Liberals also say and do stupid shit

There he is! Yeah, he needs the hair and the second sword. Anyway my point is he was an interesting character who happened to be bisexual. He wasn’t interesting just because he was bisexual. If they’re approaching that the other away around, then I can see why that wouldn’t work.

Yeah. I mean you start with “He’s a badass space dude with two double bladed swords that kicks ass,” and work into, “he’s also bisexual,” at some point. If like Wolverine was gay, you don’t open with that, you start with how he’s awesome so someone gives a shit about the rest of it, imo.

So, is that comic all about a mutant who is gay and makes unintentional puns about being gay?

Nah, I just was looking for the Gladiator joke (because fuck you it was funny) and it got all the related jokes on the search and I was lazy getting images.

Guido always makes terrible jokes, once he found out Shatterstar was bisexual, he made a lot of gay jokes that Shatterstar never really got because he’s like… an alien or something? I forget his background. Fish out of water type thing. Guido has always been kind of a dumbass, so he played the politically incorrect guy role in the group that made terrible jokes about it.

Edit: Realized I was more talking about Strongguy (is that his name, fuck, I forget), than Shatterstar. Shatterstar’s thing is he’s “not from around here” so he doesn’t get references to pop culture stuff. Though he’s been around for like 20 years or more, but you know, it’s Marvel where time doesn’t actually flow really.

Was he an alien bred for entertainment? I mean I could Wikipedia this stuff but apparently i am more lazy than Shivax is at the movement ;-) That and there are all these universes and I have no idea which one i like… the one where he fought for entertainment, ran into the X-men and awesomeness ensued. Maybe it wasn’t the comic, maybe the cartoon.

That sounds about right. Space gladiator or along those lines.

<still too lazy to look it up.

I caught hell at Broken Forum for asking, very politely but I guess asking itself is a sin, what phrases like that meant. I no longer ask. I just nod my head and if I feel the need I google it.

There’s a level of exasperated impatience with things like that. Folks of less than common persuasions, passionate fighters for rights, etc., often find themselves in the position of needing to defensively define fairly basic elements of their world to often well meaning folks (the defensiveness arising from the not so well meaning ones). Whether you’re trying to effect major change at the national level or just live the life that brings you the most happiness, having to constantly cover the basics for people who are, thanks to the internet, fully able to educate themselves can be very exhausting. Explaining it once to you may not take much time at all, but if you’re the 8th person this week, those emotions build up.

I find a lot of people in these circles are very open to talking and debating even, but they like people entering those discussions to have done a little to bring themselves “up to speed,” so to speak, so everyone can move right to more substantive topics rather than spending 20m hashing out baseline stuff.

None of which means that an innocent and polite question needs to be met with scorn; there’s diplomatic ways to convey all the above.

Then again, not everyone is really interested in being official ambassador for their own lifestyle to the rest of the world!

When you are making up words that didn’t exist a year ago, you should probably steel yourself for the fact that you’re gonna have to explain it.

In a ton of these cases, it ends up being a group of folks who are just making up a little play language to talk to each other, like little kids might do. It means nothing. It’s just some attempt to support some false notion of superiority or enlightenment.

Having sex with whoever you want? Totally cool.
Making up words to describe some imaginary pseudo gender concept? At that point, you just have your head up your own ass. Who you fuck isn’t really that important to anyone. You aren’t the center of the universe.

I mean, you’re allowed to just not read Tumblr, too, if it brings ya that much heartache :)

I think that was the part I failed to understand and once it was pointed out to me it made sense. Soon explaining would probably sound like justifying and there really is no need for that.

The thing is, even googled some of the “definitions” don’t make a lot of sense to some of us. I know several gay people. They are friends and sons of friends of mine. But that has been the limit of my personal knowledge of the “alternative” persuasions.

And hey, the beauty/terror of the internet is that just about anything is now a thing. Some folks genuinely think they’re ancient Celtic dragon-souls, riding a human body until they can reanimate in a glorious burst of dragonsfire. Keeping up with every possible identity permutation, from the fairly well understood and universal gay/lesbian/bisexual/transexual to more esoteric things probably isn’t feasible.

I think value in striving to do so arises most when you’re keeping track of folks who wind up marginalized and hurt because of their identities and beliefs. LGBT struggles are pretty clearly documented and “visible,” and there’s unfortunately a whole cultural machine built around holding these folks down and hurting them. Knowing about them and their struggles better enables you to look out for and defend them.

A good friend of mine is asexual. She’s more or less immune to sexual desire, lust, etc. She might be fond of certain people in a way that extends a little past close friendship and enjoy time and closeness spent with them, but she derives no pleasure from and has no interest in sexual relations. Some of that might be wrapped up in a very traumatic sexual assault experience from college, but having known her back in high school, I’d agree with her thinking that it extends further than that. Sex was something she begrudgingly had with boyfriends because they got pissy when she didn’t, not something she enjoyed or sought out.

I don’t at all mean to compare the hardships she faces to the real and constant threat of actual violence faced by gay people in America right now; there is a fervor and an intensity to the anti-LGBT faction that puts people in real and constant danger in some parts of our country and many parts of the world.

But the quieter, less evident dangers are still present for people like her. The self-doubt, the recriminations from those who don’t understand her and think less of her, the fear of being “outed,” the feeling of un-belonging in a culture where sex is ever-present and an automatically assumed desirable goal. The feelings of loneliness, isolation, and fear are very real, and run her down every day. And more often than not, when people do find out about her identity, she finds herself forced to defend it and herself from people who Just Don’t Understand. It’s taxing, exhausting, and discouraging.

Staying abreast of every single possible struggle like that’s hard. I don’t manage it. There’s all sorts of things I’m not informed about or aware of. But I recognize the value in striving, and do so where I’m able. I’m lucky to have a diverse and wonderful friend-group that’s made some of that process of discovery easier, but it’s still incumbent upon me to build on that foundation and expand from that point.

I’m all for diversity and want it, but quality matters. There’s a reason people hated Captain Planet.

A webcomic they might like is Fusion (superhero webcomic)

Also, if that person you listed above thinks they are a white dragon-soul, I might have known them years ago.

Fuck that noise Captain Planet was awesome as hell :-D

Is it a thing now in a social group to announce to everyone what your sexual persuasion or definition is? I only ask because of the example of your friends above, why on earth would anyone need to know that she was asexual unless she told them. I can see her explaining it to friends, but your friends shouldn’t be judging you.

You know, if you are black or brown or whatever that is what you are, there is no hiding it or no getting around it. You meet someone they know. I get there are some sexual persuasions like that, but most nobody would ever know unless you told them.

Heck, I am uncomfortable telling people I spend my free time playing video games.

Part of the process of moving the dialogue in a more progressive, positive direction in the nation can be bringing to light what has existed in the shadows of fear and doubt. While I don’t think anyone with a less-common sexual identity has a responsibility to announce it, and indeed, doing so in many venues would be at least odd if not inappropriate, those who do so often do, in part, to “normalize” their daily reality and help other people see and understand them. Which, yes, often will invite exactly the sort of unpleasant, occasionally defensive explanatory conversations I’ve talked about above. It’s a tricky line to walk, for sure.

You mentioned yourself that knowing some gay people expanded your knowledge of that persuasion; I suspect, on some level, it also helped humanize a struggle that may have been heretofore academic for you. That’s not a judgment or an insult; it’s part of our wiring that someone we know can have a more direct path to our heart than an amorphous individual somewhere out in the world that we only ever heard about.

Being “out” matters for reasons like that. It matters because not all these groups and identities yet receive equal treatment and consideration. Putting themselves out there, making their lives and struggles clear, can be a path forward for some of these folks.

In the case of my nonbinary partner-of-a-friend-who-is-also-a-friend-but-not-as-close-of-one-so-I-hedged-and-now-I’m-stuck-in-this-endless-series-of-hyphen-connected-qualifications, they really prefer not to be referred to as “he” or “she.” For all the reasons I listed above and more personal ones, I’m sure, it’s something that really gets under their skin, and so they (or their partner/friends) will usually put a subset of all this out there to new acquaintances.

In the case of my asexual friend, she’s a psychology professor with a specialty in concepts like self-esteem, self-compassion, mindfulness, and related areas. She’s relatively open about her own struggles and doubts and fears, and always has been. The thoughtful insight she shades into this sharing is very useful to me, and I’m glad that she chooses to do so.

I don’t know that I’d call it mandatory or even expected that everyone in my social groups (as there are several disparate ones: high school friends, college friends, camp friends, and new Raleigh friends) reveal their deepest secrets like sexuality and identity. . . but they’re also generally groups that recognize the value in sharing that and accept and bolster people when they choose to do so.

I loved Captain Planet. You want me to start singing the theme song?

Thanks for explanations. I come from a generation that likes to think of itself as somehow enlightened by the era of drugs, civil rights and Vietnam protests but really is not very different in so many things from the previous generation. And you are right, when you meet someone it humanizes them. I doubt though in my social circles I am going to meet the variety of people you have in your social circles. :)

I suspect someday I will twist my nose in dismay watching dragonkin demand right of first refusal on public airspace in which they hope to someday fly when their dragonsoul erupts in glorious beauty at last, despite all my wholehearted attempts to stay at the forefront of progressivism at any cost.