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adler-obsessed · 3 years

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Hi! I'm new in the fandom and wanted to ask why everyone seems to be hating Derek Landy? Yes the books are pretty brutal and he's low-key sadistic with the characters, but aren't most book authors? I just finished book 6 and I'm really enjoying them so far. I'm just curious and don't wanna offend anyone.

oh boy buckle up - I just want to first of all say welcome to the fandom!!! Although it may seem a bit negative sometimes, it’s mainly because we love the series and characters so much!

There’s a lot of people who know more about + have details on Landy’s problematic statements/actions so guys/fandom if you could add that onto this post, I’d appreciate it.

A short summary:

problematic representation in books

the disaster of Phase 2

attacking fans (bonus: his gf attacking fans)

problematic relationships with young fans

But I’ve been meaning to do an analysis of why Landy’s representation of queer people and the LGBTQ+ Community has been problematic for a while and I have examples so buckle up everyone:

So, as a brief introduction, there’s several reasons why people aren’t the biggest fan of Landy - one you won’t be aware of for awhile is Phase 2, which starts after Book 9

Phase 2, I think I can say confidently, has not been as well received as Phase 1. Lots of the characters we liked in Phase 1 don’t appear or have lost all their character development from Phase 1. There are so many side plots that are very confusing and most people aren’t particularly interested in them so large parts of each book are quite boring for most of the fandom.

But onto my main argument (edit: in a reblog below, Faceless has linked many of the examples I discuss if you are interested)

Landy has had quite a bumpy ride when it comes to representation: in the Demon Road series (outside of SP) there was a very problematic portrayal of a wlw relationship. He claimed that everyone is eventually bisexual, and then there is a wider issue of representation in the actual Skulduggery books.

Firstly, those characters that are in the LGBTQ+ community tend to have that aspect of their life continuously pointed out/or mentioned (like Landy is trying to show how ‘diverse’ he is) but then have very little character development/or mention of anything other than that.

There is a supposedly major wlw ship in Phase 2, but it is so underdeveloped it feels more like a main character and her cheerleader. In the last book we finally got some development only for them to then break up (although I somewhat liked the realistic reasons behind it, it did disappoint me)

Linking from this, there is a general difference in how Landy treats non-canon queer ships versus straight ones

When asked about the possibility of a non-canon straight ship, he said he didn’t like to dismiss the fan’s ships. In comparison when a fan asked about mlm ship, he immediately said no to it (keep in mind there was no dubious relationship between these two in the books, they are super close so it made no sense for him to completely refuse it)

Landy also likes to point out his queer characters like China and Tanith, who are both canonly bisexual/pansexual (he confirmed to a fan that China and Eliza were a thing) and yet, whenever the two are romantically involved with someone, it’s a man.

Now, before I get people attacking me saying they are still bisexual even though they’re in straight passing relationships, I AM bisexual, I hate it when people invalidate my sexuality just because I am in a relationship w a guy or girl.

But eVERYTIME, these two end up with a guy, and the only time Landy has confirmed they aren’t straight are either in blink and you’ll miss it moments or outside of the books (sort of like Rowling claiming characters were gay on Twitter, and yet these characters were never seen expressing these identities in the books or in later media)

So why is this representation problematic? Because writers like Landy seem to think they’ve actually done a good job - stating once that a character identifies/or has a certain sexual orientation, and then never elaborating on it again, as if that somehow wins him brownie points.

I’m not going to talk to much about Never - for context this is a gender fluid character in Phase Two - because I myself am not gender fluid, so I would not want to speak for that side of the community incorrectly. In my personal opinion, having several genderfluid friends, Never’s characterisation is bloody weird.

For context, in the books, Landy changes the pronouns that Never uses and others use to address him/her practically every sentence. At times it feels less like a portrayal of a genderfluid character, and more like a mockery (one of my aforementioned genderfluid friends stopped reading the series at this point because they found it too close to the mocking insults their grandparents would use e.g. changing pronouns every sentence as if making out that their gender identity was some absurd thing)

Again, rest of the fandom feel free to interject in here, there are definitely people more qualified to speak on this than me.

I also want to talk a little bit about the problematic way Derek handles female members of the LGBTQ+ community in comparison to the male ones. I’ve mentioned above a bit of the problems with China/Tanith but I want to go a bit further into the issue with the male ones: namely, there are barely any.

While the three main female characters are all canonly bisexual, none of the major male ones are (if I’m wrong, please correct me!) and the only one who could possibly be considered major is Anton Shudder and his boyfriend who are confirmed to have been in a relationship, oh wait, when they are both dead. Apart from that, there is not one major male member of the LGBTQ+ community in these books that Landy claims are so diverse.

I think it is also slightly worrying that so many of Landy’s female characters are bisexual, characters who Landy also constantly describes as pretty/gorgeous/attractive etc. because it just feels like that typical thing of men fetishising wlw women (particularly bisexual women) hence why I also think the fact that two of these women never have a relationship with another wlw in the actual books is very problematic, as these sexual orientations feel more for show than actual canon most of the time.

There is a very big problem with the way Landy goes about queer representation in his books, and the worse part? He thinks he’s doing great.

#skulduggery pleasant #Derek Landy critical #apologies for the mammoth essay but I had feelings

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jennadorn · 4 years

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Old Navy Denim

I’m 24 years old and I’ve just slept with a woman for the first time — and though it was by no means the sex of my dreams, so much so that I nauseously declined the morning after sex, I think about it regularly with fondness and a desperate sense of nostalgia. Because in my mind, it officially confirmed my physical and romantic attraction to my own gender. Or anyone with a vagina for that matter.

If I had to guess when my first “gay” thought occurred — (as if all thoughts aren’t inherently gay to some degree) it was likely during my childhood friendship with my next door neighbor, Jolie. During the five years that I lived across the street from Jolie, we were glued at the hip. Every day after elementary school, we’d run through the neighborhood together on a sour candy-induced high, pushing one another down the Doral Avenue hill on skateboards, ding-dong ditching the old prunes on our street. We’d celebrate Pesach and Hanukkah together; we’d swim in her pool until the warm hours of each summer day cooled into bittersweet evenings; we’d pretend to be grownups with British accents and lollipop stem cigarettes — we’d play house together (which I realize now is a fucked up game centered around internalized domesticity and the American idealization of the nuclear family, but that’s beside the point). During our bourgeois family shenanigans, I’d insist that we were married (fuck you patriarchy). And as innocent as this sounds — there was a feeling brewing within me that I couldn’t articulate then — but that I can finally characterize as a pure, but tragic crush.

As we grew older, Jolie, with her striking green eyes, flushed olive skin, and golden locks, blossomed and classically found popularity every direction she turned. Boys ogled at her, girls fought over their ranking friendship with her. And I, in my baggy, torn denim from the boys’ department of Old Navy, absolutely crushing it (not) with an endearing unibrow, and overcome with social anxiety, slowly faded into her peripherals, eventually becoming the shy, weird girl dressed in boys’ clothing — Gameboy Color or Judy Blume book always in hand — who she avoided eye contact with at all times.

This continued until high school, when I grew into my body, traded in my swim trunks for shorts that hardly covered my coochie, my books and journals for friends whom I had nothing in common with other than raging hormones and body image issues, and invitations to parties.

I tried to differentiate my feelings for boys and for girls: I liked boys, whereas I just experienced a strange combination of admiration and deep envy for some of the girls I hung out around. I hopelessly wanted to be them, maybe, not be with them. It was the sole explanation that I could rationalize.

And sometimes when I’d look longingly at women holding hands and kissing in public, I’d force myself not to look. But then I couldn’t look away. And sometimes I’d just change my dating app preferences to women because I was only curious. If I were gay, I would have already come out, right? It would have been obvious to me. I would have had a relationship with a woman… I would have already slept with one. If I told anyone that I liked women now, I’d just look like a fraud. And maybe I was. And what if my friends became weird around me when I told them? So I buried. I buried myself inside my own discomfort and denied this mystifying void expanding faster than my own universe.

It wasn’t until I found some semblance of queer community with new roommates post-college, who I could gush about crushes to, who I could open up about my experiences to…and lack thereof, that I could acknowledge my sexuality. I was not doubted by them like I’d feared. My roommates were the only ones who knew initially, and with enough validation, I found the courage to go on dates with women.

Enter: Cameron

A baby-faced butch writer I met on Hinge. She mirrored me in passions and personality, mostly — until she quickly revealed a superiority complex bigger than her own head. She evoked in me waves of embarrassment and shame that I hadn’t even known existed, only within hours of meeting. It had been my fourth date with a woman.

We quickly descended into heated conversations about film and politics, our families, our dreams. Like the gays we were, we unpacked our birth charts — both of us scorpios — which could only explain the ensuing events. Our chemistry was so palpable that I had to physically placate the butterflies in my stomach with my hand. We flirted, teased one another about potentially making out later that night, and before leaving the bar, exchanged coming out stories (which was initiated by her because mine was clearly still TBD). She shamed me for not telling my parents, for not having a “story”. She didn’t understand my fear as a bisexual/queer person that others would think I was experiencing “just a phase”. She made me feel like an imposter for not having already coming out to everyone. Lastly, she was incredulous that I was interested in men. She’d responded with such inflated disbelief that it rendered me paralyzed and defenseless. And she made sure that I was aware of these facts about myself every succeeding hour.

Several spellbinding drinks deep, we wandered back to my apartment. We pushed each others’ buttons so precisely that it felt like we’d known each other for years. It wasn’t until I later re-assessed her digs, that I realized every cutting word seemed to refract a cruel, blinding shard of truth. She wasn’t teasing, but criticizing me. I’d brushed it off in the moment, much like one does with rose-saturated glasses. And then the shock of a verbal attack is finally processed, let alone absorbed, when you’re wide awake in bed that night, tossing and turning over the painful remarks etched into your memory. And you can only think of what you’d have said, reliving the moment over and over again, grasping for the missed, gratifying opportunity at calling someone out on the shit they gift you, adorned in a glittery bow and rainbow-themed wrapping paper.

Sprawled along my couch, I made the first move after she insisted that the ball was in my court. I either made the move or the night was over. So after enough nerve-numbing alcohol, I took her in my hands and brushed her lips. And we kissed some more. And some more. And suddenly she’s on top of me. We entreated to my room as the blanket of steam around us thickened. Under my satiny covers, I told her that I was unsure if I wanted to have sex. I prefer not to on the first date, or until I feel comfortable with someone inside of me. She willfully dismissed my explanation. She said that she might understand if it was a man I was in bed with, but this wasn’t the same. And it was clear I was comfortable with her. And wasn’t I having a good time? Why shouldn’t we have sex? I froze in shock. To placate her, I said that I’d let her know when I wanted to stop.

So we had sex. I was simultaneously enthralled…swooning…exhilarated that I was literally pussy deep in the reality that I’d denied for so long, and also heartbroken that it ensued over a crushing pressure that I’d experienced endlessly from men, and never expected to confront from another woman.

We fell asleep baby cheek to baby cheek and she spooned me all night. It was all so newly wonderful that I was nearly ready to look over each problematic chapter of our evening together. So when she was offended upon my asking her to leave the next day, and when she gaslit me after our second date which she assumed was ending with sex, I reluctantly cut all the ties with which she’d suffocated me (in a non-horny way). They say you never forget your first love, but hell hath no fury on your first lesbian romance.

#prose #gay love #queer

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agnesgoesadventuring-blog · 6 years

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Honestly as a bi person the C/R fandom’s attitude towards bi people can be very frustrating. There was debate over whether Tary was gay or bi and the moment he was confirmed gay there were some mean spirited posts going “fuck you for thinking he was bi”. And Molly is confirmed bi/pan but I have yet to see him shipped with a woman and if he was I worry people might start sending anons like “wow you’re a homophobe for not shipping these other popular Molly ships.” Seen it happen in other fandoms.

(Part 2 of biphobia anon) Also, Yasha. While I absolutely agree with the collective fandom headcanon that Beau is a lesbian, this rush to claim Yasha as a lesbian and ignore any possibility of being bi rubs me the wrong way. In the first ep, obviously she and Beau had a bigger moment, but she and Fjord were kinda flirting. I mean, that shaving Caleb moment was potentially shippy, and yet I think people are afraid to ship her with anyone but other women, even though nothing is confirmed by Ashley(Biphobia anon, part 3) I realize all this might come off as “waaahhh but what about the het ships” but that’s my point that those ships wouldn’t be het. If people started h/cing Yasha as bi or pan and shipping her with dudes, there would 100% be comments saying they’re only doing it bc they don’t want to ship a gay ship or bc they have het goggles on to deny B/Y, never mind that Beau gets shipped with other women despite all the B/Y. And I love B/Y, but I worry about the possessive attitude.(Biphobia anon, last part hopefully) or Allura- she’s confirmed bi but I would be shocked if anyone accepted a crackship between her and a man even though they’d accept crackships of her and women. Because she’s in a big f/f ship, her bisexuality is ignored/erased by fandom. Keyleth & Vax never stopped anyone from shipping Vax with dudes, but popular gay ships w bi characters stops people from shipping the bi characters with other genders bc it somehow erases their sexuality (it really doesn’t).

It seems like there's been a sort of over correction, the pendulum swinging too far to the other side.

As I've said so many times before, the discussion about the heteronomative culture we live in leading to m/f ships in general being the most represented and m/f bi ships being less effective as queer representation in general is an important one that needs to be had. It's a problem that needs to be acknowledged and remembered.

But a lot of behavior toward bi characters and their ships ended up swinging way past that and into this area where bi characters in m/f ships, whether those ships are canon or fanon, are dismissed at best and blatantly attacked as "not good enough" or characterized as being bigoted or hateful at worst. It's led to this fandom culture where so many people (and I specify, not everyone, because clearly people flip out and try to misrepresent your words if you allow it to merely be implied) treat the only valid queer ships, or the only valid ships for queer characters, are same gender ships.

And that really ignores a lot of the nuance of the discussion around bisexual representation. Because while the over representation of m/f ships in general and the heteronormative culture making m/f ships less effective as queer representation less effective is something that needs to be recognized, it also needs to be recognized that there are a lot of problems in a great deal of the way m/f bisexual relationships are presented that lead to some negative and problematic cultural perceptions of bisexual people in relationships with a different gender. Things like a character being labeled as being bi, but then never actually demonstrating attraction to characters of the same gender when they're in a m/f relationship, or treating past relationships with people of the same gender as a phase and erasing their bisexuality. Among other things. That's something that needs to be acknowledged as well. And it needs to be recognized that positive portrayals of bisexual characters in m/f relationships that don't do the above things can be really important in that regard.

Thankfully, we live in a world where more than one thing can be important at a time. The importance of one thing doesn't remove the importance of another thing.

That's especially true when it comes to people identifying personally with characters and ships, being drawn to ships that represent what they most feel matches their experiences and identity and being happy to have something that represents that. It's possible to be disappointed that a certain kind of representation didn't happen without ignoring the fact that another kind of representation can be incredibly important to other people.

And that goes for people's headcanons and fanon ships as well. Wanting a character to be a certain sexuality, wanting them to have a certain kind of relationship, hoping for and feeling that it's important doesn't mean you have to dismiss and attempt to invalidate those things for another person. As long as they're not erasing the fact that a character is queer, they're perfectly valid in wanting those things that appeal to and connect to them personally. And shipping a bi character or a potentially bi character with a character of a different gender is not erasing their sexuality.

We're still at the point in season 2 where none of the characters' sexual identities have been definitively confirmed. We know that Beau is interested in women and that Molly enjoys sex with both men and women. Beyond that, nothing for any of the characters is confirmed. Beau could be gay, bi, pan, aromantic, demisexual, etc. Molly could be bi, pan, asexual, aromantic, etc. And most of the other characters could be pretty much anything at this point. There might be some people who have to reassess their ships, or the way they frame their ships, once definitive confirmation for these characters is provided. But right now, most of this stuff we just don't know. In general, people insisting that others adhere to what they think the characters are and how they think they should be shipped just isn't okay. That's especially true of treating people like they can't ship potentially bi character in m/f relationships, or acting like doing so is bigoted and hateful.

Acting like there is something inherently wrong with shipping bi characters in m/f relationships really is erasure. And gatekeeping. And just awful behavior overall.

In general, this fandom isn't great when it comes to non-monosexual identities. I've experienced first hand the way asexual people and people with aroace headcanons are treated, and I'm sure most people who follow me have seen it as well. So much ignorance about asexual and aromanticism, so much hostility toward ace/aro headcanons (that usually demonstrate ignorance as well). It's hard to find people who discuss the possibility of characters being pansexual, and really the same issue that exists with the treatment of bi characters, ships, and headcanons would exist there as well. Erasure, exclusion, and gatekeeping happens a great deal, and it's incredibly disappointing, especially considering how open and inclusive the cast of the show is. It's a shame that so many people don't follow their example.

#critical role #my metas #Anonymous

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omgktlouchheim · 6 years

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Word Vomit Wednesday - Stop Kavanaugh

Welcome to Word Vomit Wednesday! A series of blog posts where I attempt to process thoughts and feelings, usually about a specific topic from current events that I, and sometimes the rest of the Internet, ruminate obsessively about. All thoughts/opinions/experiences are my own (unless otherwise indicated); I don’t claim anything that I write to represent anyone other than myself.

CW: Sexual Assault

As with pretty much all the news about our current state of affairs, the Kavanaugh nomination and hearings for SCOTUS have been extremely triggering and stressful. Even before Professor Christine Blasey Ford came forward with her story of being sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh, this nomination indicated an even darker America to come, as if the one we’re in now isn’t dire enough for women, the LGBTQ+ community, and BIPOC. And, as with so much of the news we’ve been contending with since 2016, I’ve felt a need to pull back from watching it, reading tweets and articles almost ritualistically just so I can take care of myself physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Staying on top of everything going on takes a tremendous toll and I constantly find myself thinking about how the well-beings of marginalized people are constantly looked over and dismissed.

This came up for me again the other night when, after having a pretty relaxed evening watching The Emmy’s with my parents, my dad turned the news back on and that sense of simmering rage and hypervigilance that I’ve learned to just deal with existing as a woman in the world, came bubbling right to the surface. I had to leave almost immediately because that was not the way I wanted to end my day feeling. If I’m going to be active and helpful in any way, even in small ways like writing this blog, I need to be able to sleep at night. But one thing that came up in the few minutes of watching the Kavanaugh coverage that I have not been able to stop thinking about was a quote from someone in the nominee’s camp saying something along the lines of not even knowing the story or who the woman could possibly have been until Ford revealed herself. This narrative is offered over and over again as a way to dismiss women when they come forward in these situations. A narrative that continues to portray women and our experiences as insignificant.

That killed me. The fact that this woman not only went through a trauma where her personhood was never considered from the get-go, has been affected by it for decades, is risking her life for this country (she and her family have since had to leave their home due to death threats) to share her story and make her identity known, to again, be told by men she is not worthy of consideration is devastating. And that seems to be a major key in all of this. Women are not considered. At all. Kavanaugh probably didn’t recall the assault because he got what he wanted out of it. He never considered Ford or her feelings, needs, or wants. He couldn't have cared less. He still couldn’t care less. The GOP, who should care about putting an alleged rapist on the bench of the highest court in the land, but instead made a publicity stunt of having 65 women sign a document (all but two seemingly had no idea what they had signed) that stated they would vouch for Kavanaugh, definitely don’t see a problem if they’re willing to manipulate women to get their man through the confirmation process.

I saw a tweet the other day from @laurenthehough, who shared this sentiment: “You know what would be fucking weird to hear? ‘I did that. It was fucking terrible. I’m sorry. I did years of therapy and soul searching and work and I changed my behavior. I can’t change what I did. But I made damn sure I never did it again.’ Why is that never the statement?”

Why is that never the statement? I cannot tell you how healing it would be if those were the statements that we started hearing. Real accountability. Real apologies. Real work put into an individual’s growth and education. Would those statements start solving all of these problems? No, of course not. But they would at least indicate that these people recognize that the women they’ve hurt are people. And that they understand that they have caused harm, sometimes a lifetime’s worth, to another person. That would create a powerful shift. Because one of the reasons we don’t hear these statements is because these people don’t consider what they do to women to be of any significance. That unless you’re related to a woman by blood or marriage or if you find them attractive, they don’t matter. It’s probably inconceivable to Kavanaugh and his ilk that a situation that was so forgettable for him because “boys will be boys,” had been burned into Ford’s mind. She never mattered to him, he felt entitled to her and her body, and our culture allowed that.

As I’m writing this, I realize that I will be posting it on arguably the most important Jewish holiday of the year, Yom Kippur. Which couldn’t be more fitting for this topic. Yom Kippur translates to Day of Atonement. It comes ten days after Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, wherein those ten days are meant to give us time to reflect on the past year. All the great and terrible experiences and the things we wish we did better or hadn’t done at all. What we are sorry about and who we need to apologize to and when Yom Kippur finally arrives we are supposed to take full accountability for ourselves. Now, one day to hold ourselves accountable for our actions (as well as inactions) and how they’ve caused harm and suffering to others and actively make amends is not enough. Especially if the damage we have caused has had a prolonged traumatizing effect on person’s life and livelihood. Going to shul once a year and reciting prayers are not going to fix things or provide the healing that’s actually necessary. But at least the holiday is there to jumpstart the conversation. To hopefully get us thinking outside of ourselves and give the apologies that we wished we’d been given when we’ve been wronged and make necessary and lasting changes.

I’m pretty sure Brett Kavanaugh is not Jewish, probably has no idea what Yom Kippur is, and, like most cis-het white males, doesn’t think he's done anything wrong and that he's entitled to whatever the fuck he wants. But for those men who do genuinely want to make amends and be better people and because we very rarely have a framework for how to get started with that, I’m going to offer a few suggestions (mostly for men to combat rape culture and inequality, though some of these skills definitely apply in many other areas and for most people) on some things to start focusing on that would be incredibly helpful. This is by no means a complete and comprehensive list, and there is no significance to the order, but a few things to get people started.

Listen to women and believe them. We know our own experiences, so please do not come at us with “what if she’s lying” bullshit. There’s a reason men are conditioned to believe that women are liars and that reason is to keep women oppressed. Learning how to listen, really listen, is one of the most valuable lessons anyone can learn. When you check your egos at the door, unlearn your social conditioning, and learn to center and hold space for someone else and their feelings, especially when they’re in need, it validates their humanity. We all need support and knowing someone is in our corner who’s not going to question our motives, interrupt us as we process whatever we’re going through in the moment, or lash out at us is basic common decency that we are rarely shown, but (as women) are expected to provide for others. It’s also invaluable for the listener because you will get to understand someone else’s world a little better and hopefully gain more perspective on the one you inhabit.

Start asking “What do you need” and “How can I help you.” Practice those questions so much until they become second nature. No one is asking you to bend over backwards for other people, only you know what your limits are and it’s your responsibility to be honest about what you can or cannot do, but this is another small gesture, just like listening, that goes a long way. On the flip side of that, asking for help when you’re struggling is an important skill as well. People will typically show up for you if you give them a chance, especially if you’ve shown up for them.

Hold other men exhibiting toxic behavior accountable. Show by example how a good man acts and let those who are extremely problematic know that you see them and what they're doing and are not here for it. Men listen to other men (bc toxic masculinity, but that’s a post for another day), so you pointing out that some behavior or thought-pattern is problematic or shameful is effective.

Vote for and support women. Not just the ones you’re related to or find attractive. If you can only make room for the former, you're only performing ally ship and you don’t actually support women.

Men built the glass ceiling, therefore it’s your job to dismantle it. Do not put the extra weight of men’s work on marginalized folx who are already carrying and navigating too much.

Go inward and start tackling your own internalized patriarchal proclivities. Do your due diligence to understand toxic masculinity, sexist/racist double standards, and your privilege and the ways in which you help perpetuate a system that gives you benefits at the expense and suffering of others. Ways to start doing that: go to therapy, get a group of your boys together and actually start talking about and identifying your feelings and asking each other questions, read books or watch films/tv by people who come from very different backgrounds than you. You’ll hopefully learn a lot about yourself and the world. And you’ll learn how to take responsibility for your own feelings in a healthier way, rather than putting and projecting that emotional labor on the women and other marginalized folx in your lives.

If you have realized that you have done something wrong or hurtful or it was brought to your attention that you have, you may want to get defensive. Acknowledge the feelings you're having to yourself, but to the appropriate parties try saying something like this: “I did that. It was fucking terrible. I’m sorry. I did years of therapy and soul searching and work and I changed my behavior. I can’t change what I did. But I made damn sure I never did it again.” If you haven’t done the work yet, don’t say you have unless you do actually plan on following through. And then follow through. These are also great growth opportunities for utilizing those new listening and offering assistance tools from #s 1 and 2.

*BONUS*: Do not, under any circumstances, attempt ANY of the above with ulterior motives. You do not get a gold star for being a “good guy.” This is just how people should be treated. Decently, respectfully, and without any expectation of owing you anything in return.

Obviously, this is a very simplified list but when you start opening the door to one of these items, more and more doors begin to appear. As hard as it may be at times, it is worthwhile work that benefits everyone. Also, if you’ve made it this far, please call your senators and tell them to not confirm Kavanaugh to SCOTUS. We, the people, deserve someone on the bench who considers all of us.

Katie Louchheim seriously doesn’t know how she functions on a daily basis with all this bullshit. CALL YOUR SENATORS TO #StopKavanaugh: 202-224-3121.

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maiassensibleblog · 6 years

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On ship wars and heteronormativity (particularly in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child)

*HPCC spoilers*

I don’t think extreme shipping on any side of this debate is healthy. It is always wrong to suggest that actors have any sort of a ship motive. In the end, shipping should just be fun but I think that ships can carry a lot of weight.

Lets first be absolutely clear of what I mean by heteronormativity:

heteronormativeˌhɛt(ə)rə(ʊ)ˈnɔːmətɪv/ adjective denoting or relating to a world view that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation.“the heteronormative codes of twentieth-century mainstream Western cinema”

This is also a great blog (from a straight woman who is doing a FAB job as an ally): https://hannahwitton.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/heteronormativity-in-everyday-life-heteronorms/

The main thing about Cursed Child which I absolutely love is that the romantic situation is so open and ambiguous and could really go either way and that shouldn’t be taken away from anyone. It could go either way at the end. And I understand how somebody who hasn’t really questioned their sexual orientation could see act 4, scene 14 as an indication that Scorose is cannon. I, personally, see it as pre-coming out with some internal questioning but you can’t expect people who haven’t been there to see that.

I do however expect my straight allies to listen and understand why queer voices are more important in this conversation because Scorbus represents a massive missed opportunity. And that’s what it is, not queer-baiting, but a missed opportunity. This is a big issue in the Potterverse and that’s the conversation we need to be having.

There are a couple of points I would like to address:

1) Cursed Child fits some definitions of queer-baiting, but not others. And it isn’t in itself homophobic, however the story is heteronormative and that’s problematic.

According to the urban dictionary (apparently the actual dictionary hasn’t picked this one up yet!), queer-baiting is:

queer baiting When a politician, pundit, or other public figure brings up the completely irrelevant detail about a person’s sexuality, true or untrue, as a way of subtly channeling homophobia to attack them.

queer baiting When an author/director/etc. gives hints, and clever twists to paint a character as possibly being queer, to satisfy queer audiences, but never outright says they are so they can keep their heterosexual audience.

It’s fairly obvious that the second definition fits Cursed Child, but we can’t really talk about homophobia from the actual story. Especially not from watching the play, where it is so open ended. I’m not sure that making Scorbus more cannon would really lose hetero audiences but it would take away a lot of imagination from what happens after the events in the cannon. All the best fanfic are getting together fics. When Romione got together the fanfic went downhill. That’s never going to happen with the next-gen, and that’s a serious positive to the open-endedness (Thanks to @mayhemtothenthdegree for that argument!). Its a real shame that they decided to make Scorpius ask Rose out to achieve this and other ways would’ve been better for the little queers who need looking out for.

Although I don’t think the queer-baiting argument is productive or helpful (sorrynotsorry), the fact that a lot of Scorose shippers are so dismissive of something that is very nearly cannon (especially if you’ve seen it), shows that this story enhances heteronormativity.

2) Cursed Child is pretty heteronormative, not just with act 4, scene 14, but throughout.

There’s a couple of examples of this. For example, Scorpius and pretty Polly and then Albus assuming that Scorpius liked that, Ron assuming that Delphi was Albus’s girlfriend, even to the assumption that Rose is into boys (even though this is never confirmed by her). As I mentioned before, this really is a Potterverse problem and I’m sad that it didn’t get better in Cursed Child, since its 2017 and everyone should have learnt.

3) There are plenty of male friendships within plays/film/tv but there are so few accurate accounts of same sex relationships.

The argument that it’s nice to see close male friendships is the only one that really bothers me. If you’re a straight male looking for media representation and are annoyed that this might’ve been taken away from you in one of the many situations this was possible, you need to check your privilege. Harry and Ron, Joey and Chandler, the guys from The Hangover and SO MANY MORE . Yes. one of those links is a list of 20 movies about male friendships. There aren’t a lack of examples.

Cursed Child was an opportunity to end a story with two mates just being queer and that being ok. That wouldn’t be the focus of the story, it would just be part of it. This is the experience that most people have in the Western world in 2017. Its cool and it just is, so why isn’t that represented in media? I always say that I’ve never seen an accurate coming out story that vaguely represents what I went through. And Cursed Child so nearly was. And it kinda still is, because its open and they’re super young so that’s how it would be. So the fact that people feel the need to bash that is sad.

4) You can ship scorose as much as you want, the idea behind it is super cute, but you don’t have the right to bash scorbus.

And in this situation, the voices of queer people should be more important than the voices of straight people because that’s what being an ally is about.

Heteronormativity is a constant reminder that we are not normal.

And whenever it happens to me it feels like I’m being stabbed in the stomach. And I’m not exaggerating. It really hurts. Scorbus is an opportunity to show the very confused young queer kids that they can be normal and mainstream. It was easy for me to come out, but Cursed Child is read all over the world- some kids will have it a lot harder and allowing them to ship this without telling them they’re wrong is an opportunity to show them that they can be ok. I hope that makes sense and I know it may seem dramatic to people who didn’t go through this, but seeing yourself represented, even in fanfic, is a really big deal if you’re coming out. So just let people do it. Scorose is sweet but it doesn’t represent something bigger than itself like Scorbus does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXDfaLzzoo8 (please watch this.)

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gossipnetwork-blog · 6 years

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Cole Sprouse Says It's 'Sexier' to Keep His Relationships Private

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/cole-sprouse-says-its-sexier-to-keep-his-relationships-private/

Cole Sprouse Says It's 'Sexier' to Keep His Relationships Private

It’s been pretty mum when it comes to sweeping public declarations of love from Riverdale‘s favorite rumored off-screen couple, Cole Sprouse and Lili Reinhart. Sure, there are the soulful photoshoots, the low-key hand-holding, the wearing of each other’s clothes in public. The signs of a very intimate friendship and/or blossoming young love are there! But so far, we’ve received no confirmation—and no denial—from the two of them, save for a joke from Reinhard about how all the Riverdale kissing scenes with Sprouse are “comfortable”. Indeed, as my imaginary great aunt would say, pursing her lips at the thought of a secretive off-screen romance (yes, my imaginary great aunt is Maggie Smith).

Speaking of spilling tea, Sprouse recently opened up about his relationship with Reinhart. In a People article detailing his “sexy confessions,” he said some not-so-sexy things about his relationship with his co-star. Not that they’re bad things, just—wow, this guy is a pro at not saying things while also saying things! But…but…are all these little hints (see above list!) just a projection of our own shipping?

“Lili and I are constantly talked about in the public eye, and for me I think that it is being deeply informed by the love of the characters and wanting to see us together,” he told People. “I think that in many ways it’s offensive and an invasion of privacy, but it’s also a badge of honor because it means you’re creating a chemistry onscreen that is so understandable that people want to see it in real life, which is flattering from a professional perspective.”

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Apparently he was then directly asked about his relationship with Reinhart, and…do you see this coming?

“No comment,” he told People. “Because whether you dismiss those rumors or whether you encourage those rumors, it’s giving people who are in my opinion are a bit entitled to your personal life more power, and you have to have spaces for reverence in the industry. Going to college made me realize you have to have real spaces of privacy and you have to establish those early. [Ryan] Gosling is a perfect example. Gosling has been in a much more sexual or romantic side of the industry than many actors have to be, and his marriage is not publicized and talked about and beaten over people’s heads because people respect that he set those boundaries early.”

True. Ryan Gosling does have a cult of mystery around him.

“And that’s the same thing,” Sprouse continued. “The more you let people in on that, the more people feel entitled to it, and the more it becomes problematic with whoever you end up being with in the future, so I take that very seriously. So I just never talk about it because it’s not anyone’s right to know. People can speculate all they want—people speculate about me with every member of the cast practically—but it’s really no one’s right to know. It’s also sexy, these parts of the relationships that are just yours.”

We’re sorry, Sprouse. We ship often. We ship hard. We will try to tone it down.

….

“It’s also sexy, these parts of the relationships that are just yours.”

Related Stories:–Cole Sprouse Just Broke His Silence on Those Lili Reinhart Dating Rumors–Lili Reinhart Is Now Wearing Cole Sprouse’s Clothes in Public–Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse Were Spotted Low-Key Holding Hands…Again

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killingthebuddha · 6 years

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The predator was revealed in a post on social media, written by a woman, circulated by women. Years ago, he and I were members of a loosely connected group of writers; not really friends, just acquaintances working on opposite sides of the country. The internet shrinks our worlds, however, and we emailed and chatted enough for me to get uncomfortable with things he suggested a number of times. Nothing like violence, nothing like sustained harassment or stalking, but an ongoing irritation, like a night mosquito.

The post, written by a woman he’d been involved with, revealed worse: physically and emotionally abusive patterns of behavior with different women that went on for years. They were always younger, always emerging in their careers. Some of the names of women who reported interactions with him were familiar: the web of relationships was tightly woven. It made it easier for him to find someone to move on to. Apparently he’d sobered up, yet the pattern still seemed to be happening. So I did what we do these days when we find out a man in our lives is problematic: I activated the whisper network and shared the information with a few women, and severed digital connections with him.

A few days later, a Facebook message. I’d hurt his feelings and disappointed him by terminating our relationship. He was working on his “spiritual life,” which I knew involved Catholicism because we’d talked about Thomas Merton. He was sober now, and what had happened, had happened while he was drinking, and “everyone knew” he was a wreck at that point. Could I forgive him?

I considered this for a few weeks. It seemed the Christian thing to do, the ethical move of a good person. Plenty of men had done much worse to me, from my childhood and into my adulthood. Many of them had also asked for forgiveness. And then I discovered that the agonized note he had sent was a form message. He’d sent the exact same note to friends, male and female, one by one, as they dropped him.

We are in a peak moment right now when it comes to men asking women for forgiveness. And in each case, before any of the violations make it to court–which they rarely do–the forgiveness is meted out not by the judicial system, with its mythologies of checks and balances, but by the person who was violated. The onus for forgiving, over and over again, is laid at the feet of the victim. What are these men really asking women to do? To absolve them and clear their consciences, so they can move on. Meanwhile, the women are left behind to grapple with the repercussions of the abuse.

Sexual harassment and sexual violence tend to occur in a serial manner, one violation after another, on an on, until someone has enough of the silencing and speaks out. Then come the apologies, so many apologies, riddled with “but” and “however” and “although I recall things differently.” Since the Me Too floodgates opened, we have had little in the way of a national conversation about what it would mean to forgive men for harassment, abuse, or rape. But we have also had to read a series of apologies. Many do not explicitly ask for forgiveness, but they do acknowledge the damage they have done. And in that, even in our secular era, there is an implied request for repentance and absolution. The man asks to be cleansed of his sins because he is so very sorry for committing them.

Just a month ago, the novelist Sherman Alexie began his apology by acknowledging that he had “harmed other people.” Victims had described a series of verbal and physical incidents, mostly between younger female writers and the powerful, older writer, sometimes involving Alexie threatening to damage their literary careers. But Alexie then spent three paragraphs disparaging one of his accusers, whose tweets had opened the floodgates for others, finally saying that he had made “poor decisions,” but that he had never threatened anyone’s career, which would be “completely out of character.” Multiple women contradicted this statement. Did he earn their forgiveness by dismissing their claims?

After being accused by multiple women of masturbating in front of them, the comic Louis C.K. admitted that what they said was true. “There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for,” he wrote. “And I have to reconcile it with who I am.” C.K. at least shouldered his responsibility, and acknowledged the damage he’d done. And while what C.K. did was truly odious, there are also horrifying monsters on the continuum of harassment and abuse, serial violators of bodies and minds. The monsters would also like to be forgiven.

Larry Nassar, the Michigan State doctor to the USA women’s gymnastics teams, was sentenced in January of this year for sexually assaulting a series of girls and women over the course of more than a decade. At least 150 women and girls have come forward; Nassar pleaded guilty to assaulting seven of them. In his written statement, Nassar said that their words had shaken him “to the core” and that he would carry those words for the rest of his days. He also said that an acceptable apology was “impossible to write and convey.” Nassar, too, was asking for absolution. He was admitting to his sins, which makes sense, because by all accounts, he is a faithful Catholic.

Nassar was a catechist and Eucharistic minister at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic church in East Lansing, Michigan. The diocese confirmed that Nassar had completed the mandated “safe environment” training for parishioners who work with children, and it appears he was involved in catechesis with children up until 2016, a year after he was fired by USA gymnastics, after the first wave of victims had come forward. The AP reported in February that a bill inspired by the Nassar scandal that “would retroactively extend the amount of time child victims of sexual abuse have to sue their abusers” was “drawing concerns from the Catholic church,” which worried about the financial implications of giving victims extended time to come forward. The church Nassar belongs to was shattered by abuse, but in this situation, it appears its greatest concern is not the well-being of its victims.

Christians would like to pretend that we understand what forgiveness means. We march into confessionals to be forgiven. We ask our brothers and sisters to forgive us every Sunday. We have Lent and Advent, entire liturgical seasons focused on penitence. Jesus’s own words about forgiveness from Luke are drilled into us in our catechesis: “even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” It is Holy Week as I write this, just a few days from Good Friday, when Jesus pleads with God to forgive his killers “who know not what they do.”

Abusers will emphasize this: they knew not what they did. “I was drunk. I understood the situation differently. I assumed it was consensual. My recollection is different than hers.” And in the context of situations like Larry Nassar’s, Christ’s emphasis on forgiving no matter how many times someone sins against us is nearly impossible to comprehend. Many of those girls were too young to understand they were being sexually violated. They took years to come forward because it took years for them to understand that what happened to them was deeply sick and wrong.

So too does this idea that forgiveness on the part of the victims should be automatic fail in the Catholic church’s own history. At the height of the Boston scandal, Cardinal Law stated that he apologized and begged forgiveness from those “who have suffered from my shortcomings and my mistakes.” Law’s funeral in December of last year, held in the Vatican and in the thick of rising numbers of Me Too accusations, contained no mention of his years of cover-ups of abuse. The presiding cardinal, Angelo Sondano, mentioned only that Law had dedicated his life to the church, but added that “each of us can sometimes be lacking in our mission.” Pope Francis, to the chagrin of many, delivered the benediction over Law’s coffin. A month later, the pope flew to Chile, where he begged forgiveness for the church’s history of abuse under Bishop Barrios, and then, almost immediately, turned around and accused the victims of “calumny.”

The Catholic church wears a Janus face when it comes to forgiveness. It looks to a future where, ideally, abuse has ended and there is nothing to forgive. But it also looks to a past where protecting the institution, its finances and its leadership led to years of silencing, which damaged victims even further. This same Janus face has revealed itself in entertainment, politics, sports, universities, and workplaces, as the sins of harassment and abuse continue to be aired. On the one side, we see a future where abuse and harassment might happen less often thanks to those who have come forward. On the other: millennia of silencing, skepticism, and doubt.

In researching this essay, I found surprisingly little written in Catholic theology about sexual harassment, abuse, or forgiveness. Even after Boston, even after the Magdalene Laundries, after commission after commission, not much has been written about what forgiving abusers might mean. Much more has been written about this by female Protestant theologians, and particularly by female Protestant ethicists from denominations where women have been ordained for some time.

Perhaps having women in leadership positions means that this reckoning with abuse and forgiveness is able to be more of an open conversation. Perhaps, too, those women, many from the first generations to be ordained, had to deal with harassment and systemic misogyny themselves. Perhaps women in their congregations who’d been uncomfortable talking to male pastors about domestic and sexual violence were finally able to open up to these female religious leaders. And perhaps it’s just how pervasive this problem is across every religious denomination, in every part of the country, and in nearly every workplace. An ABC News/Washington Post poll revealed that over half of American women have been sexually harassed, particularly in work environments. The dominant numbers of these women described their emotional state as angry or humiliated. These are not emotional states that easily lead to forgiveness.

In an essay entitled “Love Your Enemy: Sex, Power and Christian Ethics,” Katie Lebaqz writes that the problem of expecting forgiveness is that it fails to understand that abused women “need to operate out of a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion.’” In this mindset, forgiveness can appear to “ignore the role-conditioning or status of men and women in this culture.” Lebaqz writes that forgiveness means “loving your enemy,” not losing “the self or the self’s perspective, for this contradicts the value of survival.” Another part of the problem is that we conceive forgiveness as a kind of sentimentality, when in fact it is an issue of justice, both in recognizing injustice and in redressing it. In Lebaqz’s understanding, forgiveness means that “the enemy remains the enemy,” but victims can “seek a relationship with that group that is a relationship free of injustice.”

For Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, the problem of forgiveness is tied up in the notion of universal sin, which she wrote about in Sojourners in February of this year. In the Christian tradition, Jones writes, sin and sinfulness “pervades all of life.” In terms of male sexual violence, this universal sin “names how some are guilty of perpetrating grave harms, while others bear the direct effects of this sin on their victimized, traumatized bodies and minds.” For Jones, the challenge for Christians is both admitting that the “war against women is real, ongoing, and church-sanctioned,” and understanding that God “rejects this violence as sin and evil and stands beside all those who suffer from it and who fight against it.”

In 1976, Marie Fortune* founded the Faith Trust Institute, which works to help religious leaders address issues of sexual and domestic violence. The Institute is still in operation today, working with interfaith clergy and lay people. In an essay entitled “Preaching Forgiveness?” Fortune frames the issue by first defining what forgiveness is not. According to her, forgiveness is not “condoning or pardoning harmful behavior, which is a sin,” or “healing the wound lightly.” Forgiveness is not “always possible,” and not “an expectation of any degree of future relationship with the person who caused the harm.”

One Catholic theologian who has written on forgiveness and the sexual abuse of women is M. Shawn Copeland of Boston College. In her book Enfleshing Freedom, Copeland, she discusses forgiveness through the lens of slavery, which “rendered black women’s bodies objects of property, of production, of reproduction, of sexual violence.” These women could not forgive their slave masters because “a human subject cannot consent to any treatment or condition that is intended to usurp the transcendental end or purpose for which human beings are divinely created.” For black Christian women in particular, Copeland emphasizes, it is Jesus who does the forgiving on their behalf, because Jesus “does not forget poor, dark, and despised bodies.” He gave his body “in fidelity to the baileia tou theou, the reign of God, which opposes the reign of sin” And he gave his body “for these, for all, for us.” But the understanding that Jesus who does the forgiving is a selective reading. Crucified, Jesus does not look down and forgive those who killed him; his death itself is the forgiveness. The forgiveness is enfleshed in the suffering victim, but the forgiveness must also come from a higher authority.

In this Me Too epoch, that higher authority might be God, but it might also be a slow, gradual shift in the structure of institutions that have smothered the voices of victims. And part of that shift might mean helping men to understand that their requests for forgiveness are a part of their patriarchal privilege. Those who have harassed and abused are allowed to be absolved, and to move on. Sometimes they even move on into positions of great power, as Cardinal Law’s move to Rome after Boston, or the last presidential election, demonstrated.

But perhaps it is time that women stopped forgiving men. Maybe it is not our job to forgive them. While working on this essay, I thought of the work of Sister Helen Prejean. Her decades of work to end the death penalty in America might make one assume she believes death-row inmates should all be forgiven. But this is not the case. Rather, when Prejean describes looking into the eyes of killers and seeing their humanity, she is bringing them to a kind of reconciliation with themselves, with the “transcendental end for which human beings are created,” as Copeland writes. Women do not have to forgive those who rape, abuse, and harass us, because in those acts, in their reduction of our humanity, they deny us a fully lived life. But we can see abusers as sinful, broken, and flawed–and as our fellow human beings.

I never wrote back to my former friend who asked for my forgiveness. But if I had, I would have said this. I do not forgive what he did, but I do not wish him ill: I hope he repairs what is broken about himself, if only so that no more women are hurt by him. I do not forgive the men who’ve grabbed me, pushed me around, groped me, leered at me, made suggestive comments or demanded my body, attention, and time. Nor can I even remember at this point who all of them were; there have been so many over these decades of my life. I do not forgive them, but I do not want them to hurt as much as they hurt any woman, do not want them to feel the guilt, rage, self-blame and self-loathing that so many women feel. Maybe this lack of forgiveness makes me less Christ-like. Maybe it makes me a bad Christian. Or maybe it makes me just as human as these men who hurt women. Just like them, I am capable of inflicting pain. I choose instead to bend my life to avoid doing that as often as possible. This is not forgiveness. But it is what most of us can do, if we try.

#IFTTT #WordPress

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words-for-the-void · 7 years

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DEAR SUGAR, THE RUMPUS ADVICE COLUMN #85: WE CALL THIS A CLUSTERFUCK BY SUGAR

Dear Sugar, I recently had sex with a guy who has a complicated history with a friend of mine. I knew sleeping with him would hurt my friend’s feelings, and so I told her I wouldn’t. She didn’t ask me not to sleep with him, but it was implied. She would make references to “his crush on me” and once asked him if we had had a threesome with this other girl. Long story short, I broke my promise. I meant what I said to my friend at the time, Sugar, but I failed. The man in question is a good guy. I enjoyed spending time with him and let’s just say my conjugal bed has been rather empty of late. My desire outweighed the potential hurt I knew my actions would cause. The guy and my friend have had many conversations since I slept with him, and they appear to have made up, whereas my friendship with her is still on shaky ground. I think it will normalize eventually, but I already feel like our friendship is something that’s not that important to her. I don’t even know if it’s all that important to me either. Very recently, my step-dad had a heart attack. It was his second. It made me think about gravity and consequence and trivialities, and that if this one night of problematic sex forever alters or negates all the other ways I’ve been a good friend to her, then so be it. If that’s the case, our friendship wasn’t meant to last, and I have more important things to worry about. But at the same time I can’t help but wonder if I am losing my humanity a little. Because today, an ex/friend of mine basically said she hadn’t completely forgiven me for hurting her six years ago. I cheated on her like the dumb 22-year-old I was, and I have apologized a thousand times since then. We weren’t friends for a while, but we became good friends again eventually. Until today, I was operating under the assumption that we were okay. To hear her say she relates to me differently, that she withholds information from me because of how I behaved years ago, makes me profoundly sad and angry. Forgiveness isn’t something piecemeal to me, but clearly I am upsetting people in ways that have staying power. What does it mean if someone forgives you, but never forgets? I feel both horrible and stubborn. And I don’t know how much of this anger is due to acknowledging potentially ugly truths about myself—that I value desire at the expense of my friendships; that I can’t seem to learn from past mistakes; that I am a person others deem untrustworthy. The last one stings the worst, and is a doubt I expressed to the guy shortly after our tryst. “She never trusted you,” he said, which was a confirmation of my fears, if not a self-fulfilling prophecy. I would probably have done the same thing, given another opportunity. And I don’t know if that should worry me or if it makes me some kind of pleasure addict or just a terrible friend. I don’t regret my recent behavior, but should I? Am I throwing away solid friendships for stupid sexual gratification? Part of me feels selfish even writing to you, because I know you’ll call me honey bun and make me feel better when I don’t deserve it. Friend Or Foe *** Dear Sugar, I have two friends who I love dearly. One is a man I’ve known since we were teenagers. A few years ago, he and I started a brief non-monogamous romance. He then fell in love with another woman, who he rightly chose over me. Though I knew we were meant to be friends instead of romantic partners, my feelings for him ran deep, so I was crushed. Eventually the pain subsided, and we became closer as friends. The other friend is a woman I admire greatly as a writer and as a person. She’s witty, sexy, brilliant. We support each other through romantic traumas and laugh constantly whenever we’re together. She was there to comfort me when my male friend told me he had met someone else. She sat with me as I unabashedly cried in public in the middle of downtown San Francisco. Recently, these two friends met and hit it off. He started joking about sleeping with her. (He is single now.) I told my male friend that this idea made me feel uncomfortable, but he dismissed my worries. I didn’t press the issue because my female friend swore that she would never sleep with him. She said this to me, repeatedly, emphatically, even when I didn’t ask her. While I was over my attraction to this guy, the history was still a little too fresh, and I wasn’t finished processing the heartbreak. She saw how it was still affecting me. I trusted her. But it happened anyway. They slept together. When my male friend told me, I got very upset; I yelled at him for the way he’d dismissed my feelings in the past. We talked on several very long phone calls, and by the end of it I felt heard, valued and respected. He also forced me to come to terms with my jealousy and lack of claim I have over others’ actions. Since then, I’ve had to do a lot of hard looking at my own insecurity and desire for control. Two weeks later, when my female friend apologized for breaking the promise she had made to me, I told her I no longer thought I’d had a right to that promise in the first place, even though it hurt and angered me when she broke it. She had done what she felt was right for her, and now I had to figure out what was right for me: taking time and space. Part of me felt at peace with this conclusion. But by that point, I also felt so emotionally exhausted by the whole situation, and so disgusted with myself, I wasn’t even sure I deserved an apology from anyone. Sugar, I’m conflicted. I know what they did wasn’t morally wrong; I’ve felt desire before for the exes of friends, and the friends of exes. These two friends have a relationship that’s independent of me. Still, I was so hurt. And the worst part is, I’m ashamed of my hurt. I’m ashamed of the jealousy I didn’t know was still in me, even eighteen months after the romance ended. I want to be the person who can gracefully take joy in the fact that two people I love were able to share some sexy fun. I want to believe that the hurt is all in my possessive, competitive little brain, so I can just change myself and get over it. All I do now is beat myself up, for whatever choice I make. My internal compass on this matter is so broken. I need your wise, soothing words. Love, Triangled Dear Women, A couple of years ago the Baby Sugars got into a vicious fight over the decapitated head of a black-haired plastic princess. My son was all but frothing at the mouth. My daughter screamed so hard for so long I thought the neighbors were going to call the cops. The decapitated head in question was about the size of a gumball, its neck not a proper neck, but rather an opening into which a tiny interchangeable torso was meant to be snapped. This torso was either the ancient female Egyptian my daughter was holding in her hand or the sultry skirted girl pirate my son was holding in his. Hence the uproar. Neither of them could be convinced to relinquish their claim on the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess, no matter how gently or sternly or maniacally I explained that they could take turns, each of them attaching the head to “their torso” for short periods of time. Likewise, they refused to be consoled by any one of the countless items that clutter the room they share—not the bin of agates or the wooden daggers; not the stuffed kittens or alphabet flashcards; not the foam swords or half-trashed markers; not the ballerinas or Roman warriors or monkeys or fairy statuettes or fake golden coins or movie-inspired action figures or unicorns or race cars or dinosaurs or tiny spiral-bound notebooks or any other damn thing in the whole motherloving universe but the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess. It’s mine, my daughter shrieked. I was playing with it first, countered my son. It’s special to me, wailed my daughter. She plays with my special toys all the time, my son bellowed. I talked and reasoned and made suggestions that soon became commands, but really, ultimately, there was nothing to be done. There was one head and two torsos. The indisputable fact of that was like a storm we had to ride out until all the trees were blown down. I begin with this allegorical snippet from Chez Sugar not because I think your individual and joint struggles regarding your friendship are as infantile as a tussle over a toy, but rather because I think it’s instructive to contemplate in essential terms our desire to have not only what is ours, but what also belongs to those we love, and not only because we want those things for ourselves, but because we want the other person not to have them. That fervor is age-old and endless and a gumball-size piece at the core of what we’re grappling with here and I invite you both to ponder it. We all have a righteous claim to the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess. We believe she is ours alone to hold. We refuse to let her go. Before we begin disentangling your situation in earnest, I’ll say right out that I’m quite sure if the two of you continue talking silently to yourselves about this crappy and weird thing that happened with the man I’m going to go ahead and call The Foxy Fellow you’re going to regret it. And more than that, you’re going to hatch a whole slew of increasingly distorted beliefs about what went down and what that means and who did and said what and it will not only make you miserable and sad and bitter, it will also rob you of a friend who you really should be sitting on a porch with ten years in the future, laughing about what knuckleheads you were back in the day. You both did something you basically know wasn’t so great. Your desires and fears and failings and unreasonable expectations and things you won’t admit to yourselves clicked into each other as neatly as a plastic head does into a plastic torso and when you put them together you both got pinched. The same thing happened to you from different points of view. With whom should our sympathies lie? On which woman’s shoulders should the greatest blame be placed? In what directions do the arrows of your narratives flow? How best do you find your way out of this place? These are the questions I asked myself as I pondered your letters. Every time I tried to straighten the stories out in my head they got all tangled up instead. I made charts and lists with bullet points. I took a piece of paper and literally drew a map. I turned your Foxy Fellow imbroglio into a pair of mathematical equations of the sort I never learned how to do properly in school (which utterly frees me to use them for my own whimsical literary purposes). Here’s how they look. Friend or Foe: “I solemnly swear that I will never fuck The Foxy Fellow because my friend still has tender and territorial feelings for him and I don’t want to hurt her” + [I am a caring person and fucking The Foxy Fellow would compel me to question the sort of person I believe myself to be] + fucked The Foxy Fellow anyway = eek/ugh2 x [but perhaps, when I really think about it, my friendship with this woman is “not that important”] ÷ and yet there was that time I sat with her in downtown San Francisco while she bawled unabashedly > so – fuck this shit! + how dare she be mad at me! + I was a good to friend to her in every other way! + The Foxy Fellow has not even been her boyfriend for, like, EVER! + I am attracted to him! + he is attracted to me! + I’m not even 30 and my vagina is growing cob webs! + who the hell is she to say who The Foxy Fellow and I get to have sex with in the first place? < I am a terrible person and a selfish sex fiend [will the damning ex-girlfriend please present her testimony to the court?] ÷ cheated, yes + lied, yes + to ever be trusted or forgiven, no, never, not by any woman in any time for any reason whatsoever = you know what? Fuck those bitches! + I’d totally do The Foxy Fellow again! ≠ Except. Well. [Damn] Triangled: “The Foxy Fellow is a wonderful person” + [we “broke up,” though we were never really together, never monogamous, even though he crushed my heart in this really hard-to-exactly-define-way for which I do not fault him because I didn’t have expectations—why would I have expectations? etc] ÷ it’s pretty clear to me that he wants to fuck my lovely woman friend who watched me bawl unabashedly over him in downtown San Francisco and this makes me feel like puking2 + [what is the meaning of monogamy? what is love? do we ever owe anyone anything when it comes to sex? why do I feel like puking if The Foxy Fellow is “only my friend”?] = accept adamant and profuse promises from my lovely woman friend regarding her plans to not fuck The Foxy Fellow x [sisterhood!] – allow The Foxy Fellow to brush me off when I express my wish he not fuck my lovely woman friend = cry/rage when they fail to not fuck + [how could they? she promised! I thought she was my friend! he never listened to me!] < long, difficult, ultimately satisfying conversation with The Foxy Fellow that makes me feel oddly closer to him [and worse about my puny, insecure, control freak, jealous, uncool, dumbass, competitive, needy self2] x short, unproductive, decidedly cool conversation with my lovely woman friend [doesn’t it seem like she should be sorrier than this?/what right do I have to an apology? since when do I get to say who fucks whom?/but she promised!] ÷ fantasize that my lovely woman friend will take a long-term job in Korea + listen to my generation’s equivalent of Lisa Germano’s “Cancer of Everything” repeatedly while huddled into the pathetic ball of myself + [alternate with trying to cheerfully compose the phrase “to share some sexy fun” in relation to those two selfish assholes] ≠ Except. Well. [Damn] In the math ignorant world of Sugarland, we call this a clusterfuck. You are both wrong. You are both right. You both know you can do better than you did. The fact that you failed to do so equals nothing unless you learn something from this. So let’s learn it, sweet peas. Triangled, if it really hurts and enrages you that The Foxy Fellow fucks a friend of yours he isn’t your friend and you should not conduct yourself with him as such. He is your ex, the love you’ve yet to get over for reasons you may not be able to explain or justify even to yourself, the man who is an absolute no-go zone for anyone who’s even remotely in your inner circle. Lose the but-we’re-just-friends-now/free-love mumbo jumbo and own up to what you actually feel: if The Foxy Fellow is fucking anyone, you don’t want to be hanging out with her. Not yet. Not now. Maybe not ever. At the very least, heal your heart before you go introducing The Foxy Fellow to your friends, especially those you’d describe as “witty, sexy, brilliant.” And then brace yourself. Though it may seem that Friend or Foe’s choice to break her promise and fuck The Foxy Fellow is what caused all this pain, her actions are not at the root of your sorrow. What’s at the root is the fact that you failed to recognize and honor your own boundaries. You tried to have it both ways. You wanted to be the woman who could be friends with a man she’s not over, but you are not that woman. I understand why you want to be her, darling. She’s one cool cat. She’s the star of the show. She doesn’t take anything personally. But you are not her. And that’s okay. You are your own fragile, strong, sweet, searching self. You can be sad a guy you sort of fell for didn’t fall for you. You don’t have to be a good sport. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay with sharing your interesting and beautiful friends with The Foxy Fellow, even if you feel like a puny asshole not being okay with it. You can say no. But the thing is, you have to say it. You have to be the woman who stands up and says it. And you have to say it to the right person too. Not to the lovely friend who can’t possibly keep the promises she’s made to you while swimming in the shared waters of your wishy-washy ache for affirmation and orgasms, but to the man himself. Yes, The Foxy Fellow. The one who is, but who is not, your friend. You have to live with the uncomfortable reality that it’s from him—not her!—that you need time and space. And then you have to take it, hard as it is, come what may. Friend or Foe, you made a choice you knew would hurt someone who trusted you—a choice, it’s worth noting, you explicitly vowed not to make—and afterwards you justified that choice with reasons you could’ve more thoughtfully discussed with her beforehand. This makes you neither “a pleasure addict” nor “a terrible friend.” It makes you someone who did what most people would do in this situation at this moment in your life—a woman who took what she wanted instead of pondering what she needed. You are at once blameless in this and entirely responsible. You were sort of set up by Triangled and you were also basically a jerk to her. The reason all that other junk came up in your post-Foxy Fellow contemplations—(your ex, your feelings of being eternally punished for having wronged her, your sense that your friend never trusted you either)—is that, contrary to your claim that you don’t regret what you did, you know you could have done this differently, better, or not at all. What’s at stake here is not only your friendship with Triangled, but also your own integrity. You promised you would not hurt someone you cared for. You hurt her anyway. What do you make of that? What would you like to take forward from this, honey bun? Do you want to throw up your hands and say oh well or do you dare to allow this experience to alter your view? We all like to think we’re right about what we believe about ourselves and what we often believe are only the best, most moral things—ie: of course I would never fuck The Foxy Fellow because that would hurt my friend! We like to pretend that our generous impulses come naturally. But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first. It’s the reason we have to fight so viciously over the decapitated head of the black-haired plastic princess before we learn how to play nice; the reason we have to get burned before we understand the power of fire; the reason our most meaningful relationships are so often those that continued beyond the very juncture at which they came the closest to ending. I hope that you’ll do that, dear women, even if it takes you some time to stagger forward. I don’t know if your friendship is built to last a lifetime, but I know the game is worth the candle. I can see you on that ten-years-off porch. Yours, Sugar

#cheryl strayed #tiny beautiful things #we call this a clusterfuck #about shane #about AJ #about me and my hurt

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