Can we just settle something? Please?

[trinityvixen]

Without explicitly stating from whence my aggravation of these issues comes, I'd like to simply, accurately educate the world. Those of you on my f-list pretty much know this already, but humor me. It won't take long. I just have two common misconceptions that I would like to correct. Right. Now.

1) Do you think women are people, with all the inherent complexities, strengths, and failings thereof? CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE A FEMINIST.
Contrary to what you may have heard, women, you don't have to stop shaving any part of your body--legs, "down there," armpits, mustache--nor burn bras, nor hate pornography, nor change the spelling of words to either "feminize" them--WO-mandatory, for example--or "neuter" them--"hyr," "womyn," "semyn"--in order to be a feminist. You just have to think women are people. Men, you do not have to encourage your female friends and significant others to do any of those things nor is feeling emasculated a necessary prerequisite of being a feminist. You can be a feminist by thinking women are people! It's just that simple!

2) You know who likes to molest little boys and girls? PEDOPHILES.
Being sexually attracted to people under the age of 10 is a disease, currently an incurable one. It's a psychological pathology. Some times, that pathology manifests in way that might appear "gay" to you, and not in that Johnny Weir, "That's gay," locker-room-towel-fight gay way. We're talking male-on-under-age-male gay. So I understand it is confusing when I say it's not gay, it's PEDOPHILIA. It is not gay because it's not about having sex with someone who has the same genitals as you. It's about abusing someone who has the same genitals (or will, when they, you know, fully mature) as you. People who are sexually attracted to under age boys or girls are sick, sick people. They're not gay. Even if gayness is sickness to you (and if it is, I'm now 99% sure you're a self-hater), gay is a different sickness, a different pathology entirely from the one that makes you want to abuse kids. Please correct your thinking.

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

There are female sexists, and they ruin it for the rest of us either by hating women or compensating for women being hated by hating men. Neither is a feasible or acceptable solution. Hate an individual person all you like but not entire segments of the population, please?

As for the theory of social currency, it's a question that my friend chuckro asked a while back--literally, how much money would you accept in exchange for trading away a bit of social currency that being in the mainstream (in whatever way you are) affords you? I mean, would you trade being cis-gendered for $1M? Possibly, seeing as being gay/trans/bi is becoming less and less of a problem and can, to a great degree, be hidden if necessary to minimize social backlash. What about skin color? Gender? What price do we put on those? The funny thing is that a lot of people don't really realize how their advantages translate into assumptions of power/importance until they're asked to quantify them. It's very sad.