But in very small amounts.

I was watching the first part of Stephen Fry's documentary HIV and Me (2007).

During this episode he goes to South Africa (which still has the most appalling policy when it comes to HIV/AIDS even though over 25% of the population is infected - the majority of infections pass through unprotected heterosexual sexual encounters. In South Africa this it's not a "Gay Disease" and never was - but the stigma remains.

While there, Stephen Fry meets journalist and AIDS activist Lucky Mazibuko who takes him on an excursion to a school in which he gives an informative lecture to little kids.

On the wall of their class there were two slogans:
Being HIV positive is not a curse.

Being HIV positive is normal

As I watched I felt very moved by the sight of these kids speaking so candidly about safe sex and how you can't HIV/AIDS from touching someone, kissing someone, sharing food with someone, etc.

And then Mr. Mazimbuko brings out a t-shirt that says: I am leading the way to an AIDS free world, referring of course, to these well-informed kids who live the reality of the disease along with Mr. Mazimbuko.

I promptly burst into tears.

How pathetic am I?

You can find the documentary in very good quality on YouTube, link to the first part of the first episode (out of two) here.

Yesterday, I had an on-line discussion about my paranoia about getting pregnant due to the truly woman un-friendly procedures pregnant women have to go through in order to obtain a legal abortion.
STD's were never something I was concerned about because every sexual encounter I ever had been with a condom (if it were with a man) and knowing my partner's history (if I were with a woman - yeah, those were not always as safe as they should be).
Lesbian sex has the lowest risk factor when it comes to contracting HIV/AIDS - that doesn't mean you are safe - especially if you have sores on your genitalia, mouth or a cut on your hands or some such.

Dental dams are not as available as they should be (which is bloody irritating) - and they're not just for Dykes y'all!

Any way. AIDS is a year round issue, not just Documentaries, Movies and Stories. It's an epidemic that is constantly on the rise.

The Israel AIDS Task Force says the number of infected in 2009 is expected to rise - currently there are an estimated 6,275 infected people some of whom are unaware of their status.
Number of people with HIV reaches all-time high in 2009.

On a less preachy note; I remember hearing about AIDS for the first time when I heard that Tom Hanks won the Oscar for his performance in Philadelphia.
That was 1993, I was 8.
I did not understand what AIDS was until I was in the 10th grade (I was 15 and the year was 2000) in which we had a sex-ed class and were were given little notes that has + and - written on them.
We were told to walk around the class in a random way, to keep one note and give out a note to other kids that we randomly encountered.
After that we sat down and the sex-ed educator asked everyone who had a + note to stand up. I and a great many other kids stood up and were told that we were now infected with HIV.

The sex-ed classes were pretty good in explaining how to have safe-sex, that a condom fits everyone and a boy who says the rubber "doesn't fit" is lying - which was hilarious to see all those cocky boys squirm in their seats.
That little experiment left a sour taste in my mouth as it could have been any STD, which is was the educator said, but the example used was AIDS.

In this same class (we had about three, if I recall correctly) there was talk about homosexuality which made me so freakin' uncomfortable. Homophobia was rampant and I was 15 and just realising I was "not like everybody else".
The fact that everyone was saying that AIDS could only occur between two men and all that, which the educator contradicted expertly I must add, but that didn't stop the crass homophobia after class.
It was depressing.

I wish I knew what the state of sex-education in high schools are today - ten years down the line - I can't think it's much changed.

This is like the convergence of all things good in pop-culture.
My hope in people has been momentarily restored.



Oh Kermit... *sigh*

And yes, when I was little my brother used to call me Miss Piggy *HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH*

My dear friend tamara_russo has opened up an Etsy Store: The Seagull's Aery.

It's her beautiful mixed media canvas art and photography.

( Some samples )

In addition, if you do chose to love her art as much as I do and have the funds (which I don't) to buy her art you'll be supporting one of the best people on Earth.
Go check it out!

Quoi?
What kind of internet user thinks up these questions?

In short, I wouldn't ban any book. Really. No, not even The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, not Mein Kampf, not Huckleberry Finn.
Not any hate-mongering, free-love-ing, right wing, left wing... what have you.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to tell the kid who may or may not be interested in a book to be aware that every book presents and represents a certain stand-point and that it's usually better to be not take every piece of writing at face value.

Literary merit is for book critics, not for critical analysis.

I'd prefer to steer teens towards work that doesn't implicitly (or explicitly) state that some people are more human than others - because that would just make me a hypocrite. But I think that disallowing those subjects simply make it harder to fight and oppose the ideas and ideals which exist - having them where you can see them, makes it easier to argue and fight against.

That's what I think.

I just donated to the Organisation for Transformative Works.

This is part of fan and Internet history keeping and making.

I think being a part of it is awesome!



Good god, I've even posted a Cat!Macro in this honour.

Hopefully I'll find the time to do more than just vote and donate - volunteering is fun!

Episode 3

Fuck.
Me.

This is bloody brilliant!

I don't think my internet persona is that different from my RL persona.

The one-sidedness of blogging and not having to be considerate of interrupting someone or someone interrupting me makes me more eloquent online, it also stops me from being repetitive in the same paragraph - at times, during conversation, my mind can go blank and I struggle for a word which will either be in the other language I speak (the danger of bilingualism) or I'll lose both words because I'm trying to figure out which is more appropriate.

It's frustrating, and quite obviously I'm the only one who takes it badly because hiccups in conversation happen all the time! I'm not giving a presentation or reading a speech.
I'm not an orator.
Stuff happens.

That's not where I was going with this post.

Backing up. Ah, yes.
My persona.

People behave differently depending on the context and people in which they find themselves.

I can be very shy at times, which surprises people with whom I'm very gregarious.

I've been told my internet persona belies my niceness and charm. Because, yeah, I do try to be nice and pleasant and friendly. Even with people that I don't particularly like or get along with, if I'm in the vicinity I do my best so that everyone gets along.
Until I don't.
And as I know and been told:
"Mel, when you're mean, you're scary"
I am assertive and my voice can pitch in a way that can be grating and strident and makes people tell me to "tone it down" which makes me even more irritable and thus... well, you get the picture.

I suppose because the social niceties that I pull off so well and easily IRL aren't required for online interaction. I try to be respectful to any one I communicate with, there are exceptions of course, because when I people don't bother to keep their prejudices to themselves, I don't see why I should keep my opinions on said prejudices to myself as well.

I can be rude. I often am online. Assertion is read as aggression and you have to be clear in your writing because ambiguity is so easy to write unintentionally. Intentional writing will always carry a harder punch and more often than not, I don't pull the punches I write.

If you've met me IRL, you know I'm quite bubbly and babbly. That I'm bouncy and *squeeish* (something I manage to convey online at times, for sure) and that I'm loud and have no poker face.

I'm quite sure my online persona is just waaaaay more eloquent when it comes to talking about things that make me go *ARRRRGH* seeing as IRL, I tend to go *splurterscoughshriekBWUH!Eff-U Man!I-got-something-to-say!NO-I-WONT-BE-QUIET...* - this can also be what goes on in my head, because like many a family & friends gathering, many people say things that they believe are appropriate - like racial slurs (which I try smack down when I'm within earshot), sexist remarks (which are so pervasive in interaction as well) and homophobia laden comments (har har, oh yeah, you thought she was a man, that's fucking precious, har har) - and the situation calls for decorum, niceness and charm.

That bubble was bust a long time ago, but behaviour dies hard.

I come off strong.
I'm cool with that.

It makes me memorable.

Vampires have taken over our lives. They suck out time via books, television and film like no other supernatural beast ever could.

Why?

Because they look like people, like you and me, they can walk among us unknown and seduce us with their glamour, mystique and plain ole' attractiveness.
Vampires are always beautiful, those that ugly, do not need to be. We are attracted to the fact that they are excluded from daylight, that they are reflected only in the eyes of human (their prey) and to the fact that they are immortal.

They do not die.

We pass away and they pass on.

Vampires have reached a kind of peak of pop-culture popularity. Ten years ago when I was fourteen and obsessed with Buffy, I read Dracula, Interview with a Vampire and thought Bella Lugosi was the shit.
Vampires were awesome.

Now... they're poster boys for Abstinence.
Where have we gone wrong.
( This glamour will make you click on the cut )

The Yanks are having a Gay Ole' Time!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.
The Interwebs are very US centric, so I know that the 11th of October is National Coming Out Day and that during Obama's address at the Equality March he promised to revoke Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
He didn't specify when, but meh.

I also read a post that resonated in me so much, my eyes stung up as I read it, you should read it too.

Coming out never ends.
You have to do it over and over and over again.

When I came out to my mother I was 15 and she said "Why don't you try the Hetero way, first" and "Don't tell your father".
I didn't tell my dad until I was 20 and he said "Are you in a relationship with a woman?", I wasn't at the time, "Then why are you telling me this now?".

I don't mean to vilify my parents, but this is such an ordinary reaction it's hardly worth mentioning. Because it doesn't matter that I'm Bi and am thus "gay" whoever I'm with, it only matters when the genitalia of the person I'm fucking is the same as mine.
Then, "I'm making my life more difficult".
As I am responsible for the homophobic reactions I'm forced to endure and yeah, those small insignificant questions are "homophobic" and yeah, I will call you on them.
Hiding behind conservatism, or old-fashioned views, or that a double standard is okay because it's social.

I don't mention my siblings, because they're awesome; despite the fact that one of them thought I said I was queer because I was looking for attention (*grrr*), despite the fact that one of them tried to excuse the police assaulting us at Jerusalem Pride, despite the fact that one of them challenged the oppression of queer identity by comparing it a different one.

I don't mean to vilify them either.

My family, I love them dearly and they love me.

But the assumption, assertion and aggressively enforced enables people, no matter who they are, to doubt my identity and this, of course, holds true for the Queer community as well.
This requires that I assert, "advertise" and repeat "I'm gay/queer/bi/the-label-that-fits-best-at-this-time-and-place".

When I was in the IDF, I was out during my training and more than anything, to the group of about 20 young women that lived together for nearly four months, I was a curiosity at first, but because none of us was fucking while we were on base sex was spoken about as something we miss and not something we do.
At my permanent unit I was not out, except to the Lunch Club, which could have been dubbed the "Bunch of Queers having a two-hour Lunch Club".
It was nice.
But none of us were out in our units.
No doubt, everybody knew.
No confession was made. no questions were asked. That was fine, but until actually spoken about, it is assumed that you are straight.
Even if you are the Dykiest Dyke, The Faggiest Fag and the Omniest Bi.

And it sucks. It forces you to be, for large portions of your life,dishonest by default and purposefully.
"It's provocative having two women together at a wedding".
"Do not introduce her as your girlfriend".
So we didn't slow dance, and you'd have to be pretty slow not to figure it (that we're together) out.

To be "out" is to be provocative.
It's a luxury I felt acutely this year, the freedom of it in certain arenas, it's utter deprivation in others.
That my life.

That's all our lives.

My last word on Roman Polanski, because honestly, what more can be said that hasn't.

I'll just repeat; the fact that he himself was a victim of violence, had a traumatic life and is a brilliant artist (yes, I love Rosemary's BabY and Chinatown) doesn't excuse the fact that he raped a child.

Drugged and raped a child.

Plead guilty in a plea bargain and then ran away because the deal looked as though it was about to fall through.

Art, power and money doesn't excuse the fact that he committed a crime against the body of a girl-child (btw, if it had been a 13 year old boy, I think we would be hearing a very different tune) and against the basic ideas that the law applies to every single one of us, no matter how clever, powerful and the fact that people really, really like the stuff we make.

For some reason, this is a hard concept to grasp for some people.

Art Does Not Excuse Rape.

These people make me happy for the amount of time I take to think about this issue.

This is not just about Roman Polanski. This is about the character of our society. The justice system is not perfect anywhere, but accountability and responsibility should not be taken for granted and the default of the oppressive patriarchy that has allowed Polanski to evade justice for so long should not be upheld.

It wounds and hurts too many of us to count.

N.B.
The Pianist was probably the worst movie he ever made.

Edited to Add:
In the comments avgboojie says, quite rightly, that 13 years of age, isn't really a child:

I want to stress one important point: a 13 year old girl is not "a child".
Sorry. I don't know of any definition by which a 13 year old girl is a child. 13 year old girls are almost always post-puberty, sometimes (perhaps often) have active sex lives of their own, and while they are considered minors by law, they are not children (for instance, a person having sex with a 13 year old is not a pedophile, since these focus on pre-puberty children).
I think referring to a 13 year old as "a child" (something which is most probably done because "raped a child" sounds far more shocking than "raped an adolescent" or "raped a young woman") is disrespectful towards the 13-year-old person, disowning them of any right to be considered a semi-grown person with free will and any capability for adult reasoning.

The legal status of minors renders them as powerful as children in the eyes of the law, but not in their own eyed.
Her age and own perception doesn't make the rape and assault any less criminal or heinous.
The acknowledgement of this, is also of importance.

In my previous post regarding the Lammy Awards I was very fuzzy on where I stood regarding the fact that non-queer authors were now disqualified from submitting their work for the award.

The way I roll, I think stories should be honoured first and foremost. Just this evening I was talking to my older sister and she was telling her kids how their dad was seeing the same Moon in India right now (because that's where he is) and it slipped out of my mouth "Because all times are now and all places are here. And that's why even fictional people are real" h/t rm.
My sister agreed with me whole heartedly and it began a whole discussion with my seven year old nephew about the veracity of Vampires and Werewolves.

My concern, first and foremost, is the policing of identity. We live in such fluid times, it causes problems.
I know I prefer to my Lesbian Friends and Sisters when it comes to political identification and queer social gatherings... I'm also wary of the fact that if I ever date a man (cis man specifically, whether he is queer or not), that I will be viewed as though I'm betraying some kind of identity promise.

That's a Queer concern.

So are the Lammy Awards.

When I first read about the Lammy Awards change, the people who were raising alarms and concerns were people who are openly queer.
Later on, as I read more on the issue I encountered the voices of straight authors who write same-sex romance, specifically m/m. Professional Slash authors, as they've been dubbed and like most Slash authors they are Straight.
Straight Cis authors who write LGBTQ characters, I thank you for writing awesome people with which we can fall in love, identify with and celebrate.
That doesn't mean you get to say that by taking Orientation into account you are being oppressed.
You are not, because you have straight and cis privilege.
By bringing up the fact that you're a member of another oppressed community you're derailing and playing the Oppression Olympics.

Stop it, just... no. Your entitlement and privilege blindness is showing by demanding to be recognised in an Award that is about celebrating our lives and stories. You happen to write people who could live our lives, and that's great, I love reading and knowing stories like that, that still doesn't entitle you to come into our space and trample all over what we (or the Lambda Literary Foundation, rather) built so that our status and visibility could be elevated.

I'll not be writing any more about this, but I wanted to get my piece out there. I wanted to say, this is a queer concern, about queer visibility, queer identity and queer story telling. As such, it's not about straight cis people.

The end, ces't tout.

Now I have to decide whether I'm going to write about Rape Culture, or about the fact that my Identity is flaunted as propaganda in order to deflect criticism over the human rights violations my country commits on a daily basis.

Any takers?

Don't let Roman Polanski evade justice and sign Art Does Not Excuse Rape.

Pass this along, re-tweet, make a post.

This whole story is beyond ridiculous and as I said before, this is not just about Polanski any more.
What this is tells young girls, young boys, everyone in fact, is that if you are rich enough, powerful enough and/or have enough friends in positions of power, your life and pain is basically worthless.

This is currently the kind of world we live in, in which rapists get to have apologists because they make beautiful and powerful things and tell us a compelling story... we have the responsibility make sure these story tellers do not get off scott free for committing crimes in which someone else's body, humanity and rights are trampled upon.

That's all.

The Lambda Literary Foundation, for those of you who do not know, is an American LGBT Literary that works to raise the status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender authors, who are marginalised, in the literary world.

Awesome says I.

An organisation that works to elevate the visibility and merit of LGBT(Q!) authors is good.

The Lambda Awards (hereby known as the Lammy's) though, are about the stories. Or at least, that's what I (and probably many others) thought.

However, the new guidlines contain within them a new rule, which is a source of contention:

The Lambda Literary Foundation (LLF) seeks to elevate the status of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people throughout society by rewarding and promoting excellence among LGBT writers who use their work to explore LGBT lives.

As such, it should be noted that the Lambda Literary Awards are based principally on the LGBT content, the gender orientation/identity of the author, and the literary merit of the work.

Let's get one thing straight (laugh it up); queers having our own space, our own awards and our own rules as to who applies, is not a bad thing.
Really, it's not.
The problem is, who decides.

The Lammy's guideline specifically states:

As to what defines LGBT? That is not up to anyone at Lambda Literary Foundation to decide. The writers and publishers are the ones who will be doing the self-identifying. Sexuality today is fluid and we welcome and cherish this freedom. We take the nomination of any book at face value: if the book is nominated as LGBT, then the author is self-identifying as part of our LGBT family of writers, and that is all that is required. There are many permutations of LGBT and they're all welcome as that LGBT term we've all adopted makes clear.

Okay, so they accept anyone who ID's as part of the LGBT(Q damnit!) family. And if that bisexual cis woman who is married to her straight cis male husband of such-and-such years submits an award. Sure, of course she's eligible.
But wait, no she doesn't, she doesn't live the "lifestyle".
An exaggeration?
Not so much, when that kind of thing happens all the time, you're not queer enough if you have het privilege.
Is it stupid? Of course it is, but whoever said marginalised groups were good with the whole acceptance thing.

Honestly, I don't think it would go that way, I'm also obviously being satirical here. I mean, it could, but I'm trying for optimism here. LGBT(Q) authors having their place and awarding those of us who wrote a story in which our portrayal brings us and the characters in the story alive is a very good thing.
Telling people that who they are may not be enough in order to be eligible for the award is not the way to go.

The main problem that came out of this whole thing is that the change in the guidelines came with such short notice.
The notice of the change came out September 25th, submission begins October 1st and ends December 1st.
Yeah, no matter how you look, that is short notice, especially when it's effective immediately.

I say my opinion is fuzzy, the "litmus" should be for people to be able to say:"I'm queer", accept that statement at face value and move on in order to read a good book or story about people who are like me (potentially). But queer isn't a visible thing, our statements of who we are, are under constant attack because we are marginalised, because we are not "normal", because if we really wanted to and tried hard enough, we wouldn't have to be marginalised, now would we.

I'm getting frustrated from all this thinking about which box we're supposed to fit into. Sexuality is fluid (not for everyone!), but it better remain in that little bowl.

Regardless of how us queers feel about the change in the guidelines, which is not clear cut at all, here is one thing I have to say about those straight authors, who are yelling at the Interwebs, about being marginalised because the Lammy's changed the rules on their gay romance.

Shut up.

No, really. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

I've had it up to fucking here with stupid straight people appropriating my space, in order to promote an agenda that has nothing to do with actually being queer, and has everything to do with "but I want to play in this sandbox too".
Yes, well, at the moment you are peeing in it, because the attitude of entitlement is not the one members of the LGBTQ family who happen to be cis and straight should be throwing around.
You feel strongly about your portrayal of gay characters, that's good, I feel strongly about it to.
Saying that because you feel excluded from a prize, you are oppressed is irksome, irritating and shows that you are so privilege blind that you really have no fucking clue what homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, etc actually causes the psyche of a person who does deal with these prejudices and hates on a bloody daily basis.

God, am I the only one who had a flashback to the trek stupidity a couple months back.
Seriously, peeps, what the fuck?!

On that, I'm not so fuzzy headed.

A thanks to rm, kynn and vashtan; their posts really enabled me write this post in a (hopefully) semi-coherent way.
Their own opinions and fact finding skills were extremely helpful.

This pic was taken at some point in 2007 and is from a random pic search.

I saw it yesterday over at Mark Allen via my brother.



My whole family are fans of Turing.
And of sarcasm.

I love sarcasm and parody.

Something to laugh at on this here Yom Kippur!

The links are NSFW!
I repeat, the links (and possibly this entire entry) are Not Safe For Work!

Via the Ha'aretz article: Can gay porn save Israel's image? which was originally featured in The Forward: Pornographic Stimulus Plan about about Michael Lucas' project called Men of Israel, featuring... well you can guess.

I read about this project back when Michael Lucas was here in Israel and both the queer and mainstream media were hounding him a bit (for different reasons).

I have a problem with this project.
Not the pornography; honestly, so long as the people get paid and aren't coerced to do something against their will... there's not much I'm going to complain about in this context.

My problem is with Lucas' attitude regarding his project.
Allow me a quote from the article:

Lucas claims that his motivation behind “Men of Israel” was not just titillation, but also a counterbalance to lopsided portrayals of Israel in mainstream media. “It’s free PR for Israel, and it’s much better than the PR they’re getting on the news,” he said during a tour of the company’s expansive second-floor offices, with views of the New York Times building across the street. “The reality is that Israel has only one face to people on the street, and that’s the West Bank and Gaza. All people see in the media is a country of disaster. They get images of a blown-up bus.”

Is he fucking kidding?
Promoting Israel as a gay tourist spot is not the way to "counter portray" the Occupation, nor is fetishising Israeli bodies, which honestly, are already grossly fetishised.
Also, can he be more shallow regarding Israel's portrayal in the media,which yeah, is pretty shallow regardless. However, Israel does its best to present itself (unsuccessfully) as a monolith of culture and opinion.

Not to mention this gem:

“I’m not sure the vast majority of his audience know or care about his political views,” [Aaron Hicklin, editor in chief of the gay magazine Out] said.
[...]
That may change with a letter that Lucas sent on August 31 to GoGay[link added by eumelia], Israel’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Web site, excoriating gay Israelis for staying closeted. “Excusing these pitiful cowards for not coming out of the closet and accepting their façade is only hurting Israel,” he wrote. “By hiding from your reality, you are empowering intolerant disillusioned fanatics.” The idea for the letter came, he said, after Israeli men “started hitting me up on the Web site, inviting me to hook up, then said they’re not out. They’re delusional. They’re cruising this Web site, benefiting from the fights of other people. They think the gay movement has nothing to do with them, that the shooting of gay youths in Tel Aviv has nothing to do with them. What reason is there to be in the closet in Israel in 2009? It’s embarrassing.”

Emphasis Mine.

Is he fucking kidding?
Really, did he just say that in conjunction with the gay youth centre?
I have a lot of respect for sex workers and people who work towards sex-positivity, but honestly.
I'm sorta speechless here.
Israel is not some kind of Queer Paradise.
It's not.
The Tel-Aviv bubble is very much burst when it comes to that.

Israel is plenty fetishised when it comes to militarism and the use of Jewish Israeli bodies is nothing new when promoting Israeli Hasbarah.

Michael Lucas, I don't care that you're a Zionist, or that you use your ideology to fetishise Israeli Jewish men. Seriously, I do not care.
But how dare you criticise and chastise other Queer folk, not actually knowing what it is they have to do in order to cruise in a place where they feel safe, and even consider the possibility that perhaps, due to an overt act of violence against the youth in our community... they might be a bit iffy about being Loud and Proud.

Michael Lucas, you suck and not in the good way.
Get the fuck off my lawn and stop trying to present it as though the manure smells like Axa Deodorant!

N.B. This post is getting flagged isn't it?

Caster Semenya on suicide watch.

Colour me unsurprised and royally pissed off.

I've been keeping up to date on the story ever since Germaine Greer's transphobic comments regarding the affair.

I have about ten tabs open with articles and blog posts all talking about Semenya.
Many people are talking about the issue, as well they should.

To me, it reads as a cautionary tale to those women who dare to be exceptional, who dare to toe the line of the gender assigned to them at birth, of women who cannot (visibly) be intimidated by a man.

We will crush you, if you dare. The same goes to any gender non-conformist. Caster Semenya had the misfortune to be a good runner, she beat the European competition (in Berlin no less) and was then (almost literally) dissected in public to make sure that she didn't have an "unfair advantage".

The intersection of sexism, racism, colonialism, gender essentialism and the problematic state of women athletes in track and field sports all seemed to coalesce in the most destructive way possible on this woman, whose life (not to mention career) has gone down the drain.

The public eye, the policing of what is considered appropriate identity will kill you dead if you dare step out of line and show that you are good at what you do.
Your identity, that thing you spent so much time moulding and attuning and making your own is shattered by the fact that the medical institute insists that we are as our bodies say we are.

Biology is destiny.

Various hair products, plastic surgery, body-modification parlours and trans people who go through hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery (top and/or bottom) tell a different story.

A woman's body is up for public consumption. Add racism into the mix and you have the masses demanding she be made "presentable".

It was the beginning of the end when I saw that Semenya had been made over. Her androgyny (pic before makeover) became a source of contention in the aftermath of her win. Moreover, the history of black women's bodies being forced to conform to Euro-centric beauty standards and the issue of how black femininity is culturally lesser than white femininity also raised the level of what Semenya needed to do in order to compensate, nay, publicly apologize for the fact that she's a masculine woman (pic after makeover).

In the article The Unforgivable Transgression of Being Caster Semenya, the author expands on the fact that black women (people of African descent in general) have historically been targeted as gender non-conformists, or even failures:

South Africans aren’t the only ones angrily comparing Semenya’s treatment to that of Saartjie Baartman, the nineteenth-century Khoisan woman who was exhibited throughout Europe as a sexualized monstrosity. White audiences guffawed, prodded and poked at her exposed body, which they laughingly demeaned as that of a “Hottentot Venus”: the inverse of European standards of beauty. Challenging Semenya’s femaleness, people now assert, is imperialism all over again.

I'm loath to call gender essentialism imperialism, but different kinds of oppression do often come from the same place.
The policing of identities and bodies into the dominant world order and subjugating those identities and bodies in order to maintain that world order.
The gender binary is the world order.
And it kills.

What I really enjoyed in the article linked above was this paragraph:

[I]nstead of insisting upon the naturalness of her gender, how about turning the question around and denaturalizing the world of gender segregated, performance-obsessed, commercially-driven sports, a world that can neither seem to do with or without excessive bodies like Semenya’s and their virtuosic performances?

The rush to compare Semenya to Saartjie Baartman, while obvious for nationalistic reasons, misses something crucial. Baartman was exhibited and castigated for what the imperialist eye took to be her abberant femininity. A better comparison here would be to the many trans bodies (like famed jazz pianist Billy Tipton[link added by eumelia) who have been disciplined and punished for their female masculinity.

One of the first things I learned when I became immersed in feminism was that society isn't the way it is, it's how we think it is.
Or rather, it's how we see ourselves as part of it.
That's why racism is systemic and there is a difference between a white person calling a black person a "nigger" and a black person calling a white person a "cracker".
The personal wound to either goes without saying, the history of the words are different and the affect that history has over our minds, bodies and social groups is severe.
Apartheid may be "over" in South Africa.
The disparity between those who Have and those who Have Not remains largely unchanged.

Caster Semenya is paying the price of being too good. Of being a woman whose biological body is now considered medically inapplicable to her gender. She may be Intersex (ETA: a fact that was leaked to the press before the results actually reached her. Classy), but she's a woman and she's being punished for not being female enough.

The article The Sad Saga of Caster Semenya writes:

[I]t is important to note here, critically, that Caster Semenya has always been a woman, has always defined herself as a woman, has lived her life as a woman, has to this date considered herself to be a woman, not transgendered, not a transman. It is critical to note this here as to understand both the statement to come as well as what a public scrutiny of gender is like.

It is a horde of people thinking they have a right to decide where you belong with only an ignorant impression of your gender proclivities and expression with zero understanding of your internal sex. And their opinion is to be given credence over your own. Transpeople undergoing Harry-Benjamin style therapy for “permission” to transition know this feeling very well. It is humbling, infuriating, and leaves you feeling powerless and adrift.

And for her there’s no point at the end of it, just the threat of the removal of everything that has brought you joy, the threat that all of this can be taken away because you were suspicious. Now the public and an arbitrary standard noone fully understands can remove the one passion that has defined your life and remove from you the dream of a little girl (to compete, perchance to medal in the Olympic games, to bring honor to your country and family, and most importantly to yourself).

Gone in an instant.

Emphasis mine

Anyone's perception of self would be undone by the unbearable melancholy of one's identity being forcibly yoinked from pillar to post because of public demands, because gender is a prison even when you supposedly overcome it. Which is what woman athletes do of course, over come the infirmity of their weaker bodies - and they're still not considered to be worthy of same attention as men athletes, because the best woman will always be lesser than the medioce man. Suck on that Billie Jean King.

In conclusion:
Well, it doesn't end here. I hope I don't wake up tomorrow morning and discover that Caster Semenya ended her life because society deemed her unacceptable. The trauma is undeniable, the humiliation is beyond comprehension.
Gender essentialism continues to be the building block of oppression as we live it and no one is safe from the assault on the self if you dare to toe the line.
Failing in your gender, it's a killer, literally.

As I was visiting my fic communities yesterday, someone in the jackxianto community shared a quote that made 'em think of Jack and Ianto.

The quote is this:
"I Want Him To Come Up Behind Me And Wrap His Arms Around My Waist To Catch Me Off Guard And Whisper" I Love You".

I couldn't help it.
I gagged.
I back buttoned and had to read a fic in which the Jack and Ianto behaved like... well, like I think they behave on the show - I really recommend Pizza Mouth by cyus as a slice (haha) of "real life" boys hanging out together, but are also sexual with each other. It's all so very dirty.

The fic made me feel better.

That quote is so anathema to the way I perceive Jack and Ianto's relationship that I cannot imagine how anyone would consider this appropriate for their dynamic.

I think the pictures of Jack and Ianto that floated around the Interwebs in the year following the end of the second season and promoting Children of Earth gave fans the wrong idea regarding the relationship.

Is there love there? No doubt. After CoE you'd have to be utterly clueless in order to ignore the depth of feeling between the two men. The gravity between then is possibly the best ever portrayed between two men on screen - yes, more than Queer as Folk, more than Brokeback Mountain and more than the latent homoeroticism found in various war movies in which one kills people instead of making love to your fox-hole buddy.

Which brings me to my point.
( Jack and Ianto are warriors. )

Should I x-post this anywhere? I'm still a bit fandom shy at times.

I didn't write about the big rally that was orchestrated last Saturday night (the 8th) because frankly by then, I was pretty much wiped out.
Also, it pissed me off and I was very disappointed by it.

I had vented a hell of a lot, cried some more and as is evident by the frivolous entries of the past week, I just didn't have any more to write.

The repercussions of the shooting are still felt, though it is now old News and due to other strings of murder being reported and investigated with about as much gusto as a Lion pride at midday in the bloody savannah, the fact that no suspect has yet to have been found is not even worth an update.

Not that I'm surprised.

The shooting itself shocked me, but I wasn't terribly surprised. My society is violent and filled with strife. Not to mention that the mainstream media and mind-set refuses to see any correlation between the Occupation, the virulent racism and xenophobia of our social structures and the hatred of anything gender non-conforming (which is a large umbrella under which misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, biphobia etc all fall).

The rally, as mentioned, was a disappointment for me. The only worth while speakers were one of the wounded kids who was just heart breaking and couldn't stop sobbing and a few other people of note from the more grass-roots queer movements.

One of the things that really annoyed me, was the exclusion of former Memeber of Knesset Issam Machool (of Hadash - Al'Jabha), who wanted to speak out against the homophobia in the Palestinian communities and how it's compounded by the harsh racism of current Israeli policies.

This was deemed too "political".
Same with a representative from Aswat - Palestinian Lesbian Group based in Haifa.

It pisses me off.
Royally.

In the blog post Palestinian Gays under the Hijab, Nisreen Mazzawi writes:

While in the world the legend of the democratic country of the middle east keep announce its jingles regard its tolerant city Tel Aviv that provide a shelter of the Palestinian gays running from their society and families, The Palestinian gay community and supporters are excluded on purpose from public events specifically from the solidarity anti homophobic demonstration held yesterday in Rabin Square.
[...]
For the Palestinian gays who live and struggle for their lives under the occupation, Tel Aviv is not an alternative or a safe shelter, the few who succeed to do their way to Tel Aviv end up living and working in the streets, not once they are victims of the Israeli propaganda that use their cases to promote this image.
[...]
While we believe homophobia is equal to racism and hate is equal to hate and murder is equal to murder, the majority of the Israeli gay community choose not to see the link and to ignore other kinds of violence abundant in the Israeli society.

I recommend the whole post, it's very informative and just gives you a broader picture of the intersection of different destructive oppressions in Israel and Palestine.

If you recall, in the weeks before and during Pride month I wrote about the campaign of using LGBT Israeli culture to promote the image Israel as a "pluralistic, democratic and tolerant" nation.

Israel may not be the most horrendous place for queers, but the saturation of violence along with the Occupation colouring every facet of life whether we like it or not. That of course, in turn, colours the entire social conception of what is "acceptable" and "not acceptable", what's "In" and what's "out".

I've never really felt "In", whether it was being generally a little eccentric, outspoken, visibly queer or just not having my politics (whether during my apathy years or later/now) mesh with what is considered worthy opinions, the past two weeks very much struck me as a kind of final straw, which I've possibly mentioned before.
Compounded with crap that [Southern!Girl] and I had to deal with this year on account of our relationship which I won't get into right now... I feel as though this place just isn't it any more.

I don't know what's going to happen. I never did, but this opened my eyes a little wider.

Cake Wrecks is a cake blog dedicated to aesthetically odd, artistic and just genuinely special looking cakes.
Or as the dub-title says: When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.
.
They look mighty tasty too.

I am not an avid follower, but morin is and zie often shares with me some very good looking entries.

This Sunday Sweet is very special to my heart as it contains things like this:



Very possibly this is something common around Christmas time in the UK as I'm sure the Doctor and his Companion is more popular than the baby Jesus and his Mummy.

Click on the cake for the entire entry and enjoy the beauty of baking and geekery all at once!

At WorldCon there was massive Race!Fail coming from author L. Jagi Lamplighter which you can read about in a couple of posts by karnythia, such as I'm about to be a jerk on the Internet or RaceFail Goes To WorldCon (open the links... they're just precious) and a thread started by the aforementioned author.

The links from Lamplighter's own journal arhyalon are just willfully ignorant (which contains an apology for some of the ignorance... it has problems, but okay).

It's race fail due to colour blindness and really, people in this day and age should know better than to think that's the way in which racism will be purged.
Ignoring a social facet that is so deeply ingrained you do not even notice it is there will not make it go away.
That is what makes it stick.

But kids, it doesn't end there. No siree it does not.
Another author - John C Wright, who also has an LJ - johncwright, who happens to be married to the one above is also a bigot, only instead of being wilfully ignorant, he posted a screed (ETA: which is now a screen shot because he deleted the entry - because that's integrity for you) titled More Diversity and More Perversity in the Future!

Yeah.

So yesterday there was an influx of legitimately pissed off people which amounted to something like 800+ comments on that post. In a pure act of cowardice he has screened all the comments and disabled that post, meaning even if you wanted to, you cannot comment on that disgusting piece of diatribe.
My comment (and the replies that I got) are saved though, as I have them in my email.
And because I am vain, I will now let you read what I commented to him, because really, I feel it's one of my best nasty comments ever.

I'd suggest you educate yourself and offer links, but why waste both our times when I can just stand aside and watch you be eviscerated by others who also think you're an ass-hole, as your sales take a dip.

In short, fuck you.

You're pretty much the lowest level of humans as you don't even have the decency to keep your prejudice to yourself.
How sad for you.
Though I suppose we're lucky that we now know the truth about you.

And this is much milder than I originally intended.

Bragging now over.

Authors, at least in my mind, should really know better. Words, spoken and written hold a huge amount of power. They have the ability to affect the world no less than a a bullet or a tank. The affects and consequences are different, but no less dramatic or powerful (in the long run).

If you are called out on something you said because it has hurt someone in some way, it is your responsibility to figure out why someone is so worked up about it. The excuse of "thin skin" and "over sensitivity" is derailment and while there are cases of misunderstandings and out-of-context experiences, most of the time... your arse is showing and it would make everyone feel better, including your (my) self if you covered it and said "excuse me".

Just a thought.

Edited to show that an apology from arhyalon was given.