A Polite Melody

HOWEVER I think that the fact that the usage of a whip has very different connotations, particularly in the US, points to a gap in the author’s understanding of how the title might read and her lack of consideration for Black queer folks

Very interesting to know! thanks for this information. I’ll read more about whipping boys at some point in the future for sure. This is also very interesting to me because Serano never touches on this even broadly. She actually gives an entirely different reason for why she titled the book this way. She is a white American woman so I am inclined to continue reading the choice to name her book this way, in an Americancentric way.

In the paragraph where she tells the reader why she chose “Whipping Girl” as the title, she also utilizes the term “Uncle Tom” — sure, she’s using it in a way where she’s referencing things OTHER people have said but there are no sources for this anecdote nor is it a direct quote. She just says it in a way I find flippant. So again, I’m inclined to continue seeing the raceblind antiblackness of the title and of the text itself as something she, nor its avid fans, particularly care about in any way that matters. It’s simply not on their (plural) agenda.

Here is the paragraph, from the introduction of Whipping Girl (Serano, 2008) if you’re curious.

The first-edition of The Joy of Gay Sex, published in 1977, declared, “Vegetable shortening may be the best lubricant, since it is not only greasy but also digestible”[4] Such a statement perhaps gives new meaning to the companies boastful declarations that “Its digestible” and “Crisco has been making life in the kitchen more delicious for years.”  Similarly, in the 1978 sex manual The Advocate Guide to Gay Health, Crisco even earned an entry in the book’s index.  Discussions of the shortening’s use as an anal lubricant indicate its popularity, with statements such as: “The lubricant, typically the cultic Crisco, must be copious.”[5]  In fact, Crisco was so synonomus with gay sex that discos and bars around the world took on the name, such as Crisco Disco in New York City, which was one of the premiere clubs during the 1970s and early 1980s.  Other clubs or bathhouses, such as Club Z in Seattle, even featured murals with Crisco.  Thus, Crisco was conversely also one of many things that led to the formation of gay identities during the 20th century.

from this essay: http://www.columbia.edu/~sf2220/TT2007/web-content/Pages/drew2.html

Snag clothing brand’s products and advertising in the UK feature beautiful models like this! There is a great BBC piece where the brand CEO notes that her team responds to one hundred or more complaints daily that her models are “too fat”! How sad is that? All I can say is “GO SNAG!”

21 chicks total hatched out of 24 eggs set (1 dud, 2 non-hatchers).

95.3% Fertility Rate

91.3% Hatch Rate

87.5% incubation success rate

19 chicks survived (0.2 EV lost, one to ticks, one fell off perch overnight and chilled) past the first 2 weeks (FTT threshold). 90.4% survival rate.

Chicks are spread across 6 hens in 3 pens. 4 with Corona (2.2 very sure of 1.2.1, pretty sure it's 2.2) 5 with Aris (0.0.5 NO idea yet, realistically would be weird to be 5 blue het purple males but it does look that way…) 2 with Eris (0.2 pretty sure 0.1.1 100% sure) 2 with Bug (0.2 100% sure by genetics/testing) 1 with Wendy (1.0 pretty sure) 5 with Heather (0.2.3 but I am beginning to suspect 2.3)

Total: 2.10.9, with 2.8.9 surviving.

79.1% overall success.

So, 2 I'm certain are males, 8 I'm certain are hens, and 9 where I could probably make guesses on half, but I'm not willing to call it just yet. I'm guessing Bug's are harder to tell because they're the highest Spaldings of the group.

3 EV hens will be staying with me (1 from Wendy [Princess w/ Bug], 1 from Bug [Ladybug w/ Eris], 1 from Heather [undecided which one]). Brooke (from last year) will be going to friends in NC in late Oct/early Nov because she's not getting along with anyone here. The last EV hen (Heather's 2nd) might go as well, but I'll probably hang onto them for a year to see which one I like better. Bill DID say it was fine for me to sell her if I wanted, and there's a possibility I will do that instead.

1 blue hen [Dragonfly] will be staying here, the rest will be sold [2 blues from Wendy w/ Corona, 1 blue from Wendy with Eris, 1 blue from Heather with Heather].

No males will stay here, they will either be sold by or processed in January 2027.

I reported on these stats to one of my peafowl group chats with a couple other breeders, because they were saying peafowl eggs have a 42% incubation success rate like that's normal....

[Last year I had too many males, and processed the extra for the freezer, which he KNOWS I did]

Anyway, that's part of why I linked the research article I linked a week or two ago, about peafowl nutrition and its link to fertility/chick health. SO MANY PEOPLE are starving their chicks of the protein they need, and they'll argue til they're blue in the face that chicks can't have high protein because it will "twist their legs." When leg twisting has BEEN RESEARCHED. And results from a high MINERAL content, particularly calcium!! These birds need LOW calcium and most people are NOT giving low calcium feeds, or they're giving low-quality high-protein feeds like Purina. Which is garbage and should never be used.

And I've gone round and round and round with one of the two in this group, because she's always complaining that they stopped making "ultrakibble" (which was junk imo, I tried it with my birds, it's JUST a "feed supplement" that is higher protein and contains fish meal), and she doesn't want to feed a processed chow (though make it make sense, Ultrakibble was a processed supplement....). She absolutely won't take my rec for the feed I used because it's processed, but WILL talk about 40% hatch rates being "normal" for them and how she could get it a little higher with ultrakibble.

You can criticize hypocrisy without making homophobic jokes or using homophobic nicknames.

And if YOU feel YOU can't, that's just a fucking skill issue.

You can talk about the fact that it's really fucked up that his frequenting of gay sex workers was an "open secret," as was his sexuality full stop, without making jokes that boil down to "hahaha look at the faggot."

Lied and said he was non-verbal

Lied and said he was incapable of communication

Lied and said he had not gotten the surgery of his own accord

Lied and said his "guardians decided [he] was trans"

Got MGT to call a procedure done on a consenting adult "criminal" just because he had cerebral palsy

Mass reported his video and his account, which he ran, until facebook terminated his account for "child exploitation" despite it being his account, him being an adult, and him not being exploited

Ableism and transphobia are inseperable. Just like ableism was used to prop up bigotry throughout history, now it is being used to deny transgender people bodily autonomy the same way it is used to deny disabled people bodily autonomy. It's not a coincidence that so much of the rights transphobic rhetoric is focused on labelling us as "mentally ill". They don't think any disabled people, let alone mentally ill people should have independence or liberation.