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Today in my poetry seminar I was asked to write a poem about my death and start it with “When the time comes I will.” I had 10 minutes to write on paper and anyway I took it home and added another stanza and here it is.

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Is “dick” as much of a gendered slur as the c-word? I feel as if from a sociologic standpoint it’s not as damaging in the same way “reverse-racism” doesn’t have ramifications nearly as damaging to the livelihood of white people than racism does to people of color. Like, a man who is called a dick doesn’t suffer the same diminishment as a woman who is called a bitch or the c-word. I’m curious bc I tried to stop using gendered curses period but emotionally it feels not anymore helpful than just dropping female and non-heteronormative slurs…

stuff on kinks and sex negativity

hmmm this is something I’ve noticed but no one ever stands up against the mockery of fetishes. I see it on Tumblr from time to time (I have a pretty nice Tumblr though, most people are good about this) and mocking is pretty common on TV especially. I hate watching the TV and being assaulted with sex being used to sell things, but then tons of value judgments being thrown around that are completely sex negative. It’s arbitrary and that makes it very hurtful. Things like BDSM constantly being treated as a punchline or absurd so it’s funny. Like check out your douchebag boss he totally likes being gagged on all fours!! ha ha ha cool now you, “nice guy” protagonist can blackmail him into being nice to you yeah awesome. (sorry, I use that example a lot but I’ve seen it twice in movies now and I always feel bad about it because… dang you invaded someone’s privacy and now you’re gonna use something as sensitive and private as sexuality to embarrass them idk he’s mean but you’re no better now). But that’s the point, I mean all paraphilias and kinks are pretty sensitive and I mean if you’re attracted to feet why do you have to be laughed at when it’s not on a neurological level so different from being attracted to breasts. Sexual arousal from breasts ISN’T a naturally inherent human response fyi, it’s a widely common fetish that stems from the taboo of nudity. Anthropologically, in cultures where women are bare-breasted, sexual attraction to breasts is not common and seen as unusual.

There’s no inherent moral value attached to arousal, it’s how you address it and where empathy comes into play (this is especially important for people who have paraphilias that would harm themselves or others if acted upon). All that matters morally and ethically is empathy and being able to treat yourself and people respectfully. Getting over sex-negativity and rehabilitating my sex education has been super super helpful in helping me deal with emotional issues and anxiety regarding morality (I have scrupulosity OCD but I’m secular so adequate self-help is really hard to find ah…). Outside of mental issues, really understanding sex-positivity has made me an even more understanding person so I wanted to share since most people here are young and good sex education is important. I want to link to this blog!! It’s a lot of fun to follow and it’s a really good place to re-educate yourself in sex-ed.

Anyway, this isn’t to shame anyone that has made fun of paraphilias or to make anyone feel bad for doing it. Just letting people know there is way to feel about this kind of thing that might jive with you better emotionally. When I was younger I might have been one to laugh too but I owe a lot of peace of mind and personal growth to better understanding the nature of sexuality without the knee-jerk reactions and it’s definitely made me feel safer so I thought I’d share.

I’ve been thinking about the mainstream attitudes toward cartoons lately and part of me is starting to unearth certain assumptions that make me feel pretty indignant towards the perception that I’m some sort of recessed man-child if I like pictures with my ideas or if I prefer drawings over videos of people.

If you think about the format in which characters are framed for children’s media, it’s a lot more flexible. The suspension-of-disbelief comes very easily to children which allows for talking toasters, aliens, animals especially, but even just cartoon humans. Most adult media is live action; we do have a healthy adult cartoons industry but these are for the most part relegated to comedy, which carries less gravity as an medium of expression in US entertainment but that’s a whole other argument I’m not equipped to dive into.

Anyway, what I think is that “cartoons” can be extremely valuable as a child-rearing tool because it teaches them how to emotionally relate to even abstract characters and that’s huge developmentally. I don’t see why it has no value in our adult lives, especially when at the worst you have really awful live action shows where the characters treat each other like shit for the sake of canned audience laughter. You know, in relating to a pony on TV you teach them that humanity is not inherent in being hairless and bipedal. Humanity is in empathy, emotion, intellect, vivacity, etc, etc. And learning to become aware and attached to the humanity in others is really important when it comes to making ethical choices and avoiding harming others.

I think abstraction can be a great tool in comics. Some of my favorite artists to use this technique include Lewis Trondheim, Fabrice Tarrin, Tatsuya Ishida (Sinfest). Since the bulk of the “content” is in human interaction and culture and ideas, it really behooves them to use a visually simple and expressive vessel. They already understand what makes humans humans. Now let’s transpose it to cartoon animals and you have a stark contrast you can present to your reader; this makes your observations and interactions more vivid. You want to be able to tell your characters apart but diversity doesn’t need to be as life-like as the subtle differences between our human faces. Just make them different animals. Expression can be a lot less muddled by details. For example, Tarrin depicts himself as a ring tailed lemur and uses his tail as a comical symbol of arousal.

Anyway, this isn’t in anyway a bulletproof argument I’m just thinking out loud. I’m not in any way current or familiar with the My Little Pony cartoon on TV but I did read about a movie where they’re… human now and in high school and that was a little jarring and upsetting to me just out of principal. I didn’t look it up anymore than that but it got me thinking, so forgive me if I’m mistaken about anything.