happy pride month from your neighborhood gray!! I forget that asexuality has been severely misrepresented and that a lot of people don’t actually know what it is as a result so here is an overview of what asexuality is, what it’s not, and how acephobic is represented. there is so much more to asexuality than just this. I didn’t even mention the medicalization of asexuality!
I highly rec scretspiderlady on Twitter because she writes a lot about the ace experience and has many comprehensive threads. I also rec Yasmin Benoit, a Black aroace lingerie model who is fighting misinformation about asexuality and shedding light on racism within the asexual community. if you’re interested in more resources feel free to dm me!
EDIT: I updated the slide that refers to asexuality as “aspec” to “acespec.” The term aspec refers to the a community as a whole – both asexuals and aromantics – while acespec refers to the asexual spectrum and arospec referes to the aromantic spectrum. You can see this mirrored in the terms acephobia (experienced by aces), arophobia (experienced by aros), and aphobia (experienced by both aces and aros). Thank you to those of you who tagged this post with their correction!
Allow me to assure you, as a librarian, that if you as a concerned citizen present us with a list of Books that are Bad and should Not Be In Our Collection and which you Require us to Remove At Once, we will scan it for titles that we don’t have yet to add to our purchase list.
Ah, the “limiting access to information is okay if they’re takes I object to” squad has begun to appear.
This is your helpful reminder that:
a) There are legitimate information access needs even to bad information (one cannot, for example, study and deconstruct erroneous information about climate change if you don’t know what people are saying) and it is actually part of my vocation to provide ACCESS to even books I vehemently disagree with. Sometimes I even get to bond with the person checking it out over how appalling it is! Sometimes the reason they’re checking it out is because they need to read it but don’t want to buy it.
b) The presence of a text in a library collection does not imply agreement with or endorsement by the library as an entity; it just means for one reason or another it fits in our collection management policy. Often it’s based on patron requests from community members.
c) The absolute last thing you EVER want is your librarian to be empowered to decide whether your information need is Good Enough to be “allowed” access to the text. You, personally, even you reading this who knows you share the same values as me, do not want your access to be subject to my judgement as to whether or not your information need is “valid”; to be subject to my assessment whether you can be trusted to have access to a text.
I’m not your mom. I’m not even your teacher. I’m your librarian; it’s my job to help you access information YOU need, and YOU decide what that need is. If you ask for my help then sure it’s also my job to help you assess it based on my training and experience, but it is not my job to ARBITRATE your access to information based on my decisions about the legitimacy of your reason to seek it out.
So yes even when that list of books has books on it I think are full of lies I’m probably checking to see if it’s something someone in my community might need access to without having to buy it or expose themselves to the malware risks of pirating.
Because while I kinda hate him Jordan Peterson’s bullshit is RELEVANT to understanding a lot of shit going on today. And you do NOT want to live in a world where it’s my job to test and see if you have a good and pure enough reason for wanting to check his book out.
I’m ages late but:
Excuse me a coworker caught me making a warding sign at fuckin’ Ted Cruz’s piece of shit book the other day, I feel very called out right now.
ordered pizza from a small local place and they didnt actually cut it so i’ve chosen to revert to a wild animal and begin ripping it apart instead of just using a knife to portion slices
absolutely visceral experience. food is so much more satisfying when you have to fight it. i may be feral
i am not proud to say this but that pizza lasted fifteen minutes. i normally am not that gluttonous, but this goes beyond glutton. there was gluttony and wrath. a whirlwind of sauce, cheese, and pepperoni, all atop a flatbread that was shred apart by my own hands due to the neglect of another
in that moment i was wild. i was free. i understood the simplest joys in life. the joy of eating and manifesting my own destiny
been reflecting on this all day and the unsliced pizza experience honestly ruled. i think everyone should try it sometime or another. you have not truly lived until you just absolutely obliterated a pizza in such a feral manner
is this you
yes
run
My best friend and I have this tradition we call “chicken dinner” where we get a rotisserie chicken, lay it on a tarp, start on opposite ends of the tarp, and on the count of three we both run at the chicken and start ripping into it with our bear hands. We will be on our knees fighting for the best pieces of meat, ripping into the chicken with our faces, and it is the most viscerally delicious chicken I have ever had in my life. Grease gets everywhere. We have to do this outside. We have to tie our hair in buns beforehand.
You have never known the joy of food until you are lunging at your friend to rip the best part of the chicken out of their hand, rolling around on the tarp, stuffing it in your face before they can retaliate, and you realize “holy shit did I just growl?” And then you realize they are doing it too.
The chicken gets decimated. It’s absolutely destroyed. We aren’t allowed back inside until we have been hosed down. It’s the best.
fanfic fandom is just as likely to turn on ‘disruptors’ as the knitting hobby is – witness what happened to the 2 techbros who bought knitting.com, thought they’d be able to leverage that, and were eaten by insulted, angry knitters like a pair of oxen in a river of piranha
