#some of you will never have to deal with hayfever and wearing a mask and i am so jealous of you

[c-is-for-circinate]

Thinking today about viruses, allergies, oppression, and anti culture.

(under a cut because WHOOOPS this got long)

Racism is a virus. Homophobia, transphobia, sexism, antisemitism, ableism, etc etc etc, they are all viruses--a topic that many of us have learned a great deal about in the past year. They are ideas, yes, not literal physical diseases, but the analogy holds up. They are infectious, and often spread from person to person without anyone involved realizing they have it. They can sit latent for years, never showing up because the carrier never finds themselves in a situation where the issue comes up, only to flare up and take over when you least expect it. And they mutate, just like the flu, just like the common cold; they put on a new jacket every year and slide in undetected yet again, slip past our internal sensors and bury themselves in our brains until we go in and deal with them as best as we can.

One more thing we've learned about viruses this year is how we can fight them. The viruses of oppression are a little different because they tend to hurt the people around their carriers even more than the people they've infected (although let's talk about internalized anything-ism sometime), but in a lot of ways the attack is the same. You treat the symptoms even when you don't know how to cure the disease: we invest in respirators, antiviral treatments, hospitals; we create and sponsor programs to help those who've been hurt by various oppressions, we uplift our neighbors, we try to keep people safe from violences both big and small. You work to stop the spread: we wear our goddamn masks, we stay home when we can; we train ourselves not to say racist shit that might foster a culture of hate, we stop that guy in our office from making rape jokes, we make slurs unacceptable. You pay attention to your immune system: we seek medical attention when we experience symptoms, we get COVID tests, we talk to our doctors before the symptoms get deadly; we protest and we pay attention to the people who do, we take them seriously when they tell us that something is wrong.

You vaccinate. We train ourselves and our immune systems to recognize the thing that infects us, the thing that we fear. We try to teach our children about history, bit by little bit, on fragments of dead violence the same way we train our bodies on dead virus shells, so that someday they'll recognize the live disease when they see it. We learn about slavery and Jim Crow and the Holocaust. We tell kids bedtime stories about why hitting and bullying is bad, before we ever start teaching them the specific shapes that violence so often takes. As we get older, as we get stronger, we learn about the living stuff, all the new forms that same old virus has mutated into; we educate ourselves, we listen, we read. Just like vaccines, of course, there are anti-vaxxers and denialists shouting about how racism and sexism are already dead and they don't need any propoganda besides Fox News. Hell, just like anti-maskers, there are plenty of people screaming about how political correctness is ruining the world and they demand their right to spread their virus to anyone they can. Often these are the same people.

But we try. And make no mistake, we all of us are already infected, and just like a real virus, once you've caught it once it probably won't ever go away again--but we can prepare, and we can try to lessen the severity of our cases, and we can support our immune systems of activists and protesters and our own internal sense of this is wrong, and we can work, bit by bit, if not towards eradication (not yet, not in this world, but maybe someday in another), then at least towards control.

And then there's allergies.

An allergy is what happens when a human body's own immune system freaks out over an enemy that wasn't particularly harmful in the first place. All our immune defenses--those precious immune defenses, which work so hard to protect us against all those viral, deadly ideas--go screaming into high gear. All of that fear and fury and attack power gets brought to bear all at once, against a bit of pollen or bee venom or cat dander or peanuts, and your body is left itchy and runny-nosed and gasping--sometimes literally--as it tries to keep up. Allergies are miserable. Sometimes they're life-threatening. And the biggest danger isn't the foreign agent that triggers the allergic reaction; it's the immune system trying to fight it in the first place.

Which, yes, brings us to anti culture--but not JUST anti culture. It's a good example, a little internet-centric microcosm of the same force that drives progressives to tear bloody shreds out of moderate liberal politicians. Hell, it's the same force that enables both TERFs and the Capitol rioters. It's a combination of an immune system that points in the wrong direction, flagging the wrong thing as bad, terrifying, danger, NO, and a freaked-out response that can manifest as anything from mildly irritating to absolutely deadly.

To be clear, I am not by any means equating the scale or even the source of these things, any more than hayfever is the same as anaphylactic shock. Likewise, the sources are different. Sometimes, a disease can infect an immune system and point it in the wrong direction. (Terror of the other is the absolute cornerstone of white nationalism, and when that terror gets triggered by a harmless environmental condition like, god forbid, other people asking for rights, the allergy response can be deadly.) Other times, it's the other way around. Our internal immune systems, so well trained to protect ourselves and those around us from the insidious viral ravages of prejudice and oppression, start seeing traces of it everywhere.

And they freak out. And we suffer for it.

We talk a lot of well-deserved shit about TERFs, but it's useful to remember how much their nastiness feels to them like activism. Their immune system, trained and primed and sensitized over years of exposure to misogyny and sexism, catches the tiniest whiff of something that might seem at some point to have possibly been taken for male, and freaks out, because why is that trying to get into our system. Never mind that they're wrong. An immune system that flips out over penicillin is wrong, too. It's still trying to help, and it's still doing more harm than good trying it.

So bringing this back around to anti culture, which was absolutely where I started thinking about all of this this morning: anti culture, the terror of porn and the attempt by antis to protect themselves an other people from sexual content, is an immune response. It is a trained immune response, in people who have been taught and re-taught again and again that rape culture is a dangerous insidious virus that should be fought at all costs. And, right, there's more than a bit of 'the sexism virus infected this immune system and reprogrammed it to fight itself' involved here, but look, we are all of us infected with all of the viruses at least a little bit everywhere. If we tried to direct our immune systems to rip every last shred of -ism out of every last bit of us, we'd rip ourselves apart. Which is exactly the problem.

Porn, in and of itself, is natural. As natural as environmental pollen, and living near dogs and cats, and eating wheat or nuts or citrus fruit. It's even healthy, for a whole host of reasons that belong in another essay. And citric acid and nut-based proteins and whole grains are nutritious, and pets are physically and psychologically helpful, and being exposed to lots of different environmental substances as a child can actually help train your immune system in the first place. Porn can help us figure out what we like. It can help us figure out what we don't like. And while the processes that create it are sometimes unethical and awful, we don't condemn all dogs because puppy mills and dogfighting rings exist, even if we do have dog allergies.

What we see in anti culture is often a good-faith attempt on the part of antis to attack and subdue an environmental trigger that they read as dangerous. It's a panic attack over something that is by nature harmless or mildly harmful, blown out of proportion by the very instincts that are supposed to keep us safe. It's the response of an immune system that's been taught over years and years, by everyone from parents to school systems to the activists they look up to, that negative stimulus is to be feared, avoided, and fought. Of COURSE they're going to freak out.

And of course, early exposure to controlled amounts of allergens can help prevent later allergies from developing. Of course when kids are raised with abstinence-only education, sheltered from the very concept of sex, they're going to grow up allergic to it. (Of course they're going to try to protect other kids from the same, like worried mothers who refuse to let peanuts or wheat products or dirt near their precious babies, whose kids grow up with a whole suite of allergic triggers because their bodies never learned what was okay in the first place.) And no, that doesn't mean we hand pornography to ten-year-olds any more than we should give raw honey to an infant--but of course if our culture refuses to introduce kids to the fact that sex and desire and the inside of their own brain can be messy and silly and kinky and downright weird, we're going to have a higher rate of allergic reaction to the entire concept in adults.

I wish I had a better answer for what to do with understanding that this is what's going through so many people's brains. The best I have is a prescription for allergy-sufferers, who probably haven't read this far through this wordspew of an essay in the first place--but we all get a little hayfever once in a while, and we all sometimes run into content that makes us angry. So some thoughts on how to deal with metaphorical allergic reactions, inspired by the ways we deal with literal ones?

First: we recognize that what is happening is an allergy. The thing we're reacting to might be gross, or irritating, or even unpleasant, but the danger is not and never has been the thing itself. Whether it's triggering a response because of its similarity to an actively dangerous pathogen, or our immune system just doesn't like it, our aversion to one kind of story or another universally says more about us than about it. Luckily, we have a lot more control over our social responses than our biological ones!!! If vocal activism is our sociocultural immune system firing itself up to fight an infection that may or may not exist, then we get to tell our metaphorical white blood cells to stand down. We get to decide.

Second: we get some space. The funny thing about allergies is, while early exposure to allergens can help prevent them, re-exposing yourself to dangerous allergens after you've already developed a reaction to them can make them worse. Anaphylaxis is always more likely after someone's experienced it the first time. Repeated exposure to triggers, whether biological or psychological, can make the effects worse. So stop exposing yourself.

If something makes your throat itch every time you eat it, stop eating it. If something makes you mad every time you read it, stop reading it. Obviously this can be easier said than done in a world that's a lot worse about warning labels on stories than ingredients labels on foods, but that's why fic tags exist. And: sometimes, the croissant is delicious enough that we decide we're willing to suffer through the way the almonds make us feel, just this once. Sometimes the ship or the characterization or, hell, those other kinks that we really like are tasty enough that we'll put up with the trope we hate. We're allowed to do that. But we do it knowing there will be consequences, and we don't blame the baker when they hit.

We also don't have to blame ourselves. It sucks to be allergic to shellfish when all your friends are raving about the new seafood place. But that's not our fault any more than it's theirs.

Third: sometimes, if we need one, we go to the doctor. Or a therapist. Yes, really.

Not because there's anything really wrong with an aversion or even mild breakouts of hives, annoyance, and bitching in your friends' DMs--but it sure isn't pleasant, and sometimes your doctor might have a better solution than 'avoid it and take a Benadryl' that makes you feel a little better in the long run. And sometimes, it's not a mild breakout. Sometimes it's the kind of story that lingers with you for days, makes your skin crawl; sometimes your throat swells up and it gets hard to breathe. Sometimes we get angry enough about something we've read that we can't stand down our immune system, don't want to stop ourselves from writing that angry comment, that tumblr post, that abuse report to the mods for something that didn't actually break any rules. And that's dangerous, because when our immune response can flare out of control like that, we don't always know where and when it will happen next, and the risk of what we'll do if it happens gets way, way higher.

Sometimes it really is worth getting a second opinion. Sometimes you need somebody to tell you, "actually, it is not normal to get tingly and sweaty every time you eat potatoes." There are ways to train your brain and leash your white blood cells that I sure as heck am not expert enough to address. There are, it turns out, ways to feel better. There are ways to mitigate the damage your own well-meaning defense mechanisms might do to yourself or other people along the way.

And: we can take a deep breath when someone with an allergy to something we've baked, something we've written, something we like, is lashing out trying to protect themselves and everyone around them from something they've registered as a threat. Of course they're wrong. Yes, we told them there were tree nuts in the brownies ahead of time; yes, they chose to eat them anyway. But it can be worth reminding them and ourselves that there's a difference between "this thing is toxic" and "this harmless thing has driven my own system into a defensive response that sure makes it feel like I've been poisoned." And it can be worth reminding ourselves as well as them that sometimes, that difference can be really hard to spot.

#driveby meta attack #I guess #whoops I essay'ed #this was not meant to get this long #welp #anti discourse day

[i-am-very-very-tired]

← Viva Voice Forums » Hayfever Is Driving Me Crackers « PrevNext » Guest: katyjay_* 03 Jun 2005 I've just come back from a singing lesson biggrin.gif . As always, it was great, but....the outside of my nose was itchy, my chin itched, the inside of my ears itched, my throat was full of grot and if I breathed too deeply I started coughing sad.gif . In other words, the hayfever season has started with a vengeance mad.gif . Other than industrial strength antihistamines (which leave me dozy so not safe to drive or fit to sing huh.gif ) does anyone have any tips for dealing with seasonal allergic rhinitis? unsure.gif How do you cope with it and singing? Or should I take a break until November ohmy.gif ?? Cheers Katyjay Guest: nicki_flute_* 03 Jun 2005 QUOTE(katyjay @ Jun 3 2005, 10:38 AM) I've just come back from a singing lesson biggrin.gif . As always, it was great, but....the outside of my nose was itchy, my chin itched, the inside of my ears itched, my throat was full of grot and if I breathed too deeply I started coughing sad.gif . In other words, the hayfever season has started with a vengeance mad.gif . Other than industrial strength antihistamines (which leave me dozy so not safe to drive or fit to sing huh.gif ) does anyone have any tips for dealing with seasonal allergic rhinitis? unsure.gif How do you cope with it and singing? Or should I take a break until November ohmy.gif ?? Cheers Katyjay I use NeoClarityn which works well, luckily I am not too bad yet, just sneezing etc, but usually my eyes are really bad, and I'd prefer them not to be in the middle of exams. I find the same with playing the flute, I have to keep blowing my nose, and yes if you take too big a breath you do start coughing. How does affect you worst? (e.g you can get eye drops, and sprays and things) Guest: DomRUK_* 03 Jun 2005 I used to get hayfever quite a bit, but when I was being prayed for with church friends, I got the word "pollution" about it (I used to cycle a lot), so I started wearing a cycle mask, and it helped a great deal. I still try to be careful not to get too much pollution into the car through the cool air blowers too. Guest: Emma C_* 03 Jun 2005 Sounds like you ming need to visit the doctor. I used to get asthema wih it - all cleared up now, but he have me two inhalers, and it stopped the coughing, especially at night. Hayfever is soooo miserable. Guest: nicki_flute_* 03 Jun 2005 Yes, I went to the doctors, they might be able to give you some stronger, non drowsy stuff, that you can only get by prescription. Guest: uberzoldat_* 03 Jun 2005 My hayfever is usually terrible too. I have found in the past that most medication is useless. My advice to you would be cut your dairy intake. Also I am trying Flaxseed Oil, which is supposed to be very good. I will let you know if it works for me. Doesn't it just drive you nuts when the back of your throat and inside of ears itch? Guest: nicki_flute_* 03 Jun 2005 QUOTE(uberzoldat @ Jun 3 2005, 05:47 PM) My hayfever is usually terrible too. I have found in the past that most medication is useless. My advice to you would be cut your dairy intake. Also I am trying Flaxseed Oil, which is supposed to be very good. I will let you know if it works for me. Doesn't it just drive you nuts when the back of your throat and inside of ears itch? I don't usually get that, but it sounds awful! I'd want to itch them!! Guest: thouston_* 03 Jun 2005 I've only started getting it in the last few years - very unfair. I take over the counter stuff which controls it at the beginning and end of the season, but for july-August it's just a case of 'no top notes'. Yes, I agree that the itching inside throat/ears/nose is about as nasty as it gets. You feel like you want to insert pipe-cleaners to scratch it... Guest: uberzoldat_* 03 Jun 2005 QUOTE(thouston @ Jun 3 2005, 07:07 PM) Yes, I agree that the itching inside throat/ears/nose is about as nasty as it gets. You feel like you want to insert pipe-cleaners to scratch it... I've been thinking about several cocktail sticks selotaped together. I'm not sure how it affects my singing. I have been singing for less than a year, but my voice has on and off days according to how high the pollen count is, so I guess singing is out of the question for the next two months or so. Guest: Emma C_* 03 Jun 2005 Does hayfever / the thought of winter colds determine when people might apply for exams? I don't get hayfever now, but think twice about doing an exam in the winter. What happens if singers should get a cold before the exam? Guest: katyjay_* 04 Jun 2005 Very seriously, folks, don't EVER put anything in your ears or down your throat, regardless of how much they itch. For the throat, I find I can get temporary relief just before singing by drinking very cold sparkling (not still) mineral water - but not so much of it that it makes you burp, of course blink.gif - and the effect doesn't last long. For the itchy face, eyes etc, washing with very cold water helps temporarily as well, so I do that before I sing if it's hayfever time. But both of these are temporary, and tend to wear off over the course of about an hour (which is what happened yesterday). I'm on fairly strong antihistamines already, and don't know how much more I can do to cope with the irritation. I suppose hayfever, colds and snuffles are an occupational hazard for any singer. If you feel that are going down with a cold just before an exam, as much as possible stop practising or talking to save your voice and drink gallons of hot water laced with lemon juice and chopped-up ginger root. Quite often I find that a cold won't actually kick in until the day after the big performance, when it hits hard! That's what happened to me last winter - I finally succumbed to a cold the day after my ATCL exam, at which point I lost my voice completely, and couldn't sing in my choir's Christmas concert sad.gif Ho hum! Cheers Katyjay Guest: nicki_flute_* 04 Jun 2005 QUOTE(katyjay @ Jun 4 2005, 08:28 AM) For the throat, I find I can get temporary relief just before singing by drinking very cold sparkling (not still) mineral water - but not so much of it that it makes you burp, of course blink.gif - and the effect doesn't last long. For the itchy face, eyes etc, washing with very cold water helps temporarily as well, so I do that before I sing if it's hayfever time. But both of these are temporary, and tend to wear off over the course of about an hour (which is what happened yesterday). I'm on fairly strong antihistamines already, and don't know how much more I can do to cope with the irritation. Hmm, maybe there is a cream or something, you sound like the pollen really irritates your skin. Have you seen your doctor recently? Does anyone know where to get a pollen forecast from, as the BBC one no longer works for me. Oooh, I have just thought, if you suffer badly from hayfever, you can get injections, which are supposed to work well, maybe see your doctor about this one. Guest: uberzoldat_* 04 Jun 2005 QUOTE(katyjay @ Jun 4 2005, 09:28 AM) Very seriously, folks, don't EVER put anything in your ears or down your throat, regardless of how much they itch. Yes, I will reiterate this. Of course I would never poke anything in ears nose throat, etc. Very dangerous. After I sang a lot in one go recently, I lost my voice the next day and didn't get it back properly for about 2 months. dry.gif As for hayfever, I just whinge about mine and don't take any prescribed medication. Guest: nicki_flute_* 04 Jun 2005 Maybe you should take some medication smile.gif Guest: uberzoldat_* 04 Jun 2005 I use flaxseed oil, but I refuse to use prescribed medication that has been rammed down some poor animal's throat first.

#Singing class