Enter a giveaway for an upcoming aromantic-stories anthology! (Somebody cool wrote the introduction, I heard.)
www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...
10.03.2026 18:26
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🔁 5
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Enter a giveaway for an upcoming aromantic-stories anthology! (Somebody cool wrote the introduction, I heard.)
www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...
If every female character's dues before she's allowed to participate in an aggressively defended "man's world" is to get her tits out, it's no wonder 1. women don't want to be there and 2. men will sexualize her if she's hot and abuse her for not being hot if she's not.
We don't have a crusade against hot women. We just want some situations where eye candy isn't their main function, and we want everyone to be able to see women as people--people who can be protagonists with agency; people who have lives worth seeing as a story.
You see the media portrayal of women picked up eagerly by these dudes as they try to map it onto real life, wondering why a woman doesn't want to be a "prize" in their life and why women don't prioritize, above all, trying to look hot and please men. It absolutely does influence their thinking.
2. Even if these things WERE "for men," that stuff isn't good for men! Constantly seeing women only as sexual objects, as only existing as eye candy, as only deserving of participation if they contribute by giving you a boner, is NOT a healthy understanding of women.
But there's nothing inherent about these stories, these games, these movies that shouldn't appeal to women. It's just that the creators pretend they're helpless to cater to these guys because they're supposedly the buying demographic, when actually they're actively pushing women out.
They troll them in comic stores, roll their eyes at women's concerns, and deny their competence. They make the spaces hostile by actively harassing female participants AND then objectify their bodies, and then insist this is a boys' club they have to be able to tolerate just to participate.
1. Those things AREN'T "for men." These kinds of guys continue to insist the spaces aren't hostile toward women as they harass any female voice that uses a mic, yelling "make me a sandwich" and demanding tits. Acting like they aren't good at the game and aren't qualified to play.
I once had a friend who insisted that comics, video games, and movies that ridiculously sexualize women should be able to do that however they want because "well . . . I mean they're FOR men! Why should everything have to be friendly to everyone?" He couldn't grok that he was wrong on two counts.
These dudes: "Waaaah! NO! We NEEEEED to be able to look at airbrushed model-style Playboy models every moment of our lives when we play the vidya games! Feeeeemales do not understand our neeeeeds! Also why are feeeemales always saying video game communities are alienating to them?? Waaaaah!"
A four-panel comic about writing. Panel 1: "Your writing is too bare-bones with the setting. You really need more detail on places and environments, especially if it's an alien planet and a fictional society." "Okay!" Panel 2: "I need more about the invented culture. This manuscript could really do with more detail with realistic depictions of the aliens' lifestyle and religion." "I'll try!" Frame 3: Keep in mind you're creating a civilization here! We need a lot more detail on the mythology, history, and backstory so the aliens' society feels like it has real, complex roots." "I'll work it in!" Frame 4: "My word count is ridiculous." "Well if you fantasy writers didn't always think you need to describe every leaf on a tree, you wouldn't have this problem."
Flesh out the world! Give the scenery some love! Put some meat on those worldbuilding bones! Build in some complex history, not just the plot-relevant stuff! Hey, why is your book so long? #writingcommunity #betareading
It's really common with these types to want "another chance" or to "start over." I see it all the time with those dudes who offend women early in a conversation and then the guy is like "oh, you didn't like that, can we start again? Hi I'm XYZ." Why do they think they get a reset button?
They don't get that the reason you don't see women's loneliness on the scale you do men's is that women tend to have emotional connections with other women and aren't entirely isolated the way these kinds of guys are. We don't go around thinking others are worthless if we don't want to fuck them.
I don't trust anyone who disbelieves in the validity of trans people's identity. That tells me you don't believe in self determination. You're so worried about someone "colonizing" womanhood that you proclaim its rigidity yourself, without realizing it was never solely yours to define.
*Yellow Diamond voice* The court remembers. And the court does NOT care.
Reproduction isn't what defines cis women as "real" so why should anyone mention it when trying to deny legitimacy to trans women?
I guarantee you the misogyny I've experienced in my life didn't depend on whether the perpetrators thought I could or did have children.
. . . Does he think we don't have the freedom to have as many men as we want? LOL.
(He's really ticked off when that amount is zero, though.)
People can judge us as much as they want, just like we can judge them for reducing a movement to "weird petty things men think feeeeeemales value."
Asshole: [slaps you over and over]
You: UM? FUCKING STOP?
Asshole: WOW. Always trying to control other people. You are the villain. You hate freedom. GOD, IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE A LITTLE SLAPPING IN THE FACE, WHY DO YOU EVEN EXIST IN FRONT OF ME? People are so soft and whiny these days!
Me: "People shouldn't be forced to stay pregnant—"
Them: "OMG SAY 'WOMEN.' NOT PEOPLE. WOMEN"
Me: "Are you saying 'people' doesn't include women?"
Them: "IT ERASES WOMEN"
Me: "Odd that you see 'people' as erasing women. I do intentionally include non-women in pregnancy when I say it, though."
This is exactly it. And their stories are so frigging silly! They LOVE fantasizing about all the women who were just too judgmental and shallow to realize they were such a great man all along...and there they are, still pathetically bragging about what cars they drive to "prove" they deserve women.
This, totally. Pretending a woman missed her chance by quizzing him with technically incorrect guesses on the trappings of wealth while never realizing he was actually richer definitely reveals that HE'S the one obsessed with connecting wealth to worth.
This. I bet he's also walking around saying women missed out on his 13-inch wang because they demanded to know if it was 12 inches.
Another smug dude pretending he's frequently in the business of exposing women's hypocrisy. The world they inhabit where women are constantly "missing their chance" with him without realizing he has a Different Rich People Car They Forgot to Ask About must be a very weird place to live.
I'm so sick of the dudes who think this is a gotcha. They're so fucking smug about "haha, I exposed YOUR HYPOCRISY, ladies" when they did no such thing. "Inclusive" and "open-minded" doesn't mean "I MUST offer dating opportunities to people in fundamental disagreement with the root of my soul."
Us: "We want to be with partners who see us as equally valuable."
Them: "WELL HOW CAN WE DO THAT IF WE ONLY VALUE YOU FOR HOW YOUTHFUL AND PURE YOUR BODY IS AND THAT DISAPPEARS WHEN YOU AGE AND HAVE SEX??? YOU'RE WORTHLESS IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE SUPERFICIAL THING I LIKE! CHECKMATE, FEMALES!!"
How do we feel about leaving a protagonist nameless in a first-person short story? I've realized I seem to do this a lot. #WritingCommunity #Authors
If anyone has an in-development novel and wants to exchange #betareading , I'd really like some new eyes on my MS! I like queer lit, SF, and fantasy, YA or adult. Mine's a queer-led far-future SF coming-of-age YA with a sapphic romance in it. I'd like authentic volunteers, not paid pros please.
Yep. Same dudes who say BLUHBLUHBLUH IF WOMEN REALLY BELIEVE IN EQUALITY THEN WOMEN SHOULD BE DRAFTED and then bloviate about women's complete inability to function in any military capacity, insist none of us can pass basic physical fitness tests, and claim it's a boys' club where we should expect 🍇
Me: trying to teach my mom to transfer files onto her computer from her phone
Me: "And then you open the folder that says DCIM."
Mom: "What does 'DCIM' stand for?"
Me: "It stands for 'Da Camera Is Mmmmmright there.'"
Character limit prevents full text from being shared here. This is a screencap of a conversation with Mom in which she struggled to buy clothes online; when offered help, she did not know where she had seen the shirts she wanted, so her search history was the next stop. Surprising search history items popped up, including Mom wanting to know why girls think they need to wash their hands after using the bathroom because OBVIOUSLY only MEN need to wash their hands after using the bathroom, and then a query on how to have a baby at age 68.
Sharing a weird story about my mom today because I felt like it. Involves misconceptions about bathroom habits, technology hiccups, and my mother's search history.