Just appearing sporadically ...

[la_vie_noire]

... to link pretty good posts:

Dating from the Margins: Desexualizing and Cultural Abuse.

I am often frustrated by people who are otherwise invested in understanding and opposing systems of oppression, but who nonetheless exclude dating and desirability from analysis or self-critique. This is especially frustrating when they are privileged by those very systems. This lack of analysis by those who have access and who are prioritized as desirable by their communities effectively silences the experiences of those whose trans status (or having a disability, or not meeting cultural beauty standards, or any of the markers of undesirability imposed by external systems) limits or completely denies access. In many queer, sex positive, polyamorous activist communities I have experienced those with access treating their privilege as the status quo, something which is never discussed, is neutral from criticism, and to which all are assumed to have access. This is done with an often startling ignorance of those who do not.

Understandably, who we are attracted to is a very sensitive topic for most of us. We want to believe our desires are our own, unshaped by the media, patriarchy, racism, ableism, transmisogyny, or other oppressive systems. This is even more challenging when one’s identity is based in ideas of activism, social justice and equality; We don’t want to feel like we’re upholding oppressive standards, or engaging in systems which sometimes violently desexualize marginalized identities.

Comments

[yeloson]

This is a great link. Thanks for sharing.

I often find dating is where people show their asses... figuratively as much as literally and their 'isms come out in full force.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I question everything, and aim for diversity in writing. If you can think of a category of person for whom I don't have a character getting lucky with sex/romance, feel free to suggest that during one of my poetry fishbowls. I can probably fill the gap. I've done disabled, unbeautiful, and various other flavors.

[commodorified]

Hmmm. I like this. I especially like that they explicitly open it up to a wider discussion and away from "individual people changing who they date is Step One", because one of the first blocks I hit when I'm trying to think intelligently about this is:

a) I don't want someone who isn't actually all that attracted to me trying to date me, because that is going to run a blender through my head.

b) I don't want to be trying to date and be sexual with someone I don't actually want to be sexual with, and that is going to run a bigger blender through my head.

c) Even or possibly especially if they are, actually, Incredibly Wonderful People and this is about my privilege or theirs or both, becuase IWP particularly don't deserve to get caught up in what it's like to be around me when my brain is getting blendered.

And then I sort of freeze in place and have no further productive thoughts. So I'm really looking forward to reading through all the sections of this, slowly and carefully.

Thank you.

[buria_q]

im super uncomfortable with this. i'm really uncomfortable with desexualization being equated to abuse. bc it implies entitlement to sex. i preferred mia mingus' article bc she basically critiques the whole framework of desirability = worth.

it's coming at what i've been saying about the queer (and broader cultural) focus and pressure to prove desirability to prove one's worth. but from a different perspective, obviously, since i'm nonconsensually hypersexualized b...y the gaze of others and experience others' phobias and judgments about asexuality/celibacy. building an entire identity around sex/dating and build social status around that is certainly not my idea of what's liberatory.

but i have seen the ways that people in queer communities also use this as a manipulative form of abuse to extract sex and gendered caretaking from their partners (in my case, queer/otherwise marginalized men telling queer/otherwise marginalized women that they own them something bc their life is so sad, wanting to "give it to her good" after getting so many rejections, pressuring the woman by accusing her she doesn't want him bc of his xyz social status even tho she is stigmatized in xyz ways also, etc).

also, "pretty privilege" is a concept that makes me uncomfortable bc getting leered at and yelled at by men on the street from the time i was 13 onwards didn't make me feel particularly great. i've been told by other women that i should feel flattered.

and it is also capitalism that makes it seem as though physical beauty and being deemed "sexy" by others is what women should aspire to over all else.

[la_vie_noire]

You raise very good points, and I'm going to sit on them because I think I need to be more nuanced talking and my brain isn't working, I kinda disagree with some things (because I interpreted the article kinda differently), but I agree with you a lot.

[la_vie_noire]

(For example, I believe the "pretty privilege" exists but I don't think harassment is a privilege, on the contrary, non-attractive women are harassed a lot of the time in worse ways than attractive women for their looks, and yes, in a sexual ways. I disagree that that's a part of the so-called privilege here. But well, I also think it's very complicated.)