Link Roundup: March 2020

This month’s link roundup is late, and to be honest I hadn’t collected any links until the past week.  And yep, it’s all COVID-19 related.  I see that Skepchick also collected a bunch of links on COVID-19, so I’d check that out too.

Between Panic and Indifference | Red Beard – Red Beard lives near Seattle, right by one of the outbreaks of COVID-19, and gives a personal account of what it’s like.  This article is dated to March 5th, and was a preview of what a lot of us are starting to go through, or will go through.

Why I’m Just So Worried About Our Students | Skepchick – Isis discusses problems faced by university students in the face of school closures.

The Fed’s $1.5 trillion intervention, explained | The Week – My reaction to the federal $1.5 trillion injection was “How much even is that?  Is it like a million?”  I checked xkcd’s money chart and–holy shit!  My husband shared this article, which is a bit too technical for me to understand.  But the key points, if I understand correctly: a) this is a no-brainer to prevent collapse, b) yes it unfairly favors the rich and wealthy, c) but that’s the tool that the Federal Reserve has available to it, d) a fairer way to rescue the economy it would have needed to come from the Trump administration and Congress.

In personal news, I have a job and am now moneyed.  I don’t even know what to do with all this money.  Charity recommendations welcome in the comments.

Link roundup: February 2020

Just a few links this month.  Enjoy.

[On the word “pedophile”] | Osteophage – Coyote discusses how the word “pedophile” refers specifically to the internal state or intent of perpetrators.  This runs counter to my usual philosophy about sexual violence: it’s the action and consequences that matter, not the perpetrator’s motivations.  Focusing on motivations is a bad idea because it gives people a way to excuse sexual violence by making unverifiable and irrelevant claims about perpetrators’ motivations AND it raises the potentially derailing question of whether sexual inclinations alone can be morally wrong.

If you’re wondering what words to use instead, the gold standard among researchers and activist organizations is child sexual abuse or CSA.  A perpetrator of CSA could be called a child sexual abuser.  A couple years ago I wrote a guide to sexual violence terminology, which was mostly based on researchers and activists, and I have to say that “pedophile” wasn’t even on my radar because nobody uses it.

Do not try to understand me | Pervert Justice – Crip Dyke talks about how trying to understand trans experiences can be a hangup for cis people, and isn’t really necessary to begin with.  I have to say, that being an ace activist/commentator, at least trying to understand the full range of ace experiences is part of the role.  But there are just so many different experiences, some quite far off from my own, that it’s foolhardy for even a dedicated activist to try to understand it all.  It’s more important to understand concerns and goals than personal experiences.

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Link Roundup: January 2020

I’m back from break, and I bring you links.

Christmas With The Kranks Is A Movie About Cults | Jack Saint (video) – Christmas with the Kranks is a Christmas comedy about a couple that decides to take a vacation on Christmas, but then the village gets wind of them and turns against them.  I’m pretty sure the movie is just taking the side of the creepy village, but Jack Saint ignores this interpretation for humorous effect, and explains a different reading.  I was thinking about this when PZ showed a real letter he received citing him for Christmas violations.

Music for Grocery Stores | Tris Mamone – Tris proposes that we should play more ambient music in public spaces.  I enjoyed this because it felt like a synthesis of two things I have written about: the ethical question of music in public spaces, and the appeal of drone music.  I think there’s a case to be made here–ambient music is the one thing in my library that my husband can stand despite having no appreciation for it.  Although, one thing that has developed out of my interest in ambient music is an ability to actively dislike some of the stuff, so even if everyone else shrugged off the mild piano of Music For Airports, I have to say it might offend my own sensibilities!

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Link Roundup: December 2019

Plugs

Freethoughtblogs has re-opened applications for new bloggers!  Join us!  Applications have technically been open all along, but we had a huge backlog, which we are now clearing out.  The following blogs were just added last week: Andreas Avester, From The Ashes of Faith, Impossible Me.

“An Asexual World”: Asexuality in Death Stranding – I wrote an article about some bad asexual representation in a video game.  Cowritten with Queenie, an expert in Japanese culture.

Blogs & Articles

How Using Tumblr is Undermining Your Community – Oh good, Coyote finally made a list of structural problems with Tumblr.  Tumblr has a reputation (in my view an accurate one) for being a home for many queer and SJ-oriented communities, but that does not mean that Tumblr itself is a force for good.  Tumblr has held our communities back, and people don’t even realize how bad it is because they’re swimming in it.

The good guy/bad guy myth – The article discusses a popular pattern in fiction, where one side represents moral good, and the other evil, and argues that this is a historically recent trend.  Based on the examples, it sounds like there are three parts to this trend: morality as a primary subject matter, characters and sides that embody moral values, and black and white morality.  The article takes a negative view on these trends, but I’m not so sure.  IMO, morality is an excellent subject matter for fiction, and using characters to embody values is a fine technique so long as we realize real people aren’t like that.

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Link roundup: November 2019

A few plugs:

There is a video of me talking about the Ace Community Survey.  Also cat and dog persons.

I wrote about my approach to putting asexuality on my resume.

And now the links:

Why I Can’t Trust You With The Term “Purity Culture” – Coyote explains purity culture, which is the Christian culture surrounding chastity, and virginity before marriage.  And then explains how “purity culture” is now being (mis)used on Tumblr, to refer to… something to do with supposed problems around social justice discourse?  It’s rather confusing, honestly.  Anyway, if you’ve ever talked about Christian purity culture, Coyote has some insightful commentary that really lays out what you’ve been talking about, even if you hadn’t realized it.

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Link Roundup: September 2019

Announcement: I’m taking a blogging break.  I’m doing a thing for the next two months, and I’ll be around but I don’t know how busy I’ll be.  When I return depends on how busy I am.

Plug: The weird world of asexuality Google Alerts.  It’s just an entertaining list of the weirdest articles I’ve found mentioning asexuality.

Men | ContraPoints (video) – Natalie talks about the need for a men’s movement that is actually good.  TBH I’m not keen on the specific content of the video, but it’s at least a decent conversation starter, and the inspiration for a few recent blog posts.  I also created a “male feminism” category to collect my writings on the subject.

The part I’m not keen on is the large emphasis placed on Natalie’s personal experiences.  Yes it’s good to recognize the special insight that trans people have into comparisons between gendered experiences, but I’ve definitely heard trans experiences which were diametrically opposite to hers.  I also have to say that I have never felt that people were scared of me, and I would absolutely hate it if anyone complimented my appearance on the street.  She’s clearly just sharing her personal experiences, but I feel the narrowness detracts from the video.

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Link Roundup: August 2019

Plugs

I wrote two essays for The Asexual Agenda:

Labels must be allowed to die – It’s about those really obscure orientation labels, some of which are used by more people than you think, and some of which are effectively dead.  I’m not against obscure labels, but I make the case against preserving dead labels.

Lisa Orlando, Author of The Asexual Manifesto (1972) – A historical account of an old essay written in the context of second wave feminism.  We first heard about the essay last year, and we were all wondering what was inside it.  We finally found the essay, and its author, and it’s so exciting.

Articles

The Cotton Ceiling: The best argument that TERFs aren’t feminists? – The “cotton ceiling” is about how people are unwilling to date trans women even when they like trans women.  It’s a reference the feminist concept of the “glass ceiling”, but TERFs seem completely ignorant of that fact.  Yeah, so I’ve argued that TERFs are feminists before, but their competency with feminism is pretty bad.  Just the other day, I saw on twitter a leading TERF philosopher claimed that trans lesbians only had the “chutzpah” to self-define into existence in the last 10 years.  She apparently wasn’t familiar with Janice Raymond, who dedicated a whole chapter to complaining about trans lesbians in The Transsexual Empire in 1979.

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