#versus like and who cares if everyone Could possibly all be labeled bi if what is In Practice anyways is ppl getting to have sex or Not how

[my-castles-crumbling]

Hey, so it seems that everyone is coming out to you so I though why not.

I’m not entirely sure if I’m Pansexual or Bi or something else entirely and honestly it’s kinda confusing (I’m female btw). I mean I don’t rly care abt gender but I find myself attracted to females ALOT more. So yeah idk. Maybe gender does make a difference. But then I don’t like the label Bisexual because it implies that you are attracted to males and females only and not people outside of that.

And also when it comes to coming out to people I kinda feel stuck. What do I say? All of my friends know (they’re also queer) but we never really came out to each other we all just kinda were like “hey! that girl looks good” and went along being gay af. But bc we all just knew abt each other we never really talked abt sexualities and stuff.

And on top of that I’m fairly sure my parents wouldn’t be supportive and no one I know irl can relate to that bc all of my friends parents are accepting.

I feel like I’m complaining over nothing. Im sorry 😫😫. But still love yah and hope you have a nice day 🫶

Hi! <3

I actually can relate to this first part SO much (as far as pan versus bi). When you say you don't care about gender, that sounds like pan to me. But then you say you have a preference, so is that still pan? I've wondered that for myself.

Here's what I have realized: Firstly, YOU are the person who decides who you are, so whatever label feels best (or none at all) is totally fine, even if it doesn't match someone else's definition. However, for me, I think it helped to think of sexual attraction as different than romantic attraction.

For example, perhaps you can find yourself sexually attracted to someone regardless of their gender. BUT, romantically, you prefer girls? To me, that would still be pan, but perhaps you are homoromantic (meaning you only enjoy romantic relationships with the same gender).

Or it could be that you could possibly see yourself both sexually attracted to someone regardless of gender and having a romantic relationship with someone regardless of gender- you just are more likely to want those things with girls. That's okay, too, and could still be considered pan! It's okay to have preferences!

To make this more simplistic, if we stick to a gender binary (which we shouldn't, obviously, but let's do it for a second for simplicity's sake)- a traditionally bisexual person is rarely attracted to boys and girls at a 50/50 split. Maybe they like girls 70 percent of the time and boys 30 percent of the time. That doesn't make them any less bisexual. So, the same holds true with pan. Maybe you mostly see yourself with girls, but also think boys are pretty cool, and nonbinary people are sometimes attractive, and agender people can sometimes be cute, etc, etc.

All of this to say, pick whatever label feels good to you (or none at all! I also frequently just say to people that I'm queer.)

As far as coming out, I think some people are under the impression that it has to be a big thing. It only has to be a big thing if you want it to be. It seems like your friends already know that you're not straight. If that's all you want to say, you don't owe them any more of an explanation or a label.

BUT if you want to come out, go ahead! Sounds like they'll be supportive, so remind yourself that they are safe for you and bring it up in a more intentional way. "Hey, I have a crush on this girl, what do you think?" or "Hey, so you know I'm not straight, right? It's cool that we all are so accepting of that stuff." I think you'll find your friends will be receptive, since they're not straight, either.

As far as your parents, that's trickier. It sounds like you still live with them, so coming out to possibly unaccepting people who have control over you can be sticky. If it were me, I would first do a bit of testing. Mention queerness in a hypothetical way or in a "I know someone who..." way. See how they react. If they react positively, you could start dropping hints. If they react negatively, consider the pros and cons to telling them. Is it worth it to come out because you would be sharing your authentic self? If yes, have a plan if things go poorly. Have a support system to talk to and to go to. If you find that it's not worth it, there's no shame in that, either.

But it's important to know you are NOT complaining over nothing. This is tough stuff and it's hard to navigate.

I'm here to talk if you need me! <3

#ask #asks #ask cas #lgbtq+ #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #lgbtq #queer #queer community #coming out

[somnilogical]

i am prepared to face god this instant

in the case of the native americans, in a counterfactual world where every native human could would do with their muscles what they would yell at a book character in their situation to do with their mouth. where people could would make choices from a third person point of view and then carry out the choices. where when asked by an interrogator for the names of your rebel companions, you say you will know them when they come to avenge me.

<<On 8 Feb 1943, the Nazis hung 17-year-old Yugoslav partisan Lepa Radić. When asked the names of her companions, she replied: “You will know them when they come to avenge me”.>>

--

<<N. Stolyarova recalls an old woman who was her neighbor on the Butyrki bunks in 1937. They kept on interrogating her every night. Two years earlier, a former Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church, who had escaped from exile, had spent a night at her home on his way through Moscow. “But he wasn’t the former Metropolitan, he was the Metropolitan! Truly, I was worthy of receiving him.” “All right then. To whom did he go when he left Moscow?” “I know, but I won’t tell you!” (The Metropolitan had escaped to Finland via an underground railroad of believers.) At first the interrogators took turns, and then they went after her in groups. They shook their fists in the little old woman’s face, and she replied: “There is nothing you can do with me even if you cut me into pieces. After all, you are afraid of your bosses, and you are afraid of each other, and you are even afraid of killing me.” (They would lose contact with the underground railroad.) “But I am not afraid of anything. I would be glad to be judged by God right this minute.”

There were such people in 1937 too, people who did not return to their cell for their bundles of belongings, who chose death, who signed nothing denouncing anyone.>>

<<One can’t say that the history of the Russian revolutionaries has given us any better examples of steadfastness. But there is no comparison anyway, because none of our revolutionaries ever knew what a really good interrogation could be, with fifty-two different methods to choose from. Just as oxcart drivers of Gogol’s time could not have imagined the speed of a jet plane, those who have never gone through the receiving-line meat grinder of Gulag cannot grasp the true possibilities of interrogation.

We read in Izvestiya for May 24, 1959, that Yuliya Rumyantseva was confined in the internal prison of a Nazi camp while they tried to find out from her the whereabouts of her husband, who had escaped from that same camp. She knew, but she refused to tell! For a reader who is not in the know this is a model of heroism. For a reader with a bitter Gulag past it’s a model of inefficient interrogation: Yuliya did not die under torture, and she was not driven insane. A month later she was simply released—still very much alive and kicking.>>

-alexander solzhenitsyn, the gulag archipelago

if all or even a majority of native americans near the missions had this neurotype, then what id suggest would be for everyone to move away from the missions and if captured refuse to work to the point of death. the missions need slave labour in order to exist and without people to feed on and with long supply lines, they would be undone and people would be free from the largest human-unfriendly institution of the era.

and the outcome would be better than ~60 years of slavery. this is choosing between timelines

somni why do you care about freedom? freedom is like ability-to-live. if people were like "well who cares about the global slavery-and-submission-and-stasis cult" until catholicism actually took over the world, the world would be much worse and we would never get to the stars.

you could say "whats the point, everyone gets assimilated to whatever the social order is now which is driving us all to doom" but like if you are in 1800s america after you keep the world ending for a set of tribes, you work on societal tech to keep it from ending in other ways and landing in this patch of equilibrium-space in the first place.

its like the difference between choosing between timelines and wondering if perhaps the money could be better spent sustaining the lives of those who could be locally saved. there are other organizing principles for moral reasoning besides these, and more than i have thought of so far. i suspect locating new ones is a spatially-loaded skill.

ben hoffman was using the choosing between consistent timelines kind of thinking when he quoted deuteronomy 30:19 in his post about REACH

http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/humans-need-places/

<<I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.>>

https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.30.19?lang=bi&aliyot=0

which in context of the passage is exactly the same cognition that would benefit the natives to resist the world's largest human-unfriendly subjugation org and live to iteratively squirm out of these sorts of tangles in the future.

<<See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity.

For I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His laws, and His rules, that you may thrive and increase, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land that you are about to enter and possess.

But if your heart turns away and you give no heed, and are lured into the worship and service of other gods,

I declare to you this day that you shall certainly perish; you shall not long endure on the soil that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life—if you and your offspring would live—

by loving the LORD your God, heeding His commands, and holding fast to Him. For thereby you shall have life and shall long endure upon the soil that the LORD swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them.>>

if native americans had social tech which could better survive slavery and forced relocation, maybe things would be different today.

which, this can be cast in a zero-sum frame of having your group survive versus everyone elses which runs against antinationalist heuristics.

but if you are planning to manufacture a pattern which revolutionizes the world, for the good of all life, it is instrumentally useful to avoid assimilation and submission destroying this work.

this applies to multi-generational projects as well as within-a-lifetime choices. if you choose to submit and assimilate and erase all work and structure you have built, each time someone wants to feed on you, then you i (0.7) dont think can really sustain your work.

--

i wonder if with this worlds distribution of neurotypes, such that maybe most humans cant run consequentialism through a rawlsian veil where they forget which human inherits the label "me" on their muscles. im somewhat optimistic that even those who cant wont make their muscles move according to this, can locate the correct answer.

though there is i think a habit among people whose neurotypes have issues to retroactively rationalize (FAKE REASONING, STORIES) that because you are unable to make your body wont choose your death over the death of three of your friends, equally or more useful to the flourishing of all life, it doesnt make sense to choose your death over theirs.

--

linta mentioned that they couldnt imagine knowing the right thing to do and then not doing it. that they dont have a gap between these things save for akrasia, i think it is because the gap is filled with fractally expanding justifications of the form "but you cant really expect a human being to give up their life for the sake of their companions, you need to be reasonable and work with humans who exist".

human neurodiversity exists, as a matter of historical fact not all humans have the same weaknesses. in hpmor!metaphor, some people are hermione granger and wont zap people in the milgram compliance test.

and building plans predicated on people who need to divert resources to local stuff because of their neurotype, will replace "if this were a story what plans would i yell at my character do?" with "what would someone who cant run consequentialism through a rawlsian veil, see in 3rd person and then act in harmony with this do?" "someone who needs to divert resources to babies and not personally dying, do?" "what if everyone were like this?"

labeling the latter as "what will happen if everyone is running consequentialism, playing as if from 3rd person and wants humanity to win?" is a distortion of what is going on and compounds as institutions are built on it and the boundaries of what good could be done are strictly smaller than the reach of what good could be done irl.

by the way, the milgram experiment replicated in 2015 poland. gotta check with the replication crisis.

https://qz.com/932110/researchers-have-replicated-a-notorious-social-experiment-that-claimed-to-explain-the-rise-of-fascism/

<<It is exceptionally interesting that in spite of the many years which have passed since the original Milgram experiments, the proportion of people submitting themselves to the authority of the experimenter remains very high. The result of 90% obedience which we have achieved, 95% CI [83.43%, 96.57%], is very close to the number of people pressing the 10th button in the original Milgram studies. For example, in Milgram’s (1974) Experiment No. 2, replicated in our study, 34 of 40 people pressed Button No. 10 (85% of participants, the 95% CI extends from 70.54% to 93.32%).>>

one of my moms who studies fascism once told me she thinks 40-60% of people have as their ideology that they will imitate those in power, and will go along with Power in times of an authoritarian takeover. they believe that they will eat rather than be eaten. given my experience and things like the milgram test, i think its closer to 90-95%.

--

reading grognor's memorial page it looked like he was very fucked up by the fact that he could do a rawlsian veil consequentialism thought experiment, where he saw himself in third person or forgot which agent was "him" and "his family" and then notice that his muscles werent moving in harmony with the logic of the results.

<<are you doing the best thing you could possibly be doing? why not?

become good

SPEAK TRULY, EVEN IF YOUR VOICE TREMBLES

you continue to underestimate the harm you have done and are doing

are you doing the best thing you could possibly be doing? why not?

The tools you have available are cognitive actions and motor actions. Use them to immanentize the eschaton. You have one life

if you were an alien suddenly transposed into your current body, what would you do now?

Pretend with every thought and action to be a much better person. Reach heaven through fraud.>>

https://grognor.github.io/archives.html

[consultingangelwarlockofgalifrey]

My Rant...

I rarely come on here anymore but I just wanted to say my piece on this infuriating election and the way Britain is run.

I’m not sorry and I have a lot to say so bear with me.

This all started because of the referendum. A referendum which showed up just how discordant and split the country truly is. I do not agree with the result and am very upset we are leaving the EU.

All I have heard though since the results came out, have been politicians calling it the “will of the people”. Ok. A small majority voted us out. But that’s right. A SMALL majority.

And that was only of the people who actually voted.

There a many of those who couldn’t vote (because of age restrictions) or wouldn’t vote for whatever reasons they told themselves, and those who did vote for remain, who did not want to leave the EU. In my books that far out numbers the people who voted leave.

It is not the “will of the people” if the majority of the country didn’t vote for it. That is a small sector, just like a lot of the politics in this country has been about lining the pockets of the wealthy, the 5% of our population who do anything they can to better their own lives and damn the consequences it has on others.

I wish people were more generous and thoughtful. More considerate of the people they share their lives with. Believe it or not your life doesn’t just affect your own. You come into contact with countless people every time you go to work, or school, or even just go for a walk. How do you know that the smile you gave that one random person didn’t make their day? Because it could have. People’s actions have an impact in the smallest ways and the biggest. Some are just more noticeable.

Especially by those who hold power in parliament. The term “holding power” is distasteful and it’s so controlling. But that’s unfortunately the society we live in. Where there will always be those who think just because they are well off or own a company think they have more rights to things like education or healthcare than the rest of us.

The whole, “private versus state” thing is ridiculous divide and actually gets in the way of education. Parents who say “I’m paying for a better education for my child.” are actually saying “I’m paying for white boards or more resources to be pumped into the school.” That’s not an education. That just fancy toys. An education is when you learn something. When you actually come away from that day of sitting in classrooms inspired by something a teacher said or what you read or something that proved to you, yes you can do that thing you were struggling with. That won’t happen by throwing more money at it and shoving all kids into the same way of teaching and testing. The best teachers I had were ones who had a dialogue with the students. Where we were able to question the text books and engage with it ourselves. OK I was a shy student who didn’t feel confident enough to share my views and this post is hard for me to make but here I am.

Now onto the election and the person who calls herself the leader of Britain.

She stands there talking about working together and providing stability, when the only thing her government has done, has separated this country and made so many u-turns I’m surprised parliament hasn’t fallen down into the Thames. She hasn’t wanted to engage or debate or trust the public with the truth.

She keeps hiding behind statements and the party line, just like so many politicians have before. Now I don’t agree with some things Corbyn says either. Like his views on Brexit but we aren’t voting for one person we are voting for the party.

May is a poor example of a leader and much of what she says does not stack up. Alot of wwhat the party stands for is truly shocking and is saddening to see how it is still in today’s politics. Serving the interests of the better off in a hope that it will magically get the population more money is not a stable or even workable frame of economics. It doesn’t happen like that. Hasn’t happened. The rich get richer and hell to the rest.

The media is just as guilty for misleading people. And I have never been more ashamed of the BBC. The national broadcaster and they keep hushed up on what the conservatives are doing but any other party and they line them up in the firing line.

Teresa May says she is doing what she is doing for the people.

To which I say to her, really?

Look around.

Are the children who’s parents can’t afford to get them new school uniform or lunches because you keep cutting their benefits and rising taxes being looked after?

Are the elderly in dire need of care and attention getting the support they need?

Are those ill and ailing people in hospitals who in recent years have had to wait the longest time for care which should be readily available feeling like they are being cared for at all?

Are the people who provide these services getting the resources they need?

Not from what I have seen, read or heard.

How can she stand there and say her plans are stable and providing a future to protect us when she herself has voted on issues to block progression, to block support getting to those who need it.

The facts are out there that she doesn’t support the lgbtq community, that she doesn’t support our elderly, that she doesn’t support our children. So how can she stand in front of the country and promise to look after ‘the people’ when she refuses to acknowledge a majority of the population.

And when she does in her speeches, it’s to use as a point against labour. She brings up hashed old arguments from Camerons government, from Blairs government.

OK labour hasn’t always been great and there are still issues within the party that need to be addressed. But I have never felt a more relieving breath of fresh air than when I first heard Corbyn speak. For once there wasn’t a politician who said, the Tories do this, the tories do that. He spoke about what the issues were and how they would be addressed.

Like I said before there are some things I do not agree with him on but when will you ever agree with some one on every single thing.

I just want May to take a step back and really think in what way is she representative of anyone who has any loving, generosity in their hearts, who would put others before themselves . Leaving the EU is not progressive. Taking money away is not progressive. Excluding members of our society is not progressive.

All these stupid political borders and separations we have on this planet.

A show I watch, that I implore you all to watch, Sense8 is one of the most beautiful and uplifting pieces of drama I have ever seen on screen. It has representation and diversity. And in its second season has a really powerful speech about who some one is.

It says “labels are the opposite of understanding. [….]

Who am I? Do you mean where I’m from? What I one day might become? What I do? What I’ve done? What I dream? Do you mean … what you see or what I’ve seen? What I fear or what I dream? Do you mean who I love? Do you mean who I’ve lost? Who am I?

I guess who I am is exactly the same as who you are. Not better than, not less than. Because there is no one who has been or will ever be exactly the same as either you or me.”

We are one planet, one species which has to live together. If our governments truly wanted the best for us there would be no restrictions placed on minorities or the freedom of movement.

If you look at someone and think they don’t belong because they are different, than you are one of the worst types of people.

Difference is what makes humans so amazingly beautiful. And our capacity to love and embrace that difference is breathtaking.

A human being is a human being whether they are black, asian, white, gay, bi, straight, trans, female, male and all other variations.

If you let hatred in, you’ve already lost. If you let disrespect in, why should someone respect you?

Everyone should be free to be who they are, wherever they are.

Our governments need to change. They need to change to reflect the people who live now.

So when Teresa May stands up and opens her mouth, how can she possibly stand there and say she is working for the people when nothing she has done reflects that.

I don’t have any impact on many people’s lives and I doubt this will reach anyone beyond this space, but to anyone who will read this, there needs to be a way we can make a difference. Differences make us who we are and fuel a progressive society.

The whole Brexit disaster shouldn’t have happened. After campaigning for Scotland to stay, united, stronger together it was ridiculous that the next thing to happen was to shut the EU out. I’m not surprised Scotland wants to leave England again.

The whole point of the EU was to bring peace between our countries after the horrific world wars. Look at our world today. We are breaking apart at the seams. Yes the wars in Iraq and Syria predate Brexit but we don’t have to look far to know who to blame for that. If anything this is a time to work closer together not apart. So again how can Teresa May say she will be the one to bring stability to the country when it was her party that tore it apart.

So go and vote. Use that vote that so many have fought for in our past. Use the privilege of the vote this country has to make a stand against those who want to silence us.

We are better together. We only have to prove it.

#2017 election #politics #britain #sense8 #inspiredbysense8 #jeremy corbyn #teresa may #general election

[isdairyqueenclosedyet]

Is Celesbian Gossip A Step Backward, Or A Sign Of Equality?

Demi Lovato during the 2017 Global Citizen Festival.

BuzzFeed News; Getty Images; Alamy

There's a musical episode of Boxed In - director and writer Amy York Rubin's very funny series of digital shorts for IFC's Comedy Crib - that kicks off with Rubin's character receiving a news alert from TMZ: Dianna Agron dishes on the unique intimacy of female relationships. Rubin, sitting in a coffee shop, gets mobbed by a group of women wondering what the news alert might mean.

Stop! Everyone stop what you're doing! one woman yells, knocking a coffee out of an unsuspecting patron's hands. A traditionally attractive female celebrity just made an ambiguous comment about her sexuality!

The entire coffee shop bursts into song - Tell your friends, spread the news, someone famous might be gay - while Rubin's character attempts to staunch the flow of their excitement.

Seriously, this is what we care about? she says. What about everything on the news?

We've got news, they sing back at her. Someone's gay!

By the end of the bite-size episode, another news alert clarifies that (a fictionalized) Dianna Agron isn't gay after all. But Rubin's character has gotten swept up in the commotion, right when everyone's just lost the faith: Wait! Did you guys see this picture of Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid?

The episode perfectly captures how easily LGBT fans can get swept up into speculation about a celebrity's sexuality - even at a time when there are more out celebrities than ever before.

The "Fame" episode of Boxed In.

IFC

Twenty years ago, before public support for gay people was anything like what it is now, Ellen DeGeneres risked her career and made history with her 1997 Yep, I'm Gay Time cover story, paving the way for many of the celebrities who have proudly claimed their queerness or openly expressed affection for their partners since. Though nowadays, you're more likely to see a celebrity casually mention their sexual orientation in a tweet or Snapchat or Instagram post than to see one more formally claiming an identity in front of the world.

But the years-long uptick in out celebrities, and the steady normalization of out queer people in Hollywood and beyond, hasn't stopped the are-they-or-aren't-they rumor mill from churning - if anything, it has only picked up steam. Female celebrities can inspire their own particular kind of fervor. In 2017, there's a new generation of famous lesbians and bisexual women (celesbians, if you will) who are casually living out a real-life version of The L Word in front of our eyes, inspiring mass social media followings from fans hungry for the latest celesbian gossip - including for the many celebrities who aren't confirmed to be sleeping with other people of the same gender, but are the subjects of constant, frantic speculation. The recent brouhaha around Demi Lovato (who's been spotted holding hands with a female DJ, and who refused to label her sexuality in a recent interview, after which she defended her decision in a series of tweets) is the latest example of the celesbian gossip train going a bit off the rails.

There is no simple, clear-cut binary of out versus in.

Whether queer celebrities have a responsibility to come out - especially those who have referenced potentially queer experiences in their work, or who have profited from the LGBT community's support - is a question that long precedes celebrities' ability to tweet about it. But that question has become more complicated in a time when coming out is seemingly not as big a deal as it once was, when a new generation is embracing ideas of sexual fluidity and eschewing labels, and, as always, there is no simple, clear-cut binary of out versus in. For female celebrities, that complication is compounded by the gal-palification of intimacy between women, which happens less frequently now in the tabloids but still makes the rounds (like it did with Lovato in September).

We're also living through yet another revival of lesbian chic - a theme in fashion and pop culture at large that paints a certain kind of edgy, feminine-leaning androgyny as the next new hot thing, boiling lesbianism down to a passing but commodifiable fad. And while positive representation of queer women on television is on the rise, it's still far from perfect, leading many LGBT fans to look to celebrity gossip on social media to get their fix of queer drama - and queer possibility. As more famous women continue to come out at younger and younger ages (much like the general population), our cultural fascination with the way they introduce and perform their queerness is only continuing to grow. Whether or not that's a good thing depends on who you ask.

Demi Lovato's sexuality has been the subject of speculation for years. While promoting her new album, Tell Me You Love Me, released late last month, Lovato gave an interview to PrideSource's Chris Azzopardi that reignited an old debate. They spoke about her LGBT activism: She's headlined pride events, including filming her 2013 video for Really Don't Care at LA Pride, and last year accepted the GLAAD Vanguard Award, which honors entertainers who have promoted LGBT rights.

But when Azzopardi mentioned that Lovato's sexuality has been thoroughly dissected on the internet, and gave her the opportunity to speak on it as directly as you'd like, Lovato swerved: Thank you for the opportunity, but I think I'm gonna pass. She explained that she chooses not to speak openly about her orientation because I just feel like everyone's always looking for a headline and they always want their magazine or TV show or whatever to be the one to break what my sexuality is. I feel like it's irrelevant to what my music is all about.

Earlier, Azzopardi had asked about the criticism her 2015 song Cool for the Summer had received from some lesbian websites like AfterEllen for, they argued, implying that women should sample queer sexual relationships only temporarily, and keep it a secret. My intention with the song was just fun and bi-curiosity, Lovato said. I think people look at song lyrics - they look too into it. I wish I could tell that website to 'chill the fuck out' and 'take a break,' because it's just a song.

Demi Lovato and Lauren Abedini on a Disney outing.

Twitter: @justcatchmedemi

The interview, published on September 15, gained a lot of attention, particularly because Lovato had just been spotted with a gal pal - a phrase that many lesbians have started to consider a sort of no-homo dog whistle for possible girlfriend - at a Disney outing a few days earlier. The gal pal in question was out DJ and producer Lauren Abedini. The two were photographed holding hands (and more), leading to widespread speculation that they might be dating. (Lovato's publicist did not respond to a request for comment.) Lovato declined to talk about her sexuality, but hinted that her new YouTube documentary coming out on October 17 might detail some things about her sexuality, because if ever I want to talk about it, I want it to be on my own terms."

But the internet really blew up after HuffPost's Noah Michelson wrote an essay declaring that Demi Lovato's Reason For Refusing To Talk About Her Sexuality Is Total Bulls**t. Lovato responded directly to Michelson, tweeting, Expectant and rude. Watch my documentary and chill out. She also tweeted a couple more general statements to her 49 million followers, which garnered her a number of you-go-girl writeups from places like InStyle and PopSugar: Just because I'm refuse [sic] to label myself for the sake of a headline doesn't mean I'm not going to stand up for what I believe in ... If you're that curious about my sexuality, watch my documentary. But I don't owe anybody anything.

How can they look us in the eyes and tell us how brave we are for being who we are - and ask us to fill their pockets - if they won't do the same?

In his piece, Michelson argued that Lovato is open about so many other aspects of her personal life - so why not this one?

Michelson told me that he has written about his beliefs that sexual orientation should not be considered a 'private' characteristic before, and it's never gone over well. But, he said, he wasn't expecting Lovato to respond, and he didn't expect so many people to misunderstand what I was saying.

Michelson believes in the political power of coming out, for all of those in a position to do so, but especially feels that those who present themselves as allies and/or make money off of their relationship with the queer community have an even greater responsibility to be open about who they are. How can they look us in the eyes and tell us how brave we are for being who we are or how proud we should stand - and ask us to fill their pockets - if they won't do the same? Michelson stressed that people can refuse to talk about their orientation, though he generally thinks they shouldn't, but the reason for it should not be 'that's private' - especially in the specific context of who Lovato says she is and claims to stand for.

It isn't only journalists, though, who may have taken issue with Lovato's message. In a June interview for Paper Magazine, out bisexual pop singer Halsey - who earlier this summer released Strangers with a fellow out bi singer, Fifth Harmony's Lauren Jauregui, and who has been a vocal LGBT activist - called out pop songs about experimental hookups, which she said perpetuate Bisexuality as a taboo. 'Don't tell your mom' or 'We shouldn't do this' or 'This feels so wrong but it's so right' That narrative is so fucking damaging to bisexuality and its place in society. Halsey didn't mention Lovato specifically, but the lyrics sound like they were plucked from both Cool for the Summer and Katy Perry's I Kissed a Girl. Lovato, at least, appeared to interpret Halsey's criticisms that way at the time, tweeting what looked like a response. (When asked for comment on the interview and Lovato's tweet, a representative for Halsey responded that the two are friends and there is no drama and no comment, pointing to Lovato's Instagram post from July showing Halsey and Lovato posing merrily together. Happy National Coming Out Day Positivity to you! she added.)

Halsey and Demi Lovato in July.

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