#personal long

So, one thing that’s a common theme in the nonhuman communities is misanthropy, especially in the name of environmentalism. It’s a discussion topic like all of the time. And it’s almost every few days I meet someone new who holds not a critical view of humanity (believe me, we should be critical), but an outright anti-human mindset and blame upon humanity for environmental destruction that reads like a learned helplessness. I understand where that comes from, but I’m here to criticize it. Pardon me for the direction this is about to go in. This is something I’m VERY passionate about. 

For years I looked at the state of our world and communities and said “Fuck, I hate humans, we as a species keep killing our environment”. I sat with that mentality for a long time and it did nothing but worsen my depression and cause me to stand by complacently in the destruction of our world because I learned this feeling of helplessness. Convincing myself that humans are just bad by default was one of the most self-limiting things I did for myself, and while I’m sure my species dysphoria played a part in that, I’ve been working on confronting it as it is.

The truth is with regards to environmental destruction and the looming climate change deadline that threatens our world and species, there are specific individuals in power we can name, target and dethrone. I will never sit and shame a working class family for using power or driving a car when we have Musk and Bezos racing to see who can give rich people cruises of space first - and ultimately racing to be the richest man in the world - while blowing up rockets all over our natural spaces in an excuse of “making life interplanetary”. We have people like the Koch brothers directly sabotaging public transit infrastructure in order to protect their corporate oil and automotive buddies (I’m still so amused one of them died shortly after being called out on this on The Patriot Act, poetic justice).

I learned about an ideology known as ecofascism. This idea that our world is doomed because of “overpopulation” or because of humanity itself rather than the choices of the elites, mega-corporations dumping mega-tonnes of pollution and people in power. Humans aren’t killing our world, a handful of people are and we can name them by looking up lists of oil corporate heads. We can blame humanity for these specific individuals while indigenous communities fight for their forests, their water, and their world to be clean and safe.

Learning this sparked a radical mentality shift in me. The helpless mentality of “humanity is awful and doomed to keep killing the environment” was tossed away. I learned I don’t hate humans. I love humans - I love the things they create from art, music, culture and technology which has been used to help the environment - and that love has lit a furious, righteous, punk fire of anger towards the people dragging us as a species down. We can do better, we can demand real justice. Not the faulty justice system lined with systemic prejudices and flaws that protect the rich and punish the poor. Real justice where individuals hold individuals accountable for harm. I attend protests, I fight for our world and our peoples’ rights. The group I protest with for environmental protections caused our city council to invoke a state of climate emergency, which has been needed a long time to limit these corporate problem-causers.

“You know. I think I would like it if, when we are having sex* I think I would really like if you asked me for things very nicely. Like … /real/ nice. Some “please”s would be a bonus.”

Now, obviously I’m not just gonna read that off a page out of the blue, I’ll try to build a convo around it and that should be pretty easy. We have been together a very long time and are very comfortable.

It’s more a communication problem, for me, who struggles to verbalize esp when I’m nervous (and I’ll be a little nervous, which is not a bad thing 💜)

There’s a chance they’ll see this as an attack on the way they normally ask for things, which is quite nicely** 100% of the time. I’ll need to think of a way to preface it so they know I’m asking for something special, not criticizing something they do.

I am curious what kinds of reactions you all would have. I know that anything my partner says they like, I usually also wind up enjoying and I don’t have a reason to think the same wouldn’t be true in reverse. I’m just nervous because we are both neurodivergent and kind of sensitive. My verbal communication is not that proficient. If the conversation goes an unexpected route, it can be hard for me to keep up with them and we both get really frustrated and what should be a nice convo turns into a debate forum, oops. Not out of malice, it’s just…hard (lol) to stay on topic.

Feel free to r/b or comment with opinions, but please do not DM me. I am not comfortable having these conversations in private.

*(insert euphemism of choice, idk I don’t like planning what to call “having sex” because I can usually ad-lib something in the moment and make them laugh)(hearing them laugh is very hot to me)