tumble out of bed

𝙹𝚞𝚕𝚢 𝟷, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟺, 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙵𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚣 𝙺𝚊𝚏𝚔𝚊, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟺-𝟷𝟿𝟸𝟹

—

PBS: Language as Prejudice - Myth #6: Women Talk Too Much (via misandry-mermaid)

Every EVERY women’s studies class I’ve been in has had this problem and failed to address it. 

Sometimes incompetence gets to a point where it will have the same effects as malice, and even if you were not being malicious, you still have a responsibility to own the consequences of your ignorance.

Accountability is necessary for society to work properly and for relationships to grow trust.

If someone who should, doesn’t know something, they still have a responsibility to others to deal with present consequences and do better next time.

Simple interaction I had the other day to illustrate that:

A lady cut in line in front of me at the drugstore.

I decided to let go and wait for her to go first, because ain’t nobody got time for that. A person who was with her pointed out that I had been waiting in line.

She looked around, said a little flippantly, “No, she wasn’t,” then thought better and asked me, “were you?”

“I was, actually,” I said, “but it’s fine, you can go.”

She immediately left her place and opened space for me. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t notice, please go ahead. My head is not right these days, I’m so worried about-” how she is sick and taking some new meds, etc, and still insisted that I check out before her when I said again that it was fine.

She was not malicious, she was distracted, but as soon as she was made aware of her mistake she apologized and took the steps to fix it.

I payed for my stuff, said, “don’t worry about it, hope you get well soon” and went on my way, feeling a bit better about humanity in general.

If you found you’re in the wrong, knowing that mistakes are an inescapable part of life makes it easier to admit them and fix things with grace.

But in general, assuming ignorance/incompetence instead of malice dials situations down from offenses to simply annoyances.

Im.. Soft 🥺🥺🥺

They haven't got the hang of pronouns yet, everyone is a 'he' because that's what they're called even if I just referred to Grandma as 'she' in the previous sentence. They've only recently stopped saying 'Good boy, Mumma!' when I do something like wash my hands. They're pretty good with understanding different biology but, on a social and language level, they've never divided people into different categories based on that or gender identity. They do know that I'm a girl/woman, it's just that the term holds similar weight to saying someone is tall or short or mentioning the colour of the eyes, and they apply the terms inconsistently. Their default setting to people and language has been gender neutral.

It makes sense that they've got a shaky grasp of the whole concept: they're four. They're starting to spell out words and do some addition but also still learning how to correctly say my full not-mum name and understand that their dad was once a little baby in Nanna's 'tummy'. They'll probably keep referring to every human on earth as a 'he' for awhile longer.

But over the last few days they've started insisting that pink is my second favourite colour (it isn't) after purple (which they know is my favourite and will remind me of multiple times a day). They don't do this to their dad.

When I said 'it's a nice colour, but no it's not a favourite' there was genuine confusion from one of them. Awhile later, he asked 'Mumma, you're a girl?' I said I was, and he was quiet and thoughtful.

Later that night he told me pink is one of my favourite colours again. When I asked why he thinks that he could give me no explanation other than a confused 'it's pretty?'

I said 'It is pretty. Do you like it?'

Keep in mind pink was, very recently, one of his favourite colours. But he shook his head adamantly, eyes wide.

His brother thought about it too, and said 'Oh yeah, it is pretty! I love pink!' which confused the newly-pink-disliking twin further and you could practically see the gears turning in his head as he remained silent.

He's four. Last month he loved pink. He still loves cuddling his (very pink) rainbow kitty-cat fluffy toy and telling me how cute it is, so I doubt it's a genuine aversion to the colour. And he seems to be insisting he doesn't like it because it's 'pretty,' and assumes that girls must like it for the same reason.

We think he learnt it from one of the few days they're at kindy, from another four-year-old.

Only four and already being taught that prettiness and certain colours aren't for them, and are only for girls.

Then last night, as we were getting ready for bed, he casually said 'Girls are bad at swimming.' The same way he'll tell me 'Spinosaurus looked a bit like a crocodile,' 'octopuses have three hearts,' or 'a hexagon has six sides.'

I gently asked him what he said, he repeated it, and when I asked why does he think girls aren't good at swimming he said 'because girls aren't, boys are good at swimming.'

I told him that wasn't true, girls and boys can both be good at swimming.

He accepted it easily, just a happy 'Oh!' to receive new information. Smiling at me.

'Am I a girl?' I asked him.

'Yeah, you're a girl Mumma.'

'And do you think I'm good at swimming?'

'Oh, yeah!'

He was actually very excited with this revelation, that I'm a girl and good at swimming. He was happy to know girls aren't bad at swimming, this wasn't some inherent belief. And it definitely didn't form from his own experiences - we're Australian, the twins have never been swimming with anyone who isn't good at it. And I'm the one normally in the pool with them and I'm a good swimmer even by Australian standards.

I don't think it came from their kindy teachers either.

This is something else another four-year-old has said.

They're four. FOUR. And already sexism and toxic masculinity is creeping into their conversations, pressuring them to stop liking certain colours and pretty things, and to diminish the capabilities of girls.

I was worried about the manosphere influence my boys would be exposed to as they got older, and how to talk to them about that and the rising numbers of young men who think women aren't as smart as them and shouldn't be able to vote or work after marriage, etc.

I didn't think it would start in kindergarten.

And if my boys have heard it, the little girls in their class probably have too. Do they disagree with it openly? Internalise it? Will they mention it to their parents and have it corrected? (Did one of them hear it from their parents - it could be a little girl sharing it, this does coincide with two new girls joining the class.)

Just... what the fuck.

gfkjldghfd okay first of all I'm sorry for the confusion, if you're not finding anything on the phrase it's because I made it up and absolutely nobody but me ever uses it, but I haven't found a better way to express what I'm trying to say so I keep using it. but now you've given me an excuse to ramble on about some shit that is only relevant to me and my deeply inefficient way of talking and by god I'm going to take it.

SO. the way diegetic and non-diegetic are normally used is to talk about music and sound design in movies/tv shows. in case you aren't familiar with that concept, here's a rundown:

diegetic sound is sound that happens within the world of the movie/show and can be acknowledged by the characters, like a song playing on the stereo during a driving scene, or sung on stage in Phantom of the Opera. it's also most other sounds that happen in a movie, like the sounds of traffic in a city scene, or a thunderclap, or a marching band passing by. or one of the three stock horse sounds they use in every movie with a horse in it even though horses don't really vocalize much in real life, but that's beside the point, the horse is supposed to be actually making that noise within the movie's world and the characters can hear it whinnying.

non-diegetic sound is any sound that doesn't exist in the world of the movie/show and can't be perceived by the characters. this includes things like laugh tracks and most soundtrack music. when Duel of Fates plays in Star Wars during the lightsaber fight for dramatic effect, that's non-diegetic. it exists to the audience, but the characters don't know their fight is being backed by sick ass music and, sadly, can't hear it.

the lines can get blurry between the two, you've probably seen the film trope where the clearly non-diegetic music in the title sequence fades out to the same music, now diegetic and playing from the character's car stereo. and then there are things like Phantom of the Opera as mentioned above, where the soundtrack is also part of the plot, but Phantom of the Opera does also have segments of non-diegetic music: the Phantom probably does not have an entire orchestra and some guy with an electric guitar hiding down in his sewer just waiting for someone to break into song, but both of those show up in the songs they sing down there.

now, on to how I apply this to bdsm in fiction.

if I'm referring to diegetic bdsm what I mean is that the bdsm is acknowledged for what it is in-world. the characters themselves are roleplaying whatever scenarios their scenes involve and are operating with knowledge of real life rules/safety practices. if there's cnc depicted, it will be apparent at some point, usually right away, that both characters actually are fully consenting and it's all just a planned scene, and you'll often see on-screen negotiation and aftercare, and elements of the story may involve the kink community wherever the characters are. Love and Leashes is a great example of this, 50 Shades and Bonding are terrible examples of this, but they all feature characters that know they're doing bdsm and are intentional about it.

if I'm talking about non-diegetic bdsm, I'm referring to a story that portrays certain kinks without the direct acknowledgement that the characters are doing bdsm. this would be something like Captive Prince, or Phantom of the Opera again, or the vast majority of bodice ripper type stories where an innocent woman is kidnapped by a pirate king or something and totally doesn't want to be ravished but then it turns out he's so cool and sexy and good at ravishing that she decides she's into it and becomes his pirate consort or whatever it is that happens at the end of those books. the characters don't know they're playing out a cnc or D/s fantasy, and in-universe it's often straight up noncon or dubcon rather than cnc at all. the thing about entirely non-diegetic bdsm is that it's almost always Problematic™ in some way if you're not willing to meet the story where it's at, but as long as you're not judging it by the standards of diegetic bdsm, it's just providing the reader the same thing that a partner in a scene would: the illusion of whatever risk or taboo floats your boat, sometimes to extremes that can't be replicated in real life due to safety, practicality, physics, the law, vampires not being real, etc. it's consensual by default because it's already pretend; the characters are vehicles for the story and not actually people who can be hurt, and the reader chose to pick up the book and is aware that nothing in it is real, so it's all good.

this difference is where people tend to get hung up in the discourse, from what I've observed. which is why I started using this phrasing, because I think it's very crucial to be able to differentiate which one you're talking about if you try to have a conversation with someone about the portrayal of bdsm in media. it would also, frankly, be useful for tagging, because sometimes when you're in the mood for non-diegetic bodice ripper shit you'd call the police over in real life, it can get really annoying to read paragraphs of negotiation and check-ins that break the illusion of the scene and so on, and the opposite can be jarring too.

it's very possible to blur these together the same way Phantom of the Opera blurs its diegetic and non-diegetic music as well. this leaves you even more open to being misunderstood by people reading in bad faith, but it can also be really fun to play with. @not-poignant writes fantastic fanfic, novels, and original serials on ao3 that pull this off really well, if you're okay with some dark shit in your fiction I would highly recommend their work. some of it does get really fucking dark in places though, just like. be advised. read the tags and all that.

i think i found my new favorite artist on twitter