queer as in fuck you

Riptide is hiring paid sensitivity readers. Our SRs will read manuscripts with an eye toward any potentially inaccurate, inauthentic, insulting, misrepresentative, harmful, or *-ist themes, phrases, or actions in the text.

Sensitivity readers must be a part of the culture(s) or identity/identities they are reading for. Beyond this and the ability to express your thoughts via the written word, there are no requirements or prerequisites.

This is an entry-level position with no developmental editing, line editing, copyediting, or proofreading involved and thus no experience required in those areas.

Pay is $1.50 per 1000 words. The average SR is able to read and comment as necessary on about 10,000 words per hour, and thus makes about $15 an hour. We recognize that this is not always the case, especially for some neurodivergent or visually impaired readers, so when we hire SRs with those backgrounds, we can individually discuss different methods of calculating pay.

Since we maintain a database of potential SRs for not just current but also future needs, we’re seeking readers in all areas of racial, ethnic, and religious diversity, sexual and gender orientation, and mental and physical illnesses and disabilities. However, at the moment, we have manuscripts in production in need of sensitivity readers that depict the following cultures and/or identities and/or disabilities:

A fey creature (ningyo) of Japanese descent

Medieval Islamic Turkey (alternate world fantasy)

Medieval Romani based in Romania (alternate world fantasy)

Traumatic brain injury (contemporary set)

Paraplegic from spinal cord injury (contemporary set)

A Mexican-American character involved in an organization supporting families dealing with immigration struggles

 Please note that all of our books are LGBTQ+, and because intersectionality is so important, we will prioritize readers who share the intersectionalities they’re reading for. That being said, we will absolutely consider (and have in the past hired) non-LGBTQ+ readers for all of these manuscripts.

If you’re interested in one of our active manuscripts, or in being added to our SR database, please send:

CV with education and pertinent editorial experience, if any (we’re actively seeking to diversify our editing staff and turn to our SR readers first when hiring in that department, but experience is not necessary to become an SR, so don’t worry too much about this part!)

Statement about all areas of experience and/or identity that you’d like to read for

Send to: [email protected]

Post-T, my voice dropped approximately a fuck-ton (metric) and I can no longer do that. Lil'y has responded by making her own meows as gravely as possible, so I can meow at her again.

Depictions of Lesbianism by Henri Toulouse Lautrec

During his life, Lautrec spent a lot of time in Montmarte, the bohemian centre of 19th century Paris and home to artists, philosophers, writers, performers, and prostitutes. He spent a lot of time with the sex workers there, and discovered that many of them had intimate relationships with one another.

Lautrec’s depiction of lesbianism is particularly notable because it doesn’t fetishise sexual intimacy between women or present it as spectacle for the male gaze. Lautrec was trying to capture small, tender moments in the lives of the women he met, and he did so with humanity and sensitivity. In a world of constructed sexuality and fantasy, he finds the real relationships, and reveals to us the hidden lives of queer women in the 19th century.

Fin-de-siècle Paris was the capital of lesbianism. However, until the mid century, and despite the acknowledgment of male homosexuality, female homosexuality had been considered absurd. This scepticism was grounded in the fact that many nineteenth-century psychologists and medical professionals did not believe in female sexual impulse. Thus, when instances of lesbianism were reported in Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet’s 1836 study of prostitution in Paris, lesbianism came to be understood as an activity associated with the Montmartre counterculture and, in particular, with prostitution. Indeed, deluxe houses of tolerance often functioned as specialty brothels that catered for a clientele with particular fetishes, such as tableaux vivants where ‘inmates, entirely naked, abandon themselves to homosexual practices on a large black velvet carpet or in rooms hung with black satin to bring out the whiteness of their bodies’. This was lesbianism as commercial spectacle, performed within a closed environment for male consumption.

Lesbianism in the public realm was a sexual preference that, while common, was negatively judged by French conservative society and for this reason was conducted with subtlety and partially obscured. In fact, many of the biggest stars of the Parisian circuses, dance halls and café-concerts were lesbian or bisexual, including Jane Avril and May Milton (whom, it is generally agreed, had a short-lived love affair), Sarah Bernhardt, Cha-u-ka-o and La Goulue. Whilst these Montmartre celebrities were depicted on multiple occasions by Lautrec, the artist chose to represent them as skilled professionals, never exploiting their sexual preference as the main focus of his compositions. So subtle was Lautrec in his treatment of these themes that art historians such as David Sweetman have gone so far as to argue that ‘It comes as something of a shock to realise that most of the women … were in fact lesbians and that quite a few were lovers. So many, in fact, that it is possible to argue that lesbianism is the hidden subtext of much of the art of Henri’s mature years.’

- from nga.gov.au

Images shown:

1. At the Moulin Rouge: The Women Dancing

2. In Bed

3. The Kiss

4. Two Friends

For people wondering how to take action post-election of a racist demagogue (pulled from Twitter and cleaned up):

Make a spreadsheet or a file for your representatives with names, addresses to their offices, phone numbers, and contact forms. Put everyone there. Make a note in your calendar app to check in on issues once a month.

Pay attention to news. If you get angry, upset, or worried, seek support from friends but ALSO shoot these reps an email, too. Be courteous but firm and blunt. It’s a numbers game. Often we remain invisible because we don’t go to events and rallies and can’t be physically present. But we can attach our names to emails, we can write letters, we can be vocal. We don’t have to be invisible.

You can do this with your national reps, state reps, and local reps. If someone reps you anywhere, note them. Open a line and revisit it. It’s hard work and slow. One email at a time. One letter at a time. One call at a time. Emails are easy these days, so splurge every few months on a stamp and send a letter if you can. Put your humanity in front of these people. Flout it. Some won’t care, but others will. Change ONE mind and results can cascade.

Rural areas are bubbles full of bigotry and now it’s newly revealed. But we white people who live here have the clout and power! We can speak up when our reps say terrible things, and do terrible things, and vote terrible ways. We can go “I am disappointed in you.” It’s work, but as we’ve seen the last six months, it’s time for us to do that work. If someone goes “who are your reps” you gotta know. If you don’t know and you’re mad about this election, it’s time to create that file and keep it with you and use it.

The time for social media rants only is over. Or, do those, but maybe pull those threads out into a paragraph and send them to your reps. And don’t ONLY email or contact when things go badly. Also reach out when things go right. Even if they voted AGAINST something. Treat them like you would want to be treated if you were wrong or mistaken. But we’ve gotta reach out and let them know we’re here.

Anyway, I know this is hard work. If you need help collecting your reps, give me a ping via DM and I’ll help you get started.

perks of backing The Arcana

you get to choose your (the main character’s) pronouns

the creators say you can have all flavors of romance gender-wise

you’ll be supporting lgbt adults to make an inclusive game

as in: lgbt people doing lgbt material

it’s got choices

it’s got beautiful artwork with beautiful colors and beautiful lines

you’ll only get charged if they reach their goal, as is kickstater’s regular thing

it’ll be in your phone so whenever the artwork is too beautiful you can just screenshot it to gawk at it later (no shame. i do it way too often)

downsides of backing The Arcana

literally i don’t know

here’s some official artwork and screencaps of the game to prove my point about the gorgeousness

so please just?? back it??