~Allergic to capitalism~

I spent several minutes just staring at them (and trying to convince them to bite my fingers.) When my sister’s violin lesson ended, her teacher came out to the yard and explained that these goldfish were the same small creatures that were often unfortunately sold in plastic bags at state fairs. They were only about two inches long apiece, when she bought them and put them in the new, empty pond. In essence, they were like every goldfish I had seen before, but they had been given a much larger, much richer environment in which to flourish. As a result, they had grown into some of the most remarkable, vibrant creatures my twelve-year-old self had ever met with. All because of a pond. 

Like, if right now you don't make any noises in response to sexual stimuli or pain or whatever, that's fine. I imagine you might even have some trauma to work through. An environment you needed to be quiet in, a belief the sounds you did make were inappropriate, or some other taboo against noise.

But, you can change yourself. Rather easily, too. Just start making the noises you wish you made. It'll feel silly at first. Well, maybe it'll feel hot at first, too. I highly recommend perceiving it as hot. But it'll feel performative in any case.

And if you keep going, it'll become automatic. You'll shortcut the process. You'll forget to notice the intent. Learn to use it and use it without thinking. And eventually you'll have to stop yourself from not using it.

Plenty of the time it's actively beneficial too. Helps with pain tolerance, and I'd expect other kinds of sensitivity too. You're a social animal, it's comfortable to perform a social component. It's useful to do so for just your own mind.

stop acting as if someone can’t enjoy both erotica and literary fiction or classics. it’s not some dichotomy.

stop acting as if erotic art can’t be poignant and meaningful. and that includes all erotic art - not just fine art.

stop insisting that sex scenes or erotic material ruin movies and shows just because you, personally, get icked out watching it.

It’s amazing how often people apologise to express a sentiment of gratitude. It could be for myriad reasons, habit, not knowing other ways to express themselves, being afraid grace will be taken away for not making themselves small enough. This leads to difficult situations as receiving those apologies can be very awkward, and that awkwardness can get in the way of being an effective help to them.

My favourite way around this isn’t a flat “it’s alright” or “you dont need to apologise”. Them struggling to believe it’s alright is why we’re here and they’re apologising because they’re making an earnest attempt to communicate something, so in a sense they do need to.

What I do is look at what they’re apologising for (“I’m sorry for wasting so much of your time”) and look at what’s being communicated here that could be phrased as gratitude instead. Then I’ll gently offer an alternative such as “Do you mean to say, ‘Thank you for spending so much time with me’?”

When these feelings are expressed in the form of gratitude, it’s a far less internally damaging train of thought and a more comfortable and useful thing to hear on the outside.

Often I find this is a relief to them because for many people, the apologies were never meaningless patter. They were an earnest attempt to convey information and pain, and finally it’s being treated as something worth listening to instead of a detriment to be sat through or corrected.

It’s important to remember the following details.

- Sometimes sorry means sorry. This isn’t a blanket find and replace. It won’t be every single instance of the word sorry, but it will work for a lot of them.

- Explain what you’re doing. Explain to them how often these sentiments can be interchanged. If you start doing this without communicating you’re very likely to be met with confusion and shrinking and misinterpretation of your goals.

- Build their confidence through this. The goal is that eventually they will one day express gratitude by default in place of the apologising. Sometimes point out that they apologised and let them rework it themselves. Take note of where they succeed at this and congratulate them. It’s genuinely such a big step.

- Be careful of putting words in their mouth. You want to be wary of yourself, and be sure that the replacements you offer are an accurate interpretation of what they mean to say. In many cases, they won’t have the confidence to correct you, or lack sometimes the clarity to know if you’re right or not. Their ability to correct you will grow with their confidence and trust in you, but never declare that “This is what you’re feeling.” You’re not the expert here. Offer everything more as “could this be what you’re feeling?” Give them as much space to speak up for themselves as you can.

That’s the basics of it all. It will take to some slower than others, maybe it won’t take to others at all. But I’ve seen efforts to improve that *day* from some of the people I love the most. No one wants to be seen as a burden, but for people like this, their attempts to escape being seen that way push them deeper. Giving them tools, teaching them how to use them and being patient while they learn will be more effective than being chastised. Every Time (in my humble experience.)

Tarantino’s “favorite editor” was Sally JoAnne Menke who edited all of Tarantino’s films until she died.

Because naming and credit is important, especially when you’re talking about women not getting credit and recognition of their work as named individuals.

If you want to know more about women in early filmmaking (emphasis American) and the sociology of how different roles were divided, gendered, and re-gendered in the first decades, I highly recommend Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood by Karen Ward Mahar.  

The combat doll is shaking slightly under the domestic doll's touch. Its head is facing away from the domestic doll, but it knows that if it could see the combat doll's cheeks, they would be wet with tears.

The domestic doll does not know what to do for the combat doll, nor does it even know precisely what the combat doll is feeling. But, the combat doll was initially in a near panic, and the other doll's touch seems to be soothing for it. The domestic doll starts humming a tune under its breath.

It carefully threads its way through the combat doll's long strands of hair. The combat doll started growing it out shortly after it started to live with the domestic doll. The domestic doll thought it looks very nice, and it was very soft under its hands.

The combat doll is growing stiller and cooler in the domestic doll's lap. The other doll keeps gently massaging the combat doll's head. After a long while, it starts to hear a very light snoring from the doll in its lap, and it smiles to itself.

The domestic doll keeps one hand on the combat doll's head, and with its other hand, it grabs a blanket sitting next to the sofa both dolls are seated or laying on.

It needs to remove its hand from the combat doll's head in order to fully spread the blanket out over the sleeping doll, which elicits a sleepy groan from it. But as soon as the blanket is settled and the domestic doll's hands return to the combat doll's head, it stills again and makes a contented little noise.

so many of us carry the weight of our traumatic pasts like an infected limb, poisoned by the sex assignment that informed all the transmisogynistic abuse we survived. many of us would rather cut the limb off than try to save it, than try to reclaim our childhood selves