In Texas, they banned some of the Vampire Academy books (not all, for some reason), before they were actually written, because there probably would be sex in them.
Funny events in anti-woke world
- Thread starter Agema
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To tstorm, "pervert" is "anyone who does not stay within my narrow, regressive, hostile view of sexuality".
I don't know how The Onion stays in business. You just can't satirize this shit; it's already too far out there.
There is a nude male lying on top of another nude male, face first into one another, with the one on bottom spreading his legs to fit the other in, but you can't see through the body of the one on top, so their genitals are definitely not touching. Perfectly innocent kissing.
Yeah, ok.
"Interest in erotic gay fiction has been so prevalent in my friendships, one could mistake it for a prerequisite."
I want you to stop and imagine if a man told you "I talk to literally all my friends about lesbian porn. Every tv show I watch, I'm picturing the actresses having sex with one another, and telling my friends about it." What words would you use to describe this person? Would you be more likely to call them perverted, or recommend their stories be told to children across the country?
You continue to insist this, but it doesn't make me uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable pushing it on children because I know all of what is wrong with it, and I know what is wrong with it because I experienced the same culture as the author. I have seen where this comes from. The youth are better not going there.
I imagine that you would agree that it is a sad thing for a person to force themselves to conform to societal norms at the expense of their own happiness. Someone who limits themselves based on an image of what they're supposed to be can miss out on a lot of joy in life. This sort of thing is strictly worse than that.
Social norms exist because they are desirable for most people. Women wearing dresses appeals to most people's aesthetic tastes. Pizza appeals to most people sense of what tastes good. Classical music sounds pretty to most people. Nothing suits everyone's taste, of course, but normal things are normal because the appeal is common. If someone does not know what they enjoy, a reasonable place to start is what most people like. If you haven't tried any food, probably try the pizza. Maybe you are someone who doesn't care for pizza and would rather have liver and onions, but starting with pizza is a reasonable place. Then maybe see how you feel about liver and onions. It would be a bad thing to lock yourself out of liver and onions... but it would be worse to lock yourself out of pizza, because there is a much higher chance you'd enjoy it.
If we look at societal norms as mandates rather than just trends, they're an oppressive and restrictive thing on those who might go a different way, even if self-enforced. But the author seems to have done the opposite. They see themselves as different, and restrict themselves to that self-image, at the expense of everything normal. That is a tragic way to live. That's not pursuing joy where it leads you. That is cutting all the things most likely to give joy out of your own life. A person inspired to tell a story will feel joy in writing a novel. A person who has no particular story to tell, but pursues writing because they see themselves as an author, is going to find sorrow and frustration. Gender Queer is the story of someone who ignored the things normal women enjoy because it didn't suit the author's self-image, and in trying all the options that fit that self-image, found largely discomfort and frustration.
Don't box yourself into an artificial concept of what you should be, but especially don't box yourself into the artificial construction of being different than normal people.
Let's assume this is true.
Why?
I don't actually expect an answer. Just think about it going forward.
So, I feel kind of silly explaining this, but preferences can be both positive and negative. In other words, a person can not know what they enjoy but also have a clear sense of what they don't want.
Do you feel obligated to try literally everything you don't want to do in order to figure out if you might be wrong?
It is not difficult for a cishet child to develop an understanding of their own sexuality simply through exposure to a culture in which those desires are seen as largely normal (to the degree that anyone's sexuality actually conforms with this idea of normality). For the same reason, it is also relatively easy (though not as easy) for a child who is not cishet to figure out that their sexuality does not align with that same sense of normality, because they are subject to the same cultural osmosis.
Also, given that most people consume and enjoy pornographic material, are you arguing we should be giving these children access to said material instead so they can be exposed to what most people like. It seems like the reasonable place to start..
I'm going to remind you that we're talking about children who are in school, an environment specifically designed to influence and control their development through systems of reward and punishment and in which conforming with external expectations is explicitly encouraged. We're also talking about parents deciding on their children's behalf what material they should be exposed to in order to influence their development in a manner the parents consider desirable.
I feel like "self enforced" adherence to societal norms is really the least of our problems here.
How is it meaningfully different from the way you live?
Imagine all the things you have not done in your life, all the things you have denied yourself the experience of simply because you didn't want to do them. Oh, what wretched depths of self-oppression! What a monstrous and terrible state of self-imposed unfreedom you must live under, to be such a wretched slave to the basic human condition of being an actual human person with a personal identity and individual preferences..
Why would you assume that things you don't want to do are likely to give you joy?
Who does that?
So, I've been playing with you but I'm going to drop the act because what's happening here is actually kind of gross. You are talking about a person you do not know, claiming to know e better than e know emselves (because something something internet), claiming that e are secretly unhappy and that you know e would be happier if e just dressed like a girl and let emself get dicked, a self-evident fact which you figured out instantly but which e, over the course of eir entire life somehow hasn't clocked despite having existed under immense exposure to and pressure to engage in the things you consider to be "normal".
I take back what I said earlier. The way you live is clearly very different from the way any queer person has to live by virtue of circumstance, because you lack the basic ability to comprehend the value of a life outside of your own. I pity you, you must live in a terribly frightening world.
Gender queer is the story of someone who was different from "normal" women and didn't want to do the things "normal" women enjoy, who adopted and elaborated a distinct identity based around that difference and who sometimes faced discrimination from extremely chill and mentally healthy "normal" people who oftren demonstrated the exactly the level of open minded acceptance and joyfulness we have all come to expect of them.
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Anyone with sense. People can be instinctively afraid of rollercoasters, but if they get on one, they'll probably enjoy it. Most people like rollercoasters, and it isn't for no reason. Something about pickles put me off, I didn't want to eat them, until I did, and now I eat lots of pickles. If something is enjoyed by millions of people, they probably know something your gut instinct is missing.
I know that's suggested often and rarely the answer, but when you write a memoir that reads "straight sex seemed off-putting, so even though I was constantly thinking about dicks, I tried everything else and realized I was asexual the whole time", it really is a reasonable suggestion.
Millions of people get a kick out of organised religion and heroin but I've met enough proponents of both to know that neither is for me.
Reminds me of the old t-shirt "EAT SHIT a million flies can't be wrong"
I've seen the results of heroin, I wouldn't call them joyous. Your hesitance to use heroin is exactly the logic I'm proposing, that even if you were drawn to try heroin, you could take a guess that your experience would end as poorly as others'.
A ton of people get great joy taking part in organized religion. Your resentment is poorly founded.
You are not a fly.
It can't be. You'd be just like tstorm if only you just didn't hate God and the world and yourself. Everyone would, because tstorm is the epitome of humanity.
"I'm simply disinterested in something, which is why I grouped it with heroin in my mind".
Yep, along with seafood, Elden Ring, Zack Snyder's Justice League, lawn bowls and a million or so other things that bring a form of joy to millions.
Do you want to have sex with men?
Do you have children? I do not have (and do not want) children. And yet my brother has children and is very happy. How can we both possibly be right?!
You imagine whatever you want. Being naked with a partner without having sex is quite normal. Kissing is quite normal. Nothing else is actually depicted. Both together are quite normal if you sleep in the same bed. You wanna extrapolate, go ahead.
Look: sex takes up quite a lot of a late teenager's thoughts. They think about it a lot. This is a memoir of that confused, anxious time. It's not saying "this was great", or "this is how I am now get in on this". It's a memoir of a time a lot of young queer teenagers have trouble with.
Recognising that does not make one a "pervert". And hiding late teenagers away from it is impossible and ridiculous.
To be honest, you have a very long track record of absurdly misrepresenting the views and experiences of those you disagree with, and then insisting that you know them better than they do. So I don't believe you.
It would be wrong of me to say without experience that I would not enjoy such a thing. Many other men have enjoyed sex with men, there is likelihood I could as well.
There is significantly more decision making to go into a concrete want, especially in a scenario where one decision likely precludes others.
Grad school?
Edit for details: the memoir we are discussing came about as a result of an autobiography class taken while pursuing a masters degree. The page talking about how universal gay fanfiction was among her friendships explicitly includes grad school in that timeline, including the expression "I thought gay porn was UNIVERSAL", immediately following the depiction of grad school and matching the hair style depicted in the grad school panel. So the author could tie discussions of gay porn into friendships universally while beginning work on what would become this book.
This is not a book about awkward teenage years for an awkward teenage audience. The author has stated explicitly the book was intended to be read by adults. Most of the adult scenarios in the book are depicting events from the author's adult life. The book got into schools because it was given an Alex Award, which goes to "books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18."
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