color, character traits, IQ, and all the illnesses a person may possibly develop are all hidden in the genes. The genome carries all the hereditary features that determine all of life's diversity, determining whether an organism is human or another species, or ape; all living things have their own genomes. The human genome, which is the full complement of genetic material, and which resembles large tablets recording the history of ancient civilizations, is distributed among 23 sets of chromosomes. It is comprised of approximately three billion letters and is the biological record of our destiny.

ETHICAL, LEGAL, AND SOCIAL ISSUES

In H. G. Wells’ classic novel The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), Dr. Moreau conducts hybrid experiments on animals that result in twisted masses of flesh, half-man, half-animal. When the European Patent Office allowed the Australian company Amrad to obtain new embryos by combining human and animal cells, this led to a revival of genetic fears, more than a hundred years after the story of Dr Moreau was published. Not surprisingly, this event alarmed several civilian organizations, including Greenpeace. In a press statement made in Hamburg, Greenpeace drew attention to the fact that we might face “dangerous creatures” in the future that would be created from such techniques. Probably one of the most disturbing facts was that the patent did not disclose how these creatures were to be used. Greenpeace voiced opposition to this for the following reason: “A patent grants its owner the exclusive control over his/her invention. Therefore, patents on life fundamentally change our perception and understanding of living nature and our relationship towards it. Living organisms, which have been ‘created’ by industry and which can be patented cannot have a value of their own, since they are only considered an invention of human beings. Thus they can be exploited without any ethical concerns.”

According to the patent, the embryonic stem cells derived from humans, mice, birds, sheep, pigs, cattle, goats, or fish could be used. The patent covers a “method of producing a non-human chimeric animal” by mixing human and animal embryonic cells: human stem cells are integrated into animal embryos. As a result, the created chimeras are non-human, but they may contain human organs, body parts, nerve cells, and even human genetic codes.

Experts state that the system of producing chimeras is completely different from that of cloning and they drew attention to the risks involved. For example, a virus like the one that caused mad-cow disease could easily pass from one species to another.

THE MEDIA JOINS THE ISSUE

Thanks to the great interest people have shown in the future of genetic studies, we frequently come across news reports that deal with the topic. However, we would like to note that titles like “the homosexuality gene has been found” or “genetic solution to talkativeness discovered” infuriate genetic scientists. Dr Arnold Munnich says that media aims to raise interest by misinforming the public with subjects like “obesity gene” or “laziness gene”; they merely oversimplify the issue. Dr Munnich emphasizes that a gene means nothing by itself.

THE DANGER OF ABUSE

The researches who have worked toward improving gene technology have performed some good for humanity; this is without a doubt. However, there is the risk of abuse. The discoveries in this field may be worth a great deal financially; when we add the rivalry between companies and countries, it seems highly likely that legal bans and ethical rules will be ignored. Some people even object to all kinds of genetic research, not only their abuse. They say that the abuse of seemingly useful genetic technology practices in the future is possible, as has happened in other fields of technology; nuclear researches and laser technology also used to be innocent studies at the very beginning. But we cannot object to the use of electricity just because it is also used for executing people with electric chairs.

Governments and international organizations are quite sensitive to ensure that gene technology will only be used for the good of humanity. There are several international organizations interested in the ethical dimension of the issue. There are certain rules and regulations that establish the fundamental principles that will prevent the abuse of genetic studies, and protect the biodiversity and ecological balance. It is forbidden to carry out research on human cloning and altering human embryos. In the past, dictators like Adolf Hitler attempted to abuse gene technology in this respect. The ruthless Dr Joseph Mengele tried to clone his Fuhrer from the epitel cells he took from him.

WILL CONFIDENTIALITY BE RESPECTED?

Another concern brought about by new diagnosis methods and tests is that the principle of patient confidentiality, which has existed for centuries like a secret agreement between doctors and their patients, has begun to be debated, even violated. We usually talk about such “confidentiality” when the information is likely to be harmful for the patient if publicized. From this perspective, the results obtained by genetic tests can be evaluated as such. It is one of the duties of doctors to maintain patient confidentiality. On the other hand, if the relevant data is also likely to harm society, the hospital staff, and those around the patient, then the doctor can face a dilemma.

Some of the possible problems that may be faced due to the mapping of human genome will be that employers could be provided with forehand knowledge about the potential genetic diseases of applicants; they may know whether the person to be employed will be a future financial burden to the company if they carry such genetic risks as cancer or Parkinson’s. In this way new standards of employment will be developed. Even though systematical public surveys do not indicate any significant dangers at hand, it would be nearly impossible to stop rumors. Several people may be denied insurance if they have the genes for a fatal disease. Another may be dismissed from their job for the same reason. In the USA, it is illegal in 39 states to issue insurance policies according to genetic test results, and it is also illegal in 15 states to expel employees according to these. However, employers and insurance agents take advantage of the gaps in relevant laws and they secretly make use of genetic tests. According to research carried out in 1999, 30% of medium-sized or small businesses use such tests to promote and dismiss their employees.

Psychologically, it does not seem likely that people would consent to their status being determined by genetic tests. Would you really like to face your genetic disadvantages? A survey made with cooperation of Time magazine and CNN revealed that half of the participants did not want to know.

THE FATE OF AN UNBORN BABY

Deciphering the book of life unfortunately brings along ethical problems. The discovery of our genetic codes can also lead to other humans controlling the future of the human race. The critical question is “Can scientists produce human beings with the desired physical and mental qualities?” If so, genomic science may enable biologists to prepare a list of spare parts, parents may “order” a baby, and as altering our children or ourselves gets easier, we may be less tolerant against those who have not been altered. Lori Andrews of Kent University wonders if we were to be informed of mental defects, obesity, shortness or other undesired characteristics beforehand, whether the parents of those babies would still allow them to be born into a society that scorns such qualities. Even now, it is not uncommon to see some doctors and nurses criticize the parents of babies who are born with pre-detectable defects. If we assume that all parents have “ordered” babies, God knows what kind of a world we will have.

WHAT SHOULD THE AIM OF SUCH PRACTICES BE?

Genetic studies should aim to prevent or treat illnesses, not to “enhance” genes. The opportunities offered by genetics should not be a mass elimination medium used by employers or a mechanism of spotting potential criminals in the hands of oppressive regimes. The Almighty One Who has been running the order of our universe so perfectly has granted us some keys to its mysteries. Why should we not do our best and use them for the good of humanity?

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atheistforhumanity · 5 years

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My father doesn't approve of my gay brother because he believes being gay is a mental illness. When I tell him it's no longer considred one he says that there was no evidence or reason behind removing it from the dsm. He said people just protested, until they gave up under pressure. If I can prove it's not, he will just leave people alone. Rather than constantly getting on everyone's back about any behavior that might "enable him and his condition".

Hello Anon,

I am happy to help with this problem. It is definitely about time that people let go of this idea that homosexuality is a mental illness, which is ignorant and regressive.

First, we have to acknowledge that social/cultural attitudes have demonized homosexuality for centuries, due to Christian dogma. When I was a kid I never understood why the slur for gay men was “fag,” a word meaning bundle of sticks. The horrifying reality is that they were called that because Christians used to literally burn people alive for being gay. This shows you the intense and radical ideology against homosexuality that was instilled in Western culture. In the 1600′s in England, homosexuality was a felony punishable by death.

This was a legal manifestation of religious beliefs that sex was strictly for the purpose of procreation, and that’s why masturbation, sex before marriage, adultery, and homosexuality were viewed at sins. This religiously influenced view continued on into the 18th and 19th centuries when America was formed. So when the APA was founded in 1892, the culture had a history of centuries of unhinged hate and aggression toward homosexuality.

To the contrary, Freud, the father of psychology, did not think homosexuality was a pathology and thought that everyone was bisexual. In the 20th century Christian ideas mostly ruled, but secularization of old ideas such as demonic possession and sexual sin turned into insanity and personality disorder.

Homosexuality was described as a disorder in many different ways. Some even described it as a sociopathic disorder. Most considered it a behavioral disorder, literally saying that the person was choosing to sin. This again reinforces the idea that Psychology had taken their cues in the early days from religious values more than real study. In fact, I don’t know of any studies that these determinations were based on. Empirical research on the topic of homosexuality after the dawn of psychology was extremely taboo and unheard of, yet they had still labeled it as a disorder.

To say that the there was no reason for removing homosexuality from the DSM is not only inaccurate, but ironic. Change of views started when research actually started being conducted. The Kinsey studies showed that homosexuality existed in roughly 10% of the population, and was not a rare occurrence as it was thought. These studies also showed that sexuality was not binary but a spectrum, ranging from purely gay to purely straight. In 1951 researchers Ford and Beach found that homosexuality existed in humans all over the globe and throughout animal species (which is common knowledge today).

Dr. Evelyn Hooker then set up a ground breaking study. She matched up 30 gay men and 30 straight men of equal age, IQ, and education. She then asked clinicians to figure out who was gay and straight. They were completely unable to do so. Dr. Evelyn Hooker, in 1957, made the conclusion that homosexuality was NOT a psychopathology.

The change to the DSM was partially due to activism, but that activism only forced the APA into openly evaluating their stance. In 1973 the APA had to face their definition of a psychopathology, and that was an issue that “regularly caused subjective distress or were associated with generalized impairment in social effectiveness of functioning.” When looking at homosexuality they admitted that it had none of these qualities and therefore did not count as a disorder. There have been numerous studies on homosexuality since then and none have shown it to be detrimental or unhealthy in any way. Homosexuality was not removed from the DSM without reason, it was removed because it had no reason to be there.

To be clear, this is not the first time the medical community has had to rescind ludicrous theories. Remember that Eugenics and Racism were once considered scientific theories. Women were diagnosed with Hysteria, because they couldn’t stand being cooped up in the house all day or never sexually satisfied. There was even a claimed mental illness that made slaves run away from their masters called Drapetomania.

Just because something was once considered wrong does not mean that it actually is. There needs to be justification and the medical community could not produce any such justification for classifying homosexuality as an illness.

Today, homosexuals freely participate in all levels of society and there is literally not a shred of evidence that their sexual inhibits them in ANY WAY. So, I hope you show this post to your father and that he can come to an understanding that biased against homosexuality is an irrational cultural practice with no precedent.

Sources

Baughey-Gill, Sarah (2011) “When Gay Was Not Okay with the APA: A Historical Overview of Homosexuality and its Status as Mental Disorder,“Occam’s Razor: Vol. 1 , Article 2.Available at:https://cedar.wwu.edu/orwwu/vol1/iss1/2

Drescher, J. (2015). Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality. Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 5(4), 565–575. doi:10.3390/bs5040565

Hooker, E.The adjustment of the male overt homosexual (1957). Journal of Projective Techniques, 21(1),18-31.

#LGBTQ #homosexuality #atheism #human rights #psychology #medical community #academics #liberal #progressive #conservative #prejudice #bigotry #science #anon #asks #answers #support #personal

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justgottafinishthischapter · 5 years

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Writing Prejudice in a Fantasy Setting

There are a lot of aspects of culture strongly impacted by the world in which they are cultivated. While some Fantasy settings are a bit closer to home, others are completely foreign to our earthly world, and those changes to the world, history, and culture will impact social policies and issues. Due to my extensive study of homosexuality in history, I’ll be using that as my topic, but these topics can be applied to other prejudices.

Without Christianity, there’s probably no Homophobia

Prior to the forced widespread practices of the Christian faith, a fair number of cultures and societies had little problem with homosexuality. Among viking men, they didn’t give a crap so long as the bottom was just as strong a warrior as his lover. In Ancient Greece, the Band of Thebes was an army made entirely of same-sex lovers under the belief that they would fight harder to protect and impress each other. In Native American tribes, there was nothing wrong with a man choosing to do the women’s work, and they were even sought out as the village wise-men. And up until around the 1800s, lesbian activities weren’t even really considered sexual at all by European and American standards due to the idea that women themselves had no sex drives. Even then, the actual reason that Christians were against homosexuality was due to the ideologies of the faith at the time. See, Christianity began to spread through the Roman empire in the 300s AD, but Homosexuality only began to be seen as a sin by the church in the middle of the 1200s AD, 900 years after it spread across Europe. And the source of this sudden shift? Again, it had very little to do with actually going against the Church itself. See, in this era of Christian belief, Earthly life was seen as sort of an awful waiting room, and the only thing that mattered was getting not only your own soul to Heaven, but getting as many other people into Heaven as possible, hence the historic tendencies of Christians to shove their beliefs down the throats of everyone they invaded at knife point. Because the only purpose of life was to lay it down in service of God and to get into Heaven, taking pleasure in Earthly delights was considered selfish and sinful. Because two men engaging in intercourse would not yield offspring and was thus only an indulgence in lesser Earthly delights, it was labeled as a sin because it wasn’t in service to the Christian values of the era.

So, why did I just write a long paragraph explaining why homosexuality is a sin? Because a fantasy world isn’t guaranteed to have Christianity existing within it, though some writers have equivalents, such as the Faith of the Seven in A Song of Ice and Fire which also derides same-sex relationships. Thus, if you’re planning a novel in a fantasy setting where one or more of the belief systems is against homosexuality (or anything else) this may help serve to inspire you to think about why these things are seen as a sin, how long ago these ideas became a sin, and if the culture has changed since then, are opinions any different now? Homosexuality became a sin in the mid 1200s, but by the time Chaucer started writing the Canterbury Tales in 1387, there were already stereotypes and derogatory slurs used to refer to homosexual men. Understanding the roots of these prejudices can be an integral part of world building and understanding your created world. Nobody really hates for no reason, as prejudices arise from differences in opinion. So ask where these prejudices come from, why do they hold these prejudices, what social, political, or cultural taboo might be being broken by these actions? Ideologies change, and what was offensive long ago might not be offensive now, but people are slow to change. Just because the culture is different doesn’t mean the mass population has changed at the same pace. Old grudges are slow to bury.

The LGBT Community is a Subculture, and thus should be fleshed out and treated like any other culture in your story.

Based on the culture, stigma, and social acceptance you established in the first part, this is where you expand upon it. Due to the need to keep gay romance or sex discreet, gay men developed secret codes to let other men know which team they played for. Whether it be wearing a red carnation in their lapel, wearing a green tie, or carrying a bandanna in their back pocket, there was usually some sort of discreet code. This also extended into dialogue, as phrases like “Are you a friend of Dorothy?” was a common coded way of asking someone if they were gay. Other themes and symbols associated with homosexuality include lavender, such as with the Lavender Scare which accompanied the Red Scare of the 1950s and 60s, or the Pink Triangle worn by homosexuals in Nazi Germany. Symbols could be connected to myths and legends, such as the notoriously bi/pansexual god Apollo. Apollo’s symbols could easily be reclaimed by a closeted shadow society of LGBT people. Phrases such as “Do you weep for the Hyacinth?” could be a stealthy way of finding other homosexuals borrowing from this myth. Beyond these clues and coded messages, there are other aspects of LGBT culture, such as the rise of Shade and Reading with the popularity of drag balls. Most homosexuals moved to larger cities where their chances of finding a partner was better, and due to the higher population density, they were far less likely to be known by half the town, and thus gossip was far less of a terrifying factor. LGBT people would designate locations as safe spaces for them to gather, and many of these locations, including the famous Stonewall Inn were under Mafia protection for a price to be allowed to meet in peace. Subcultures also tend to come with their own language and beliefs, such as the unspoken taboo of outing someone else from the closet. Usage of terms like brownie queen, shade, reading, and twink started off as discreet terms used within the community, and some such as buns have become so widespread that they’re not even necessarily connected to the community anymore, but originate from coded messages used to talk discreetly.

While there are other contributing factors to prejudices in a fictional setting, I’ll wrap up the discussion here, but I can return to it some more at a later date.

#writing #writing tips #writing advice #writing gay #prejudice #fantasy writing #writing fantasy #fantasy tips

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samcheree · 4 years

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Pedagogical Plan: Literary Theory - Feminist Criticism and The Age of innocence

Learning Objectives.

Define Feminist Criticism and the terminology associated with it.

Demonstrate how and when Feminist Criticism is appropriate for analyzing literature.

Apply Feminist Criticism to “The Age of Innocence” by Edith Wharton.

Assess why this is relevant to you as students.

Thesis statement: We need to understand applying Feminist Criticism to The Age of Innocence can reveal that men are more valued in the New York Society to gain awareness of how historically women have been marginalized.

Terminology *Critical theory is a a field of study has been around since the time of Aristotle (~360 BC). A set of interdisciplinary tools known as Critical Approaches. *Critical Approaches are used to read literature critically in order to gain a greater understanding of the piece, and to provide structure for Literary Criticism. *Literary Theory is the broadest Critical Approach or version of Critical Theory and can address any or all facets of a piece without a narrowed focus. *Feminist Criticism is a Critical Approach used to examine the role of gender in texts, but the focus has changed over time to include different aspects of gender. *Sex is the biological state of being. *Gender is Sex in reference to social and cultural differences. *Stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. *Gender Roles are stereotypes based on gender. *Queer is a versatile evolving word representing the LGBT+ community. *Queer theorists are a subset of Feminist Theorist. *“Queering” is examining a text’s homosexual or homo-social elements. *Homosexual is sexual attraction to people of one's own sex *Homo-social is social interaction between members of the same sex.

Content Introduction

Being aware of the historical treatment of women can help you to have context for women’s issues of today. “Communication is embedded in culture, which serves as its context and is based on the prior experience of a community.” (1, Tatiana) So participating in community activities requires communication skills. Communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication is known as intercultural communication. In order to interact interculturally or cross-culturally in an appropriate way one must understand the culture they are interacting with. Interaction with a person from another culture is sure to take place in your day to day lives. In an Internet-based study with 2,201 participants, the new Epstein Love Competencies Inventory (ELCI) has shown “After communication, knowledge of partner and life skills were the competencies that best predicted self-reported positive outcomes in relationships.”(Introduction, Epstein) So being a good communicator makes you more likely to have a good romantic relationship. Being able to fully understand the way a text addresses gender opens up a deeper understanding to the cultures presented within it.

When we apply Feminist Criticism to Feminist Criticism to The Age of Innocence it is revealed that men were more valued in New York Society than women, who had more strict expectations of them. The focus on gender and the different expectations of men and women is highlighted through the novel. And this is vital to understanding the varied perspective of people in the world today. Some will side with more traditional views on gender and gender role, while others will completely obliterate the concept all together. The way that Count Olenska and Countess Olenska are perceived by others throughout the piece shows Men are allowed and expected to be unfaithful and sexually promiscuous where women are not. Many members of this society expect that Ellen should return to her husband regardless of his infidelity. In Chapter 5 the family was discussing Ellen Olenska at the dinner table. Archer Newland the protagonist says “She’s ‘poor Ellen’ certainly, because she had the bad luck to make a wretched marriage; but I don’t see that that’s a reason for hiding her head as if she were the culprit.” (Chapter 5). The reaction of Mr. Jackson shows that he disagrees with Archer. Saying that “is the line the Mingotts mean to take.”(Chapter 5).

The way that women look comes before their personalities for main characters like May Welland or Countess Ellen Olenska, and side characters like Mrs. Archer or Ellen’s Maid. As they are introduced the Narrator describes their breasts, or how revealing their clothing is nearly every time. The female characters intellectual abilities are addressed last, if at all. Looking at the way we interact with people on a daily basis in comparison to the interactions of people in the novel provides the opportunity to either challenge our own culture. Using Feminist Criticism with any piece of literature provides this opportunity.

Women in the novel are described as being less capable and less intellectual than men repeatedly. When Archer describes his ideal fiancé and wife in Chapter one he says “He did not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland Archer to be a simpleton. He meant her (thanks to his enlightening companionship) to develop a social tact and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with the most popular married women of the “younger set,” in which it was the recognised custom to attract masculine homage while playfully discouraging it.” Clearly describing the ideal woman of the New York Society in which he leaves. And later in Chapter 10 he laments over fears that May will not be able to open her eyes to the world because her family is well breed and women have been trained to behave in a certain way. Even the supporting characters of Newlands mother and sister are described as less intellectual in chapter 4 “liking literature focused on scenery rather than more substantial things.” This type of bias would be considered highly inappropriate in many professional settings and would require human resources intervention. Understanding the impact gender has on interaction is vital to preventing sexual harassment, cultural communication, and gaining understanding for the purpose of educating others.

Activity The activity will meet the Lesson Objective to: Apply Feminist Criticism to “The Age of Innocence” by Edith Wharton. The students will receive a handout. This will include a paragraph excerpt from chapter 8. The students will have 7 minutes to review this passage and answer two questions. A mock-up of the handout is attached as the last page of this plan.

After working independently with the passage, the students will get into groups of 4-5 to discuss their findings for 8 minutes. Evaluation of their written responses will be used to verify their participation and understanding of how to apply Feminist Criticism to The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

Follow up

After the end of the group discussion period will be 10 minutes of teacher lead review as a unified classroom. 5 follow up questions will be used to be sure the remaining lesson objectives are met.

Students will be graded based on participation in the discussion and understanding of concepts. If no one answers or offers to answer a question then guided review will take place using the responses seen below:

Questions:

(1) What is a Critical Theory and why do we use it? (2) What is Feminist Criticism? Include relevant vocabulary! (3) How has Feminist Criticism changed over time? (4) When should you use Feminist Theory? (5) How can you use Feminist Theory in your daily lives?

Sample Answers:

(1) An interdisciplinary tool used to provide structure for literary criticism. (2) A Critical Approach to literature that focuses on gender, gender roles, queer people and sexuality including homosexual and homo-social behavior. (3) Broadened to address men and their roles in 1970′s. Evolved to include the concept of gender as a performative in 1990′s. (4) When ever gender or sexuality plays a part in the piece. (5) To be mindful during communication, prepare for intercultural communication, better understand a situation, or identify issues and provide education to others.

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quicklyseverebird · 4 years

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Adoption arguements

I am posting the full history of this conversation to give context, and leaving off the name of the speaker because I don’t want this to be a hatchet job or have it look like I want this person hassled. Ultimately the position is what I want to address, not the person, who is undoubtedly sincere.But sincerity doesn’t mean right. This came about from a post discussing the value of adoption where this individual pointed out many adoptees have complaints. I choose to do this this way mostly because I don’t want to feel limited by the PM system, and because I have very strong feelings following this exchange.

Them:

If you can, check out the following links to see what I mean. https://twitter.com/DebbieGarratt/status/1188565960061378560?s=19 https://twitter.com/DebbieGarratt/status/1188585006311989248?s=19 https://twitter.com/DebbieGarratt/status/1188592298021404674?s=19 Also, their living status doesn't outweigh adoptees' complaints about their adoptions if they're almost 4x more likely to attempt suicide.

And this too: https://adoptionsurveysblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/14/results-in-adult-adoptee-perceptions-in-closed-adoption/

[for reference, the twitter posts says this]:

Me:

I'm a little bit confused as to what you are debating? That adoption carries hardship and some mental trauma? Sure. Life has that too. Would it be better if adoption took place within the family? Of course! I think anyone would agree with that so long as family isn't abusive or drug ridden. I HATE what that woman said in the twitter. What kind of monster do you have to be to say that to a child? Talk about causing mental trauma... And no, the fact that they are alive definately outweighs any other factor. Unless you're going to argue that a higher percentage of suicide means they are better off dead to begin with? If so, will you advocate for the death of transgender people who have suicide rates 20 x the national average? That's absurd. Adoption comes with hardship, absolutely. hardship increases chances of suicide, matter of fact. I would like to see those graphs plotted against a random selection of the population to see how they compare to norms. I didn't happen to see the 4x figure. but then I'm trying to get to bed now, lol. I'm just confused as to what your position is. Abortion is better than adoption?

Them:

No, I am a pro-lifer and so is Debbie and some of these adoptees. We just don't think that claiming another person's child as your own is a beneficial or necessary way to care for a child from a crisis pregnancy. It's because many pro-lifers believe that it is that many adoptees are turned off by the pro-life movement. Legal guardianship is a good way to take in a child who doesn't have any relatives who aren't willing or able to care for them, but adoption is not necessary and can and often does cause a lot of the trauma that's described in those links. As for what kind of monster would say that to an adoptee, it's the same kind of monster who will say to a homosexual, "that 'love is love' and 'born this way' lines are nothing more than propaganda and I was a fool to believe otherwise". This is what adoptees will say because they know this first-hand and they know that they're far from alone in this.

Me:

I just...I can't fathom ever saying that kind of thing to a child. Talk about destroying a child's confidence and self image and making them suicidal. I can't think of a single child that line could ever help. The lines to a homosexual are bad because they are wrong. Telling an adoptee they are special is not only kind, it is also true. After all, they ARE special. Each one is special to God, and each one is made special by the love of others for them. They WERE chosen, literally! To say to a child, "no, you were unwanted and not special, but that's ok, you're not less than anyone else..." I mean, that literally sends two opposite messages. I don't know if you are a Christian, but God himself says that we, as believers are adopted sons and daughters of God. The term is applied to us. And once again, if there is someone in the family that could take them in, that's great. We agree on that, certainly. And I believe the courts do as well. That's a form of adoption, in fact. But if they can't, then adoption outside the family would be the next step. Any family will have its issues, but I believe adoption is a net positive outcome situation. I don't...I just don't understand what you are fighting against.

Them:

You're misunderstanding what we're talking about. The grown adoptees are not saying to an adoptee that he/she isn't inherently special or chosen. They're saying to him/her that his/her parents didn't adopt him/her for those reasons, but because it was their last resort after trying to have children of their own. They're pointing out the selfish and covetous reasons for adopting a child that have little (if anything) to do with the child's best interests at heart. That's the reality with many adoptive parents and adoptees are sick of them trying to pretend otherwise. As for what we're fighting against, you're confusing taking in a child and caring for him/her to always mean adoption, but that's not the case. Adoption, as it is defined in the adoption community, is only one way of doing it. Another way to do it is with legal guardianship even if the child isn't related to the family. The difference between that and adoption is that adoption involves the extra step of the family severing the child's ties with his/her original family and claiming them as their own. That is the thing that adoptees and their allies find problematic and unnecessary and different from biblical adoption (which only involves adults being adopted for inheritance purposes) and that's what we're fighting against. Despite what adoptive parents and adoption agencies will tell you, blood ties are important because they make up a huge part of a person's origins and identity. It's one thing to choose or be chosen as part of a spiritual family, but it's another thing to completely severe ties with your original family to try to replace them with someone else. God wants us to honor our parents, including our biological parents, and that's really hard to do when our connections with them have been cut in all but DNA and our blood ties have been rendered insignificant.

Me:

Ok, you've given me a lot to think about and I believe I understand a little better what your position is, but before I reply, I need you to answer a couple questions to help me understand better how to do so. Were you adopted? Do you have children?

Them:

Neither, but I do know people in and outside my family who were teen/single moms and some people in real life who were adopted. And I used to have that pro-adoption mindset, until I saw some things that helped me understand what adoptees must feel about their parents rejecting/abandoning them. And not long after, I started doing research and reading a lot of testimonies from adoptees and bio moms (who are not always mutually exclusive, BTW) about the trauma that they've experienced from the relinquishment. There are whole blogs about it on Facebook and all over the Internet with a bunch of testimonies from writers, followers, and commenters. You can Google them and see what they have to say. And when you do, please just listen to them instead of trying to argue with them about adoption because they've already been through that and they're sick of it. There's also scientific research about it with biology and social science fields that you can also Google. Also, take note that just because some adoptee may seem happy with their adoptions doesn't mean that they actually are. They might actually be hiding their true feelings, in denial about it, or not having processed the trauma that they experienced at a young age. Many of the dissatisfied adoptees that I've heard from were once in that position.

Ok, deep breath.

First off, I think you are over-simplifying things enormously. And I think you fail to keep things in perspective. Are there bad parents, whether they adopt or not? Yes. Do some people adopt for the wrong reasons, or because they have no other option? Yes. Do some people have kids of their OWN for the wrong reasons? Yes. I think you are so focused on this one aspect of family life that you fail to remember that there are $****ty people everywhere. That parents can mess up, that kids can get hurt, no matter how they became a part of a family. Everything you say about adoptee kids above, can be said by natural children. You speak about how many websites there are from adopted kids talking about their hardships. Did you ever check to see how many websites there are about natural children talking about their families? Heck, that’s practically a rite of passage and a badge of honor these days for kids to complain about how much their families messed them up. If you wanted to make some kind of definitive statement about the value of adoption, you need to compare it to a baseline, which I don’t see that you have.

Now, I agree with you that separating kids from their families is a hardship. Would it be better for them to be “adopted” (by whatever form, or however you want to call it, becoming a part of a new set of guardians) within their extended family so they retain a sense of their roots? Certainly. However, that is not always possible, or even desirable for a multitude of factors. Would you force the family to keep a child they didn’t want for the hypothetical value you think it would gain in being part of such a family? I would hope not. I think you oversimplify the types of adoption there are too. Not everything is closed. I have friends who adopted a child through the foster system that regularly sees his biological grandparents, even though the parents didn’t want him. There is a whole spectrum of adoption formats, each having their own unique dynamics and struggles.

Now I also agree with you that adopted kids are likely to have some unique struggles of their own. Some hardships that natural children aren’t going to have. Some will be unique to their circumstances, such as feelings of abandonment and issues of self worth because of their birth mother giving them up. Some will be due to the genetics or condition of their birth. You talk about adopted kids having a suicide rate 4x higher than the norm. Assuming that’s true, there are other factors at work here that could contribute to this apart from them just being “adopted.�� Many women who give up their babies have medical, genetic, mental or drug issues that lead to their not only giving up the child, but having it in the first place. How many adoptee kids are born with damage due to their mother’s drug or alcohol use? How many kids are given up because they themselves have medical issues their parents don’t want to deal with? My pastor adopted a daughter who has had lifelong struggles with medical issues almost certainly due to her mother’s lifestyle and who was surrendered for adoption in part because of those medical issues. These things are present in a higher concentration among adoptees than the general public, which itself would lead to a higher risk of mental illness and suicide. You are only looking at one factor, adoption, and making a simplistic correlation: If X is with Y than Y is caused by X, ignoring factors A, B, C and Z.

Once more I want to freely admit that people can adopt for the wrong reasons. Absolutely true. But, how many people have babies for equally wrong reasons? Which child has it better: the one who was adopted by a loving family because mom was a crack addict and got knocked up by her pimp, or a child conceived and kept by the biological mother so she could collect child support from the baby daddy? Chances are, over all, the adopted child has it better. While there is value in knowing where you come from, good or bad (think about the huge popularity of ancestry.com and similar sites, even if knowing your ancestors came from 20 different countries has no meaningful effect on your day to day life), it is not a magical panacea that cures all things. Often, that knowledge can be just as damaging, or moreso, than ignorance is. Substitute “child” for “adoptee” in your comments above and the result would be equally true. Not to mention you fail to consider the dynamic of “The Review.” When you’re looking to purchase an item online, you will check the reviews to see what people think. The problem here, is that, statistically, the only people who tend to comment are the ones who either had a GREAT experience with it and want to share, or the people who had a horrible experience and want to vent. The vast majority don’t bother and continue on with their lives. Only the vocal ones are seen and noted. Its why anecdotal evidence is meaningless. Now your statistical data has some value, but without a comparison to a control, it’s useless. Some 30% or so of them have considered suicide in the past. Ok, but what % of people in general consider suicide at some point in their life? I did myself, and I’m not an adoptee.

Now to get to the issue that has me fired up. That quote by Debbie and your claim that telling kids “the truth” that they aren’t special has some value. Now I understand that what you mean is, telling kids they weren’t adopted BECAUSE they were special. But saying that to a child, and telling them they were adopted because they weren’t wanted by their parents, and the adopted parents wanted them because they couldn’t have kids of their own is….is…

I want to be clear here. I am not using hyperbolic language. I am not trying to be dramatic. I am giving my diagnosis of such an approach, as a mother with a teen daughter.

This. Is. Evil.

And I don’t mean that in a nebulous, general sense. I mean, telling that to a child, any child, at any age, or even an adult, is doing the literal Devil’s work. This is beyond despicable, beyond selfish. This is wicked, horrible, evil and cruel.

Now you and Debbie couch it in terms of, “well it’s just the truth, give up the fairy tale.” No. You are missing the point entirely. Even if everything you said is technically true, and they were given up because their parents were horrible people, and they were adopted by horrible people, you’re still wrong. Someone is not made special because of who gave birth to them or who adopted them. They aren’t made special by their family. Every single woe you declare present in the life of an adopted child would be made worse by them hearing such a statement.

Now before you respond with indignation and outrage, saying “but what we really mean is…” I want you to think about how this would sound if said to a non-adopted child. Because in large part it can be. Everything Debbie said could be applied to many children:

“You aren’t chosen, you aren’t special. You were born even though your parents didn’t want you, couldn’t afford you, or were forced to.” You can even riff off of this same idea with, “You were just born because your parents forgot to wear a condom, or Mommy was trying to get Daddy to marry her, or they were drunk one night, etc, therefor you aren’t special.” Same exact energy.

If I said that to a child from the inner city, living with his single mother, you would be horrified. It doesn’t matter if I followed it up with a: “Oh by the way, you’re not less than anyone else, you aren’t here because of a sin and you deserve to be here.” The only thing you or that child is going to hear and remember is the first part, and it, quite frankly, refutes and negates anything said in the second half. Saying that to a child will scar them. Because, in fact, that child IS special, regardless of the circumstances of its birth. And it quite likely is wrong anyways, since it’s based on a host of simplistic assumptions.

Seriously now, you talk about the hardships adoptees face due to their circumstances and you honestly believe telling a child, or even an adult, who is already struggling with self worth and their identity, what Debbie says, is going to help them? Are you insane? If someone is struggling with depression, will telling them they aren’t special, but buck up anyways, is going to help? Will it help someone who is part of a population with 4X the suicide rate? Will it help anyone?

The answer is no. Because it is a lie framed as a “brutal/honest truth,” and to say it to anyone, especially a child, is literally evil. Even if it WERE true, as the Bible says, “speak the truth in love.” There is no love in that statement. Adoptees face many struggle, by your own arguments. You aren’t helping.

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msowinski01-blog · 5 years

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Why Do We Value Education?

Education. We hear the term quite frequently, but have you ever stopped to think about what all education really entails? Parents talk about the importance of their children getting a “good education” and the school system encourages its students to go on to continue to pursue their education at a university...but why? If we really dig deep we can find the various ways that education can be defined and why we put so much value on it as a society.

Students through their caps in the air at graduation as a completion of one of their forms of education (Vasily Koloda, Unsplash.com)

There is a concept constructed by Deborah Brandt, a renowned author and former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, that really encapsulates the whole idea of the word “education”. Brandt has focused the majority of her career studying literacy learning and the forces that shape one’s access to learning. With this research, Brandt created the idea of a literacy sponsor. In her scholarly article called “Sponsors of Literacy”, Brandt states that "sponsors... are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy-and gain advantage of it in some way”(Brandt, 72). After looking at a variety of examples, I have concluded that education is the most important literacy sponsor because it fosters positive opportunities and an improved quality of life.

Representation in the Media

With our technology evolving faster than ever, we must consider how representation can be expanded (Charles Deluvio, unsplash.com)

One of the most beneficial aspects of education is that it results in better representation in the media. When people have the ability to be educated about culture, they learn about others’ experiences, identities, and ideas which helps eliminate prejudice and stereotypes and instead facilitates a place for understanding. By eradicating certain prejudices, more opportunities will arise for people who might not have necessarily had them in the past. Education in this sense can occur in the traditional school setting, but it does not necessarily have to. The media has often neglected to focus on minority groups, and when they do they often only portray negative stereotypes. This experience was demonstrated in the story Grassroots Literacies: Lesbian and Gay Activism and the Internet in Turkey by Sercan Gorkmli. Gorkmli writes about the experiences of his friend Unal- a young gay man growing up in Turkey. Unal’s parents had negative views about his sexuality because they were uninformed about homosexuality due to the lack of representation of the LGBTQ+ community in the media at that time. Gorkmli describes how “Unal emphasized the influence of mass media, specifically television, on his parents’ misconceptions about homosexuality: To put it simply, they had never seen it before….There were only two examples...Bülent Ersoy [a male-to-female transsexual] and Zeki Müren [a queer male singer]” (Gorkmli, 2). As we have seen in the United States , representation of the LGBTQ+ community has drastically increased as education in schools, in communities, and online has increased over the past 50 years. In turn, the greater representation across media platforms can act as a form of education for others generating a positive cycle. This kind of effect can really help change the way that groups of people are treated and viewed in a positive way.

Learning Styles

Students learning from the traditional lecture style of teaching (Shubham Sharan, unsplash.com)

Just as education can help us understand each other, education can help us understand ourselves. Education is a process of self discovery, including determining one’s learning style.Understanding how you learn can drastically improve your quality of life. Amy Vidali, a current writing professor at the University of California, Santa-Cruz, explained in a video titled Being a Barrier: Thoughts on literacy and access the way that she observes different learning styles in her classroom and the way that her teaching style has changed as a result of this. Vidali explains how everyone learns differently and that many people don’t know the way that they learn best. She tells the story of a young man and his journey of discovering his learning style. “[H]e was a junior or a senior in college, probably 19 or 20, and had never been exposed to the fact that he was an auditory learner. He was excited that he had this information and could use it for the rest of his life, but I always thought about what kind of literacy opportunities did he miss and what kind of assumptions did he make about himself based on the fact that it took him until college until to realize and be able to learn how it was that he learned” (Vidali, 1). This anecdote struck me because it shows how we can perceive ourselves just because we haven’t discovered what works best for us yet. Understanding how you learn can aid you across all disciplines of life and help you make the most out of the opportunities that come your way. An understanding of ourselves increases our quality of life because we can be more efficient and confident in the ways we learn and process information. We can then go on to help others with what we have learned.

Helping Others with Education

Malcolm X, famous activist during the civil rights movement who self educated himself (Truman Moore, nydailynews.com)

Becoming educated on a subject can provide you the opportunity to help others with what you have learned and promote change in our world. I mentioned earlier how education comes in many forms and this next narrative is a prime example of that. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Malcolm X tells the story of his self education in prison he received by reading all the material he could get his hands on. His self education while he was imprisoned allowed him to become deeply informed on African American history and that inspired him to make change in the world. Once he was released from prison he became a prominent figure in the civil rights movement. Using his acquired knowledge, he worked to improve his quality of life and the quality of life of millions of black Americans. This story teaches us two very important lessons; the first is that we need to be supportive of all forms of education and not try to suppress any kind of it. Secondly, this story shows the exponential positive effect that an education can provide. Malcolm X took his knowledge and spread it with the world therefore encapsulating the cycle of learning.

Are There Limits to Education?

Certain kinds of education can be a financial burden on an individual and/or their family (Josh Appel, unsplash.com)

There can be limiting factors to education however. A college degree comes at a cost that is unimaginable to many people. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average cost for a 4-year undergraduate degree during the 2016-2017 year $26,593 per year. This can be an extreme financial barrier that can be the end of the road for many people’s formal education. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that school is not the only form of education. Education can be learning other skills that are not taught in school. There are also forms of self-education like Malcolm X experienced in his life. Cost should not be a barrier in education in one’s life, you just need to seek out the opportunities that fit your situation best.

What Do We Do now?

We’ve explored how education functions as a necessary literacy sponsor, but what are the next steps? Education is often a personal matter so I want you to apply what you’ve learned in the ways that make the most sense to your life. However, I will suggest a few things. First, take ownership of your education and seek out ways to continue your learning; you never know what doors might open. Additionally, have respect for those who had a different path of education than yours. Finally, be an advocate for the education of others; help them pursue their dreams. An education may just be the thing that helps one find their place of belonging and help their social mobility. You never know so you may as well try.

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lydmill26 · 3 years

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The Law and the Intersectional Global Feminist

The focus of my commonplace book project is how laws affect women worldwide. Laws are rules put in place to regulate behavior. Laws can be derived from religious texts as well as from general societal needs. Laws should be constructed to help and protect people. Laws ensure our rights against abuses by other people, organizations and by the government in charge. Unfortunately, laws are created by those who are in social, religious and governmental power. These leaders are not always elected by the majority they govern and therefore may not represent the needs of all the people. These individuals who are in religious and secular power are predominantly men who may not be able to relate to or understand how the laws affect women specifically. Lawmakers may also be motivated by selfish gains.

Women cannot be defined by gender alone. Intersectionality is the concept of how a person’s many experiences and identities combine to create a unique perspective on how things and events affect them. Women are affected differently by unfair practices and laws because their identity is based on multiple sources. Race, culture, gender identity, religion, economic situation, education level, political climate are all factors that determine how a woman is affected by a policy or law. Good intentioned laws, therefore, do not result in the same fair and equal treatment of all women worldwide. Women around the world are not all the same and their needs and goals cannot be reduced to a single story. Women’s intersectional identities must be understood and considered when advocating for their feminist rights and to eliminate and change unjust laws. Women should also have the freedom to determine for themselves what laws are most beneficial to their wellbeing. They must also position themselves to have the power to change laws that are unfair to them.

Kimberle Crenshaw’s article, Mapping The Margins, shows that laws and policies against domestic violence in the United States do not benefit all women equally. For example, women of color who seek emergency shelter from their abuser do not receive adequate services and counseling because the government funded agencies and its leadership use “intervention strategies based on women that do not share their background”. (Crenshaw, 201). Although these women experience the same physical abuse as affluent white women their lack of job skills, economic disadvantages, childcare issues and limited housing options makes their abuse experience unique. Counseling services and resources need to catered to helping them achieve independence and self reliance to overcome the circumstances that perpetuate domestic abuse. Leadership in domestic violence shelters must institute policies that are in line with their clientele’s identity in order to be effective in helping them. Immigrant women who do not speak English are also discriminated against in domestic abuse shelters. They can be denied access to emergency care because a ruling has determined that if they cannot understand English they would not be able to participate in counseling. Immigrant women may also believe that they must remain with their abusive partner or face being deported. The laws and policies do not seem to recognize the unique identities and the needs of immigrant women. “By failing to take into account the vulnerability of immigrant spouses to domestic violence, Congress positioned these women to absorb the simultaneous impact of its anti-immigration policy and their spouses’ abuse.” (Crenshaw, 202). It can be argued that the government is attempting to protect as many abused women as possible by funding emergency shelters. However, what I have learned is that these shelters do not meet the needs of the intersectionality of women living in American most desperate for help. Leadership must include women who more closely identify with the struggles of the women they are attempting to serve. Only then can strategies and policies be developed to end the cycle of domestic abuse.

Around the world, women are expected to adhere to the male acceptability of conduct. When they don’t laws are created and their meaning interpreted to force women to conform. The LGBTQ+ community has experienced hash and inhuman treatment and punishment for publicly announcing who they are. In a large number of African countries religious and governmental laws prohibit homosexuality. What I have discovered is that religious laws are inconsistent and their meanings are interpreted to benefit those in charge. Buddhism, for example, identifies “sexual misconduct”as one of the “10 non-virtuous deeds”. (https://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/07/religious-groups-official-positions-on-same-sex-marriage/ ). Some scholars interpreted this to mean homosexuality and others understand it to mean adultery. Religious laws are open to the interpretation of the individual scholar. Religious laws can also be skewed so that their meaning justifies why people must behave in a certain manner. In the novel Under The Udala Trees, by Chinelo Okparanta, Adaora tells her daughter Ijeoma, “‘God intended for it to be man and woman. And God intended also for man and woman to bear children.’” (Okparanta, 73). However, in the Bible Jesus tells his male disciples, “Love one another; as I have loved you”. (John 15:12). These examples can be viewed as conflicting Bible interpretations on who one should love. Religious leaders are predominantly male and it appears to me that the teachings in the Bible are used by some as a weapon to intimidate women into certain behaviors that conform to men’s desires of acceptable behavior.

In addition to religious laws, governmental policies and laws can also limit a women’s freedoms. Homosexuality is illegal in many African countries. The punishment is jail, stoning and death. Some leaders such has as President Mugabe of Zimbabwe introduced legislation banning homosexual acts. President Jammeh of Gambia established laws that would decapitate any lesbian discovered in the country. Biases and the threat of legal action for being a gay woman in certain African countries is rooted in cultural and religious values. According to Ilan H. Meyer of Columbia University members of the LGBT community “have a higher prevalence of mental disorders than heterosexuals.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pec/articles/PMC2072932/ ). Laws that alienate and prosecute lesbian women have both physical and mental consequences. What I have learned is that a woman who identifies as lesbian is not protected by religious or governmental laws in some countries. They are discriminated against both socially and legally and are denied access to services. Advocating for feminist rights in countries that outlaw same sex unions must take into consideration more than sexual orientation. To best serve and assist the LGBTQ+ community of women we must also understand how their intersectional identity combines with being gay. Creating support for lesbian women and changing laws and mindsets must be done in conjunction with understand the life and customs of these women.

An aspect of this class that interested me and prompted me to learn more about is when religious laws intersect or affect secular governmental law. Most notably in this class it was seen in Muslim countries. Islamic law is also referred to as Sharia. Sharia “guides all aspects of Muslim life, including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings. It is derived primarily from the Quran and the Sunna.” (https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/Islam-governing-under-sharia). Some Muslim countries observe a “dual legal system” which incorporates religious laws with secular laws. Other Muslim countries observe a fully secular government. However some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and others practice a “Government under God” system of law. In these countries Sharia is the law followed and in forced. Under this strict interpretation of the Quran, and interpreted mainly by ruling male scholars and officials, women are under male guardianship at all times and must be covered in public. The interpretations of the teaching of Muhammad in this form of government limits a woman’s choice in dress, marriage, divorce and inheritance. According to Anne Sofie Roald, an associate professor at the University of Malmo, Sweden, “differences in interpretations resulted from differences in the scholars’ social and cultural settings. (Http://www.exhibitions.globalfundforwomen.org/exhibitions/women-power-and-politics/elections/Quran). What can be surmised is that the Quran and its laws are open to the perception and understanding of the mostly male clergy. Islamic feminists believe that the teachings and laws of the Quran should be structured around concerns that fit Muslim women. For example, women should have the choice to wear a hijab or burqa and wear it as a way of practicing and asserting their Muslim identity. It is important not to define Muslim women who choose to cover themselves by a single perspective. The veil is not a symbol of oppression for Muslim women but rather an independent way of doing what they feel is righteous and safe. However, wearing a veil, hijab or burqa should be a choice rather than a command.

Feminism strives for the fair, just and equal treatment of women. What this class has emphasized for me is that fair, just and equal treatment of women is not simply remedied by the good intentioned few. To fully defend and support global feminism we must first understand a woman’s unique perspective of life and how circumstances will affect them. Identifying and comprehending a women’s intersectional identity will enable us to advocate for the feminist interests and needs of women different from ourselves. Developing alternative strategies based on the background of the women most in need will allow for better and more complete assistance. The results will have longer lasting effects on their lives. Laws and policies that directly affect women need to be created and instituted by women who can relate to the unique needs of thewomen they serve. Leadership must therefore include more women with different backgrounds. Both religious and secular laws need to be interpreted by the women who share and can relate to their intersectional identity. Global feminism is also the ability and willingness to support the choices of women different from ourselves. Education, tolerance and compassion can help make great strides in the battle for women’s equality and global feminism. Most especially, I have learned that laws are enacted to protect and defend the masses. I believe this is right and admirable. However, I also believe that these laws need to be interpreted by those who understand the unique intersectionality of women they are designed to help.

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therussianmajor · 7 years

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hi! im sorry if this question is weird but ive been arguing with myself over whether or not i should learn russian. the language seems really interesting but i havent been able to get past the little random bits of politics ive seen, especially concerning the lgbt community and such that are particularly personal and its been making me hesitant. i was wondering what advice you'd give, what you think, or how i could possibly get past that?

Hello, anon!

I love this question! Your question isn’t weird at all (and is in fact a question many people have before/during learning Russian). Disclaimer: I am quite liberal and openly gay. The tl;dr of my answer is to not let politics get in the way of learning this beautiful language that gives you access to several incredible cultures.

Russian politics are……. interesting. Instead of looking at political corruption/nearly-unanimous socially conservative political views as a reason not to learn Russian, look at it as something interesting about modern Russian culture. Russia has an incredibly rich history, and there are historical reasons as to why their beliefs are the way they are. Of course I don’t agree with many of the Russian gov’s beliefs, but when you understand why it is the way it is, it makes it slightly more bearable. I use the problems in Russian politics as motivation to do something to change it, and changing a culture starts with talking to people. You can’t have a meaningful dialogue with (most) Russians without speaking Russian.

I believe most people are inherently decent. As such, I do not think the majority of people would hate gay people or be against gay rights if they fully understood what a gay person was. In Russia, for instance, many people’s argument for being anti-gay is that they don’t want pedophiles in Russia. To an American, this makes no sense; the response seems to be a complete non sequitur. However, to many Russians, homosexuality and pedophilia are inseparably intertwined. To many Russians, homosexuality and Western/Capitalist excess are inseparably intertwined. To many Russians, homosexuality and the end of “real” masculinity are inseparably intertwined. Russian culture puts a negative value on homosexuality in many different ways for many different reasons.

However, you can discuss these things with Russians. While many anti-gay extremists do unfortunately exist (most notably the group “Occupy Pedophilia”), the vaaaast majority of Russians wouldn’t physically hurt you for being openly gay (or for talking to them about gay rights). As such, it is possible to have conversations with most Russians about it (although, for the best results, I would not recommend holding these conversations around children). Yes, many will be resistant to the topic, but if you persist, many will have an open discussion about their views on the matter (especially in a small or private setting). If you question their beliefs and force them to think through it, you can often make progress. Don’t yell at them about their views or talk down to them or go one about how backwards their beliefs are. Just ask questions. Be an interested listener. Make them point out the connections between homosexuality and the many bad things they associate it with (they’ll struggle). You can often make them at least a bit more tolerant. Changing a culture starts with ever-so-slowly changing the views of individual people. Additionally, while Russia is a homophobic country, it isn’t quite as bad as we make it out to be.

I would also say that there are many, many reasons to learn Russian that have nothing to do with the politics of Russia. Learning Russian gives you access to many, many countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia besides Russia itself, with each offering its own culture. Russian/Russophone literature is also incredible, and learning Russian allows you to experience it in the original. Russian art and architecture is stunningly beautiful. Russians are amazingly hospitable. The Russian language itself is a beautiful one, and one that is easier to study than many people assume.

If you have any more questions or want advice on how to start learning Russian or want me to go more in depth about anything, please feel free to ask or message me! I’d be more than happy to answer.

So please, please don’t let politics get in the way of learning this wonderful language. Thanks again for the question!

#Anonymous #langblr #russian #gay #lgbtq #russia #rights #human rights #learn russian #russian culture

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gameonbitchesrp-blog · 5 years

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“I’LL FIGHT THE TALLEST GIANTS, AND BREAK THE RULES OF SCIENCE BUT I’LL NEVER STOP LYING TO YOU.”

Age: Twenty Seven

Positive Traits: Caring, thoughtful and hardworking

Negative Traits: Low Confidence, deceitful and misguided

Sexuality: Closeted Homosexual

Occupation: CEO of Addington Publishers

Faceclaim: Matthew Daddario

-❈-ABOUT THE CHARACTER -❈-

The Addington family were well known throughout America for their book publishing business. Their books topped the charts each week, bringing in a lot of profit. It started as a small business that expanded with each generation. The family are very wealthy, wanting for nothing. Luca grew up spoilt, being the only child of his parents, he had everything he ever wanted. His parents showered him with gifts, but it was just a bribe, replacing their time and love. Luca’s parents were always busy with work and functions, so he spent most of his childhood with the nanny or at his cousins’ house, the Ainsworths. The Addington family had their problems. Luca’s father, Henry Addington, was brothers with Geoffroy Ainsworth. When their father died, he left the entire Addington publishers to Henry in the will. It was a huge blow to Geoffroy and he changed his last name to his mothers maiden name in response. It’s still a sore subject in the family, something Luca makes sure to avoid.

Luca grew up with strict rules on how to behave, his father made it clear he was the future heir to the Addington publishers so he had to act the part. Even as a child, Luca wasn’t allowed to be like the other children. He couldn’t get dirty, he couldn’t shout or act without his manners. He was restricted, living life suppressing who he truly was. He rebelled occasionally, but Henry was quite scary so Luca usually came back into line quite quickly. Luca was homeschooled for his childhood, with private teachers coming to his home. He was quite a smart boy, picking up music and Latin quite quickly. He made his parents proud, but deep down, he was sad. He wanted to go out and play with the other children, make friends.

When Luca turned into a teenager, Geoffroy stepped in and encouraged his brother to let Luca live a little, meet people his own age, socialize. It took some work, but eventually, Henry gave in and allowed Luca to go to the nearby high school, under the strict rules he behaved. Going to high school changed Luca completely. He made friends, learned about people from other walks of life. Not everyone had money like he did. Luca made friends with a boy called Aiden Sullivan, someone with a completely different background to Luca. Together, the boys learned about each other, Luca became a better person, understanding the value money had, learning there were things money couldn’t buy. They were best friends before long, despite Henry’s disapproval of the friendship, Luca refused to give up the bond with his friend. Hating to disappoint his father, Luca tried to impress him in other ways. He tried his best to get top scores in tests and always made sure to do well on the athletic teams. He just wanted his father to be proud, to love him.

After graduation, Luca started working at Addington Publishers, starting from a desk job and working his way up under his father’s watchful eye. It wasn’t his passion, but it was his legacy, it was what he was born to do. After several years, Luca became CEO, taking over most of the duties. His father still owns the business and signs off on things, but Luca can make important decisions, so he works hard, trying to get bigger profits, sign better deals. Be better than the year before.

❈- THE LIES, SECRETS, AND SILENCE -❈-

❈ AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER ❈ ⇢ Luca is having an affair with Zachary Andrews, despite the fact Luca is engaged to Seraphina Beaumont. Luca has spent his entire adult life hiding the fact he’s gay, too afraid to come out to his family. He got engaged to Seraphina after pressure from his father. She’s a nice woman, but Luca has no real feelings for her. He faked it until Jonathan started working at Addington publishers. There was an instant connection between the two of them. It was too hard to ignore. Luca tried, he really did. Every time they spoke, it stirred up more feelings between the two. Before long, they were kissing and then, weeks later, having a full-blown affair. Its the first and only man Luca has ever been with. He knows he’s playing a dangerous game, his family would have serious consequences if they found out. His father would take away the business and his inheritance. More importantly, Luca would break Seraphina’s heart, and that’s something he really wants to avoid, she doesn’t deserve that.

❈ FAMILY SECRETS ❈ ⇢ Henry Addington and Geffroy Ainsworth are brothers, with a troubled past. Geffroy always had a poor relationship with his father, due to the fact Henry was always the favorite. When their father died, the Will left Henry with their family business, Addington Publishers. In retaliation, Geffroy changed his last name to Ainsworth, his mothers maiden name. However, Luca recently found a hidden safe in the publishing house, in his father’s office. After a few guesses at the combination, he got in and found an old document. Its the Will his grandfather left, the real one, leaving half of the business to each son. Luca knows half the business is supposed to be the Ainsworth, but he can’t go against his father. It’s a secret he’s kept for weeks now, even from his cousins, the rightful heirs to the business.

-❈- FRIENDS & FAMILY -❈-

SEBASTIAN & FELICITY AINSWORTH ⇢ Cousins

Luca’s father is brothers with Sebastian and Felicity’s father, making them cousins. Luca spent the majority of his childhood at the Ainsworth house, playing with his two cousins. He was closest to Sebastian as they were the same age and used to tease Felicity and play pranks on her at times. They got into trouble a fair amount because of it. They matured, making amends for their younger troublesome years. The three of them spend time together, going to family events and parties together, usually spending the day before together preparing and getting ready before the events. Felicity always makes the boys put a bit more effort into their outfits so usually spends the day picking out more appropriate clothing for her brother and cousin.

SERAPHINA BEAUMONT ⇢ Fiancée

Seraphina Beaumont comes from old money, her father has many businesses around the world and dotes on his only child. He asked his long-time best friend to set Seraphina up with his son, Luca. The pair met and with the encouragement from their fathers, they started dating. At first, it was to please their fathers, but they become very close. There was a strong connection. For Luca, he was so trying to hide his true feelings, the fact he was gay so he threw himself into the relationship. With recent pressure from his father, he proposed to Seraphina, who accepted. Now, they’re planning a wedding. Seraphina thinks she’s got her happily ever after, she's got no idea the lies Luca is hiding.

AIDEN SULLIVAN ⇢ Best Friends

Aiden Sullivan and Luca were on the football team together at school. At first, they fought, they were in completely different social classes and they had nothing in common. After a fight on the field, the coach forced them to attend detention together, sorting books in the library. Over several hours, they started talking, making friends before they both realized it. They’ve been best friends ever since. Despite being so different, they’re really good for each other. Aiden keeps Luca grounded, while Luca supports Aiden when he really needs someone at his side.

THIS CHARACTER HAS A FIXED FACECLAIM & IS CLOSED FOR AUDITION

#new rp #oc rp #bio rp #original rp #rp #luca addington #addington family #male #taken #tm

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mbtizone · 7 years

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Jason Dean (Heathers): INTJ

Dominant Introverted Intuition [Ni]: JD has a singular vision, which he spends the majority of his time trying to make a reality. He believes that the only place for people who come from different cliques can truly get along is in Heaven, and strongly feels that killing the entire school is the only way to achieve this. To him, this way of seeing society is an indisputable, universal truth, and it is his primary motivation. JD has a rich understanding of symbolism and metaphor. “Moby Dick is dunked. The white whale drank some bad plankton and splashed through a coffee table, and now it’s your turn to take the helm.” When writing Heather Chandler’s suicide note, Veronica argues that Heather would never use a word like “myriad,” especially because she missed that one on a vocabulary exam, but JD argues that gives them more of a reason to use the word, referring to it as a “badge for her failures at school.” He could have called them anything, but instead chooses to refer to the “tranquilizer” bullets as “ich luge” bullets, which translates to “I’m lying” in German. Everything he does has meaning and significance. He gives Heather Duke the red scrunchie because it’s symbolic. Heather Chandler wore it, so it is a symbol of strength and power. He might as well be handing her a crown. When JD explains his master plan to what he thinks is Veronica’s corpse, he tells her exactly how he believes the world will receive the mass suicide at Westerburg High. It will “infect a generation!” It’ll be a “Woodstock for the ’80s!” JD knows exactly what he needs to do to carry out his schemes. When it looks as though Heather Chandler won’t drink the “hangover cure,” JD remarks that he knew it would be “too intense for her,” which gets her to take the cup. He even finds “homosexual artifacts” to plant at the scene in order to support and strengthen the narrative he’s created. When Heather Duke gives him her copy of Moby Dick, he immediately begins underlining meaningful passages in order to stage her suicide. He blackmails her because he knows her weakness. She needs to be popular, and so, he digs up photos that could ruin her reputation and uses them as leverage to get her to take Heather Chandler’s place. JD has strong hunches about things and people. He fully believes something unless it’s proven to him that he is incorrect, in which case he will revise his approach. He is certain that Veronica will be back after she breaks up with him, but when she makes it clear that it’s over, he decides that he needs to kill her. Immediately after their encounter in the hallway, JD goes straight to Veronica’s parents to warn them that she might try to commit suicide, laying in the groundwork for his plan to murder her.

Auxiliary Extroverted Thinking [Te]: When it comes to plans, JD has it covered. He’s methodical and focused on getting the job done and implementing his vision. JD is extremely intelligent and knows what he must do in order to accomplish his goals. He’s the one who comes up with the idea to make Heather’s death look like a suicide. He fully intends to kill Kurt and Ram, but he knows that Veronica would never agree to that, so he invents an entire fictional plan to get her to go through with it. When Veronica asks why she would need to write a suicide note for them if they’re not actually killing them, he explains an entire fake plan to her. We’ll shoot them with the “ich luge” bullets, they’ll look like they’e dead, when really they’re just unconscious. They’ll stage it to look as though they shot each other, and when they come to, the entire school will know what they did, and they’ll be a joke. The note, as JD points out, is the punchline. Although he cares for Veronica, he sees her as a part of his plans and uses her to his advantage, and he has no qualms about killing her once he realizes he can no longer control her. When he loses Veronica, he turns to Heather Duke, using her to do his bidding instead. Through her, he gets his fellow classmates to unwittingly agree to mass suicide by creating a petition, which Heather goes around the school getting everyone to sign.

Tertiary Introverted Feeling [Fi]: It’s not right that the popular kids pick on everyone else, and they need to be taught a lesson and pay for their crimes. However, JD takes his punishments to the extreme. He wants justice for those who have been wronged, but he’s extremely unhealthy, and his sentences don’t necessarily fit the crimes. His values and sense of right and wrong are entirely internally based, and he genuinely believes what he is doing is justified. In his mind, Heather was a bitch and she deserved to die. Kurt and Ram had nothing going for them and the world wouldn’t suffer without them. Different social types will only be able to live in harmony in the afterlife! JD genuinely believes that offing her classmates is what Veronica wants deep down, and accuses her of not being able to face those ugly feelings she has. He insists that she wanted Kurt and Ram dead. It is likely that he has repressed his feelings from his mother’s suicide, as well as what he went through moving from state to state and school to school, and saw his actions as the only way to deal with the pain he felt. When he is struggling with Veronica in the boiler room as he attempts to blow up the school, he indicates that part of the reason he has done everything he’s done is because he doesn’t feel loved. While he loves Veronica in his own way, he believes that she must die once he accepts that she won’t come back to him (Ni-Fi). He had completely unreasonable expectations of Veronica, but when she could no longer be coerced and opposed his belief system, he couldn’t stand it. When he insists that their way is the way, she responds that it’s not her way. Because he was so certain of his convictions, he genuinely doesn’t understand why Veronica doesn’t acknowledge that and return to him. ” I don’t get it! I mean, you were wrong! I was right. Strength, damn it! Come on, come back!”

Inferior Extroverted Sensing [Se]: Everything JD does is in service of his ultimate vision. He doesn’t spend any time living in the moment because he’s always thinking about what he’s going to do next. For JD, everything needs to have a deeper significance and he assigns meaning to everything. Many of his actions stem from a desire to create a sort of symbolic resonance and rarely takes things for what they appear to be on the surface. At times, JD can become impulsive, violent, and physical. He shoots Kurt and Ram with blanks in the school cafeteria because “The extremely always seems to make an impression.” JD uses what he notices in his external environment to help him form his plans. When he and Veronica are trying to decide what to do after killing Heather, he spots a magazine in her bedroom that says “The Fall of the American Teen” on it, with a copy of the Cliffs Notes for The Bell Jar on top of it. After noticing these things, he decides to stage the murder to look like a suicide. He decides to set a bomb off in the school after watching a video of a building his dad blew up. JD pays attention to his surroundings and uses his observations in his schemes – he reminds Veronica that Kurt is left-handed, so she knows where to place the gun. When JD knocks Veronica out in the boiler room as tries to thwart his plans, he doesn’t restrain her. He leaves her where she is and continues to go about his business, which ultimately leads to his downfall.

Enneagram: 5w4 4w5 8w9 Sx/Sp

Quotes:

JD: The extreme always seems to make an impression.

JD: Well, everybody’s life has got static. Is your life perfect?

JD: Heather Chandler is one bitch that deserves to die. Veronica Sawyer: Killing her won’t solve anything. I say we just grow up, be adults, and die. But before that, I’d like to see Heather Chandler puke her guts out.

JD: What are we gonna tell the cops? Fuck it if she can’t take a joke, Sarge? Veronica Sawyer: Oh, the cops. I can’t believe this is my life. Oh my god. I’m gonna have to send my SAT scores to San Quentin instead of Stanford. JD: All right, just a little freaked here. At least you got what you wanted, you know? Veronica Sawyer: Got what I wanted? It is one thing to want somebody out of your life. It is another thing to serve them a wakeup cup full of liquid drainer. [JD sees a magazine with “The Fall of the American Teen” on the cover and a copy of the Cliff’s Notes for The Bell Jar.] JD: All right, we did a murder. Now that’s a crime. But if this were like a suicide thing, you know? Veronica Sawyer: Like a suicide thing? JD: Yeah. I mean, you can do Heather’s handwriting as well as your own, right? Right? Veronica Sawyer: You might think what I’ve done is shocking. JD: Um, to me, though, suicide is the natural answer to the myriad of problems life has given me. Veronica Sawyer: That’s good, but Heather would never use the word myriad. JD: This is the last thing she’ll ever write, she’s gonna wanna cash in on as many 50-cent words as possible. Veronica Sawyer: Yeah, but she missed myriad on the vocab test two weeks ago. JD: That only proves my point more. The word is a badge for her failures at school. Veronica Sawyer: Oh. Ok, you’re probably right. People think just because you’re beautiful ad popular life is easy and fun. No one understood, I had feelings too. JD: I die knowing no one knew the real me. Veronica Sawyer: That’s good. Have you done this before?

JD: What is this shit? Veronica Sawyer: Doing a favor for Heather. Double date. I tried to tell you at the funeral, but you rode off. JD: Another fucking Heather. I’m sorry, I’m just feeling a little superior tonight. Seven schools in seven states and the only thing different is my locker combination. Our love is God. Let’s go get a slushie.

Veronica Sawyer: I don’t get the point of me writing a suicide note when we’re just going to be shooting them with blanks. JD: Well we’re not going to be using blanks this time. Veronica Sawyer: You can’t be serious. JD: I am. Veronica Sawyer: Listen, my Bonnie and Clyde days are over. JD: Wait a second, wait a second. Do you take German? Veronica Sawyer: French. JD: All right. These are ich luge bullets. My grandfather snared a shitload of them back in WWII. They’re like tranquilizers. Only they break the surface of the skin enough to cause a little blood, but no real damage. Veronica Sawyer: So it looks like the person’s been shot and killed and really they’re just lying there unconscious and bleeding? JD: Right. See, we shoot Kurt and Ram, make it look like they shot each other, and by the time they regain consciousness they’ll be the laughingstock of the whole school. The note’s the punchline. How’d that turn out?

JD: Let’s take a look at some of the homosexual artifacts I dug up to plant at the scene. All right, I’ve got an issue of Stud Puppy. Veronica Sawyer: That’s great. JD: A candy dish. Joan Crawford postcard. Let’s see, some mascara. All right, now here’s the one perfecto thing I picked up – mineral water. Veronica Sawyer: Oh, come on. A lot of people drink mineral water. It’s come a long way. JD: Yeah, but this is Ohio. I mean, if you don’t have a brewski in your hand, you might as well be wearing a dress. Veronica Sawyer: Oh, you’re so smart.

Veronica Sawyer: Kurt doesn’t look too good. JD: Just remember he’s left-handed.

JD: Look, you believed it because you wanted to believe it. Your true feelings were too gross and icky for you to face.

JD: Football season is over, Veronica. Kurt and Ram had nothing to offer this school but date rapes and AIDS jokes.

Veronica Sawyer: That thing this afternoon. I’m so angry! It was chaos, fucking chaos. JD: What are you talking about, huh? I mean, today was great! Chaos is great! Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling. Face it, our way is the way! We scare people into not being assholes! Veronica Sawyer: Our way is not our way! JD: Oh yeah, tell that to the judge, all right? Tell it to Kurt Kelly! ‘Oh, God, Veronica!’ Veronica Sawyer: I’m telling it to you! God, you can be so immature!

Heather Duke: Me and Martha Dumptruck? Where did you get this? JD: I just had the nicest little chat with Miss Dumptruck. Got along famously. It’s kinda scary how everyone’s got a little story to tell. Do you wanna see the canoeing shots? Heather Duke: What is this, blackmail?… I’ll give you a week’s lunch money. JD: I don’t want your money. I want your strength. I mean, Westerburg does not need mushy togetherness, it needs a strong leader. Heather Chandler was that leader, but- Heather Duke: But she couldn’t handle it. JD: I think you can. Moby Dick is dunked. The white whale drank some bad plankton and splashed through a coffee table, and now it’s your turn to take the helm. Heather Duke: What about the photographs? JD: Oh, don’t worry. I’ll ask you to do me a favor, and it’ll be one you’ll enjoy. Then you’ll get the negatives and everything back then. But in the meantime, strength. Here’s a little gift. [He hands her the red scrunchie]

Veronica Sawyer: I was thinking more along the lines of slitting Heather Duke’s wrists open, making it look like a suicide. JD: Heh, now you’re talking. I could be up for that. I’ve already started underlining meaningful passages in her copy of Moby Dick, if you know what I mean. Veronica Sawyer: I knew you’d be back, Veronica. I knew it. I was positive, I was sure. Veronica Sawyer: It’s over, JD. Over. Grow up! JD: I don’t get it! I mean, you were wrong! I was right. Strength, damn it! Come on, come back!

Mrs. Sawyer: Your friend Jason Dean stopped by. He seemed very concerned about you. He said that he thought you might try to kill yourself. Mr. Sawyer: You have been depressed lately. Oh, he left this for you. [He hands Veronica an envelope. She takes out a piece of paper that says ‘Recognize the handwriting?’ in her own handwriting.] Veronica Sawyer: Oh my God. Mrs. Sawyer: He said that we should keep you away from sharp objects, closed garage doors, chemical substances, prescription drugs.

JD: I can’t believe you did it! I was teasing. I loved you! Sure, I was coming up here to kill ya. First I was going to try and get you back with my amazing petition. It’s a shame you can’t see what our fellow students really signed. All right, listen. ‘We students of Westerburg High will die. Today. Our burning bodies will be the ultimate protest to a society that degrades is. Fuck you all.’ It’s not very subtle, but neither’s blowing up a whole school, now is it? Talk about your suicide pacts, eh? When our school blows up tomorrow, it’s going to be the kind of thing to infect a generation. A Woodstock for the 80s! Damn it, Veronica. We coulda toasted marshmallows together.

JD: You think just because you started this thing, you can end it? Veronica Sawyer: I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you, I swear to God. How do I turn off the goddamn bomb, asshole? [JD flips Veronica the middle finger; she shoots it off] Veronica Sawyer: It’s all over, JD. Help me stop it. JD: You want to clean the slate as much as I do. All right, so maybe I am killing everyone in the school, because nobody loves me! Let’s face it, all right! The only place different social types can genuinely get along with each other is in heaven. Veronica Sawyer: Which button do I press to turn it off? JD: Try the red one, all right? [Veronica looks at the bomb; all of the buttons are red] Seriously, people are going to look at the ashes of Westerburg and say there is a school that self-destructed, not because society didn’t care, but because the school was society! That’s pretty deep, huh? Veronica Sawyer: Which red button? JD: Press the middle one to turn it off it that’s what you really want. Veronica Sawyer: You know what I want, babe? JD: What? [He lunges towards her and she shoots him.] Veronica Sawyer: Cool guys like you out of my life.

JD: Color me impressed. You, uh. You really fucked me up bad, Veronica. You, um, you got power. Power I didn’t think you had. The slate is clean. Pretend I did blow up the school. All the schools. Now that you’re dead, what are you gonna do with your life?

Jason Dean (Heathers): INTJ was originally published on MBTI Zone

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