QUILTBAG Thread of Flagrant Homoeroticism

[Apple Cider]

It's fun finding out that literally every person I'd heard of with any kind of influence in social justice is too questionable to listen to. Erika Moen, now?

 

I'm looking forward to finding out how Apple Cider's co-host on Justice Points did a shitty thing once and therefore must be purged because she is impure.

 

why did you use my friend and my podcast as an example here

[Badfinger]

why did you use my friend and my podcast as an example here

 

Because it's a thing he likes and a ludicrous scenario, used as hyperbole.

 

I'm hopeful that's the reason, in any case.

[Apple Cider]

Sorry, it's just really unnerving to be referred to in the third person for an argument you're not involved in. 

[Merus]

why did you use my friend and my podcast as an example here

 

Didn't intend to alarm! Was trying to think of someone whom I could not possibly imagine anyone starting a fight with over their social justice bonafides that wouldn't require a Google search.

 

I'm pretty sure we've had this exact conversation before in private, and it's still downright childish to stick your finger in your ears and ignore that pretty much everyone can and has done bad things and don't really need your help to whitewash them as perfect angels. A week ago you defended Hugh Fucking Hefner as an ally.

 

It's not my problem if you're reading nuance as whitewashing. Hugh Hefner is a pornographer, he wasn't a clandestine Harvey Milk, and I didn't think that needed to be made clear.

 

But the thing that frustrates me, and it's something I think you're buying into a little, is the framing of people as being pure until we find out the bad things they've done, and then we decide whether or not whether their sins weight heavy enough to damn them. That's the only way I can make sense of that discussion, or not being interested what some random person says Erika Moen said when she was a very different person, as being whitewashing. You're claiming that by marginalising problems, I'm painting those subjects as perfect, and not as humans, part of and moulded by a broken system that we can't fix while we're still alive.

 

If you're saying I'm an asshole for wanting to forgive people, then I'll gladly wear that.* Doesn't mean I always have to, doesn't mean anyone else has to. But I'll be fucked if I let anyone else demand purity around me without saying anything. I can't be the ally I'd like to be, but I can do that.

 

*Judging by the rest of your post, I'm guessing that's not the only reason why you think I'm an asshole, which is fine. I can't be liked by everyone. I don't really take it personally, being seen as an asshole by someone with a long history of seeing people as assholes.

[Apple Cider]

I think the other side of the ideological purity coin is that we allow certain people to speak for others or be the expert on a subject across way too vast of a demographic - I don't want Erika Moen or something like Dan Savage getting to be the representative for my experience personally, because I don't like their politics in some way or I don't like how they present their identities or feelings on others as somehow also representative of mine. 

 

I think keeping receipts is useful if you are seeing that someone is given way more credit than they should when they are not changing but I also think we raise people up and give them way too much power to "speak for" people. Granted, a lot of them didn't ask for it, so it's a problem I've seen a lot in social justice communities as well. It's a byproduct of politics in general, and how normative our culture is - marginalized identities only get so much room to be visible so one person gets seen as the voice or the representative. 

[SuperBiasedMan]

If you can't question someone's judgement for having previous questionable decisions, when can you? It's not like the linked comic is without problematic interpretation. So if anything, the previous questionable comics would justify aversion to this particular one.

 

Also I'm sorry, but I really hate this quote

 

It's fun finding out that literally every person I'd heard of with any kind of influence in social justice is too questionable to listen to.

 

You should never accept anyone's word as gospel. Everyone is fallible, despite best intentions, and you shouldn't be a passive consumer. If you care about social justice stuff, you should actually consider the aspects of what you're consuming.

 

To take a common example, I think the Thumbs are great folks who make an effort to be good for this stuff but they make mistakes. I'm not going to pretend they're designated good ones and ignore that stuff just because it's rare. And I apply the same to anybody else, no matter how much I feel aligned with the majority of their social justice output.

[natellite]

To take a common example, I think the Thumbs are great folks who make an effort to be good for this stuff but they make mistakes. I'm not going to pretend they're designated good ones and ignore that stuff just because it's rare. And I apply the same to anybody else, no matter how much I feel aligned with the majority of their social justice output.

 

But by that same token, the occasional slip-up isn't enough to alienate me from someone who has a generally good track record and means well. So much of my experience with (mostly, but not exclusively online) queer communities has ended in witch hunts against ideological impurity, and boy oh boy that's exhausting. I don't have the energy for that anymore.

[Gaizokubanou]

massive public figures' horrible actions and opinions that are unlikely to change because they live in a big celebrity bubble.

 

But being poor does very little to change a person's horrible actions and opinions.  It just changes how they cope with stress... wealthy has the option to go on hedonistic spree of some sort, while poor have less options to vent.

 

You should never accept anyone's word as gospel. Everyone is fallible, despite best intentions, and you shouldn't be a passive consumer. If you care about social justice stuff, you should actually consider the aspects of what you're consuming.

 

I am just not getting this kind of reading from what Merus wrote thus far...  Merus' position has been pretty explicit in that he sees everyone with problems.  But the crux is that he is OK with that because it is just so... common.  Don't see where he's trying to accept their words as gospel.

 

Better explained version is how natelite put it... it's not about painting someone as perfect despite their questionable past, it's just question of do you really want to spend so much of your energy picking away at someone's past when we all know we got dirty and flawed aspects in our lives?

 

Obviously this is matter of degrees because surely Merus wouldn't come to defense of say, Pol Pot (bless this name for not being overused like Stalin and Hitler kekekeke) but the idea that every wrongdoing must be pointed out at every moment is just... absurdly tiring and vindictive (which ends up betraying even more fundamental social justice tenet, that is to ultimately better the lives of everyone) and that's the aspect that I suspect that Merus is pointing out here.

[Smart Jason]

But being poor does very little to change a person's horrible actions and opinions.  It just changes how they cope with stress... wealthy has the option to go on hedonistic spree of some sort, while poor have less options to vent.

 

Different Tumblrs to chronicle it, though, is my point.

[SuperBiasedMan]

@natellite For sure, I'm not claiming that anyone who's made mistakes needs to be in some shit list. I explain better what I mean below.

@Gaizo I think you have it backwards. I'm not advocating that you bet everyone's past. I'm advocating that you think about everything you consume. If you think it's iffy at all, then considering a history of troubled output is useful to judge that person's output that troubled you in the first place.

[Gaizokubanou]

@natellite For sure, I'm not claiming that anyone who's made mistakes needs to be in some shit list. I explain better what I mean below.

@Gaizo I think you have it backwards. I'm not advocating that you bet everyone's past. I'm advocating that you think about everything you consume. If you think it's iffy at all, then considering a history of troubled output is useful to judge that person's output that troubled you in the first place.

 

I didn't mean to claim that you were advocating to vet everyone's past.  I was saying that's what Merus seem to be focused on so that your response (which was NOT advocating to vet everyone's past as I understood it, just advocating that we try to remain critical of everything) to his post felt bit like you two weren't talking about the same topic.

 

In a way what two of you are talking about could be relevant but so far from what I've seen it felt like... say you were talking about taste of fruit orange, and he would be talking about color of fruit orange.  Both of you are talking about fruit orange, but about something completely irrelevant from each other.

 

Because in a way yes both of you are talking about criticism... but he's talking about hyper criticism with social stigma attached to it, while you are discussing much more individual approach of staying critical.  Both are about criticism, but completely different aspects of it IMO.

[Bjorn]

I'd honestly been hesitant to post anymore on this topic, but that celebreceipts link has kind of got stuck in the back of my mind.  Yes, some of the work Moen has done was shitty, should be criticized and it is perfectly reasonable for anyone to decide that they feel whatever they feel about her based on her published work.

 

But that thing ends up just being the worst kind of tumblery social justice witch hunt.  Like, the final two links accuse her of making racist work by linking to an unsourced, incomplete collage of work with no evidence that it actually came from Moen. Which, lets assume it did and the author had done their homework, calling it racist is just unethically painting it in the worst light possible.  From the two surviving pieces, it looks like someone trying to explore or explain the racism of the family they grew up in.  It might be rough, but it's kinda bullshit to cry racism about someone trying to explain and show the racism their family tried to instill in them.  That's not the kind of work that should be being hunted down, criticized and held up as an indictment of someone.  Someone trying to examine and pushback against the toxic, bullshit culture they were raised in.  It's that thing where once someone decides they need to collate the litany of sins of a public figure, they need to make sure they've checked off all the major boxes, and if they can't find something definitively racist, they'll just look for any material that involved race and call it racist. 

 

I don't think anybody needs to forgive her, like her work, or anything else.  But for fuck's sake, whoever runs celebreceipts needs to take their foot off the indignation gas pedal for a minute and think a bit more about some of the "evidence" posted. 

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah how the hell was that collage racist? That whole article had some pretty weak dirt digging in my opinion.

[Griddlelol]

Man, I really wish I hadn't mentioned the Fire Emblem thing here in any sort of positive light, because basically the way Nintendo is handling their first openly gay characters is utterly reprehensible.

 

TL;DR: in Conquest version, one of your squadmates is openly lesbian. Female player characters can't romance her, but male ones can. See, she feels that her lesbianism is a weakness that makes her less of a woman, so dudetagonist drugs her drink with magic powder that makes her temporarily see men as women and women as men, which is used as the cornerstone in what is essentially magic gay conversion therapy. In the end, she falls for him, because of course she does.

 

This might actually be the worst thing Nintendo has ever done.

 

Here's an update to the story: http://kotaku.com/why-some-people-are-calling-fire-emblem-fates-homophobi-1715602826

 

There's also a link to gaijinhunter's tumblr who I believe is the one localising it (although I don't think they did the original translation that caused the controversy) and their thoughts on it. 

Reading this it seems a little more innocent than the link you provided suggests, it's still a pretty shitty way of doing it though. 

 

Also Patricia has some interesting things to say about it in the comments section.

[Smart Jason]

Here's an update to the story: http://kotaku.com/why-some-people-are-calling-fire-emblem-fates-homophobi-1715602826

 

There's also a link to gaijinhunter's tumblr who I believe is the one localising it (although I don't think they did the original translation that caused the controversy) and their thoughts on it. 

Reading this it seems a little more innocent than the link you provided suggests, it's still a pretty shitty way of doing it though. 

 

Also Patricia has some interesting things to say about it in the comments section.

 

I saw this earlier today and I'm not sure that (aside from one translator's take) this is an update to the story rather than just someone else's opinion piece on it - one that didn't need to exist and only seems to dismiss major issues. I hadn't seen any article suggesting that the character is "converted" explicitly due to her sexuality being considered immoral, it was always understood that it was because it was a battle hindrance. Confirming that doesn't make this better, nor does the argument that it's not outright stated that she's a lesbian. Brian Ashcroft also brings up the unavoidable fact that the character's drugged without her knowledge and then just moves on, only admitting that's it, huh, peculiar, since drink spiking exists in Japan too.

 

Again, correct me if I'm wrong, people who've paid closer attention, but the Kotaku article is strawmanning fierce if its argument is that people thought the drug itself was meant to cure homosexuality. From the first time I read about this, I had no trouble understanding that this magical tonic just reversed people's genders in the taker's perspective - which is used to help her behave herself around other women and narratively lead her toward a heterosexual relationship. Saying this isn't gay conversion because of such technicalities is like saying there's no violence in Fire Emblem because they use magic spells and those don't really exist.

[Apple Cider]

There's even imgur galleries saying this is all a mistranslation - which immediately then just says it's a magical tonic used "without her knowledge" because that would "lower its efficacy" if she knew. And that she's "really bisexual" but that her attraction to women "weakens" her. IT'S STILL HORRIBLE.

 

https://imgur.com/gallery/Z46S9

 

Basically every single thing I've seen, no matter what camp, no matter how flimsy the reasoning, all looks terrible. 

[Bjorn]

And Brownback continues to be as shitty and intolerant as possible, issuing a wide ranging executive order about protecting religious liberty. 

 

The order means “a homeless shelter that received a state contract or grant could refuse family housing to a gay couple with a child, or a foster care agency could refuse to place a child in their custody with the child’s family member just because the family member was in a same-sex relationship – and the state could not require them to treat all families equally,” said Micah Kubic, executive director of the Kansas chapter of the ACLU.

“Any organization that contracts with the state that says their religious beliefs don’t allow them to do something, then they don’t have to do it,” said Ron Nelson, a family law expert from Lenexa. He noted it could be used by religious-based adoption services to refuse to place a child with a gay couple.

 

Nelson compared this to the strategies used by southern states in the 1950s and 1960s to resist desegregation.

 

“This is the same technique that southern states tried to use to frustrate Brown v. Board of Education,” he said.

[Mangela Lansbury]

Michigan has one of those too!

I really look forward to the Supreme Court fixing their immense fuck up in Hobby Lobby eventually. That decision led to all this misinterpretation of religious freedom.

[Bjorn]

The lady outed herself to one of her sisters about being bisexual and non-monogamous today.  She's terrified that it's going to be the beginning of the end of her relationships with most of her family.  But for a variety of reasons, she can't hide this stuff anymore.

[Apple Cider]

Tell your lady that she has a lot of people pulling for her, at least. I'm so fucking exhausted right now of people being shit to my friends who are bisexual and coming out about it. 

[Bjorn]

Thank you for that, seriously. Her older sister had a positive reaction to the bisexuality and a neutral reaction to the non-monogamy, but also acknowledged that there are several other family members who are likely to have very negative reactions. She came out to her older sister first because she thought that was the best shot at having someone in the family on her side when the rest of them find out. Hopefully that is the case.

So next up is telling the rest of them.

[Gwardinen]

It's gross that she has to plan being honest to her family about who she is tactically in that way, though likely smart. I'm glad it's going at least somewhat well so far. Good luck to you both in the next steps.

[Apple Cider]

I have broached the topic with my mom, dad, stepmom and neither my stepdad or sister and I suspect it'll stay that way. They are pretty liberal but I also have never really had to confront them with anything but dating men (because I have never told them when I was dating women or otherwise) and I don't talk to my extended family. Everyone in my extended family doesn't appear to be queer on any level so I guess I AM the gay (well bisexual) cousin. 

[Bjorn]

The people she's primarily worried about are her parents and her two sisters.  There are aunts, uncles and cousins who are also likely to have pretty shitty reactions when word gets to them (which is likely), but other than one aunt, the lady is pretty okay with just not interacting with any of the extended family for a long time if they say anything crappy.  But it's the possibility of her mom and dad walking away from her that is most potentially hurtful. 

 

There's no fear of how my family will react.  My family is just as rural and conservative as her's, but has been dysfunctional as hell for decades, where as hers is like American Pie and Grandma perfect looking (from the outside).  Because my family has put eachother through so much crap, it's just like, "Okay, no big deal."  Plus I've got a step-brother who's gay, and he's taken my dad to drag nights at a gay bar before, which apparently my dad had a great time at (I so wish I could have been there).  My family's just crazy enough in the good way to be okay with other people being different.

[Patrick R]

I've come out to my sisters (one of whom is very religious but was also a theater kid so she had a lot of gay male friends), who didn't really care. I figure I'll never come out to my parents until I need to. Unless my sisters have already told them and we've all just silently agreed not to talk about it, the way we silently agreed never to discuss the fact that I'm an atheist. Irish-Catholics! So great at not talking!

 

For someone raised in a fairly strict Catholic household I'm really lucky. My aunt is gay so I never heard any shitty homophobic talk growing up, and my parents are so afraid of sex they never mentioned it's existence, let alone instilled shame into me about it. I first realized I was attracted to men around the age of 14, but I never felt ashamed of it. I certainly wasn't open with it to anyone I wasn't close with, but even back then I always felt like that was more everyone else's problem then mine.

 

I did come out to my parents as non-monogamous (back when I was) and they mostly seemed puzzled but not judgmental. My mom's response was "Yeah, I really don't get that" to which I replied "That's ok." End of conversation. I think maybe I'm such a fuck-up in every other aspect of my life that they've just decided my sex life is the last thing they need to worry about.