mmm ngl the posts going around rn about how you’re not supposed to have to do shit for yr partner (phrased in the context of like, Making Sure Your Boyfriend Has Showered, etc) are all well meaning and indicative of a very real problem in men refusing to take care of themselves or learn how to exist in the real world,
but also how the posts are all phrased feel astoundingly alienating as a disabled person whose wife, like, does need to help me with a lot of “basic” tasks many people could do on their own.
like, sure, my wife isn’t obligated to do any of that and they weren’t obligated to marry me or date me in the first place but in doing so part of what they signed on for was being a carer, and we talked about that in as many words too, and i really wish anyone talking about the fact you shouldnt be constantly expected in any and every relationship to take care of your partner would acknowledge that that doesn’t mean relationships where that’s needed aren’t, like, inherently toxic or shitty. because people can consent to that kind of dynamic. some disabled people need carers! disabled people are human beings who are allowed to have relationships! if i have to read another post that says “if you’re the only one who does the dishes you need to leave your partner” i’m gonna fucking scream
Thats a really valid criticism if that’s what people need, but so far most of what I’ve seen is mroe getting at the point that you shouldn’t have to be a carer for someone who is perfectly able to do so for themselves but chooses not to anyway
yes, see, reread the first paragraph of this post, where i said explicitly that it contained a very valid critique of a very real issue but how it’s talked about is ableist
eta: if yr reaction to a criticism of implicitly bigoted discourse is basically ‘don’t be so sensitive’ you’re doing activism wrong
FOR REAL, I JUST WATCHED A VIDEO OF A GIRL DRESSING UP AS ANNA AND SHE WENT TO HER LOCAL MALL
SHE WENT INTO THE DISNEY STORE
WHEN A LITTLE GIRL CAME UP TO HER AND TRIED TO TALK TO HER
THE COSPLAYER WALKED AWAY
AND LOOKED AT THE LITTLE GIRL LIKE SHE WAS NUTS
THAT IS HORRIBLE
I USED TO DRESS UP AS SNOW WHITE FOR CHARITY EVENTS WITH CHILDREN
I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW AWKWARD IT WAS WHEN OUR ELSA DID NOT TALK TO CHILDREN
SHE WAS NOT INTERESTED IN TALKING OR BEING AROUND THE KIDS AND THAT MAKES THE KIDS UNCOMFORTABLE!!!
IF YOU ARE COSPLAYING A CHARACTER THAT IS POPULAR AMONG CHILDREN, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE NICE TO KIDS
TO THEM, THEY ARE ACTUALLY MEETING THIS CHARACTER THAT THEY LOVE OR KNOW
IT IS UP TO YOU TO NOT BE A DICK
You also gotta know that if you’re going somewhere where there will be children and you’re in a costume even slightly similar to a Disney character they will think you are that character.
My hair is dyed white and at last year’s Ren Fest I was dressed as a water nymph. So i was in all blue, with glittery blue heeled boots on. Personally, I would have never thought that I looked like Elsa. I had leggings on, not a dress. And no ice themed anything. But that didn’t stop the sweetest little princess from asking me if I was Elsa.
I’ll admit that I was thrown for a loop, since I thought I was a pretty convincing mermaid on land with my scale print leggings. But I’m not a dick so I quickly recovered and said I was her cousin. Kids are more than happy to accept that and she smiled then shyly ran back to her mom to tell her she met Elsa’s cousin.
If you’re in a glittery costume of any sort, in a place where children will be, be prepared to be nice to them. Otherwise you’re just a jerk. No one likes jerks.
Don’t be a dick.
Seriously. If I go anywhere in ANY costume, no matter if I’m a princess, hero, or villain, I’m nice to the kids. They just wanna play!
I don’t even like kids, but one of the most rewarding cosplay moments I’ve had was interacting with littluns as Rose Quartz. Every kid got a hug if their parents said it was okay. Every kid got told that they were very special because they’re a human being. I’m looking forward to doing it again this year, because giving a kid a moment of genuine magic really is something else. It doesn’t hurt you to smile at a child.
When I cosplay Pearl I have precious little ones come up to me and you better bet I goof with them about how gross eating is or how loud amethyst is (and pretend to get a sooooo offended when they say someone else is their favorite gem)
You are making magic real for those kids in that moment and if you aren’t prepared for that, maybe think twice before cosplaying that character. I had a child completely frozen in disbelief and joy over seeing me, a character from a show they love, that’s power you have to wield responsibly.
It’s not just with popular lady characters. My best little-kid-cosplay-moment was when I was cosplaying Thor (not lady Thor from the comics, my own version of genderbent MCU Thor). I was walking through the dealer’s hall and suddenly saw a gaggle of Tiny Avengers in those Walmart costumes barrelling towards me. They crowded me in excitement and asked where Loki was because they wanted to find him and beat him up (I told them to give him an extra punch from me when they found him), then all six tried to crawl into my lap when I said yes to a photo. Cutest thing ever.
BE NICE TO KIDS WHEN YOU’RE IN COSTUME.
//If you’re going to be cosplaying -any- character that children will recognize, BE NICE TO KIDS!! To them, you -are- that character. And you have no right, what so ever, to destroy the illusion of what, to them, is a magical moment.
When I cosplay Batman, to little kids, I am Batman. And it is such an amazing experience to have kids run up to me and want a hug, and tell me about how when they grow up they want to fight bad guys too. I can’t fathom someone being so rude as to ignore them.
I have a friend who cosplays Han Solo, and a little girl was so excited to see him that when he knelt down to talk to her, she hugged onto him and didn’t want to let go for ten minutes.
Also, remember IF THERE IS A LOST CHILD AT A CONVENTION, AND YOU ARE COSPLAYING A PRINCESS OR A SUPER HERO, THE CHILD WILL GO TO YOU FOR HELP LONG BEFORE THEY THINK TO APPROACH A SECURITY OFFICER!!! You have a duty to help that child! Help them calm down, escort them to the nearest safe zone, and inform a security officer that the child has misplaced their parents/guardians. -Never- use the term ‘lost child’ in front of the kid, it’s the parents who wandered off and got lost, not the child.
Read this, then read it again.
this is why, no matter who I cosplay, I’m in character to everyone I’ll meet, whether they’re adults, kids, or teens like me. super important, honestly
Imagine being in a relationship in which you are treated like an equal, consciously and unconsciously, sexually, emotionally, socially, romantically, without being bound by gender expectations, without risk of pregnancy (or having your reproductive rights taken away from you), without feelings of inferiority, without being mistreated or neglected because men don’t understand your body and can’t be bothered to learn how to give you pleasure (or that you even deserve pleasure). Imagine having a reciprocating relationship with someone who knows how to touch you and how to talk to you, who will never abuse you or take away your consent. Imaging feeling powerful, safe, like the default rather than the specific or second-class. Imagine not requiring special handling by awkward, inconsiderate men who were never taught any better. Imagine being allowed to touch and enjoy and indulge without apprehension. Imagine being able to trust your partner. Imagine knowledge and understanding, someone who sees your depths and treats you the way you’d treat yourself if you hadn’t been told from birth that you weren’t worth it.
Girls aren’t “making them gay.”
Girls are fantasizing about being equal.
I have wondering about this in fandom for many years and reading this just made me tear up. I figured this was a big reason, but breaking it down to this extent made me so extremely sad. I realized a long time ago that even if I met the nicest guy in the world, I still have to battle all those things mentioned above. Just being friends is hard. I don’t have a happy history in this area like a lot of women and I have major trust issues with men and I wish somehow that wall could be broken down and we could all truly be seen as equal…as people with value. If you have all of the above with someone of the opposite sex then you are really lucky. See women are expected to give all those things listed above and settle for not getting them in return. I believe it’s a rare thing if you have it returned. Like I said, if I was with the nicest guy in the world I will always doubt myself, think he see’s me as different, talk to me different… Why? Because that’s our experience. This world raises us to believe we are worth absolutely nothing. The idea of being equal is one of our greatest fantasies.
It’s sad that it has to be a fantasy.
It’s totally sad.
But on the other hand, slash writers are some of the most empathetic people I know. And they’re great educators, too, probably in ways they might not expect. A good slash fanfiction writer can help women understand their desires and overcome some of those feelings of shame and worthlessness.
Think about how many girls have learned how to masturbate thanks to slash fanfiction.
Sometimes just knowing that we’re all reading and enjoying the stories is an immense comfort. People will tell you that slash is trash, that fangirls are desperate and pathetic, but ladies telling ladies that they’re allowed is a powerful thing.
Yeah, oh man. This is. Yeah, this is a lot. I especially feel the taboo surrounding female sexuality to the point that even though I’m Pretty Gay myself, I’m uncomfortable with my own sexuality (not as in orientation) and also dealing with the sexuality of other women. Like in some ways, I am always hesitant to appreciate sexiness in women because we are almost never shown female sexuality in a safe, respectful, and equal way and it still freaks me out.
I will never forget — and I wish so *badly* I still had a copy — the essay one of my exes wrote before she gafiated, in which she talked about how the act of writing slash and being part of the slash community in general had allowed her to “write herself back into her body”.
To, essentially, take off some of the blinders and filters western culture had put on her, all the things that had convinced her that, as an “overtall, fat, awkward, anxious, and altogether unattractive” person (she did have some anxiety issues, but none of the rest was true by any measure but all the lies we’ve ALL been told), she deserved neither happiness, nor romance, nor anything resembling sexual parity or satisfaction.
We met through fandom — she later told me she’d been quietly lurking on my mailing lists and around my websites for two years before she ever actually spoke to me — and we had four good years together before our relationship started to fall apart.
And, while not all of our happiness — together and separately — can be laid at the feet of the various slash goddesses, quite a lot of it can be.
Slash wrote *me* back into my body, too — several times, in several ways. Slash connected me to genders I never could’ve imagined, or could’ve imagined being *worth* connecting to in the days before I really understood the possibilities inherent to taking the media I had been given and *transforming* it.
We are *here*, and our pleasure is worth it — our pleasures, plural, are part and parcel of our identities.
And, you know, some of us, after we’ve been writing slash for a good, long while?
Find new ways to express those pleasures when women are there, new ways to understand those aspects of our sexualities — our *identities* — which include *hetero*sexuality.
It’s a journey. A process. A continuum. A spectrum. A *multiverse*.
AAAAAH! Thank you so much @dirtydirtychai !! It’s always a joy when someone’s writing about the psychology of fanfic gets back out into public circulation. We need these essays – they are part of our history and part of our validation.
Thank you 🙂
women deserve sexual pleasure. the fact that this is a controversial statement is at the heart of why slash is so popular with women AND why there’s no shortage of crusaders ready to explain (with horrible enthusiasm) that it ‘shouldn’t’ be.
THANK YOU. I’ve thought about this before – some of my favourite fic I’ve imagined as a straight pair and it’s become, not exactly uncomfortable, but tainted by my own ingrained cultural ideas of gender, sometimes to the point where I would be entirely loathe to read it if it wasn’t gay slash. Having the characters the same gender levels the equality playing field. And isn’t that a fucking turn on.
We don’t need a ‘reason’ why we ‘turn them gay’ nor do we have to explain this preference or justify it and neither does anyone, anyone need to understand our preference in order to respect it.
How-the-fuck-ever.
These words. All of the words written by these women above. They are some of the many reasons women love slash. They’re not the only reasons but if you require ‘understanding’ before your acceptance of another person’s rights to what pleasures them, then these are as good as anything else. Now I’m going to go write some nice sweet, sweaty man-on-man fucking, if you’ll excuse me.
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 