Via the_future_modernes, some amazing shit: Sex positivity and other lies on Tumblr.

But there was this lie in the whole thing, and the lie was told by blog after blog, webpage after webpage that talked a great game about how we can be open about sex, but seemed to equate sex with the nude bodies of thin, conventionally attractive, blonde white women in male-gaze centric pornography, as though if I really pushed myself to enjoy such titles as Biker Bitches 5 and clinically lit photoshoots of a woman with her legs in improbably acrobatic positions, I’d be making the world a better place. Because that’s what the world needed, more people to applaud the open display of sculpted bodies as though somehow, that would liberate my fat, pansexual ass from the confines of sexual oppression. As though the ways in which society has pushed at me and pushed at me, telling me to keep my fat ass covered and my queer thoughts to myself is the same as what society tells a 5’8, 110 lbs, straight, white woman with no disabilities. Because it isn’t.

[...]

I looked and looked in those sex positivity blogs and sites, in their pictures and stories and I didn’t find a lot of fat people (male or female), people of color, queer people. I have yet to find a mainstream sex positivity site (yes, this movement has a mainstream) that features transgendered people in all their beauty. Forget seeing disabled people displaying their various modes of sexuality. Forget seeing their bodies displayed as revolutionary and world-changing and an example of how sex is really, really awesome.

I learned soon enough that most sex positivity is actually White Straight Thin Able Cisgendered Cissexual Positivity.

And the world is already positive enough on those traits, thank you very much.

[...]

I’m tired of the lies.

If you’re sex positive and you’re not making an active effort to include and celebrate all kinds of sexuality from all kinds of people? You’re a fucking liar. There it is. You’re a liar.

Because sex positivity and body positivity and anti-racism and fat acceptance and the disability movement and queer positivity and womanism are part of the same thing.

Same with any movement. Fat acceptance? If you’re only showing fat white people or fat able people or fat straight people, then you’re not fat accepting, you’re just white supremacy enforcing and trying to bring chubby people under that umbrella of dominance.

I’m tired of the people who put up some Tumblr blogs and showcase the same old, same old and act like they’re part of a revolution. They’re not. They’re part of making sure that lots of other people know exactly who’s sex is celebrated and who’s isn’t.

So I say FUCK sex positivity. I want sex inclusivity.

Preach it.

This was such a bad day that I actually cried my eyes out, and I should be on hiatus because I have my week full again.

But have this awesome post, Silvana goes on femininity and performance in Welcome to the Institute for Beyonce-related Cultural Studies.

This song is about the bait-and-switch that women are presented with by the femininity imperative. Because femininity is a lot of work. It is, to be frank, a real pain in the ass. If we weren’t so used to it, we’d realize that the things we are expected to do in service of perfect femininity are basically humiliating. That’s what interesting about this video–Beyonce looks extremely hot and sexually appealing, and she also seems pathetic. She is a caricature of femininity, prancing around the house dusting in an ass-showing french maid outfit and bending and sighing and fanning herself over a car engine. It’s ridiculous. She heightens femininity to an absurd level, showing us how bizarre it is. Of course, we don’t do all of the things she doing at once, thus avoiding the kind of absurd hyper-femininity on display in this video. But by going so far over the top that we smile and kind of pity her, she demonstrates how absurd all femininity is, at its core. Is the femininity performance that average women engage in before a night out at the club really so different from what she’s doing here?

And THEN. The fun part is that, after all that, after all that effort and humiliation, it doesn’t work? After all that? That’s why Beyonce’s indignation and anger in this video is perfect. She’s throwing a tantrum, almost, throwing things around and flouncing on the floor, as if to say, WHAT THE FUCK?? YOU DON’T WANT THIS? I did everything I was supposed to do, I cleaned and cooked and pranced and paraded around in bustiers and wore extremely sexy makeup! And still! Nothing? I played by the rules and the rules were A BIG LIE.

[...]

I was thinking earlier this week about the psychological effect that performing femininity must have of women, because in its purest form, it is not only humiliating, but kind of disturbing. I am thinking specifically of two videos that are getting a lot of attention, which present performances of femininity by people that are not adult women. One is deemed to be hilarious, the other disturbing.

The first is the Army Telephone video, where a bunch of military guys serving in Afghanistan do a video interpretation of Lady Gaga’s Telephone video.[...] You smile and laugh, and you think, man, those men are kind of awesome, because they are so funny! Would you ever think this about women doing these exact same things? You wouldn’t even notice. It’s of a piece with how women move through the world every day and how they are constantly presenting themselves as over-sexed sex objects in pop culture. It’s not even close to noteworthy.

The second is a dance performance by a bunch of 7-year-old girls in the style of Beyonce’s Single Ladies video. [...] The discomfort isn’t because what the outfits reveal, but what they allude to. The lace, the stockings, the corset lacing on the “bodice” are, it seems, too much like what adult women wear when they are trying to evoke maximum sexiness. Doing this dance and wearing these clothes is, in our cultural estimation, firmly in the territory of not appropriate.

I think it’s pretty telling that when femininity is performed by non-standard actors, we either get really uncomfortable or laugh our asses off. It’s not just a bait-and-switch, as the Beyonce video so effectively argues. It’s a bait and kick-you-in-the-face. It’s toxic.

And don't forget the comments since Silvana starts her post talking about her experience with a dancer in a strip club, which unintentionally says a lot about power dynamics between sex-workers and their clients/people outside that line of work (specifically: the crying for another woman's body from people who have no experience working in the sex-industry):

Anodyne Lite writes:

I’m with you on the problematic nature of gender performativity, and your analysis of Beyonce’s song/video is spot on…but sometimes sex workers get really sick of everyone’s “pity” and sympathy. It often comes off as condescending- as if we couldn’t possibly make choices for ourselves that make sense for us, so you girls who know better just have to feel sorry for us. All women who identify as female perform their gender- not just sex workers. Save your tears for yourself, maybe? The sympathy-for-strippers gambit reminds me a lot of when the teenage virginity brigade “pities” women who “give up” their precious maidenhood before marriage.

Also, I know a lot of strippers and other women who’d resent the idea that men are buying “access” to dancers’ bodies. That language comes a little too close to sounding like rape apologists’ justifications for why strippers get assaulted, to me. Exotic dancers perform for men, they don’t give men “access” for a fee.

I just found this via the_future_modernes:

Reactions to Ricky Martin coming out.

And the amazing (and most popular current Puerto Rican artist) René Pérez Joglar, also known as Calle 13’s “El Residente” who Tweeted “Ricky Martin: Being a man doesn’t have to do with your sexual preference, but with the honesty with which you sustain your words” and “Ricky Martin is much more of a man than many a man who says they are a man.”

Okay, yeah, I know, honesty = masculinity (we all know that femininity = cowardice), and "a man who says they are a man" is... a straight man? But still. There is also so many negative conceptions (a lot of them to do with race and class) about Reggaeton. And believe me, there is a lot of shit going on there, but not that different from other music genres. Here is the thing about Latin America: the "good music" for the whiter, richer people is always the white western music (a lot of it in English). Which just has the same shit that most music around here.

René Pérez Joglar, "El Residente" de Calle 13, sobre Ricky Martin:

@ricky_martin ser hombre no tiene que ver con tu preferencia sexual si no con la honestidad con la que sostienes tu palabra.

Sé que el tipo habla de masculinidad y ser hombre como si fuese equivalente a honestidad, y todos sabemos lo que "femineidad" quiere decir. Y un "hombre que dice ser hombre" es... un hombre que dice ser hetero? Pero bueno, hay demasiados conceptos negativos sobre Reggaeton, muchos de los cuales salen de ideas racistas y clasistas. Claro, hay mucha mierda en el Reggaeton, pero hay la misma cantidad de mierda en la mayoría de los géneros musicales que son comercializados por estos lares. Y el asunto de Latinoamérica es que la "buena música" para la gente de clase alta es siempre la música de Europa o USA, de gente blanca que canta en inglés que tiene la misma mierda que en cualquier parte.

(Tangential, but reading that article, seriously? I so didn't know "homosexual" has negative connotations in English. Now I know it and won't use it in English. But okay, blame people who translated that, not Ricky Martin since he said it in Spanish, and get over yourself.)

ETA: Para agregar, y el porqué yo hice está entrada: hasta la música más mierda, sin contenido e insultante en inglés que es importada por acá está relacionada con una mejor clase, un mejor status (que está ligado con los círculos "progresistas" de estos lares, la ironía, lo sé) y no tiene las connotaciones de "peor, clase baja, delincuencia" que tiene género como Reggaeton, tropical, y música latina. Eso es todo.

ETA 2: daniela_lynx linkea sobre el asqueroso racismo y otras cosas de Calle 13:

"Yo me llevo a la chinita con to' y sombrilla
La monto en la carretilla
Y la llevo a pasear por encima de los bonsái
Después paramos en Shangai a comer chicken-patai
(Estúpilo, eso es tailandés!)
No importa si es tailandés, chino o japonés
To's son iguales, to's hablan alrevés
To's son iguales, todos hablan enreda'o
Con los ojos achina'o y comen senta'o
Sin zapatos se sientan a comer asopao de gato
Y si no hay gato en el plato pues comen pincho 'e perro
(La carne de pelo tiene mucho-mucho hielo!)
¿Mucho hierro? (Mucho hielo!)

El tipo sigue siendo un cerdo. Para sorpresa de nadie.

And ETA 3: Something I was thinking about is that I took away Ricky Martin's great moment (because it was, specially for Latin American queers, because he is a Mega Star here), and talked about Calle 13 guy. Granted, I wanted to do the post about music in LA since a long time ago, but I should have looked who this guy was.

So meanwhile, let's talk about Ricky Martin. He came out, and even if it's something very personal, definitely not something he should have done, but something he chose to do; it even inspired people who are inside a very homophobic medium, like Reggaetoners, to go and congratulate him.

Coming out while being a public figure shouldn't be something that deserved congratulations. But in our homophobic society, it sure is.

Y para sorpresa de nadie, declararon nulo el matrimonio entre dos hombres que iba a ocurrir mañana en Argentina.

Se lleva a discusión.

ETA: Acá un link muy interesante sobre la ilegalidad del nuevo fallo.

Gracias a Mako por ambos links!

Bueno, gente. *suspiro* Si tienen facebook por favor vean esto:

( Cut porque es largo. Sí, violencia hacia las parejas homosexuales. nada nuevo )

Lo bonito es que rápido en nombre de la Iglesia Católica la gente se pone a pisotear los derechos ajenos. Lo preocupante es que puede terminar en violencia hacia la pareja (puede si llega llevarse a cabo esta "convocatoria", que es un llamado a la violencia, de por sí). Sabemos que "la masculinidad" es apreciada por sobre todas las cosas, y como una pareja de hombres puede ser agredida, no hace falta que los atacantes sean extremistas religiosos. Estos mensajes son muy peligrosos.

Puede ser un disparador para quienes han sobrevivido a una violación. Muy fuerte.: Pero claro, Iglesia Católica, llena eres de gracia. Descaro.


* Un video: Secretos Transgénero. Aprovecho porque tiene subtítulos en español, aunque me llama la atención que la mayoría (¿o todos?) de los que aparecen sean hombres trans.

Mako tiene otra grandiosa entrada en su blog sobre la invisibilidad que las mujeres lesbianas y las personas transexuales sufren en nuestra sociedad, y sobre el tipo discriminación que es dirigido exclusivamente (o característicamente) a estos grupos.

Excelente entrada: Violenta Exclusión: Invisibilidad Social. Yo fui Beta. XD ^^;

Como el lunes tengo examen de teoría de Físicoquímica y el miércoles de problemas ni me esperen por acá estos días. ^^;

En fin, porque Mako me pidió que lo recomiende, acá un blog muy interesante sobre feminismo en español: Basta de Sexismo.

Muy buen blog, y por supuesto se centra más en los asuntos de Latinoamérica, especialmente Argentina, lo que es muy bueno.

Lo vengo leyendo desde hace algún tiempo, los dos últimos posts son fantásticos: no había escuchado la historia del hombre transexual que dará a luz, que es impresionante en la forma admirable que tiene de romper con el status quo. Por supuesto que no siempre estoy de acuerdo con todo lo que la blogger escribe (este post me jodió bastante con su nota sobre el 'racismo', lo de 'el sexismo está más impregnado que el racismo' es lo que una siempre oye en boca de las feministas que tienen privilegios raciales en su sociedad), pero me parece un excelente blog. Debí haberlo recomendado antes.

Y leyéndo los post sobre homosexualidad, me doy cuenta que tengo que empezar a dejar la costumbre de maldecir usando la palabra 'puto'. Sí. No es un insulto/palabra que se usa o se usó para designarme a mí, me doy cuenta que estoy siendo potencialmente ofensiva (al menos en esta parte del hemisferio).

En otras noticias, porque necesito deacargarme...

Miren LA JOYA que me encontré en un foro, el topic era 'Qué parejas de Tsubasa detestarías?':

1. KamuiXSubaru: Joder! Las CLAMP los habran puesto muy apegados en X, pero como hermanos, y si no me creen, preguntense por que demonios en Tokyo Revelation lo son?, ahhhhh! insultan a Kamui, odio esta asquerosa pareja, Kamui es un vampiro, no va a andar ahi coqueteando con alguien, menos con su hermano.
2. SubaruXSeishiro: E llegado a pensar que si hay alguna relacion algo fuerte entre estos dos, pero la detesto, son personajes demasiado ´´cool´´ como para que los traten como dos maricones agarraditos de la mano.
3. SyaoranXSakura: A mi de plano esta parejita me da asco, sera la principal y unicamente posible en la serie, pero me dan asco.
4. KuroganeXFye: Supongo que estan locos no? Si bien, son muy amigos, pero Fye realmente es mas reservado que la fregada (perdon la palabra si ofende a alguien) odio esa tendencia de CLAMP al yaoi, coño, tan buenos personajes que hacen y los ponen como homosexuales a muchos.
5. KamuiXFuuma: Por suerte nunca e visto una imagen o fanart de estos dos en su rol de Tsubasa, pero en el manga los ponen demasiado juntos, y no debe ser asi, joder, son enemigos practicamente mortales!
6. FyeXSakura: Y su nieve de que la quieren? Fye le lleva como 40 o 50 años a la niña esa, es imposible que sean pareja, acepto que Fye ahora en las OVAs se vio mas apegado a ella que el mismo Syaoran, pero aun asi, no, no creo que sean pareja ni aunque Syaoran muera

Me mató lo de Subaru y Seishirou. 'Muy cool para ser maricones agarraditos de la mano.' Y esta persona tiene un avatar de Kamui, aparentemente lo admira por su virilidad.

Kamui/Fuuma. Enemigos mortales. Nada de tensión sexual ahí. Tsubasa es un shonen de machos homófobos. Preguntenle a CLAMP nomás.

Impresionante. Mi... humanidad decae al leer eso. Lo gracioso es que la mayoría de las repuestas son similares en ese topic. El fandom de Tsubasa necesita un BUEN trasplante de cerebro.

(Lo siento mucho, Clow. No es tu culpa, de hecho no respondí porque las flame-wars están prohibidas y sé como las odias. De todas formas no sé que responder a semejante horror.)

ETA: Por Dios! Perdón por el doble post si alguien lo vio, no ando en mis cabales definitivamente.