Yes, Women Experience ‘Blue Balls,’ and It Sucks | Broadly
You
don’t
say.
Yes, Women Experience ‘Blue Balls,’ and It Sucks | Broadly
You
don’t
say.
Happy birthday.
This means a lot to me to read. Thank you, dear reader. I’m glad you like the stories I post here, and I’m gratified by your kind words. I don’t want to take anything away from that, or imply that you don’t know all this, with the following:
Reading this message made me think about the ways in which people like me are lauded just for showing up. I work hard on the things I write, and try my best to address sensitive issues with care and humility. When I do that, though, I’m often looking to examples set by others. I follow a number of porn blogs that address and refute rape culture, but I suspect they are praised less for it, because they’re written and run by women. When they do the work it’s taken for granted; when I do similar work it seems special. Double standards are sometimes hard to see.
I’m not going to act like I have the authority to tell anyone else what to write or promote. I’m not going to pretend I was born social-justice sinless and never posted fuckboy shit. (Among the reasons you’ll never see my real name here? I don’t need anyone collecting my receipts.) But.
If I am part of a population with power over others, and if I promote fantasies that touch on violence against those populations, then I have a responsibility to distinguish fantasy from reality, clearly and in my own words. To publish adult material, I have to be a public adult.
I appreciate your compliment, anon, and to be clear: kindness like yours makes the work lighter. But the work needs doing regardless. This isn’t a stretch goal. This is the starting line.
Rules and models destroy genius and art.
I get off on destroying genius and art