Chrysocolla Town

You may have heard that Boris Johnson has recently become the leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, and, as such, the Prime Minister. This wasn’t an election open to the general public; party leaders are elected by the members of that party, and it’s no real surprise that the Conservative Party members like conservative candidates.

This isn’t a post about that, per se; there are plenty of other people detailing all of his failings and horrifying attitudes and behaviours. It’s just an illustration of how the political situation in this country is devolving faster and faster. I started talking about this in 2014, just a couple of years after I first got on tumblr at all, and I’ve been talking about it ever since, whenever I have the mental fortitude to do so - which, right now, isn’t often. 

But, hey, what’s another list of my deepest fears? 

I wrote a post a year or two ago with some of the things that we’re facing here, in the UK. I’ll link the entire post, but here is the most important paragraph:

‘But. I have been saying this. I said it when reports came out of the huge number of people dying within a few weeks of their disability claims being denied or revoked. I said it when a coroner went so far as to name the DWP as the cause of death on a death certificate for a disabled person. I said it when we started seeing stats of the huge proportion of cases of denied benefits that were winning at appeal or tribunal (and the huge barriers to even getting to appeal or tribunal in the first place). I said it when we heard about the suicide baiting in disability assessments. I said it when we heard that, even if you could get them, disability benefits were leaving people cold and hungry.’

These aren’t stopping.

If you make a flag, and one of its colors is “pale flaxen yellow,” and people can’t find that in their yarn store, they will just damn well use whatever yellow they can get. Those who recognize the flag will see “yellow - purple - black - green” (or whatever the combo is) and know what it means. (I mean. If it’s got aqua, people will knock themselves out trying to find the right shade of aqua. But if they can’t find it, they’ll use light blue and other people will recognize it.) 

But if you have three different shades of yellow, from “dark gold” to “bright yellow” to “pale watery yellow,” then someone has to find the same yarn/ thread/ fabric/ paint/ legos/ gemstones/ whatever etc., in three colors, and they kinda need to have about the same range as the original. If you’ve got navy blue, sky blue, dark teal, and pale aqua, people won’t be able to make items based on your flag unless their local craft store is incredibly well-supplied.

The lipstick lesbian flag has FOUR shades of pink, and two shades of red that are not anything like what we normally think of as “normal red.” The variant, three oranges and three pinks, is not much better.

(Well, two, but the other one also has orange and was dismissed for being too similar to Rastafarian and Jamaican flags.)

Direct action (protests and demonstrations)

Legal action (lawsuits)

Political lobbying (getting laws made or changed)

Service (directly aiding the oppressed)

Fundraising

Education within the movement

Workshopping (gathering with other activists to discuss solutions)

Creating and running events (conferences, meetings)

Creating safe space

Consciousness raising (internal to the movement)

Awareness raising (external to the movement)

Organizing (getting oppressed people together to speak together, to amplify the message)

Solidarity work (getting people from different oppressed groups together to support one another)

External education (the kind people on Tumblr keep demanding everyone do)

Testifying (telling one’s own story, to those both inside and outside the movement)

Writing

Public speaking

Academic research

Resource compilation

Building and participating in support organizations

Phone banking

Just talking to friends

A great many things that are specific to individual movements, whether animal rescue, making AIDS quilt panels, writing harassment policies, being a clinic escort, and far more

-Teaches young women and girls that you must be in a romantic relationship to be happy, and therefore insinuates that they should prioritize making themselves romanticly available (usually to men) over all other things

- Validates straight men’s feeling of entitlement towards women by equating the right to happiness with a right to women’s bodies and emotional labor

- Helps justify the act of isolating your romantic partner from their friends by promoting the idea that your romantic relationships should be prioritized over all other social relationships, resulting in a climate where it’s easier for domestic abusers to socially isolate their victims

-Promotes negative views of older single women such as “hags”, “spinsters” and “crazy cat ladies”

Amatonormativity does have a lot of overlap with compulsory heterosexuality, and in fact, Elizabeth Brake, the woman who coined the term even talks about that in her explanation of it, but they are not the same thing. 

I’m gonna be honest, most of my posts about amatonormativity never actually get popular outside of the aro and poly communities so I didn’t bother to define terms but this one is popular enough that it’s probably worth doing.

Amatonormativity: The widespread assumption that everyone is better off in an exclusive, romantic, long-term coupled relationship, and that everyone is seeking such a relationship.

Compulsory heterosexuality: The idea that heterosexuality is assumed and enforced by a patriarchal and heteronormative society.

While you can see from the definition where these two ideas intersect (and there has actually been a fair amount of discussion about whether or not one is a subset of the other) they do have some differences. While the examples I was giving were specific to feminism, and as a result, fit into that intersection more than some other examples would, those aren’t the only ways amatonormativity can express itself. It can also look like: 

People saying that open relationships aren’t healthy 

A relative who’s always saying you need to “meet somebody and settle down”

Only being able to legally marry one person 

The assumption that all long term legal partnerships (aka: marriage) are romantic 

A stigma against living with friends or family after a certain age 

etc etc 

None of these things are especially gender-specific, they can be applied to both straight and LGBTQIA+ people, and they don’t necessarily enforce compulsory heterosexuality. Similarly, there are other things that might be considered  compulsory heterosexuality but not amatonormativity.

We have cake! And ace and aro swag! (The swag is thanks to the amazing @redbeardace)

Aromantic-spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy (AUREA) is happy to announce the website - aromanticism.org - we’ve been working on has been launched! We assemble general information and community updates. The website includes FAQ, vocabulary, research, news feed, online resources, links to in-person groups, and printable educational materials. Our aim is also to be a contact point for researchers and media looking to explore the aromantic experiences.

Better (and fewer) references.

A revision of the intro paragraph, and a source for the claim that sexological research only recently started studying attraction as separate from behaviour.

Mentions of important media appearances, from magazines to the TV.

Mentions of early ace communities beside AVEN and The Official Asexual Society.

Mentions of ace communities and events outside the USA.

More mentions of recent ace research.

Nope but I’m thinking of making one.

I think Allure has finally cracked the Asexual Article Photo Puzzle.

Sad people in bed?  Nope.

Chastity locks?  Nope.

Birds and/or bees?  Nope.

Dead flowers?  Nope.

Random Getty stock photo titled “Two Young Women In Sofa At Home”?  Check!

And it works.

It’s twenty-seven blank pages.