Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

End Worrying

Living Disabled in the Reactionary Empire

Copyright Conger Design

The following text is a reaction to this post. The response comes from The Real Cie's politically-minded alter-ego, Sly Fawkes.

Truth be told, the writing part of my life is okay. I'm a fairly prolific writer. I don't promise that it's all (or even that any of it is) bestseller material but I do a lot of it!

The rest of my life is kind of a steaming pile of suck. Being disabled in the United States is not fun at all. I'm not going to hit my political soapbox too hard, but I made less than ten thousand dollars last year, and while I do have Medicaid (and I live in fear that the critters in power will take that away) I do not get SNAP, which I absolutely need. Being food insecure is far from fun.

I would love to force the critters in power to have to live on $1100 a month (or less, if I have a bad month) for a year, no bailouts, no help from family or friends. Just that amount. Have fun with that, boys and girls!

I write about my thoughts on sociopolitical issues a lot more often than I'd like to. I  prefer writing fiction, but the truth is scarier!

~Sly Has Spoken~

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Writing Uncomfortable Subjects

Copyright BookBabe

Some thoughts on this post, 

“you’re not entitled to a constant stream of uninspired feel-good pap. not in your music, not in your television, and certainly not in your books. “

A constant stream of feel-good pap is the very petri dish in which odious thought processes are allowed to grow unchecked. This feel-good pap is the Soma of Brave New World. Give the Proletariat their happy drugs, in this case, meaningless media rife with pretty people with petty problems and impeccably whitened teeth, and they won’t question the rising shit-storm of discontent, maltreatment of the lower classes, or other unpleasant subjects like sexism, racism, and homophobia.

Interestingly enough, despite the extreme right-wing assertion (kowtowed to by Bumblr) that erotica is a terrible, no good, awful, and very bad thing, the place where I curtail certain uncomfortable subjects the most stringently is in erotic writing. In spite of the fact that characters in the Naughty Netherworld universe are always banging, group sex is far more common than one-on-one couplings, and much of the action takes place in an arena where wild BDSM play is acted out for an audience, there are a few things that will never be described explicitly in these otherwise uninhibited tales.

These things are:

Any kind of non-consensual sex

Any kind of dub-con encounters. Even though there is no shortage of bondage, the characters are one hundred percent on board, and it’s obvious.

Sex with minors. 

These stories are very inclusive. I hate labeling them as “interracial,” which is a keyword that I do use when publishing on Kindle. I also hate feeling that I need to include a label such as “BBW.” People of all races are just people, and large women are just people. Unfortunately, we don’t yet live in a world that is quite so inclusive, and so I do feel the need to use what I deem fetishizing keywords to promote the Naughty Netherworld brand.

One of my main reasons for using such keywords is to let people know that these stories are for them. I would not be the first person to be sick and tired of trying to find a good romantic or spicy erotic read, only to discover that it’s rife with Barbie and Ken lookalikes with a few department store manikins thrown in as supporting characters. I want a realistic selection of people, even if some of those people happen to be shape-shifting alien sex fiends.

I want to read about the five-foot-tall, 100-pound elf prince falling in love with the six-foot-tall, 400-pound human pastry chef who has lost her belief in magic. (This is one of the few monogamous couplings in the Naughty Netherworld sagas.) 

I want to read about the geeky ginger film fan and the strong, sinewy Japanese vampire (both male) falling wildly in love and enjoying introducing newcomers to their extremely spicy world together. 

I want to read about the powerful, six-foot-tall, dark and intimidatingly beautiful mad scientist and sorceress redeeming herself to her tiny and deceptively strong, smart as a whip Asian wife. 

However, these characters weren’t out there. So Team Netherworld created them.

Do subjects such as racism, sexism, and homophobia make appearances in these stories?

Yes. In Carnal Invasion VI, Kali and Nyx recall their first meeting. Nyx, who is, in reality, one of the shape-shifting extraterrestrials, adopted the form of a badly burned “comfort girl” and she and her fellow extraterrestrials rescued the trafficked women and girls from the “comfort station”. In the same book, Kali recalls allowing herself to be taken prisoner in a death camp where she uses her powers to raise the dead and destroy the place. She suffers abuse at the hands of the guards. 

Due to the explicit erotica inherent to these stories, there were no exact descriptions of the abuse endured by Kali at the guards’ hands. Had this not been an explicitly erotic story, the offenses against Kali would likely have been described in greater detail. However, I wanted to be sure that no-one would be tempted to confuse sexualized abuse with erotic bondage and role-playing.

I like to think that the Naughty Netherworld stories are feel-good stories--very joyful, smutty stories for a mature audience. The characters in these stories are much more accepting of those who are not considered conventionally attractive than real people are. In spite of occasional heavy subject matter, the general spirit of these tales is a fun-filled sexy romp among dirty-minded friends.

However, there are those who would say such stories should not be allowed. Some would frame the work as being “sinful.” Some might postulate that homosexual activity is “unnatural.” Still others might be opposed to the “mixing of the races.” Some might be angered by the idea of women in positions of power. Some might proclaim that describing larger characters as sexy and desirable is “glorification of obesity” or some such rubbish. 

People of various sizes, shapes, nationalities, and races exist. Not everyone looks like a fashion doll or an impossibly thin, heavily Photoshopped model. In fact, the majority of people do not bear any resemblance to the glossy images we have been told we are supposed to resemble. Human sexuality has a spectrum. Not everyone is heterosexual, and being heterosexual is not morally superior to being homosexual, bisexual, or asexual. 

People are not perfectly unblemished. People can have scars, moles, crooked teeth, funny noses, wrinkles, structural anomalies, any number of so-called “imperfections.” Not all people are perfectly able-bodied. Some have lost limbs. Some have conditions which impair their mobility. Many deal with invisible impairments, including psychiatric conditions. A fair number of the characters in the Carnal Invasion series are working through PTSD due to past abuses.

The point being that feel-good stories are all fine and good, but stories are not there just to entertain, they are there to educate. If every story was completely sanitized of any uncomfortable topic, the literary world would be gutted. We would be left with nothing but a bunch of meaningless, watered-down twaddle.

Evil characters who do bad things SHOULD make you angry. They should make you think. 

A world where no-one thinks is a dangerous place indeed.

~Cie~

Five Beliefs That Make You Taoist

Diet Culture or Food Insecurity

Hey, Kids! Let's play a little game that I call "Diet Culture or Food Insecurity." Are you ready?

Around noon while injecting my long-acting insulin, I said to myself: "Self, I think it would be good to have some lunch." 

My Self replied: "Do we really need lunch, though? If we just have some nice iced black coffee with a bit of non-dairy creamer, that might stave off the hunger for a while. After all, we can't just go and eat whenever we like, now can we?"

So, is this something I said to myself because of food insecurity, or am I on a diet?

The answer has been both at different times in my life.

Today, it's because I'm food insecure. I ditched diet culture eight years ago. I can't say I've never looked back. I can't say that I never had nagging doubts that if I just tried to diet one more time this would be the time that would take and I would finally be thin and pretty and the Handsome Prince (TM) would ride in on his white horse and fall in love with me and I would live Happily Ever After (TM). 

Gee, that sounds like an abusive relationship or addiction, doesn't it? Abusive relationships and addiction aren't healthy. So, since diet culture puts people in the same mindset as addiction and abusive relationships, why are so-called medical professionals always touting it as "healthy?" Things that are genuinely good for you do not involve gaslighting yourself.

In the past, I placated myself using pretty much the same words I did today in the name of diet culture, although the words I used in the past were more abusive. It generally went a little bit something like this:

"Oh, you want to eat again, huh? Of course you want to eat again, you fat pig! You're always thinking of food! How do you think you're ever going to get a boyfriend if you're always stuffing your fat face? Do you really need lunch? How about doing what the models do and just having a cup of black coffee? You can put a little non-dairy creamer in it if you really must. Maybe that will stave off the hunger for a while."

Yeah--that sounds really healthy, doesn't it?"

Both food insecurity and dieting invoke a starvation response. This is why people who are dieting find themselves thinking about food all the time. A steady diet of nothing but protein shakes and expensive "meal replacement" bars and fucking boiled chicken with fucking steamed veggies and fucking rice for dinner will do that to you. 

Or maybe you could try the cabbage soup diet. Eat as much cabbage soup as you want, but be sure to strain the good bits out so all you have is a cup of fucking broth. This one might help you lose some water weight during the first two weeks, then it will stop working. Your chances of luring a Handsome Prince (TM) with the cabbage soup diet will be somewhat reduced because you'll be farting a lot. His hounds might think you smell interesting, though.

Perpetual dieting only benefits the multi-billion dollar diet industry.

It's time to stop the fucking madness.

~Cie~

Views From the Bald Patch: Measure wisely

Views From the Bald Patch: Measure wisely: When I posted about progress and motivation last week, a comment there reminded me of the darker side of targets and measurements.

This is a great post about goals and motivation and how going overboard with them can be detrimental. This was my reply to the post.

I am a horrible perfectionist when it comes to myself. If I am not constantly creating, revising, working, doing, I can become absolutely vicious with myself. My thyroid burnt itself out by the time I was 15, and I have problems with becoming fatigued very easily. I heard the word "lazy" so often when I was growing up that I tend to become angry with myself for resting at all. Combined with obsessive-compulsive disorder, I am constantly chasing myself around in circles, and I never measure up to my own standards.