welcome to downtown coolsville

queenlyzard linked to this earlier: These Are My Colours by ssj10, a post about the whitewashing of Avatar: The Last Airbender in the upcoming M. Night Shyamalan film. For anyone who doesn't know: the original show was set in a fantasy world and featured characters who were primarily Asian and Inuit. The live action cast includes such non-white people as, um, Jackson Rathbone. (Who said that "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan." Why, that's brilliant, White Dude! Although getting a tan might be too much bother- why not just apply a little face paint and speak in a funny voice, that should get the point across.) The only main characters who remain POC in the film are antagonists.

Yeah. I, uh, won't be going to see this movie. ( White person talks about racism! )

This is what it is like to suddenly start taking antidepressants again after being off them for a few weeks:

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

That, combined with a massive headache. Ow.

To make it better I am watching this video on repeat.

From apiphile:

Women should say yes, yes, yes more.

Arndt said while giving women the right to say "no" to sex was an undisputed success of the women's movement, "the female libido tends to be a fragile, easily distracted thing that gets buffeted by normal life and a couple can't afford to have their intimacy reliant on that fragility".

...

Arndt said low-libido partners, which are mostly women, needed to put sex on the "to-do list", even if they didn't feel like doing it.

"The notion that women have to want sex to enjoy it has been a really misguided idea that has caused havoc in relationships over the last 40 years."

With the right approach from a loving partner, if women were willing to be receptive "and allow themselves to relax … they would enjoy it", she said.

Forget about mutual respect and consent, the key to a happy sexual relationship is one person lying back and thinking of England while the other jackhammers away whispering "just relax, baby, you'll love it, I promise." Kinda hoped we'd got past that idea!

Look. If you're with someone and they don't want to have sex with you? YOU DON'T GET TO HAVE SEX WITH THEM. Because their body is theirs, and they do not have to let anyone touch them ever, and having sex you don't want to have, even if you do "relax" (which I assume is code for "stop fighting and give in, you frigid bitch"), will fuck you up but good. Your partner does not belong to you! Consent is important! So if they say no, you fucking stop. I don't give a shit how damaged your poor delicate ego is, YOU FUCKING STOP.

And if you don't... well. There's a word for that and it's spelled r-a-p-e.

It is not okay to disregard a girl's thoughts, opinions, or art just because...

... she slept with someone.
... she slept with a lot of someones.
... she slept with someone you want to sleep with and IT'S NOT FAIR.
... she wears "slutty" clothes (what does that word even mean)?
... she likes boys.
... she likes girls.
... she likes boys and girls.
... she looks "girlish."
... she looks "boyish."
... she doesn't look the way you want her to look.
... she doesn't say what you want her to say.
... she's cis.
... she's trans.
... she's not the same race as you.
... she has tattoos.
... she has a handbag and a tiny dog.
... she's thin.
... she's fat.
... she knows someone famous.
... she might have fucked someone famous.
... she has a blog in which she occasionally mentions someone famous.
... she has or has had an eating disorder.
... she's an immigrant.
... she works in an industry you personally consider degrading (the fashion industry, the porn industry, the sex industry, whatever).
... she's a virgin.
... she's not a virgin.
... she's religious.
... she's not religious.
... she had an abortion.
... she has kids.
... she's young.
... she's old.
... she did something at some point in her life that you wouldn't have done, or would have done differently, or would have been smarter about, et cetera ad infinitum.

Can we as a species move the fuck on from this bullshit notion that men are people and women are types? That only the "right" kind of girl (and what's "right" for a girl changes all the time anyway) deserves our time and attention and respect, and all other kinds are disposable? That a girl is only as good as her stereotype, or her reputation, or the length of her skirt, or the colour of her skin, or what her job is, or what she looks like, or how much boys like her, or how closed she keeps her mouth, or how closed she keeps her legs?

Can we fucking evolve, please?

The Harper government is proposing to end a $27-million subsidy for political parties in today's fiscal and economic update – a measure taken in the name of federal belt-tightening that also threatens to hit opposition parties especially hard in the wallet.

MULTIPARTY, MOTHERFUCKER, CAN YOU SAY IT.

The fun thing about being genderqueer is that you just can't win for losing sometimes.

Lately I've been trying out a different aesthetic. Girl-cut shirts, eyeliner, skinny jeans, femmey stuff like that. And while I like it, and while I think it looks fucking nifty, I don't like the baggage that goes along with it.

Part of the reason why I've always gone for baggier clothes is because it hides my shape. I'm a pretty curvy person and a lot of times that bothers me- it's harder to pass when you've got child-bearing hips, and even though a lot of the time I don't pass anyway it's still nice to have that extra bit of security. For the past few years I've mostly bought things a couple of sizes too big for me because of that. Now that I'm getting into more form-fitting stuff that's not really an option. People can tell what my assigned sex is, and they treat me differently because of it.

It's the little things you notice. When you pass for a guy- or even just for a very butch girl- people do not maintain eye contact as long. They do not hold doors open or try to strike up conversations on the bus as often. They don't call you by pet names, and they don't ask if you need to be walked to your car. Masculinity gives you a kind of impenetrability, and I mean that in as many senses of the word as you like. Masculinity means that people assume you can take care of yourself, that no one will fuck (with) you. It means that you can move freely and that people won't ask as many questions. This, I suppose, is part of what they call male privilege.

The first time I noticed a difference was in the summer. I'd been playing around with eye makeup that morning and was wearing a pink shirt, and I went downtown for some reason or other. After an hour or two I went into a pizza place to get some lunch, and the guy at the counter smiled at me and called me "sweetie."

I'd been going to that pizza place for about four years, and that guy had been working there the whole time. He'd never "sweetie'd" me before. Never smiled. It was weird.

It's the little things you notice. People rushing to hold a door for you. A casual "honey" from someone who's known you five minutes. Profs passing you over in class. Questions about boys- which ones are cute, which ones are nice, which ones you're dating (and if not, why not?). People telling you that you "look nice"- not because you actually do, but because you look more like what they think you should look like. People assuming that you want to talk to them, or sit with them, or fuck them, because it's not like you're doing anything better with your time, right? People explaining things to you. Femininity opens you up in that way- or, rather, it lets people assume that you are opened up. Emotionally, physically, sexually, whatever, you're available and convenient and you'd damn well better be grateful, too.

It's all because of a few pieces of clothing and a stick of fucking kohl, and it pisses me off.

My biology is incidental to my personhood. I'm not a different person because I've got two X chromosomes instead of a Y; wearing eyeliner and skinny jeans doesn't make me a girl, any more than it makes fucking Pete Wentz a girl. It shouldn't carry so many gendered connotations. There's nothing female about makeup (the Celts agree) or tight pants (hey there, Shakespeare) or the colour pink (the "proper" colour for boy's clothing until very recently). There's nothing male about them, either. They're just things. That's all.

But people pounce on them and make judgments and decide based on their own preconceptions and insecurities whether you're a boy or a girl (and God help you if they can't decide). And THEN they decide how they should react to you, not in spite of gender but because of it. It's stupid, and it's fucked up, and I don't like it.

My identity's complicated. I'm not a boy (except for when I am), I'm not a girl (except for when I am), I'm not really both or a mixture or something in between (except for when I am). I'm Gerald.

I wish there was some way I could get that across without having to conform to a fucking dress code.

Sarah Palin: totally okay with charging victims for rape kits!

Obviously if you don't have $1200 just kind of lying around you shouldn't have gone and gotten yourself raped in the first place. THINK AHEAD, PEOPLE.

*seethes*

Apparently, Westboro Baptist Church intends to picket Heath Ledger's funeral.

I think I speak for us all when I say OH HELL NO.

Hey, guys! Wanna see the transphobic shit that was printed in the Chronicle Herald?

( Heck yes you do! )

He was specifically asked by one of the panelists not to write about the speakers, and, if he did so, to change the names. And then to not only ignore their express wishes, but to spew bigoted garbage like that? I call bullshit.

So I wrote him a ( letter. )

You can yell at email Duffy at pduffy@herald.ca, and the Chronicle Herald at letters@herald.ca.

Dude lives in Halifax, for fuck's sake. The whole queer community there is gonna be on him like a ton of (immaculately groomed) bricks.

ETA: Duffy just emailed me back.

( His reply, under the cut. )

Oh, not Herald Policy? That makes it okay, then!

Way to not address... well, fucking ANYTHING, ya douchetool.

Yesterday, while on a Very Exciting Mission to find birthday presents for Things One through Two, I walked into a chain store and found a rack full of yellow "Support Our Troops" bumper stickers.

Then, when I went outside to catch the bus, I discovered that it had a yellow "Support Our Troops" ribbon painted on the side.

Then, while on a bus ride that took me to the other side of the harbor and back (but not, unsurprisingly, to where I needed to go), I passed a store front with a yellow "Support Our Troops" ribbon painted on the window.

Then, when I got off the bus at the bottom of West Street to catch a bus that would (hopefully) take me home, I saw that someone had apparently decided all the other "Support Our Troops" ribbons weren't tacky enough and had affixed the trees all around the War Memorial with little yellow ribbons, too.

And THEN, when I got on the bus that I was supposed to be on, I realized that in my consternation I'd left my bags on the first bus, which was now locked up for the driver's lunch break.

I've decided to blame Stephen Harper.