sundries

[rm]

Paul Cornell weighed in on queer equality and religion this morning. The piece is great in it its own right, but I think says something even more important if you've ever experienced just how conflict averse Paul is (I don't know him well at all, but we've had ocassion to share dismay over the potential outcome of controversial con panels we've been on). Speak up. Stop letting the fringe elements of your communities (whatever they may be) make the hate noise.

ellen_kushner has announced The Man with the Knives. This is SUPERCOOL and I actually have a great deal to say about it, but cannot, in fact, until you all have read the story (which us lucky folks at the NYRSF reading back in December got to hear).

Last night two more Buffy episodes. The first one turned out to be the first one I really didn't like. Inca Mummy Girl. Okay, I felt bad for the Inca Mummy Girl, I did, and Willow was supercute dressed as an Eskimo but SO MUCH FAIL. And then Buffy said "gyped" and I was like really Joss? REALLY?.

bodlon, go look at Gally schedule 4.1. You've just been bumped onto the "Second Stage". Happy fucking Birthday to you.

Patty and I are currently undecided on Lunacon this year. Who's going?

I've really got to come up with something to pitch to Infinitus, but it's just not flowing. Well, I've another ten days.

I had an awesome bit of academic correspondence just now.

The Chocri is here! I need to make time to pick it up at the post office.

I have solved a horrible problem I was having with regard to a classic Mars story I want to write.

HEADSHOTS TOMORROW TERROR.

Evangelical chruches promoting MMA to appeal to young men. While martial arts and spirituality have a long and understandable history of linkage, this makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

One in three UK children believe their teachers are aliens. I blame Doctor Who.

Saving tiny toads! Ah, alliteration.

The first gay male kiss in mainstream Indian cinema is expected to pass censors.

The Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal process is underway. Article says that separate facilities for gay and straight soldiers were "never seriously considered" but had to be considered in order to rule them out. It also says benefits for gay spouses have to be considered; will be interesting to watch just how this bangs up against DoMA.

sparkindarkness writes about the NHS paying for ex-gay therapy.

nancylebov links us to an article about a happy, out gay man who underwent "conversion therapy" as part of a journalistic exercise. And it fucked with his head. In the mid-90s I briefly entered therapy in the hopes of getting some tools to deal with the particularly horrific tenor of my relationship with my parents at the time.

As a matter of random background context for my existence (unrelated to my parents) in a "who are the people I may mention during sessions," I mentioned my bisexuality (my preferred label at the time, which I know find to be not as comprehensive as it could be). And, in case you missed it my sexuality has never been a particular source of stress to me in terms of my own self-worth.

Anyway... the therapist suddenly launched into explaining to me that I was bisexual (and pagan) merely because I was trying to reclaim the love of both my mother and father... blah blah blah blah blah.

I sort of brushed it off, because it was so never going to come up again (the parental drama was about other things entirely), but here's the deal: nearly 15 years later, I don't remember the therapists name, anything he said related to why I was there, or in fact ANYTHING, other than him saying this.

I am a happy, out, queer person who believes both that I am hard-wired to be queer and that I choose this life (I refuse the strict adherence to the genetic only argument as a defense against bigots) because it is a better, more interesting one for me. And I was a happy, out, queer person with that same outlook in 1996.

But sometimes I still wonder, because of this one guy and his off-hand remark, if I just make other people uncomfortable because, to be flip, my parents never loved me enough (they love me a great deal, just not in ways I always get).

Get it?

Comments

[firinel.livejournal.com]

Could it be more that Buffy was the sort of character that would say gyped? It was certainly used copiously in my high school, and it hadn't really occurred to me what it meant/referred to and that I should stop using it LOONG after I'd done similar with other words ("indian giver" being a popular phrase in my elementary that I pretty much immediately thought "really?" about). But I don't know how much others had that sort of awareness, and certainly don't know how much that character would have.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I agree with this as a general theory, I just didn't feel like it was written with intention. I also felt like I could have overlooked it as one of those blips of fail that don't really matter if we hadn't just been subjected to "all people from South America can translate any South American thing" and the dancing Hassid costume.

One of Cordelia's trashy friends dressing like a geisha? That made character sense to me. Cordelia being horrible to her exchange student? That made sense to me. But some of the other stuff.... way less so.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

ohmy, that's quite a lot of.. fail.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

High school level diversity stuff was ALWAYS a lot of fail. The kids all knew it but the staff was made to do it by the state and called it good.

And in the 90s nobody thought twice about gypped.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I thought twice about it (but I had a lover around that time who was Sinti).

It's weird to me that the 90s were so, so, so much more fucked up than now. It doesn't seem that long ago. But then again, people thought DADT made sense in the 90s too I guess.

[idunn.livejournal.com]

Photos/movies/TV shows/magazine scans from the 90s are a trip, because you're absolutely right: it doesn't feel like very long ago but then you see the clothes people wore or the things on TV at the time. Married with Children, anyone?

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

The 1990 was 20 years ago.

Look at the difference between 1960 and 1980. In 1960, girls couldn't wear pants to school. Sex roles were rigidly codified. Women's money and credit was still dependent on her husband. By 1980, none of that was true.

DADT was a significant improvement over having to commit a federal offense (lying on the forms was worth 5 years in prison) to serve one's country.

People were not as sensitive in the 90s. There was white. There was black. As long as you didn't use the n-word, you weren't a racist. Asians were on the west coast and gays were in cities. They weren't a part of most people's everyday life. And white ethnics, like Romany, were just white.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

oh yes, and with regard to the therapy link, I agree with the person who in the comments mentioned it's a pervasive thing in all therapies, and not regulated to anti-gay ones. I was very lucky to have found a therapist who was very queer friendly AND very poly friendly (!!) but the more I went to therapy, the more I found myself equating my kinks with my sexual abuse. But even now, I feel like I ought to qualify that with "but maybe in my case, there IS causation". And maybe there is. *shrug*

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah... been there too.

I can't tell you how annoying it was to be like "actually, studies show that there's a high incidence of BDSM tendencies amongst those who had highly medicalized childhoods, so please stop telling me I was sexually abused, since that's not actually on the list of crap I have to contend with."

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

"actually, studies show that there's a high incidence of BDSM tendencies amongst those who had highly medicalized childhoods..."

Good gravy, I can't tell you how relieved I was when I read about those studies.

It was a giant "Ah-ha" moment for me.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Whoa. An explanation.
I love that and will be using it often, I think. Highly medicalized: seven surgeries before the age of four, three more before 14, and half my life spent in waiting rooms.

[barnaby-swithin.livejournal.com]

(I hope it's okay if I butt in!)

Do you happen to have links to any of those studies? I would love to have them on hand!