Short thoughts
- The human tendency to assume that confidence implies competence is particularly risky in the kink context. One example: the many self-proclaimed Dominants trying to leverage this assumption by combining it with ideas around ‘natural dominance’, in order to take advantage of people who don't have the experience and knowledge to gauge actual competence.
- Many leftists/progressives take issue (quite correctly) with people conflating socialism and communism with Stalinism / Maoism / the Khmer Rouge / etc., whilst at the same time erasing the very real diversity within various other belief systems, representing a given belief system as a single, well-defined, irredeemably evil ideology. This is not only hypocritical and unethical, but also tactically and strategically stupid, given how it can (and often does) put potential allies off-side.
- i am utterly over arrogant experts (or ‘experts’) who ignore, dismiss, or downplay input and feedback from the people who have to directly suffer the consequences of those experts' perspectives, attitudes and behaviours.
- Neither ‘commitment’ nor ‘loyalty’ require ‘monogamy’. Nor is ‘abusive control’ part of ‘monogamy’. That is all.
- The leftist insistence on blaming everything on ‘capitalism’ can be a convenient way for leftists to not have to examine how their own attitudes and behaviours contribute to the marginalisation and isolation of various groups and individuals. Left milieus will criticise capitalism for determining someone's value based on their ability to do paid work and increase profits, yet those same milieus will seemingly only value a person if they attend certain events and/or are connected with the ‘in’ crowd.
- So many leftists be like: “For this specific thing, there's ‘born this way’. For everything else, there's ‘nothing more than a social construct created by capitalism’.” 😛
- ‘Squatting’ when it involves white people taking land managed by Indigenous people for thousands of years: “This space wasn't being used! This is homesteading!” ‘Squatting’ when it involves poor and homeless people living in a long-term unoccupied space: “This space is owned and thus in use! This is trespassing!”
- When systems involving significant power structures/differentials push a particular perspective as a way for those with less power to ‘help themselves’, it's worth asking: How do those systems benefit from doing so? To what extent does it reduce focus on those systems' significant contributions to people's suffering, by locating the primary cause of suffering within the people being harmed?
- Being trans isn't about whether you fit the sexist gender roles and gender presentations that patriarchal society expects of the gender you were assigned at birth. Otherwise, cis women who are truck drivers, or who hate wearing dresses, would be ‘trans’. Being trans is about what gender you know yourself to be regardless of any other factors.
- Various leftists when you ask them what concrete support they're providing, right now, to people negatively impacted by capitalism: “Thank you for waiting. Your call is important to us. Your issue will be handled by our Revolution Department. Please hold, and The Revolution will solve your problem shortly.”
- i refuse to erase or misrepresent the perspectives that aren't my own. i strongly feel that erasing or misrepresenting others will not resolve conflict in the long term - that, on the contrary, it's more likely to exacerbate it. If you find me animatedly talking about something i feel has been erased or misrepresented, you can not assume i am partisan of “that side” - i might be doing so out of frustration with what i feel are the unethical tactics and behaviours of “my side”.
- Being a member of a marginalised group doesn't automatically make you an ally of other members of that group (or related groups). It's very possible for your words and actions to further marginalise people. Your own experiences of marginalisation don't permit you to engage in lateral discrimination and hostility.
- Individualism without empathy and concrete solidarity is selfishness. Collectivism with less respect for individuals than for “the greater good” is the foundation of autocracy and totalitarianism.
- Absurd and frustrating how many progressives/leftists will quite appropriately complain about media misrepresentations of groups of which they are a member, yet at the same time believe and perpetuate media misrepresentations of other groups more generally.
- For me, a person's submission is something i have to earn, continuously. i don't want someone to submit to me merely because i'm a member of a certain group; i find that a turn-off. i want a capable and intelligent person actively choosing to submit to me because i've earned that gift; i find that a turn-on.
- Autistics are constantly told we have a lack of flexibility, yet so many group structures - businesses, governments, community organisations - and individuals are inflexible about providing accommodations to autistic people (and to neurodivergent / disabled people more generally).
- It's disturbing how often ‘resilience’ seems to be measured by whether one is meeting the timetables of society and various individuals, rather than by whether one's own physical and psychological needs are getting met.
- Trans-hostile feminists/lesbians assert that ‘real’ (i.e. cis) women can't experience anal pleasure because they don't have a prostate - ignoring or dismissing the experiences of the many cis women (and others) who enjoy anal for other reasons. How is it appropriate to erase the experiences of people who don't fit your sociopolitics? Particularly via oversimplistic understandings of human physiology?
- Being autistic+adhd means i'm constantly processing a lot of sensory information, which can lead to sensory overwhelm. But for me, it also means that feeling and playing with others' naked flesh is usually very rewarding.
- Many cis men criticise, harrass and intimidate women who seek to participate in various spaces - then have the temerity to claim that women “just aren't interested” in being in that space, or that women actively don't have the competence to legitimately be in that space.
- Sometimes silencing isn't about not letting someone talk. Sometimes it's about ignoring what they're saying. And sometimes that's made worse by those ignoring you also claiming to be supporting you.
- With ‘sexuality’ getting treated - inappropriately - as synonymous with ‘sexual orientation’, and ‘sexual orientation’ getting desexualised for respectability politics, ‘sexuality’ is - ridiculously - getting desexualised. But my sexuality includes things like anal fisting, and if you erase this sex from my queer sexuality, you're erasing this queer's sexuality.
- The meta-message i've got from many sex-positive communities over the years is: i am not attractive or desirable. Non-cis amab people such as myself are rarely presented as attractive or desirable; exceptions tend to involve either ‘passing’ in terms of cishetnormative notions of ‘feminine sexiness’, or very visibly performing gender in a way considered sufficiently ‘transgressive’ or ‘subversive’. “Just being oneself” generally doesn't seem to cut it.
- Medical professionals: It's ridiculous how people are turning to alternative therapies to deal with their health issues. Also medical professionals: There's nothing wrong with you; you're imagining it, if not actively making it up. Go away, stop being annoying.
- In information theory, ‘information content’ is basically measured by how ‘surprising’ new data is. And more generally, when modelling a system, the better the model, the more likely that new data will not be ‘surprising’, and instead will have been predicted by the model. So if your model of government is continually ‘surprised’ by governments primarily acting to benefit those with wealth, whether individuals or corporations, and being resistant to acting to benefit those without wealth .... You probably need a better model.
- ‘Radical feminism’ is the name of a specific strand of feminism. It shouldn't be conflated with other feminisms which are radical, or with feminists who aren't radfem but who are nevertheless radical. The ‘radical feminism’ strand is fundamentally whorephobic, transphobic, kinkphobic, can be racist and colonialist in its claim that patriarchy is the core oppression, and is fundamentally paternalistic in its claims to know what's ‘really’ best for all women. ‘SWERFs’ and ‘TERFs’ aren't exceptions within ‘radical feminism’; they are much more the rule. Claiming otherwise obscures how radfem politics is damaging to many more women than ‘just’ sex workers and trans women.
- Could we please be more intersectional, and show more awareness of various struggles, and be more careful about using the word ‘abolitionism’ unqualified? There are actually a number of political positions labelled ‘abolitionism’, and amongst them is ‘gender abolitionism’, an ideology hostile to those of us trying to get our our genders acknowledged and respected. There's also "abolitionism" in the context of sex work - cf. e.g. "the Swedish / Nordic / end-demand model", which stands in contrast to many sex workers' calls for decriminalisation.
- The amount of dogmatism, self-righteousness and arrogance in leftist and anarchist circles is also so depressing. “I have The One True Solution; everyone else is contemptible or dangerous.”
- The amount of elitism, pretentiousness and immaturity in leftist and anarchist circles is so depressing. “Sorry, you don't have the social capital to join this ride.”
- The ongoing legacy of decades of transphobia from queers and feminists is that i still assume that references to woman-woman interactions not only don't include me, but are specifically excluding me.
- i'm autistic and adhd. Do other people have to listen to me talk about my passions / special interests? No, of course not. i'm not entitled to other people's time and energy, or to cross their boundaries. And yet, neurotypical people often behave as though they're entitled to force neurodivergent people to deal with smalltalk/chitchat, which can be very difficult and draining for many of us.
- You're not ‘pro-queer’ / ‘pro-trans’ / ‘pro-genderqueer’ if you demand that we not be highly sexual or kinky. You're ‘pro people you deem worthy’.
- Imagine you're told: “We want to make sure you're treated with respect and dignity. So we're going to make sure you can't get paid for your work.” That's basically what many sex workers are constantly having to deal with, due to the actions of payment processors.
- Sex with friends isn't inherently problematic. It doesn't necessarily ruin friendships. Sex with friends can be connecting. It can be bonding. It can be supportive. Sex with friends can strengthen friendships.
- Non-adhd people need to stop being so lazy, and make the time to try to understand adhd people's lives and experiences. Perhaps they should try using a planner.
- In the first half of my life, i had to deal with people asserting that gender = gender assigned at birth = biology = destiny. In the second half of my life, i'm not only dealing with that, but ‘gender abolitionists’, who don't distinguish ‘gender’ in general from ‘compulsory gender roles’ and ‘compulsory gender presentations’ in particular, and who seemingly think that that somehow ‘abolishing’ gender (however that will be achieved) will somehow stop people noticing human dimorphism, which is obviously doubleplusungood behaviour. Unfuck this bullshit.
- ‘Queer-friendly’ doesn't necessarily imply ‘trans-friendly’. Radfem politics is very supportive of cis homosexuality, but very hostile to trans women.
- Shared identity does not necessarily imply shared lived experience and perspectives. Caitlyn Jenner is a trans woman, but her life and perspectives are very different from mine. Acts of empathy and solidarity are more important to me than shared identity.
- Neurotypicals often claim that autistic people lack empathy. Yet at the same time, neurotypicals regularly fail to empathise with autistics' perspectives and experiences. Maybe they just don't care.
- Mansplaining is a thing, and a bloody annoying thing at that. But what's also a thing is people who aren't cis men condescendingly ‘explaining’ theory and politics of gender and sexuality to me, as though i've not had to constantly wrestle with this stuff for more over three decades. Get off my fucking lawn.
- Respect and support for difference and diversity doesn't scale. Whether in government, business, or community, “economies of scale” require internal dynamics of homogenisation. Increasing size often leads to difference and diversity being opposed, downplayed, ignored or erased.
- If you're asking people to examine their privilege and change their behaviours, but can't give examples of how you're doing so yourself in other contexts, your politics are actually ‘egocentrism’.
- Rather ironic that autistic people are pathologised for ‘deficits’ involving implicit communication, yet at the same time there's a general recognition that there are systemic problems in neurotypical culture resulting from deficits of explicit communication.
- Radfem ideology is often bioessentialist purity-politics fundamentalism, which aligns well with .... certain other ideologies. Intersectional leftism needs to move beyond simply criticising ‘TERFs’ and ‘SWERFs’, and explicitly and continually reject radfem ideology more generally.
- Some people talk of collectivist ideologies as ideologies of the weak. Well, if we're going to play that game, we could talk of capitalism as the ideology of the so obnoxiously self-centred that people won't willingly share with them.
- Community after community after community seeks mainstream ‘acceptance’ by disavowing sexual expression / sexuality, with community members ‘too tainted’ in this regard getting thrown under the bus. What does it say about a community and its culture when it's willing to treat some of its members as ‘expendable’ for ‘the greater good’?
- i'm disturbed and angered by fellow trans women promoting radfem beliefs, e.g. whorephobia and kinkphobia. How about showing some solidarity with other women negatively impacted by paternalistic, agency-denying radfem analyses?
- i'm regularly told i have ‘feminine energy’. i'm also a domme and a sadist. If those two things feel contradictory to you, you might need to examine the patriarchal dualism you've internalised.
- ‘NSFW’ stands for “Not Safe for Work”. It usually refers solely to sexually explicit material. This not only erases sex work, but also implies that sexism, racism, ableism, transphobia, queerphobia, and so on, are safe for work. And indeed, that does often seem to be the case.
- So ignorant and disrespectful of so many people, including health and support professionals, to assume that any relationship other than one with a ‘wife’ / ‘husband’ / ‘spouse’ is inherently less involved, has fewer responsibilities, and/or is less committed overall. Just one example: there are many kink dynamics with more ongoing love, care, support and respect than many marriages.
- Sometimes the wisdom of having been doing consensual nonmonogamy for decades is not having the answers, but knowing from experience that there are situations which don't have straightforward solutions.
- Respectability politics involves a more privileged group throwing a more marginalised group under the bus for personal gain. In that sense, it's less ‘pragmatic’ and more ‘sociopathic’.
- Being a dominant doesn't necessarily mean looking masc. Looking femme doesn't necessarily mean being a submissive. Kink dynamics don't have to involve gender essentialism or gender dualism.
- i know increasing numbers of people whose mental health has been significantly helped through kink, drugs or sex, where they failed to be helped (or were only minimally helped) by religiously or politically ‘acceptable’ treatments. Who in some cases might also have been gaslit by suggestions that they were the ones failing, rather than the ‘acceptable’ treatments. Limiting opportunities for people to improve their health is harm. Blaming people for not being able to improve their health via ‘religiously correct’ or ‘politically correct’ methods is harm.
- There are many paths to meditative states, and to altered states more generally. Kink and sex are not only valid meditative paths; for some of us, they're the paths that take us to meditative states, where ‘respectable’ or ‘acceptable’ paths simply don't.
- Sadist me inflicting suffering on a fellow adult who has explicitly consented to it: Weird, worrying, mentally unhealthy. Employer inflicting suffering on thousands of adults who have little choice but to take it: Upstanding, valued, contributor to society.
- Whatever else one might say about politics where one axis of oppression/privilege always trumps others, it certainly can't be described as intersectional.
- Why do people quite rightly find biological essentialism problematic, yet actively support spiritual essentialism (‘the divine feminine’, ‘the divine masculine’)? Can we talk about how spiritual essentialism and biological essentialism can mutually reinforce each other?
- A core story we tell ourselves: “Everything has a primary underlying cause.” No. Existence is far more complex than that, and has no obligation to meet reductionist psychological needs.
- So porn necessarily causes certain behaviours in men, such that the only way of stopping those behaviours is to limit porn? Really? Does women's clothing necessarily cause certain behaviours in men, such that women should limit how we dress? How about we instead focus on men being responsible for how they behave?
- If you claim you're against slut-shaming, but express that by supporting the idea that being a slut / promiscuous / proactively sexual is inherently A Bad Thing: You're slut-shaming.
- When promoting ‘resilience’ and ‘mindfulness’, reflect on how you might be enabling ‘sustainable exploitation’ of less-privileged people for the benefit of the more-privileged, and failing to validate the former's experiences of systemic inequalities.
- At some point, the mental health professions are going to need to have a reckoning about how they've gaslit and traumatised so many of us autistics.
- Health professionals to autistics: “You need to respect people's boundaries.” 👍 Also health professionals to autistics: “Your boundaries are invalid, and you overreact when they're crossed. You need to learn emotional regulation and distress tolerance.” 😳
- Privilege politics has to be accompanied by intersectional thinking and expressions of solidarity and mutual aid. Otherwise - based on experience - it becomes a recipe for division, self-centeredness and entitlement.
- Let's cut through the euphemistic bullshit. When the mainstream social media platforms use the phrase “(our) community guidelines”, it can often by replaced by the phrase “conservative Christian beliefs”. “Your post has been removed for violating community guidelines” → “Your post has been removed for violating conservative Christian beliefs”.
- Telling an autistic and/or ADHD person “don't let autism/ADHD define you”? You don't have the right to define how we define ourselves.
- Y'know ... If medicine had taken those of us with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome a lot more seriously for the last few decades, we might be a lot further along in our ability to now handle Long COVID. Just sayin'.
- You're not “less kinky” or “failing at kink” by not being active or visible in your local kink scene. Being kinky isn't defined by your level of public performativity.
- Yes, i'm a domme .... but i don't do the ‘naturally dominant’ behaviour thing. i'll treat you as an equal unless and until we've explicitly negotiated a power dynamic. i'm long past needing to ‘prove’ i'm a dominant. Related: don't expect me to address you by hierarchical honorifics that i haven't agreed to.
- Non-cis or not, if you're a “gender abolitionist” wanting to “ban gender”, you're no ally of mine. Show some respect for others' struggles.
- If it's patriarchal to expect/demand that a cis woman present in a ‘feminine’ way, why expect/demand that of a trans woman?
- i make no apologies for prioritising listening to people's lived experiences of their own lives over the theories of typically-privileged academics.
- Various mathematicians: “Most areas of mathematics have applications outside of maths, or will eventually find applications; but regardless, mathematics is beautiful and interesting in its own right.” Also various mathematicians: “Category theory? What use is it?”
- Unkink hoses, not people.
- Part of how i perform gender is noting that people can't make assumptions about my gender on the basis of how they perceive me to be performing it.
- Communities typically contain one or more in-groups. If you think a community doesn't, you might be part of one.
- Resilience: The characteristic individuals are expected to develop by multiple systems of oppression in order to deal with the consequences of that oppression, for which those systems abdicate responsibility by declaring “that's just life”.
- Dualism is not the same as binarism. You might be actively opposed to binarism, yet still reinforcing, supporting or promoting dualism.
- i would rather a cishet political representative who significantly represents my values and interests, than a queer/tgd representative who doesn't.
- If you feel those with power could be counted on to reliably exert that power on your behalf, you might be in a position of power yourself.
- A lot of nomimal collectivism i've witnessed seems to me to be the ultimate in individualism: “The masses will carry out My Vision.”
- “You would be wise to not offend me,” says Darth Ally.
- You might want to reconsider your ‘activism’ if you're devoting time to bullying genuine allies.
- Privileged people playing subversivism can often end up drowning out the voices of the less privileged.
- A movement theoretically welcoming of diversity, but lacking diversity amongst its thought leaders, needs to critique its approach.
- If you respect a woman's ability to choose for herself re. abortion, regardless of economic / social / cultural pressures, why don't you respect a woman's ability to choose for herself re. sex work?
- If for you ‘genderfuck’ is just a sociopolitical tactic you can opt-out of, you need to examine how this requires privilege.
- You have privilege if you don't have to fight to have your gender recognised and accepted but can instead just ‘play’ with gender.
☙