snips and snails

[pantryslut]

Two more things on my mind today...

1. I am also really over White Knights and the men who think they are one. Get off the damn horse already.

2. I am having trouble articulating my mixed feelings about things said recently in regards to consent and performative sexuality, as part of the fallout of the Open Source Boob Project. Because, you know, I'm queer, and sometimes I like holding hands with my non-normatively-heterosexual-looking partners, and people tend to get freaked out by that, and I don't really give a fuck about their consent, much less their "discomfort," thank you. You know? We're back to the need for an analysis of power, aren't we? We're back to: who's more likely to get the short end of the violence stick -- the 19-year-old Goth girl on a leash (so offensive!), or the Italian billionaire groping someone in Monaco?

Yeah. Not articulate. No position paper. Just saying, "it's more complex than 'don't frighten the horses,'" I guess.

Comments

[manomano.livejournal.com]

I am also really over White Knights and the men who think they are one. Get off the damn horse already.

I'll save you!

[nadyalec.livejournal.com]

1. Um. I'm trying to get over it. Have been for years, actually.

2. Comment from a smart friend years ago about upsetting people; when to speak out, and when to be silent:

"I think about whether I'm coming from a position of marginalization, or of power."

[elusis.livejournal.com]

#2 is a good response to that point. Het kinky people who didn't get enough boobie touching in high school are NOT marginalized people by default.

[lcohen]

number 2 should be a panel at wiscon...oh, wait ;-) .

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Here's my think about PDA.

And I'm biased, being queer.

Holding hands isn't a sexual act. Hugging isn't a sexual act. Laying one's head on a partner's shoulder isn't a sexual act. Even a light, closed-mouth kiss on the lips isn't a sexual act. I see those as "intimate" or "romantic" or "familiar" acts much more than sexual.

I don't mind those acts at all, I feel pretty safe saying.

Touching breasts or genitals is sexual unless you're blotting a stain or something. Kissing with tongue is sexual. Straddling a partner's lap is sexual. Pulling someone's hair in a kinky/power play way may be sexual. Spanking someone on the rear may be sexual.

I don't want space around me sexualized unless I've chosen, knowingly, to enter a sexual space. That's why I react VERY strongly anymore to people doing D/s stuff around me - I am a non-consensual participant if I'm being made into a witness.

I feel like the line is not about partner gender or flavor of sexual play - it's about whether the acts are intimate/romantic/familiar or whether they're sexual. I don't want straight vanilla people humping in my space any more than I want gay kinky people feeling up breasts.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

This makes sense, but I am still ambivalent. I think my line is closer to -- does what I am doing *have* to involve spectators? Then their consent should be secured. Otherwise...it depends.

I am very uncomfortable with sexual/not sexual as a divide, because I don't see a clear-cut line for a whole bunch of things. A lot of D/S activities, for example, can be completely non-sexual, and yet still offensive to lots of people -- including me, if I have to be involved somehow, as above.

I'm not trying to be difficult or contrary. I'm certainly more conservative in what I, myself, do "in public" than I am in theory, because I like to err on the side of caution for everybody. But some of the blanket statements I saw coming out of the OSBP made me very uncomfortable, and still do, is all.