Should pronouns be compulsory here, going forward?

Should pronouns be compulsory here, going forward?

  • Fuck "it"

  • Y/No

  • He/Crusty sock


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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
that's the real problem with being alt right. cunts get a boner and don't know how to hide it. It's like they are watching the inbetweeners for the first time and bring the punishment onto themselves.
 
This is what me and the squad considered trance in 1993, smoking the UK's first batch of skunk in our lavish Cowley Road split level in between megadrive Streetfighter bouts. But what's this? One of the squad has an unusually intense interest in Take That picture discs and poppers?
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
This starts to get interesting, can we take it beyond Hmgs bad faith question

if you’re gonna appreciate the anonymity of the internet and how it lets us ‘try out’ and how it also accelerates the fragmentation of self.. taking that line we might say we shouldn’t feel compulsed to disclose any personal info, and then ... is it ok for anyone to assume any identity at any time no matter who they are, even fleetingly... when might it not be ok? who decides
aren't all identities in a state of constant flux and flex anyway?

I'm not the same person I am with my friends, my family, my boyfriend, my workmates, prospective employers, children, the elderly, etc. I constantly self-police my behaviour - sometimes actively, sometimes instinctively, sometimes in ways I don't even realise until much later.

I don't think there's a "completely true" version of one's self at any time and I don't think anyone who spends time online would disagree with that, really. Your digital identity is a managed and curated product: the very act of existing as a digital presence is an act of construction. I'm from what's probably the last generation for whom "the internet" was an escape from reality, rather the filter through which reality is received, so maybe younger people than me have a different relationship to this. But I don't think presenting yourself as a version of yourself is an inherently bad thing: you could be the most authentic version of yourself and still be a bastard; you could pretend to be a different version of yourself and bring comfort and laughter to people too.
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
"coming out" isn't something you do once and then it's complete. I out myself dozens of times in a (normal, when I'm allowed to see people and interact) week. So my identity - or rather, people's perception of my identity - is constantly being challenged and changed. LGBTQIA+ people have an intuitively-learned sense of self-protecting malleability, ie we form a sense for when it's safe to be our most authentic selves and for when it's safer to disguise it.
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
one thing I will say about my own personal position on this: on one hand, my interpretation of masculinity and manhood is very broad and I think of it as a spectrum without an end point. I might talk with my hands and have an effete voice and shuffle when I walk, but I also believe that it takes real strength to be fabulous when you're conditioned into the myth that it's an inherently negative characteristic, and if one perspective of masculinity is that it's about being strong and stoic and resilient then I've got bigger balls than most men I've ever met. If gender is a construct, a roleplay, a form of everyday drag we participate in unthinkingly, then I'm happy to construct a version of maleness that has room for someone like me.

On the other hand: masculinity, as it manifests itself in everyday real life and not the fantasy spectrum range of my own ideological belief, is and always has been a prison. An expectation of beahviour and appearances that I've felt obliged to pursue for social reasons - or rebel against, like when I was a teenager and grew my hair longer and it turned out I looked more "feminine" than "alternative subculture."

I don't really have a coherent stance on this. To eliminate the concept and actuality of gender as a construct would also undermine the validity of the problems faced by people, in practical terms, of non-heteronormative sexuality. I think it would be naive to pretend a world free of gender constructs still wouldn't contain bigotry against people like me.

But I definitely don't see the harm in letting people pick their own pronouns and how they use them, if at all.
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
oh 100%. I fight against that too because people have an idea of what gay men should be like. The amount of times I've had to resist over-friendly straight women putting make-up on me is unreal. I'm not afraid of the parts of me that are easily stereotyped but I'm also amused when people are surprised to find out about other niche interests I have or the elements of traditional LGBTQ+ culture I have zero affinity towards.
 

Simon silverdollarcircle

Well-known member
I don't really identify with being male gendered at all. Nor with being female gendered.

Generally not bothered either way. Although I feel uncomfortable when placed in openly man-only situations: I hate stag do's, "dads nights out" (which you end up getting invited to as a parent), told where to sit in boy/girl seating at dinners etc. Makes me feel very awkward and out of jolt.

I think lots of male friends are like this. We feel so distant from the stereotyped expectations of manhood that we almost can't imagine what it'd be like to identify with them.

Dunno what this means in gender theory terms. May be just the product of being s privileged cis male trying to have things both ways huh
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
whiteboy anxiety. Shove a pint of raki down yer gullets and pull a gun at the tavern whilst sobbing when the jukebox plays the favourite crooner. then shoot in the air and aim at your nemesis. Simples.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Zeki knew what was up. Unite the high feminin crooner with the underworld mafia aesthetic. Better gay icon than Freddy Mercury or whoever. Better than Donna Summer even. Him and Patrick Cowley and Cecil Taylor. best.

 
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