Roncags

Apalachicola National Forest / Leon County, FL “Detour”

-our sacred texts include more than just the 5 books of the “old testament” 

-we don’t call it the old testament and please don’t call it that unless you’re referring to the christian use of it, when talking about the jewish torah use the term “hebrew scriptures” 

-torah = the 5 first books (genesis exodus leviticus deuteronomy numbers)  + the prophets and the writings (song of songs, psalms, etc)

-there is also Talmud (mishnah and gemara) which is where conversations by rabbis about how Jewish law should work were recorded (mishna) and further commented / debated on (gemara), and the law codes that later simplified and revised the talmud for better practical use (the shulchan aruch and mishne torah), sages’ commentaries on these law texts, and centuries of responsa to them. these texts are where you will find a lot of the rituals, observances, and rules that Jews follow (so for example the kosher laws, when we say what blessings, how we celebrate holidays, etc). so no, we do not participate in “old” testament ritual sacrifice and looking directly in there for how Jews live is a rather fruitless attempt. 

-sometimes the word “torah” can refer to talmud as well, it can refer to any study of holy texts. 

-responses and interpretations of Jewish law and scriptures goes on to this day

-Midrash is another type of important jewish texts which are basically poetic or interperative writings about the things in the torah/talmud/etc, comparable to parables, written by various jewish scholars to think through Jewish thought, history, religion, etc. not seen as binding legal texts but rather ways of thinking through torah/judaism. there are ancient published midrashim as well as modern ones. 

-Basically understand that Jewish textual tradition goes far beyond what you know of the Hebrew scriptures and “Jewish practice is just Christianity without the New Testament” is terribly inaccurate.

-The idea that “Jews just do ancient barbaric Old Testament rituals” is ages old antisemitic slander. 

hi im soul and here’s the 5-year tale of weird dreams and a shadow person who may or may not watch me in my sleep

it’s really weird and idk how to think about it feel free to tell me

This is very eurocentric but try this order for some bare bones crash course shit that reflects how I came to where I am. Includes theology cuz thats just the philosophy of the time. 

Plato > Aristotle > Pseudo-Dionysus > Various Dessert Fathers > Abelard > Aquinas > Luther > Calvin > Descartes > Bacon > Spinoza > Leibniz > Hobbes > Locke > Hume > Kant > Hegel > Schopenhauer >  Nietzsche > Marx > Lenin > Luckacs > Adorno > Derrida > Foucault > Butler

Plato: Symposium, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Republic

Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, Physics

Pseudo-Dionysius: The Mystical Theology

Dessert Fathers: Selections From The Sayings of The Dessert Fathers

Augustine: City of God, Confessions

Abelard: Letters of Abelard and Heloise, The Story of My Misfortunes

Aquinas:  Summa Theologica 

Calvin: The Institutes of Christian Religion 

Descartes: Meditations

Bacon: The Essays of Francis Bacon

Spinoza: The Ethics

Leibniz: Philosophical Essays, The Monadology

Locke: Second Treatise on Government , Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Kant: Critique of Pure Reason

Hegel: Philosophy of Right, Phenomenology of Spirit

Schopenhauer: World As Will and Idea, Essays

Nietzsche: The Gay Science, On The Genealogy of Morality

Marx: basically everything

Lenin: State and Revolution 

Luckacs: History and Class Consciousness, What Is Orthodox Marxism

Adorno: Negative Dialectics 

Derrida: Of Grammatology, Limited Inc

Foucualt: History of Sexuality, Discipline and Punish

Butler: Gender Trouble, Undoing Gender, Precarious Life

However, as a bisexual dude, I can observe that many of the arguments that are employed to establish that ace folks have no place in the queer community are strikingly similar - indeed, at times practically word-for-word identical - to the arguments that were for many years (and in some circles still are) employed to establish that bisexual folks have no place in the queer community.

The Passing Argument

It has been argued that bisexual folks don’t have any grounds to complain about discrimination and violence suffered in relation to their orientation, because a bisexual person is able to pass as straight simply by choosing partners of the appropriate gender. Therefore, any discrimination and violence that a bisexual person does experience must be construed as voluntarily undertaken, since they could have passed, and freely chose not to.

This argument is similarly applied to ace folks via the assertion that being ace poses no particular barrier to seeking a partner of a socially acceptable gender, so any failure to do so must likewise be construed as voluntary.

The Performativity Argument

It has been argued that bisexual folks ought to be excluded from queer communities because sexual orientation is purely performative; i.e., being gay is defined in terms of currently having a sexual partner of the same gender.  A bisexual person who has a partner of a different gender is functionally indistinguishable from a straight person, and must therefore be regarded as straight. Conversely, a bisexual person whose current partner is of the same gender must nonetheless be regarded with suspicion, because they could “turn straight” at any time simply by leaving that partner.

This argument is similarly applied to ace folks via the assertion that their orientation has no discernible performative component; an ace person is functionally indistinguishable from a straight person who simply isn’t involved in a sexual relationship at that particular moment, so ace folks must therefore be regarded as straight by default.

(An astute reader may notice that the passing argument dovetails neatly into the performativity argument: those who choose not to seek partners of a socially acceptable gender may be dismissed because any violence and discrimination they experience is a consequence of their voluntary failure to pass, while those who do seek such partners are performatively straight and therefore to be shunned. It’s a neat little system.)

The Mistaken Identity Argument

It has been argued that, while bisexual folks may suffer discrimination and physical and sexual violence, they’re not targeted by such acts because they’re bisexual. Any discrimination and violence a bisexual person suffers in relation to their orientation is suffered because they were mistaken for a gay person. Any effort on their part to discuss such experiences is therefore to be regarded as appropriative, in spite of the fact that they personally experienced it. In short, a bisexual person’s own experience of violence and discrimination doesn’t truly “belong” to them: it “belongs” to the purely hypothetical gay person their persecutors allegedly mistook them for.

1) rewriting history to erase bisexual and asexual contributions to political LGBTQ rights movements, and then claiming that bisexuals and asexuals have never done anything for the community at large

2) arguing that modernday bisexuals and asexuals should be excluded from current political movements because our goals are distinct from, or even contradictory to the goals of the LGBTQ rights movement at large

3) interpreting any attempt on the part of bi/asexuals to make safe spaces for ourselves within the community as an attack on LG safe spaces, generally by reframing bi/ace pride as homo/lesbophobia, or by dismissing accusations of bi/acephobia as inherently homo/lesbophobic

It’s often been asserted that bisexual folks ought to be excluded from the LG community because that community is specifically for folks who experience homophobia, and bisexual folks don’t experience homophobia, save by misidentification. (See the Mistaken Identity Argument, above.)

However, anybody who’s over the age of 30 can tell you that the positioning of the experience of homophobia as the community’s great unifier is, itself, a relatively novel development.

Up until quite recently (and by “recently” I mean as recently as the mid 1980s), even lesbians were routinely characterised by the leaders of mainstream gay rights activism as unwelcome parasites, riding on the movement’s coattails and contributing nothing in return.

Not only is identifying the experience of homophobia - defined narrowly as discrimination against those who are actively involved in sexual relationships with persons of the same gender - as the sole qualifier for inclusion a totally arbitrary place to draw the line, it’s baldly ahistorical.

Newsflash: no one wants an invitation to that party. No one is “invading.” No one wants to be included in your “gay club.”

What we want is shits like you to quit perpetuating intra community bigotry and hatred in the LGBT+; because the only ones treating it like a “club” are those of you that check the “queer credentials” of everyone looking for a safe space and stamp their hands with “gay enough I guess” to let us pass through the gates. (Not that we get the same treatment as the ~VIP cis gays~ anyway.)

1. top five all-time favorite songs?

2. favorite band?

3. favorite male artist?

4. favorite female artist?

5. do you play any instruments?

6. earbuds or headphones?

7. shuffle or no?

8. favorite genre?

9. least favorite genre?

10. favorite song lyrically?

11. favorite song on the radio?

12. favorite album in its entirety?

13. favorite vocalist?

14. favorite song as a child?

15. favorite playlist? (share??)

16. do you listen to music as you fall asleep?

17. favorite homework/concentration music?

18. favorite artist live?

19. concerts you’ve been to?

20. met any music artists?

21. dream festival headliners?

22. an artist you dream of seeing live someday?

23. if you had to get a song lyric tattooed on your body, which would you choose?

24. a song you think everyone should listen to?

Sexual harassment and violence, including so-called “corrective” rape, is disturbingly common in the ace community, says Decker, who has received death threats and has been told by several online commenters that she just needs a “good raping.”

hmm

“There is a real fear even among the asexual community that people who identify as anything other than heterosexual will be harassed and assaulted,” wrote “Angela,” a self-identified aromantic ace. “They have a reason to be upset and a reason to be afraid, it has happened to many people before.”

In response to the post, an anonymous user wrote, “[A]sexuality is not a thing. You are just ugly and no one wanted to date you, so you made up a thing to cuddle your lonely self as you cry into your pillow. Also, I hope you get raped. It has a dual benefit, you’ll get laid finally AND put you into your place as well.”

hmm

In a 2012 Fox News segment about sexologist Anthony Bogaert‘s book Understanding Asexuality, host Greg Gutfeld and a panel of guests mocked the asexual identity, treating it as something invalid or exaggerated.

oh no.

In a recent investigation (MacInnis & Hodson, in press) we uncovered strikingly strong bias against asexuals in both university and community samples. Relative to heterosexuals, and even relative to homosexuals and bisexuals, heterosexuals: (a) expressed more negative attitudes toward asexuals (i.e., prejudice); (b) desired less contact with asexuals; and © were less willing to rent an apartment to (or hire) an asexual applicant (i.e., discrimination). Moreover, of all the sexual minority groups studied, asexuals were the most dehumanized (i.e., represented as “less human”). Intriguingly, heterosexuals dehumanized asexuals in two ways. Given their lack of sexual interest, widely considered a universal interest, it might not surprise you to learn that asexuals were characterized as “machine-like” (i.e., mechanistically dehumanized). But, oddly enough, asexuals were also seen as “animal-like” (i.e., animalistically dehumanized). Yes, asexuals were seen as relatively cold and emotionless and unrestrained, impulsive, and less sophisticated.

ohhh

“I was getting a lot of push-back from the LGBT community,” she said, her voice rising. “I was told that asexuals can’t exist, that asexuals should stop trying to pretend that we’re special. Some people in the LGBT community even told me that asexuals are trying to ‘co-opt the movement.’”

there might be something to this…

Ace explains that many people treat asexuality, in general, the same way they do bisexuality, like it’s just a phase, or a joke, or some sort of character flaw.

oh wait maybe… oh no.

I’ve had someone call me a monster for being asexual and that I must be damaged to not want sex. Men have hit on me or tried to flirt with me, and when, through some way or another, they find out I am asexual, their immediate reaction is to tell me “if you had sex with me I’d change your mind” or, even worse phrasing “I can change that for you” as if I need them to. I’ve never had a physical advance made, but I don’t need one. I’ll keep my distance from people who think that’s all it’ll take to make me love sex is them. No thanks.

well maybe it’s not us who…

No I have never been threatened …..just pitied *shrugs *. Though I have heard of some people within the LGBTQ who have said that aces need rape to get their acts together.

huh

He made me his personal slave. I’ve never heard my name called so many times in my life. And even on a slow night, he would let the drivers stand around and do nothing, but demand that I be constantly on my feet. That place has never been as clean. ;) And when we were really busy, I’d be answering phones, waiting/bussing tables and dealing with customers for pick up, yet Jerk would still insist that I do what he wanted right when he wanted. Things like ‘get me a water’, ‘get me a rag from the closet’, and ‘don’t sit down’. When the customers were gone, he’d talk about how much he ‘wanted’ me.

Well, I got fired because I wouldn’t give him what he wanted.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/03/time-stop-joking-start-taking-asexuality-seriously/

https://asexualsurvivors.org/tag/corrective-rape/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/without-prejudice/201209/prejudice-against-group-x-asexuals

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/20/asexual-discrimination_n_3380551.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncoHJo5128Q

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/62338-have-you-ever-been-threatened-with-sexual-assault-because-of-your-asexuality/