females first

Ah, yes, but what a shame

What a shame the poor groom’s bride is a

In 1972, early in his career, Green wrote an article in The International Journal of Psychiatry taking issue with “the premise that homosexuality is a disease or a homosexual is inferior.” The following year, the American Psychiatric Association dropped homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

“Those were times when, if you spoke up in support of homosexuals, people immediately thought that you were secretly homosexual yourself, or had unresolved sexual issues,” Jack Drescher, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, told the Times. “Richard was very much heterosexual, and it took a lot of courage to argue for gay people.”

Even earlier, in 1962, Green testified on behalf of a Nicaraguan man who was facing deportation from the U.S. for being gay. The man won the right to remain in the U.S. Later, Green “testified on behalf of a transgender woman who was suing to keep her job as a pilot, and a transgender parent who was suing for child visitation,” the Times reports.

Green eventually completed a law degree, and he put that to use in support of LGBTQ rights as well. In 1990 he volunteered his legal services in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay scoutmasters. Although the BSA won the suit, it finally dropped the prohibition in 2015.

Of course!

Personally, I am very pro "LGB." I think all same-sex attracted people should ban together for working against the systematic and oppressive reality of homophobia, whether that same sex attraction is exclusive or in conjunction with opposite sex attraction

I've known too many bisexual friends who predominantly or exclusively express their same-sex attraction to say bisexuals don't have a part to play in working against homophobia simply because they aren't exclusively same-sex attracted

That said, there are also other realities which I have experienced and subsequently find myself interested mainly in LG activism and community

1. There are many bisexuals in the modern "LGBT+ community" who are, simply put, homophobic. Their beliefs about gender, sex, and sexuality are directly opposed to my wellbeing and equality in the world. For this reason, I think there's a need to stand specifically with other homosexuals based on our unique experience of being homosexual

2. That experience of being homosexual IS unique. While I have a great deal in common with some bisexuals, particularly with those who exclusively express their same-sex attraction, our experiences still remain different. I will never know what it's like to be attracted to the opposite sex. A bisexual will never know what it's like to have zero attraction to the opposite sex. This difference is real, but often not appreciated, and leads me to desire specific fellowship with other homosexuals (LG's)

3. There are few spaces, in my experience both irl and online, where focus is placed only on homosexuality. Not LGBTQIALMMOP, LGBT+, LGBT, or even LGB. Specifically homosexual, interested in the unique and impactful experience of being exclusively attracted to one's own sex. For this reason, I feel the need to focus on creating and supporting these spaces, while criticizing their absence and those who would say they are unnecessary or "exclusionary"

There are more nuanced reasons as well, but the answer essentially falls to this:

I see a need to focus on homosexuals as unique victims of modern discourse surrounding sex, gender, and sexuality. So while I maintain a concrete solidarity with the LGB as a whole, I want to prioritize how I spend my time and energy by focusing on the LG as my fellow homosexuals

when we say we won’t date trans women because we’re lesbians, we are not saying trans women don’t deserve to have happy, fulfilling relationships. we are saying that we are not romantically or sexually attracted to them and so that neither of us would have a happy, fulfilling relationship if we dated.

when we say we are gender critical, we are not saying everyone should be gender-conforming. we are saying the opposite, that men and women should be free to dress and act however they like instead of being forced into certain gender roles based on their sex.

when we say female-only safe spaces are important, we are not saying trans-only or mixed safe spaces aren’t also important. we are saying that based on our biology, women have certain shared experiences and face specific oppression that we deserve to be able to discuss among ourselves.

Ever since gay marriage became legal in Spain in 2005, thousands of lesbian couples have tied the knot. But this law has an interesting precedent; Marcela and Elisa were married in 1901. In a church wedding!

Wedding photo of Marcela (left) and Elisa, dressed as a man.

Of course, same-sex marriage was not legal in Spain at the time, so the two school teachers had to come up with a delicate scheme. One day, Elisa and Marcela simulated a fight in the house they shared in the tiny village of Dumbría, and Elisa moved to A Coruña. While there, Elisa cut her hair, started wearing men’s clothes, and took up smoking. She found a priest desperate to gain parishioners, and he baptized her as a man. She adopted the name ‘Mario’ and returned to Dumbría. Marcela then introduced Elisa to her family and neighbors as ‘Mario’, Elisa’s cousin, and said they were going to get married. Indeed, people were amazed at how much this ‘Mario’ looked like Elisa; same height, same voice, same mannerisms and temper. The wedding was held on the 8th of June, 1901, in the Church of St. Jorge in A Coruña. After the ceremony, the happy couple was photographed at José Sellier’s studio. The next day, the newlyweds returned to Dumbría in a horse carriage.

Eventually, Marcela and ‘Mario’ were outed by their suspecting neighbors to local authorities. A huge scandal broke out, with both national and international newspapers writing about the ‘disgraceful’ marriage which did not include a man. Both women were fired from their jobs, excommunicated, and an arrest warrant was issued for both of them. The couple fled to many Spanish cities, until finally boarding a ship to the Americas, presumably to Argentina. It should be noted that Marcela and Elisa’s wedding is still valid to this day, since it was never annulled by neither The Catholic Church nor the Civil Registry. Therefore, Marcela and Elisa’s union is the first officially registered same-sex marriage in Spain, 104 years before it became legal for Spanish lesbian couples to marry.

This one is going to be controversial. I'm not against transition in and of itself. I've been transitioning for three years. I don't regret it, and I currently do not plan to detransition. I have decided against all lower surgery, but will seek out peri/key hole top surgery.

I just think that way transition is handled, at least in the US, is not actually helping dysphoric people. I think informed consent is medically irresponsible. Transition alone is not reliably a good treatment for dysphoria. I think part of the problem is we see dysphoria as one thing with one cause, so if you have it you're automatically trans and will benefit from transition, but it's not. It's important people develop coping skills and work through underlying issues that are causing and making dysphoria worse. It's also important that certain underlying causes are identified and ruled out. Like, transition is actually a pretty drastic treatment, especially when surgery gets involved. It turns someone into a life long patient, and has serious, permanent, and even unknown changes and consequences. It should really be more of a last resort than a first line treatment you can simply make an appt with a doctor and be on hormones a month later.

Like someone who develops sex dysphoria due to a combination of internalized misogyny, internalized homophobia, misogyny, homophobia, and trauma? Transition is not a good treatment for them. Rather than transition, they should see a therapist to work through their internalized prejudices and trauma, and develop coping skills. Transitioning in an attempt to escape oppression will only lead to more suffering via more oppression.

Or someone who "doesn't feel fully female" because they hate gender roles and can't conform them perfectly? Transition is not a good treatment for them either. They need to self reflect and understand that gender roles are oppressive, strict, and no one can fully conform to them. That gender roles are so deeply ingrained in our ideas of what it means to be a man and woman, that we see them as something innate to being male or female. That it's normal to not feel woman enough because of that, and learn to embrace being a gender non conforming woman. She doesn't need transition to fix her. She doesn't need to change her body to fit in a box, she needs to learn to say fuck the boxes entirely and that she can be a woman without fitting in them.

Someone who can't identify why they suffer dysphoria though? Someone who's tried other, less drastic options? Someone who's worked through underlying issues and still hasn't seen a reduction in dysphoria that nets them an acceptable quality of life? Someone who continues to see a counselor, self reflect, and work on coping skills and underlying issues? Someone who can demonstrate they have realistic expectations and don't see transition as a cure all for all their dysphoria or all their life problems? That's when I feel transition is acceptable.

I'm just seeing too many people who transition and once the novelty wears off or the dysphoria wears off in one area due to changes, they fixate on something else. Like they get on HRT and get changes and pass, but then their chest dysphoria gets significantly worse. Then they get top surgery and then their genital dysphoria gets significantly worse. This is my speculation about why post op suicide rates are high. People run out of hope, there's no light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to. They hype it up as the final thing that will fix their dysphoria and make their problems easier to deal with. But then the novelty wears off and... They still have depression, they still have trauma, they still hate their job, they still owe 5 grand on that accident, their car still needs to get fixed, they still need to take the cat to the vet, etc etc.

We tell each other this is normal, but is it really? Should it be? Transition is supposed to make our dysphoria significantly better, not worse or with little change. And overall, I see so many people where their quality of life doesn't seem much better. Or like I have post op friends who got no psychological aftercare and little psychological care prior tell me their life is so much better now, but then why are you still suicidal all the time? Why are you still so depressed? Why do you still struggle to get work done and take care of yourself? Why do you still talk about how dysphoric you are over not being a "real man/woman"?

I expect to lose followers over this, but it just feels like the way we're handling dysphoria and transition is just shifting it around for a lot of people, not reducing it. We tell each other that transition is the only way, you can't work through dysphoria, therapy doesn't help. I think it doesn't help because we set ourselves up with that mindset and shut it out. We don't put real effort into it.

TL;DR - What I'm saying is, transition alone will not fix you. You need to work through your shit and develop coping skills too if you want transition to actually improve your quality of life.

—

Audre Lorde

“The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”

“Jan Wynne-Jones knows almost nothing about her daughter Vicky’s last living moments. She only knows that Vicky, a tall, blond, 25-year-old newlywed who worked as an account manager and who could calculate a balance sheet or assemble a wardrobe without breaking a sweat, was strangled by her husband one night in November in 2009.

Vicky had married Michael Roberts just five months earlier, but the couple had been together for four years and lived close to their families in Warrington, in Cheshire. Jan, her husband and their three other children saw Roberts as part of the family. There had been no “warning signs”, no evidence of abuse or flashes of temper.

According to Roberts, Vicky’s death had been a terrible accident, a “sex game gone wrong”. In court, he pleaded not guilty to her murder, claiming they had been having sex on the sofa with a bathrobe cord around Vicky’s neck and she had instructed him, three times, to “pull tighter”. When she slumped to the floor, he thought she was joking and waited for her to sit up and say, “Boo!” When he realised his wife was dead, he sat in the corner and cried.

“I knew it wasn’t true, but I didn’t want to protest too much,” says Jan. “For three days, we had to sit and listen to him. I thought: ‘Haven’t you done enough?’ There were only two people there when it happened and the jury can only hear from one of them – that’s massive. That’s the thing you can’t change.”

Fortunately, there was ample evidence to speak for Vicky. The pathology report showed her injuries could not have been inflicted by a dressing gown cord and the force used was excessive. Roberts had snapped a hyoid bone in the front of her neck. He hadn’t called an ambulance. He hid Vicky’s body in the garage and told her family she had left him for another man. His phone showed he had been conducting affairs with at least three women, calling one of them constantly on the night in question. A letter written by Vicky was found in the apartment, which revealed that she had discovered something of Roberts’s infidelities and given him a deadline – which fell on the weekend she died.

The jury found Roberts guilty of murder and he was sentenced to a minimum of 17 years. He has never told the truth about what really happened. “He took away Vicky, her choices, her chances, her future,” says Vicky’s sister, Lindsey Wynne-Jones. “And then he took her dignity. Even now, it’s the ‘sex game gone wrong’ that gets focused on. Even though it was disproved, it’s always going to be there.”

Just one month after the trial, another woman – Michelle Stonall – was found strangled with her dog’s lead in Sheldon Country Park, Birmingham. Her killer used the same “sex game” defence. Less than two months after that, Anna Banks, a 25-year-old classroom assistant, was strangled by her boyfriend of four months. Daniel Lancaster claimed that Banks “enjoyed being throttled during intercourse”. He was not found guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter and given a four-year sentence.

Since December last year, a group of women have attempted to gather “sex games gone wrong” defence killings under one place – the website We Can’t Consent to This. In the decade since Vicky’s murder, such killings have risen by 90%. Two thirds involve strangulation.

In the UK, it’s routinely minimised at every level. It’s presented as a momentary loss of control

Strangulation – fatal and non-fatal – “squeezing”, “neck compression” or, as some call, it “breath-play” – is highly gendered. On average, one woman in the UK is strangled to death by her partner every two weeks, according to Women’s Aid. It is a frequent feature of non-fatal domestic assault, as well as rape and robbery where women are the victims. It is striking how seldom it is seen in crimes against men.

Numerous studies have shown that non-fatal strangulation is one of the highest markers for future homicide, which is why Australia, New Zealand, Canada and most US states have developed preventative legislation to strengthen police, prosecutorial and sentencing policies that surround it. In most US states, for example, it is now compulsory for police to charge strangulation assaults as felonies. Yet in the UK, they can fall under battery – the mildest assault possible.

Susan Edwards, a barrister and law professor, has spent decades fighting to make strangulation a stand-alone offence. “In the UK, it’s routinely minimised at every level,” she says. “It’s presented as a momentary loss of control. Attempted strangulations often leave no visible injury and fatal cases too frequently end in light sentences. You hear things such as ‘lover’s tiff’. A cardiac arrest can occur within seconds during strangulation, so there’s also the defence that strangulation wasn’t the cause of death.”

And now, a new defence has been added to the mix – consent. Fiona Mackenzie, an actuary, set up We Can’t Consent to This following the outcry over the so-called “rough sex killing” of Natalie Connolly, 26, by her millionaire partner John Broadhurst, 40. Despite the victim having 40 separate injuries, including serious internal trauma, a fractured eye socket and bleach on her face, Broadhurst received a sentence of three years, eight months for manslaughter.

“People were talking about this defence as if it was one isolated incident and I knew it wasn’t,” says Mackenzie. Although English law does not recognise consent to choking – or any physical harm – in the context of consensual sex, the Labour MP Harriet Harman has just announced her intention to have this underlined again in the forthcoming domestic violence bill. “It needs more emphasis because defence teams are increasingly offering it up, maybe because rough sex has crept into the mainstream,” says Mackenzie. “I’ve had so many women get in touch to say they have been horrified on Tinder dates by partners who have choked them during sex. If you’re dating, it’s expected of you and if you don’t go along with it, you’re boring.”

This is how Amber*, now 27, felt when she was first choked during sex in 2012 in Dublin. “I had met a friend of a friend on a night out and we went back to his. He was being rougher with me than I was used to, but I didn’t think anything of it. He grazed his hand on my neck – again, I didn’t think anything of it – then he started to squeeze.”

The choking wasn’t firm enough to cause Amber much discomfort. “I wanted to be attractive to him. So I just thought: ‘OK, this is what gets him off, I’ll let him.’” She had just come out of a long-term relationship. “So I figured: this must be how people have sex now.”

I wanted to be attractive to him. So I just thought: OK, this is what gets him off, I’ll let him

Lucy*, 33, who met a man on Tinder last September, describes a similar experience. “He was a very handsome guy, well turned out,” she says. They went on a date: dinner and drinks. Afterwards, Lucy went to his house, where they moved to the bedroom. “This is where it gets a little bit blurry,” Lucy recalls. “I was drunk, but I could consent. He asked if he could choke me and I said yes – I had done it before.” Previously, the choking had not been “a big deal” – a minor part in the whole experience and comparable to “a bit of hair pulling”; that is to say, a quick and small amount of pain intended to be pleasurable.

“But the next thing I remember is waking up gasping for breath with him on top of me. I’m not sure how long I passed out for. I booked an Uber at 6.30am to get the hell out of there. The next day, I saw the bruises on my chest. We spoke after this and all he said was that, ‘we both got a bit carried away’.”

Mackenzie points to two recent strangulation cases that ended in verdicts of manslaughter. Chloe Miazek, 20, who was strangled by Mark Bruce after meeting him at a bus stop and going to his flat in Aberdeen in November 2017. Mark Bruce, 32, was sentenced to six years. His defence argued that “erotic sexual asphyxiation” was something that Miazek had expressed interest in with previous sexual partners.

Hannah Pearson, from Lincolnshire, was 16 when she was strangled by James Morton, 24, whom she had met on the day of her death in July 2016. His defence said he was looking to pursue “his sexual thrill without having regard for the consequences of it”. The jury cleared him of murder but he got 12 years for manslaughter.

“Both those women were very young, and very drunk, killed by much older men they had met just hours before,” Mackenzie says.

How did strangulation become so widespread? Autoerotic asphyxia – when someone restricts oxygen to their own brain for the purposes of arousal – isn’t new: there have been documented cases since the early 17th century. But, historically, it has been “niche” and an overwhelmingly male pastime. And the serious risks it has always carried can be seen in the two high-profile examples of the deaths of the MP Stephen Milligan and the actor David Carradine.

Now, though, it is women being choked – Mackenzie hasn’t found a single case of a man killed by a woman in an alleged “sex game gone wrong”. And sex surveys, advice forums, social media feeds and women’s magazines show the way the practice has become mainstream. “If blindfolds and role play have veered into vanilla territory, there are still plenty of sex moves … like choking,” suggests Women’s Health. “Breath play, the risque new sex practice gripping millennials,” offers Flare. On elitedaily.com, one sex educator was quoted as saying anyone stuck in a sex rut could read up on “how to choke your partner safely”.

Gail Dines, the feminist thinker and CEO of Culture Reframed, believes strangulation has been normalised via two main routes. “For the men, it’s pornography and for the women, it’s in women’s magazines,” she says. “And both of these media genres legitimise it as a form of ‘play’.” She describes choking as a “number one standard act” on porn sites and says women look to porn to “see what men want and they see choking”.

The link between strangulation and porn was made almost 20 years ago, when the teacher and classical musician Jane Longhurst was strangled with a pair of tights by her best friend’s boyfriend, Graham Coutts. Coutts (who also used the ‘consenting sex’ defence) was described in court as having an obsession with violent pornography. After the trial, Longhurst’s family campaigned for a ban on violent porn, which eventually led to section 63 of the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, making it illegal to possess an extreme pornographic image which included acts that threaten a person’s life. However, the cases that have come to court have been ones involving bestiality or child abuse. “It’s not used for scenes of violence, strangulation and rape, which is what was intended,” says Edwards.

Erika Lust, one of the world’s only female porn directors, agrees that strangulation and choking scenes now dominate porn. “Face slapping, choking, gagging and spitting has become the alpha and omega of any porn scene and not within a BDSM context,” she says. “These are presented as standard ways to have sex when, in fact, they are niches.”

When a direct threat to life is slowly normalised, “it means that a woman whose partner chokes her might not report it – and if she does, it might go nowhere,” says Edwards. “It means that if a woman dies this way, judges and juries feel ‘this is how people have sex now’ and questions aren’t always asked.”

Face slapping, choking, gagging and spitting has become the alpha and omega of any porn scene

Lust points out that if sex education is inadequate, “young people will go to the internet for answers. Many people’s first exposure to sex is hardcore porn”. This, she says, teaches kids “that men should be rough and demanding, and that degradation is standard.”

One young man who spoke to the Guardian for this piece said he chokes his girlfriend, and has done for several years, “because she likes it”. Days later, he got in touch again. “I thought about our conversation and asked her about it. She said she doesn’t actually like it; she thought I liked it. But the thing is, I don’t: I thought it’s what she wanted.”

Sarah* was a witness in a “sex game gone wrong” case that ended with a not guilty verdict. She lived in the flat below the victim – someone who had spent time in prison for drugs and sex work offences and seemed warm, friendly and very vulnerable.

One afternoon, Sarah heard arguments interspersed by laughter upstairs. Her neighbour shouted: “Get off me!” There was a sound of falling to the floor, followed by scuffling, then sex, then quiet. Later that evening, Sarah went upstairs because water was dripping through her ceiling. Her neighbour’s door was ajar, the kitchen tap left on – she turned it off and went to the bedroom.

“I saw my neighbour hanging from a rope,” she says. A man slept beside her. Sarah says that one police officer asked her if her neighbour was “the local entertainment”.

The case took a long time to come to trial. The victim – who had more than 30 injuries – was a troubled woman, the jury was told. She had sent “dirty” texts. The man who had been sleeping beside her insisted that he had only ever had “normal sex”. Although Sarah – and another neighbour – thought there had been two men in the flat, no one else was charged. The sex game gone wrong was something the police or Crown Prosecution Service came up with, not the defence. “It felt that the police thought she had somehow asked for it,” says Sarah. “The ‘sex game gone wrong’ story was a way of blaming everyone and no one.” The sleeping man was found not guilty. Nothing was ever explained.

The dead woman was a mother, a sister, a daughter – all her family were at the trial. Sarah cannot imagine the impact on them. “I can see that she would be considered a difficult victim to present to a jury,” she says. “However, as far as I know, ‘Get off me’ were very possibly the last words she spoke.”

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