Simultaneous Marginalization And Support

I am speechless…

Everytime I see Germaine Greer mentioned on radfem tumblr I get a knee jerk reaction thinking about that creepy pedo book she made

there’s a connection between the numbing sprays for your feet so you can wear high heels and the anal desensitizing lube so you can have anal sex for your boyfriend and the suppressants for your gag reflex so you can deepthroat that same boyfriend. can’t quite make it though

"What will you do if you don't have friends, a relationship or a community when times get rough?"

The problem with this way of thinking is the amount of effort I have to pour into a black hole, for an undisclosed amount of time, out of fear. Not out of love or genuine connection. Today, almost every relationship is created out of fear or lack therefore it is a counterfeit connection. I have to invest hours per day/week talking to somebody about nothing so I have a HOPE that they will bail me out one day. I'd rather use that time to practice the art of remaining in a positive state of pure consciousness; commit to the Great Work of restructuring my mental patterns so I can create what I want at the moment I need it. To depend on somebody, who isn't even a real person but an amalgamation of identities that they think we share, is Soul-death. In other words, I don't plan on my life imploding nor will I use somebody else's life as an example of what could happen to me. If I must engage in useless pondering, I will always use constructive examples, not destructive ones. All I can do is remain in the present moment and take each minute at a time and I will always choose my happiness right now over a past trauma or future anxiety.

On femininity

I believe in spirituality and feminine religion. I'm a female separatist to the best of my abilities. I believe femininity is essential but I approach this topic very differently from the majority.

Femininity is love and care, that's it. There are many ways to be loving and caring so there are many ways to be feminine. I do not believe that femininity is what the patriarchy says it is and I see a lot of women of faith who rightly worship the feminine but mistakenly confuse it with something that it is not.

Man comes from woman, masculine comes from the feminine. They are not opposites, they're not complementary, what people often consider masculinity is actually a brand of femininity and the ones who understand this will get what I'm trying to say.

When people talk about the Divine Feminine I am very often put off because we have such a different approach to this. If they saw me, they'd think I'm the farthest thing from feminine and this is where all their mistakes start.

As I said, femininity at its core, is loving and caring. The destructiveness of certain masculine behaviours is simply a twisted and egoic form of femininity, a degraded form of femininity. Traits like assertiveness, confidence, action, willpower are not inherently MALE traits and yes in fact, they are one of the many ways of being feminine.

Being a fighter and protector because you care, being confident because you love yourself, having willpower because you want to see a change in this world are all feminine; the traits I listed are fueled by love and care. Fighting because you want to kill, being confident because you feel superior, having willpower to fulfill selfish desires are the same traits but masculine.

Is beauty feminine? Yes, it is. Beauty is viewing something from the eyes of love. But, a frilly dress is not inherently feminine, or makeup, or painted nails, or long hair; these are social constructs attached to the name of femininity. What I find beautiful is a woman who exists in her natural state so how are you going to tell me that the way I present myself is inherently masculine?

I wear clothes I like, I express myself the way I desire, I do not wear uncomfortable clothes because I believe that I deserve to be comfortable, and the common sentiment of beauty=pain is the farthest you can go from femininity. People conflate the feminine with so many things that it is not.

Obsession about looking good, hurting yourself to look good, trying to change your nature to fit a standard of beauty are not behaviours fueled by true love. Beauty is natural; a flower does not have to try to be beautiful. Beauty is not only external but internal too.

What a lot of people consider feminine is actually the degraded feminine, it's not the true essence; it's a twisted version of it. I am not masculine and I will never call myself that because I know what femininity actually is and I see past my conditioning.

Femininity and masculinity are both separate and non-separate. This is because of the illusion of separateness that exists in our universe, a knowledgeable individual understands that ultimately everything is one even though we don't perceive it so.

A man is actually a brand of woman (there's scientific research of this) and masculinity is a brand of femininity. Ultimately, the feminine is the original true essence but it is also true that most people today aren't aware of what femininity actually is. What we call the Divine Feminine is simply "The Divine" because femininity is love and care, God is Love and care.

One of the weapons abusive parents use against children is disgust. They might make comments on your appearance, weight, physical characteristics in a way that makes you ashamed to exist. They might look at you as if you’re the most repulsive thing they’ve ever seen. They might criticize your scent, your clothes, your hair, your state of dissaray, as if it’s something you deserve to be shamed for. They might bestow disgust over your actions, or expressions of pain. It’s possible for them to act the most repulsed and grossed out by you when you’re in pain, shaking, or crying. As if you’re so awful in every single way, that no human being should ever be around you or touch you except to hurt you.

But think about it, have you ever seen a kid that was disgusting to look at or be close to? They’re kids, they’re smaller, undeveloped, inexperienced, in a body that is not even fully grown to be criticized. Only human impulse is to protect and keep safe.

So were they really disgusted? If they still want you to obey them and to give them physical affection, unlikely. They know you’re just a child and there’s nothing wrong with you. The reasons for their ‘disgust’ run deeper.

Possibly they need to convince you that your body is disgusting so you’d feel too ashamed of it and cover it up. And hide the injuries they caused to it. Possibly they need an excuse to hurt or violate a child’s body; calling it disgusting is a very pathetic and transparent victim blaming technique. It’s also possible they want to control your body via shame – disgust hurts. Seeing others look at you like you’re the plague, when you’re just a child, hurts! They want you to ask 'what can I do so you’d stop hurting me? What do I need to do to stop being disgusting to you? So you wouldn’t hate me anymore?’ and this is what they use as leverage for control. Your pain and fear of being dehumanized.

And of course, they don’t want to see expressions of pain because it’s a consequence of their actions. They want to hurt a child but never experience themselves as the perpetrator who is now guilty for a child’s vocal suffering. And they want to neglect their responsibility to comfort and calm you. To reassure you and bring you back to feeling safe. So in the midst of causing pain to their kid, being responsible for suffering, being called to de-escalate the situation and comfort their pained child, what do they do? Pretend they’re busy being disgusted. Pretend their 'disgust’ is priority over everything they’ve done to you. Use disgust to hurt you one more time. Because you being hurt twice is better than them acknowledging they hurt you.

This type of abuse can alienate you from your body. Once it’s cemented in your mind that your body, you appearance, or your pain is the actual reason you’re being so despised, you will start to despise it too. You can become disgusted with your own body, or your actions and emotions, even your pain. But none of that is right. None of that was ever the fault of your body.

You were never disgusting. Nothing about your body, or your pain, was ever wrong or repulsive or worth doing damage to you. You were always okay just as you are. Your body did nothing wrong. Your pain was only ever human. We’re all the same, our bodies are human and warm and nothing about them is worth violating or hurting. We all long for affection and acceptance just the same. Nobody is disgusting, especially not children. There was never a reason to look at you that way, or to hurt you for the projected image of disgust that was never a part of who you are. You’re meant to be free of that shame. You’re okay as you are.

Although misogyny necessarily plays its part into the whole JKR debacle, I think the 'vitriol' as you said is mostly caused by the fact that a large portion of the haters grew up with the Harry Potter books whilst they haven't, for example, ever seen a Polanski film in their life. And JKR in a way could be a sort of parental figure to them. You know, as ~problematic~ as Freud may be, he was onto something when he spoke of one's need to symbolically kill the father; and the same people who practically worshipped the HP novels growing up had already begun dismissing them as child's play when the Rowling vs. Transactivists affair started. To quote another writer here, the issue crystallised at that point.

@helshades

It's so funny that you're bringing that up because I had this exact conversation with my man around a week ago. As I said in the tags of the post that prompted those couple of rants of mine, he's currently reading them for the first time at the rip old age of 35. A result of him giving Philosopher Stone to his pupils this year (HP so bad, primary schools use them to get kids to read, apparently) and making a point of doing everything he asks of them and that include learning all the poetry by heart, and therefore reading all the books as well. After finishing PS, he asked for the rest since he was surprised at how much funnier it was than the movie.

Anyway, I don't exactly remember how we ended up talking about JKR and the discourse currently surrounding her, but he made the exact same point as you, he mentioned how interesting it was that Freud might actually have had some interesting ideas hidden in his work somewhere in there, and that some people do need to "kill the mother / father" in order to grow up and leave childhood behind. I pointed out to him that it was rather obvious and blatantly observable all around us, but that, as per usual, people took that point way too literally, imagining that it meant killing your actual mother/father and marrying the other one so to speak; when a father or mother figure doesnt even have to be someone close to you nor someone you know at all - just a person or even a concept that shaped you enough when you were younger, that you are now feeling the need to "rebel" against in order to mature.

Which really goes back full circle to the point I constantly make when it comes to HP and how people are unable to read (just because you can decipher doesn't mean you can read, I will stand by that, always), and how really, most discourses and analysis surrounding it are people fancying themselves smart by what they believe is "deconstructing" something they loved in childhood, when in reality it's 8 grade level analysis (if I'm generous) and honestly just look like they're going through their teenage phase of explaining to mum why she actually sucks.

Still though, I'll keep believing that if Joanne Rowling had been Jonathan Rowling, there wouldn't be quite the same level of vitriol directed at her and that her being a woman plays a role in how confortable and justified people feel in robbing her of her achievement and devaluing her work.

A lot of famous women have never studied feminism in any sort of academic environment + largely get their “feminism” from social media. No theory, no critical analysis, just liberal feminism + Instagram quotes.

Kept reading stuff about blood types and stumbled upon this from the Ascension Glossary. It's complex, but its pretty interesting

What to do when you don’t feel or look beautiful? Every where around me is beautiful women and some days I look at myself and feel I don’t measure up :/

Cultivate yourself in ways that make the way you look the least interesting thing about you. Read and learn, develop hobbies, pour yourself into friendships and craft and experience. The more varied and creative and entertaining your life becomes, the less and less it matters the shapes your flesh and bone make.

Who cares if your forehead has a line or two when you fill your days exploring the landscape around you? Who cares if your stomach pooches when you've read a hundred fantasy novels that take you far away? Does the sharpness of your jaw matter when you're laughing so hard with women you love that your gut feels like it's going to split? Does your calf firmness mean anything to the vibrancy of your vegetable garden?

Then, when you don't feel beautiful, think of all the things about you that are. Your knowledge, your kindness, your place in your community.

On your deathbed, will you wish you'd spent more time on your appearance, or more time pursuing that which you love?

Claudia Bueno is an artist born in Venezuela, now based in the USA, whose light art installations will tease and tantalise all your senses. Bueno works with circuits and motors to create ethereal installations which play with light, sound and touch, creating immersive art which is psychedelic and magical in nature.