Intriguing Reading #11

Posted on | January 28, 2012 | No Comments | Previous Post Next Post

My regular roundup of interesting reads, found from all over the place.

The Invention of the Heterosexual: “And I think that really points as well to the fact that these are constructed categories.  This is about your subjectivity, it’s about your allegiance, it’s about where your social networks are, it’s about the kinds of cultural priorities that you embrace and that you endorse. This is not just what gets you hard or what gets you wet. This is not just about what kinds of sex you have, or the congenital configurations of the people you have sex with.  It’s very much about what cultures you participate in.  What cultures you ally yourself with, you know, whose flag you fly.” (Hanne Blank interviewed by Thomas Rogers / Salon)

Linking Queerness with Fatness: “Fat and queer bodies both challenge the spatial dominance and impermeability of heteronormative bodies, albeit in different ways.” (David / Axis of Fat)

A Scenic Guide to Your Abnormal Pap Smear: “Having HPV doesn’t mean you did something “bad,” or “dirty,” or “slutty,” ever, at any point, period. It doesn’t mean anything except that you are infected with a strain of a virus which very rarely causes cancer, and that we’re going to monitor you so that doesn’t happen, and if it does we’ll be there with you treating it. If simply having had HPV makes you bad/dirty/slutty, then 80% of adult humans are bad/dirty/slutty, and I always swore that if there were that many bad/dirty/slutty people on this earth I was going to another earth and I’m still here, aren’t I.” (Lola McClure / The Hairpin)

“Any History of Suicide Attempts?”: “My brain does not work properly.  I’ve kluged together some extensive work-arounds, which passes for wisdom sometimes, but I know its true name: experience.  But if my underlying architecture wasn’t so poor, I wouldn’t have to think so hard.  I’d just act in healthy ways.” (Ferrett Steinmetz)

Why I Punched a Stranger: “Isn’t it interesting that he first addressed me with interest because I was holding hands with my girlfriend, and when I turned on him I was suddenly a dyke and a faggot? This shows how these guys don’t see women and lesbians as people, they see as whatever they want to see us as – certainly, less than human. ” (Silverspeakers / Jezebel)

Fiction: Bound to Die: “Holly moaned. Not moving was worse. It was as if the device interpreted her lack of movement as encouragement to try harder. The mechanical tongue was picking up speed and doing gyrations that no human mouth could attempt. Erotic science was going to get her off and when it did, she was going to twist and writhe before the speeding bullets made her twist and writhe for entirely different reasons. ” (Shon Richards)

My Thoughts on Mandatory Condom Use in Porn: “Teach kids that watching porn for education is like watching a James Bond film to learn how to become a spy.” (Amie Wee)

The Polyamory Trap: “Further marginalizing the marginalized is just the wrong trajectory for any liberation movement to take. And it reminds me of the way that some mainstream gay activists have sold out transgender and gender-nonconforming groups. We’re the married gays who make neighborhoods stable and herald the arrival of cool coffeehouses; we’re not those awfuldrag queens. This is all trash, it sells out members of our own community who deserve more than that, and it’s a punt, really, not an argument.” (Jay Michaelson / Salon) For a change, the comments are worth reading. Including one from Janet W. Hardy on page 4.

Go Where? Sex, Gender, and Toilets: “The segregation of washrooms is based on an assumption of heterosexuality, predatory in men and passive and vulnerable in women; the association of sexuality with sex, and the conflation of sex and gender. In other words, it is nonsensical. One thing we don’t segregate washrooms by is sexuality.” (Marissa / The Society Pages)

Poly in Pictures

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