#this post is definitely US centric or Western centric but like that’s largely intentional this time around

[joshuadunshua]

[Image ID: a cropped image of an excerpt from “The Will to Change” by bell hooks. Various spots are highlighted in different colors. Beginning from the first full sentence, the paragraph reads, “He was not interested in forgiving him or understanding the circumstances that had shaped and influenced his dad’s life, either in his childhood or in his working life as a military man.” The following paragraph reads, “In the early years of our relationship he was extremely critical of male domination of women and children. Although he did not use the word ‘patriarchy,’ he understood its meaning and he opposed it. His gentle, quiet manner often led folks to ignore him, counting him among the weak and the powerless. By the age of thirty he began to assume a more macho persona, embracing the dominator model that he had once critiqued. Donning the mantle of patriarch, he gained greater respect and visibility. More women were drawn to him. He was noticed more in public spheres. His criticism of male domination ceased. And indeed he begin to mouth patriarchal rhetoric, saying the kind of sexist stuff that would have appalled him in the past.” The last paragraph is cut off, the top which is visible reads, “These changes in his thinking and behavior were triggered by his desire to be accepted and affirmed in a patriarchal workplace and rationalized by his desire to get ahead. His story is not unusual.” End image ID]

Trans mascs that “speak out” against transandrophobia/anti-transmasculinity/transmisandry/antimasculism/whatever word of the month they’ve forced us to coin, I need you to see yourself in this. This is you. This is you leaning into the patriarchal role of “protectors of the poor weak permanently victimized women,” this is you leaning into the patriarchal role of “ignore your pain, ignore your emotional distress, ignore your psychological needs, stuff it deep down inside and suck it up.” This is you enforcing patriarchal (and therefore also white supremacist) attitudes about gender. This is you learning to shift how you operate under the “logic” of a white supremacist, capitalist patriarchal system so that you can get and maintain access to what little scraps of privilege the system will give you for your conformity.

You cannot apply “logic” to oppressions—it is not a math equation you can solve for. It is not internally consistent.

(And when I say logic, I mean formal logic, I mean mathematical logic, I mean specifically Western conceptualizations of logic.)

You can’t simply state that “men don’t face oppression for being men because that then logically means [something untrue about women’s oppression] would be the case and it’s not.” Oppression is inherently illogical. To assume it operates on a truly definable and fully understandable logic is to suggest there’s a “good” reason for its existence. Which if you examine that for just a moment, you find it also then suggests that there is truth behind how oppression works. Or rather, that oppressed people did some thing or are some way that deserves oppression in response.

White supremacy doesn’t operate on any logical basis. Patriarchy doesn’t operate on any logical basis. They weren’t constructed to be logical, they were hardly “constructed” at all. They came about specifically to uphold and maintain powerful people’s access to power. To call the systems “constructed” is almost to give people too much credit.

Perhaps at one point “white supremacy” was a very specific spark in the mind of quite a number of powerful fair skinned Western Europeans, (though many would understandably point out that white supremacy existed well before it was made explicit), but to suggest that white supremacy as it exists now, as a self-perpetuating system that is able to chug away, an engine for capitalism built and sustained on the exploitation and slaveability of Black bodies, was consciously and carefully designed to operate only within specific bounds that we can define and uncover? That’s trying to use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house.

Trying to equate the operation of white supremacy with patriarchy, or any system of oppression with any other system of oppression (though you really do see this most often with people equating racism with sexism) similarly does not work because they are not organized logically. They are not separable entities, either. It is true that there are common elements to different oppressions (see: Suzanne Pharr, bell hooks, Paulo Freire) and it is true that the different systems are interlocked and work together to hold it all up (see: Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, Andrea Smith) and it is true that they impact people at different intersections of oppressive systems uniquely and dynamically (see: Kimberlé Crenshaw, Jennifer Nash, Bonnie Thornton Dill & Ruth Enid Zambrana) and the systems themselves intersect and interact in different ways to produce unique effects which are dynamic across time and space and context (see: Cathy J. Cohen, Patricia Hill Collins, Rita Kaur Dhamoon).

At the end of the day, too, this whole conversation is also excruciatingly Western-centric, and most often Americentric. The white trans mascs (and any other white queers) decrying the concept that men could ever be oppressed for their being men, that men’s experiences of oppression could ever be shaped by their manhood (or their proximity to it), betray their ignorance to men’s experiences outside of their specific version of Western patriarchy. It betrays their understanding of patriarchy, white supremacy, and feminism as having been wholly informed by white radical feminists who appropriate the language of Black feminism while maintaining essentialist perspectives that reify and protect the same patriarchy they want to critique. As though patriarchy is just about men holding power over women and not also about men holding power over other men, not also about women’s complicity in maintaining and perpetuating it, not also about Western nations holding power over the Global South, not also about kinship organization, not about nationalism, not about colonialism, not about international and transnational politics, not about capitalist globalization.

I suppose this turned into something much bigger than it was originally meant to be, but I have fucking had it. I am fed up with white trans mascs from Western countries whose understanding of feminism is stalled at the stage where they’ve learned that white neoliberal feminism is bad because it’s not anticapitalist or intersectional enough but they haven’t actually learned what the fuck that criticism means because they think or behave as though “intersectional” is just another word for “diverse,” which they also maintain a neoliberal understanding of. I am also fucking heartbroken for all the trans mascs who are willing to lean into this patriarchal role where they close off their own emotions and dismiss their own problems and downplay the reality of being a transgender person at their particular intersection all because they’ve been convinced that men’s problems aren’t real problems, that the oppression they experience because they are transmasculine people is nothing to do with their masculinity or association with or proximity to (and subsequent distance from) manhood.

To claim that there is nothing unique about transmasculine experiences of oppression at the intersection of trans identity and gender is to willfully ignore reality in quite the same way that transphobes do when what they protest is “trans ideology.” Trans people will exist whether you personally believe our gender claims or not, right? So to fail to incorporate us into your reality is to have the temper tantrum of a toddler all because the world and its people aren’t as simple and uniform as you wanted them to be. Similarly, transmasculine people will experience oppression at this intersection regardless of what you want to call it, but to demand that we capitulate to language that flattens our experiences along the lines of either being transgender (it’s literally just transphobia) or our proximity to womanhood (it’s literally just misogyny), or even the two together but-not-really (it’s transphobia and misogyny but it’s not because of your proximity to manhood), is to suggest that there is nothing unique about our experiences of transphobia and misogyny as transmasculine people. Is to suggest that unless and until we are perceived as men by society, our experiences with oppression and penalization (and privilege by this logic, but notably not in practice) are indistinguishable from those of cisgender women and there is no value in discussing, dissecting, naming, or otherwise acknowledging anything transmasculine people experience—and then on the flip side, when society does perceive us as men, suddenly our experiences with oppression and penalization (and privilege by this logic, but notably not in practice) are indistinguishable from those of cisgender men, and so there is no value in discussing, dissecting, naming, or otherwise acknowledging anything transmasculine people experience.

We’re either basically cis women or basically cis men, whichever is more convenient and makes it easier to disregard us in the moment.

#transandrophobia #anti transmasculinity #transmisandry #it doesn’t fucking matter what you want to call it they’ll say it’s discourse anyway #contributions to theory #self ID purposes here I am a white transmasc in the US #this post is definitely US centric or Western centric but like that’s largely intentional this time around #Black feminist language is to white queers what MLK’s I have a dream speech is to white US Americans #like idk maybe actually engage with it on its original terms before you start putting it in your own fucking mouth

[laeboku-blog]

Why Shipping SNS Isn’t “Unrealistic” & Shippers Aren’t Delusional

Being a SNS shipper with pretty much all SS/NH mutuals (due to the fact that this is a Sakura-centric blog) I’ve been seeing a lot of, for lack of a better word bullshit floating around as of late. Everywhere I turn my anti - SNS mutuals are calling shippers “delusional” because how in the world could we ever perceive such a “brotherly” bond to be gay? (I think when I’m having conversations with people they tend to forget that although I do multi-ship SNS is where the largest chunk of my heart lies.)

This won’t be a post explaining why I do believe Sasuke and Naruto are in fact canonically in love (that post is coming tomorrow courtesy of the NaruSasu loving minds of myself and @uchiha-affair​ ) but rather why it isn’t delusional, “reaching” or even remotely unrealistic for people to ship it period. 

I’ll try to make it as short as possible though it’s hard for me as I tend to ramble hehe. 

Disclaimer: As I stated above I do believe that SNS is romantically real and all of the examples used do (to me at least) have romantic connotations. If you believe that this in some way skews my judgement don’t even bother reading.

Let’s jump right in :) 

This whole post may seem like a reach to many but hear me out, to understand my first and most central point you’ll have to be familiar with the term fan service.

Fan service -  is material in a work of fiction or in a fictional series which is intentionally added to please the audience.

Now this is very important knowledge to have. I have never been under the impression that Kishimoto went into the series planning to make Naruto and Sasuke the perfect romantic couple because that is not the case. Kishi already knew which Sasuke pairing he wanted to be canon by the time the anime started airing and I see a lot of pro ending blogs making this point whenever I tell them my views. But to put it simply, it does not matter. Because a lot of people are unaware but the romantic relationship between Naruto and Sasuke is only second only to that of Iruka and Kakashi in terms of popular homosexual ships, and it tops even SasuSaku (Naruto’s most loved couple in Japan) here in the Western fandom. Once I had this knowledge suddenly all of the super fucking unnecessarily gay moments made so much sense. It’s because of:

Fan service. They needed to keep us SNS shippers.

Usually when people think fan service they think, 

“Hey like a swimming anime where all the guys are practically naked and dripping water down their washboard abs to make all of the fan girls freak?” 

or 

“Hey, like a samurai anime with a bunch of boobs flying everywhere for no goddamn reason but to give all the dudes a boner?”

And you would be correct in thinking that. We as a fandom, whether or not we choose to acknowldge it, are aware that Kishimoto and Studio Pierrot are in it for the money. The messy ending, the even messier ‘The Last’ (if you honestly believe that movie was good I question your sanity.) and the inevitable Newest Generation are all clear signs of “We want the money.” and because they want the money they cannot have a very large portion of their fan base losing interest. Although who the hell watches an anime about baby ninjas and bonds just for the gay? Smh, Japan logic but I digress. So they add a shit ton of fan service.

 I don’t entirely disagree with the fact that a lot of people interpret SNS as a solely platonic relationship, and they’re allowed to do that. But their bond would’ve been just as strong without

this.

and this.

and quite frankly this as well. These things weren’t required and these are just some of the panels brought up when one speaks of SNS gay moments. Let’s not even mention the ‘My one and only’ because it’s controversial due to the ‘friend’ which was (quite lamely) tacked at the end.

And Naruto gazing at a shooting star and thinking ‘Sasuke’ gay.

Naruto being the only bond Sasuke felt the need to break despite having relatively strong connections to other people (Team Taka, Sakura, Kakashi) gay.

We mustn’t forget the pillar of all things SNS and fanservicey: Boruto The Movie

this scene

And oh my god THIS SCENE

note: while I actually do perceive all of this as legitimately gay ass romantic feels a lot of people don’t. But I hope we can all admit that this is suspicious as fuck.

These things just seem like someone said, “Hey, we should put some of these moments in here for the people who think Naruto and Sasuke gay.”

 Because the SNS shippers are important to the overall sucess of the series they give us fanservice. This is the driving point to our so called “reach” and “insanity” we aren’t imagining it bud it’s there. It is none of the most commonly used tactics within anime series.

Nevermind the fact that Kishimoto was already writing a perfect love story. If he had no intention on making then canon, which he did not, I find it slightly cruel to add all of this extra gay. And on the other hand his ultimate unintentional cruelty of writing the perfect love story that never came to fruition.

If we throw in Studio Pierrot’s intense romance themed openings and endings you pretty much have a whole lot of stuff just sitting around. And here’s my point to all of this, calling SNS shippers ‘delusional’ when there were clearly things that could be perceived as gay (please please please don’t tell me that you’d stare at your unconscious bff’s face in the pouring rain for god knows how long.) It’s close minded and its honestly just not the truth. I mean, a lot of people ship NaruSaku which I think is the most platonic ship out there but I don’t deny that there are elements to the series that would lead people to ship it. (especially with SP’s meddling) 

And I’m not saying there aren’t SNS shippers out there (myself included) that try to make everything romantic *cough cough because it is* but believe me I see it in the SS and NH fandoms too, in situations where romance was definitely not a factor so they’ve no room to talk.

So stop calling people crazy because you don’t see what they do, it’s rude, learn some manners, it’s frustrating.

#narusasu #SNS #sasunaru #pro sns #naruto #Sasuke Uchiha #naruto uzumaki #this is actually for antis but they never listen #so I wont even bother #dont come into my mentions trying to fight #sasunarusasu