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Re: Check for context

Posted by JetBoyNathan on 2020-July-23 11:13:48, Thursday
In reply to Check for context posted by Errant on 2020-July-22 03:49:26, Wednesday

"same-gender" implies that it's just a matter of swapping labels around and "spaces" implies a lack-mentality.

I'm confused about the label-swapping and the lack-mentality. Catching up on the Genderfuck thread, I noticed your comment about escaping/breaking free from gendered associations entirely, and I'm struggling to connect the dots. Obviously we're not anywhere near an ideal situation of abolishing gender. In the meantime, since gender is such an important and heated part of people's lives, shouldn't we make available any and all combination of gendered experiences? I agree with you that kids have no trouble creating their own spaces when left to their own devices. So maybe that's all we need to push for. But since the lives of children are so heavily institutionalized now, shouldn't part of our critique be to insist that other kinds of gendered associations (like being with people of the same gender) are good actually?

this probably has more to do with only having to deal with one dysfunctional over-gendered subculture instead of having to juggle two.

Wait ok this is interesting. In your view are any over-gendered spaces inherently dysfunctional? And where's the line btwn something being over-gendered vs just a regular level of gender? Like idk, I agree that the masculinities and femininities we've currently constructed are pretty jank, but I'm not sure how to deal with that except by actively rewriting the narratives of what masculine and feminine mean so that we all have healthier models. Maybe you're advocating for a more hands-off approach, in which case I'd love to hear what you think people can do (or refrain from doing) in order to make our subcultures less dysfunctional and over-gendered.

"Masculinism" is not a counter-balance to third-wave feminism. It's just more bullshit.

Maybe so. I'll grant that all the loudest voices in this camp are pretty abysmal. But I find some value in third-wave feminist movement, and I think there's some value in a reaction to it as well. In either case, I'd much prefer to engage directly with the ideas of both camps than to disengage and divest myself of any skin in the game.

It's one thing to be ideologically omnivorous, but I'm concerned that you may just be lost.

I mean I was mostly just being lazy in my comments, I just dashed out this post in a few minutes. But I actually agree with you that fundamentally we need "the freedom to create our own alternatives." I saw you mention top-down solutions several times, and I just want to clarify that I believe any meaningful social change happens from the bottom-up. However, unlike libertarians, I also believe that social change generated from the bottom-up can result in institutional change, and in lieu of abolishing those institutions entirely those changes can sometimes tide us over. (E.g. I would much prefer the gay rights movement had kept their radical focus on critiquing marriage itself and demanding the same rights granted to married couples for all people regardless of relationships status, but in the meantime marriage equality is nice I guess.)

It seems that you mischaracterize demands from the left for systemic or structural change as demands of "convenience" for individuals or special interests groups, and while that may be the case in some situations especially in this country today, it's hard to understand how you might reach that generalization if you're familiar with the history of radical social movements.

Having said all that, I'm still a fresh little green bean to the BL discourse and I'm definitely still familiarizing myself with our history and terminology and culture and all of it. I've noticed my own views waffle pretty quickly in the particulars (while I remain pretty ensconced in the fundamentals). So it might be an apt image, me the omnivorous ape trundling through an overturned bin of discourse, stuffing my face with random bits of everything and hoping I don't get sick.

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