You know how men, cishet men especially, prioritize themselves in conversations, in political action, in social theory, in culture, always need to inject themselves into anything, even when their input is redundant or worse, ignorant; overestimate their value in social movements and demand catering to their whims?
This article is not about that.
This article -- to be honest, rant -- is about how non-men knowingly or unknowingly center men into the discussions and how men somehow end up finding their way into the subjects they have nothing to do with, even when there are no men present in conversations. This isn't entirely surprising, because society centers cishet men, but it's still troubling how we end up reinforcing this, often as a weapon against each other.
Polyamory is not inherently queer, but it is deeply entangled with LGBTI+ communities, there are only spaces polyamory is practiced without ostracized. Polyamory is not enshrined within law, people can get into trouble concerning their social security, they can't talk about relationships without constantly getting bothered about how polyamory makes everything worse etc. However, whenever we see polyamory discussed, even among queer people the stereotype of "cishet men in open relationships" Realities of trans relationships, lesbian relationships etc. are made irrelevant, because we need to care about make extremely funny jokes about how horny and unfaithful men are.
Asexuality discourse is forever nailed into my head for this. It always comes to the same thing: Asexual people are always made to debate about how exactly oppressed asexual men are. We, non-men, have to defend the possibilities and cases that asexual men are troubled by society, instead of actually our problems. I shouldn't have to talk about men to validate my own struggles with asexuality, asexual women don't have to think about what men actually face to define their own identity. "Are cishet men queer?" is just politically correct way to dismiss asexual identity in general, it effectively misrepresents any arguments for asexualty to "CISHETS are not marginalized ksksksks!!", "Tumblr man thinks he is oppressed cuz he's a virgin lolll!!!" Even, cis asexual men did not face any problems at all, what should it effect the place of asexuality in my non-patriarchal identity?
Lesbians or even women's love in general just cannot evade men. There is a group of lesbians who think you can't call yourself a lesbian if you have ever thought a guy was cool. For something not about men, there are way too much talk about men and most comes from people who really pride how they are pure about being disinterested in men. On the other side of coin, whenever we get any kind of wlw representation, some very woke people always whine about "how this is made to pander to men." -- I still remember how people were so fast about these comments about over a kissing scene in a trailer -- or even just any female character, there are some who think it's any good to evaluate a visual design whether or not it would make straight guys horny. Sapphic women, non-binary folks, we can't just enjoy stuff. It's super progressive to always think about what men think about this, it is very cool to make men arbiters over media that is not even about men.
Sex work is exploitative and often deeply s, creating more avenues for giving power over men over anyone else. However, isn't there any emancipatory aspect to any kind of sex work ever, are there reasons why women might consider it anything other than last option? Perhaps they might even think their work is not all that bad and even something of value ? No, according to real materialists: These people does not exist, at all, literally everything exist for men. See, if they say women are victims here this becomes a progressive statement, even though they have deliberately erased all voices that might contradict the idea there is more to sex work than trafficking! Sex work exists only for men, "sexual liberation" is just another avenue for men, if you defend sex work you must be obviously a horny man. Sex work is bad because it removes agency of women, even though this outlook also cannot conceive a women's sexuality as legitimate anywhere outside of a formal relationship with a man. Sure, women can have affection together, but only when they make sure literally no one can see it, or else it's exploitative! Oh, it is just also a weird coincidence that a lot of men ranging from cranky socialist careerists to Mr. Pope man himself share the same opinions about sex work different vocabulary, and overtly reactionary groups were always behind crackdowns on sex work, but all critics of the "real-progressive-materalist-marxist feminism" must be horny men, or those liberal feminists who have no idea what they are talking about, because horny men defend something, and that's what it all matters.
It's pretty much same story with kink, it is always "misogynist men subjugates women". Kinks are not really my area, but I can see how many of my trans friends are into kinks at least a little, and it's clear it can be so much meaningful beyond "man horny", giving people spaces to explore their relationship with sex or even different part of their identities. It is just so convenient to act like things you are morally&aesthethically aganist are all done by "bad people".
There is an another sinister implication here. Look, I am usually not very fond of cis men either, but these rhetoric have a common rationale of men being categorically bad on the sole basis of being men, rather than society producing men in a particular way. How do you get to the conclusion "wlw is ruined because it makes them horny? Being a man is naturally worth moral condemnation, apparently, but see! It is progressive because we are criticising a privileged group, never mind the reactionary conclusions of such essentialism.
I actually don't have very deep points to make here, I definitely know I am super annoyed at talking about men at every random topic. I just have a simple wish: Shut up about men so much, we don't need to consider them at issues that are not really about them. Stop trying to link identities to maleness to discredit them, stop trashing sexual activities because men happen to be also involved with them, stop centering men on discourse just to earn woke points.
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.
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