Kychloreine - ❇ KychloReine ❇

My problem is that I keep playing RPGs and Murder Parties in dark gritty universes like INS/MV or Vampire the Masquerade when instead I should be playing in universes like Good Omens or WWDITS.

Happy “Sherlock Holmes Can Legally Be Nice To Women,” day to all those who celebrate.

Etudier

Avant, étudier c’était pour faire briller des étoiles dans les yeux des adultes. C’était pour faire croire que j’étais quelqu’un de bien, de digne d’intérêt. C’était facile, c’était un jeu, je me racontais des histoires, ce en quoi j’excellais, on disait tu iras loin, et j’étais persuadée que c’était vrai. Longtemps, étudier a été une échappatoire, une fierté, un moteur d’ambition, quelque chose que j’aimais.

J’écrivais mes dictées comme des lettres d’amour. Je récitais l’alphabet comme un poème. Etudier valait la peine.

Aujourd’hui, maintenant que je suis adulte (qu’il est laid, ce mot, qu’il est écrasant), étudier est un mot qui me tord le ventre. Ce sont sept lettres comme une menace irrationnelle, sept lettres en moi qui font résonner les pierres. Pour mes études j’ai créé des échos qui font rouler des graviers dans ma gorge et me lacèrent de l’intérieur, l’angoisse en est devenue physique, et moi je suis : incontrôlable. J’ai des coups de sang, des crises de larmes, des rages infantiles. Je me noie entre mes fiches et mes listes interminables.

Il faut croire que même les études réveillent des monstres. Je suis terrifiée : de rater ma vie, de ne rien valoir, de me battre sans savoir pourquoi. Je suis terrifiée de poursuivre dans cette voie et de me rendre compte dans trente ans que ce n’était pas la mienne, que voilà, je me suis trompée, et que j’ai passé toute une vie à satisfaire des désirs qui n’étaient jamais les miens. C’est que je ne suis pas faite pour choisir, je n’ai pas de voie, non ; je suis mouvante et incapable de faire le deuil des possibles.

Je ne sais pas me définir sans ma quête de perfection, mes ambitions démesurées, mes exigences tyranniques. Je ne suis pas : sociable, jolie, intéressante, drôle, désirable. Alors je ne sais pas qui je suis si je ne parviens pas à réussir. C’est tout ce qu’il me reste. Je ne sais rien faire d’autre que cela, répondre à des exigences académiques, rentrer dans la norme, avoir un parcours sans accrocs.

Pour la première fois, étudier n’est pas facile. Peut-être que je n’irai pas si loin. Peut-être a-t-on placé en moi trop d’espoirs, trop d’attentes : des étouffements. J’ai l’impression que je n’ai jamais grandi, que j’ai fait semblant. Comment se faire à l’idée de décevoir ?

i don’t know what other queer folks might need to hear this, but your sexual desire for someone doesn’t contaminate your love for them and it doesn’t mean you don’t respect them or see them as a complete person. and you wouldn’t be better or purer if you could love without wanting them in that way also. queer sexuality is not a contaminant that ruins queer love. 

The paradox of tolerance is only a paradox if you think of tolerance as some sacred and unconditional moral duty. Some ultimate and absolute law with no exceptions, and if you ever slip into the sin of intolerance, you must repent yourself and beg for forgiveness. Yeah no fuck that. Tolerance is a social contract. You're in the game as an equal player for as long as you play by the same rules as everyone else, and if you don't, your ass is fucking out. You're not entitled to the same respect you won't give others.

"Oh so you all tolerate each other just because you tolerate each other, but if I want to destroy you, then all of a sudden you want to destroy me?" Literally yes. That's the gist of it. What's not clicking. This equation is so simple it barely counts as math.

I can't keep having the same conversations about love languages, mbti, iq, bmi, "brain fully formed at 25" and shit over and over again...

One of the most healing things I’ve strove (striven?) to do in my life is viewing sex as just another thing people do, among a host of other things like eating and pooping and playing with cats.

Our entire society, feminists and puritans alike, pushes the idea that sex is uniquely powerful and dangerous, capable of inflicting The Worst Trauma or the Highest Fulfillment, and that’s…just flat out untrue. Other experiences can cause similar trauma: violence, disasters, war, instability. Other experiences can result in transcendent pleasure: trance states, live music, non-sexual intimacy, tattoos.

I think this is where the disconnect in perception about sex positivity comes from, because the phrase itself makes people who already view sex as being uniquely powerful think sex positivity means viewing sex as uniquely good, when actually…it’s mostly about taking sex off that pedestal. Normalizing sex. Making it into just another thing people do. Because that’s the first step in making sure people can engage with sex on their own terms in a healthy way.

Taking sex off its cultural pedestal was the thing that allowed me to overcome the deeply-instilled shame I developed from being raised within Christian purity culture, and from being queer, and from existing as a woman. I think a failure to do that, in feminist circles, often leads to an overblowing of the (very real) harm that sex has the potential to do at the exclusion of other problems facing women and other marginalized groups, which often leads to more shaming rhetoric - just rhetoric that shames different people for different reasons.

Sex is not the enemy and it’s not our savior. It’s just one more thing people can do with their bodies.

Inktober 2019 #12 “Dragon” (& “The Cardinal’s Blades” by Pierre Pevel) 

(Based on a portrait of Richelieu by Philippe de Champaigne and an illustration by Rolland Barthélémy)  

Lines of thought that seem Normal but are actually rooted in extreme puritanism:

-Seeing the nude human body is inherently traumatic -Sex scenes in art are pointless -Wearing kink-related clothing in public is the similar to performing a sex scene in front of unwilling participants -Depicting female characters expressing sexuality is always degrading -People's sexual fantasies are always an endorsement of the behavior they want to see in real life -Sex work is more traumatic and coercive than other types of work The goal is to treat sex as just another thing people do. That is a much healthier attitude than hiding it! It's not uniquely traumatic, it's not weird to talk about it or include it in society.