Rape Mention - Tumblr Posts
Fantasy Discrimination, and The Implications
A post on my dash reminded me to share some more writing advice, so here is a very good article by @mythcreantsblog , about how to make sure you're not dehumanizing a species or culture in your writing, which is a good guide on how to avoid accidentally writing racist or ableist tropes:
In particular, I want to talk about the ever-present racist trope in a lot of fantasy and scifi fiction, and that is the decision a lot of creators make where the villains are not just a single person, a faction, or a kingdom -- *its an entire species* who is not only the villain, but are outright, inherently *evil*.
To start out, here's a political cartoon by Tom Gauld you've probably seen all around tumblr with the name cropped out:
[ID: a political cartoon by Tom Gauld, showing two identical cities and boats mirrored on a river, each with a purple or yellow flag; one side is labled "Our Blessed Homeland, Our Glorious Leader, Our Great Religion, Our Noble Populace, Our Heroic Adventuerers", The other side is labled "Their Barbarous Wastes, Their Wicked Despot, Their Primitive Superstition, Their Backwards Savages, Their Brutish Invaders. End ID]
This political cartoon is a very good tool for testing your writing for the trope of demonizing/glorifying your fantasy/scifi species.
Let's use a classic example: your fantasy setting is made up of the following species: Elves, Dwarves, Humans, and Orcs.
Your Elves are a long-lived, ethereal people who live in secluded, perfect cities, all of them tall, blonde, and blue-eyed, who are extremely wise and making plans that can stretch out over dozens of human generations, and they're the deciders of 90% of politics in your world. Your Dwarves are a short, squat, species who spend their lives working in forges, mines, and laboratories, tirelessly toiling (because they enjoy the hard work, of course!) and selling their products to the Elves who are their largest and wealthiest customer base; Dwarves work hard and studiously for decades at a a time to complete a piece of work in order to fufill the intricate orders from their Elven customers, which is how the majority of them provide for their families, working 16 hour shifts each day for decades per order. Your Humans are far more seperated, and often live on the fringes of what their longer-lived compatriots consider "Civilized Society", often living as Subsistence farmers and hunters, not out of choice, but often due to poor land and lack of resources; the wealthiest of Human cities are usually the capitals where the royals reside and may live in luxury with rich markets and high-quality products and running water, but the vast majority of Humans live in small, poor villages that must rely on traveling merchants to sell what produce and livestock they can spare from their farms in order to buy the supplies they need to live out another year. Your Orcs.... well, they don't really live anywhere, do they? Orcs strongholds can only maintain their grip in hellish wastelands where living is nigh impossible, with all food and water only obtained from outside sources; occasionally, Orcs will attempt to establish base camps in more fertile land, invading neighboring Human, Dwarf, and Elven territory to do so, who quickly unite to expel these vile, dark, brutish invaders lest they steal their daughters, destroy and taint all of the natural resources and steal the few jobs available to the Humans in Dwarven and Elven cities as manual labour and servants.
And Now, take a step back from this world, and take a long, hard look at these species (outside of humans who are just kinda there in the middle and the only ones capable of change because Humans Are Always Special) and societies and what ideas are being reinforced here, especially when the above descriptions are framed as Hard Facts which are both Just and True?
(archived read-more Here)
Elves are morally superior and are always Perfect and Correct,
Dwarves are happy to spend their entire lives toiling in the forges and mines to please their Elven patrons,
and Orcs are Evil Monsters who will rob, murder, and rape any hapless victim who comes their way, so it's better to slaughter them all on sight and kick them out of your cities and towns, and this is the 100% correct morally right choice every single time and the narrative and characters themselves support this?
Did you spot them already, or does the above just seem like a cool, fun fantasy world where Elves are the cool wise good guys and Orcs are the devil's army and can be used as canon fodder any time your main character needs to mow down some enemies for a Badass Scene?
Let's retrace our steps a bit, shall we, and examine this "perfect" world through a critical lens?
When your elves are all portrayed as Perfect Ethereally Beautiful Blonde and Blue-Eyed wise leaders of the civilized world, what idea is being reinforced here? Who does it harm, and what real world ideas is this mirroring and enforcing? Who is going to have their own biases reinforced by this narrative?
When only the longest-lived people are allowed to decide politics, what group biases are being enforced? Is portraying "young people" as "being incapable of making political decisions" as a correct, logical choice in your story something you wish to enforce? Are there any real world issues this trope mirrors?
When your Dwarves are all Happy Workers and Slaves, bound to and reliant on the superior Elves to live, spending the majority of their life purely in service to these Superior Beings while happy to do it, what idea is being reinforced here? Who might see themselves in the plight of the Dwarves and feel alienated and insulted by the Dwarves happily slaving away in the dark? Who might have biased ideas reinforced by seeing the Dwarves treated in such a way?
When your Orcs are portrayed as evil, dark skinned, brutish savages who will kidnap and rape poor helpless women from the "pure" species, when Orcs are incapable of creating anything of their own and can only steal, what racist messages are being enforced and upheld? Who are the real people and cultures being demonized when you perpetuate this? What real world peoples and cultures have faced *decades of propaganda framing them as such*?
If you spotted these harmful messages in the initial indented description, good job!
But if you didn't, it's time to find and read critical reviews and essays written by marginalized communities of works that include these damaging tropes, because if it your Evil Species are Weird Aliens, because when you characterize and describe your Evil Species, you are undoubtedly going to be drawing heavily on your own internal biases of what makes people Other and Wrong.
Are your Evil Species all dark-skinned, physically-strong and animalistic? Congrats, you have just regurgitated centuries-old racism that justifies slavery, segregation, and discrimination *to this day*
Are your Evil Species all nomadic ~cannibals~ who are incapable of creating anything of their own and have to loot and steal from others to have anything of value? Congrats, you are once again regurgitating racist propoganda that has been used against countless cultures and minorities for centuries.
Are your Evil Species reknowned for kidnapping and raping the women of your Good Guys in order to create Evil Twisted Halfbreed Offspring for ....uh, reasons? Congrats, once again, this is literally just racist propaganda being reinforced by your writing.
Anything you come up with to make your Species Inherently Evil is going to most likely be something that is weaponized against real world minorities that you are now reinforcing with your writing, from racism to ableism to queerphobia and all the ways they intersect.
How do you fix this?
It's incredibly simple!
Don't make an entire Species be Inherently Evil.
They need to be just as varied as real living people.
Your Species should not be a Monolith, let alone of *Evil*.
Your Species should not have their only "decent/civilized/kind people" examples come from ""crossbreeds"" [and this term itself should be used only by bigots as a deragatory term] or random orphans who were raised by one of the Good Species(tm)-- this is how your story starts advocating for *eugenics*, which is not something you want to do!
So, instead of having an entire Species be "Inherently biologically" Evil, consider instead:
Making your villain group diverse instead of all one Species.
if your villain group is a Species Supremacist, they're probably still going to have underlings and lower castes who do their dirty work, or have been taken in by the cult ideology.
Making the villains of this Species be a small fraction of a larger whole, who are part of a violent cult, ideology, or political party that not only puts them in conflict with your main characters, but also with the rest of their Species.
Having your main character or their friends be the same Species as your villain group, and they represents the vast majority of the Species, instead of hailing them as "the Paragon of Goodness who emerged somehow pure from of a species forged in hell" or anything similar.
You should also sit down and not only think about the harmful, racist tropes that would come from writing Inherently Evil Species, but also consider:
Why do you want to include an entire species of people who are inherently evil in your novel?
Is your novel gaining anything for including these tropes uncritically?
Does it make it a better, more interesting story to include these tropes uncritically?
What message are you trying to send with your story?
Does including these tropes uncritically in your story *undermine* your intended message?
Another trope in the opposite direction, is talking about "Oppression" and "Fantasy Racism" from the perspective of a character who is part of the oppressed minority, only to spend the entire novel talking about how your Opressed Class are Literally and Factually threats to the population that "discriminate" against them, usually by being rightfully wary in their prescence.
if the Oppressed Minorities in your story in anyway resemble the Orcs in Bright, the Predators in Zootopia, or the Khajiit in the Elderscrolls, where the Racism these peoples face in based on hard proven facts that these people have been and still are threats to most of the population..
... you're less writing a story about how "Racism Against Vulnerable Minorities is Bad"
and sound more like you're saying
"It's bad to be "mean" (afraid of) Nazis who literally want you dead and who can kill you with impunity and no consequences."
If you are writing a story about Fantasy Discrimination, and the basis of your Fantasy Discrimination is based on *cold hard facts that your narrative supports and upholds*, instead of actually basing it on and talking about what leads to discrimination in the real world
(xenophobia and the fear+hatred of The Other, economic gain, mainly),
then you are not making the progressive stance that you think you are, and instead are enforcing the ancient propoganda that racism is based on fact, that racism is "for a good reason", and you need to take care that you are not upholding this idea in your works.
TL;DR:
Instead of making an entire Species of people a trope of Wise Good Guys or Evil Incarnate, consider using *Factions not Races* for your groups, and think long and hard about the implications of your world's politics and how it mirrors our own world, especially in ways *you may not intend it to.* If your story is meant to be progressive and inclusive, but your villains are an entire race of black orcs who slave and rape the good guys species, you need to go back to the drawing board.
I’m not sure if you guys know what’s happening in Sudan right now cause all I’m seeing are posts about raising awareness without giving a proper coverage in regards to what’s happening there or how it all started. The Sudanese people have been peacefully protesting for months to remove Omar Al-Bashir from office (a dictator and a human rights violator, a president who has been in power for 3 decades. Mind you, Sudan has been an independent country only for 63 years). The pro-democracy protests were lead by an organization called The Sudanese Professionals Association (تجمع المهنيين السودانيين), a group lead by doctors and local unions. The oppressed minorities in the country with the less oppressed Arab majority lead by the SPA came together to overthrow Al-Bashir by peacefully protesting. A large number of protestors were women in front rows of every single protest since last December. The Sudanese people succeeded in overthrowing the government on 11 April 2019 but the military stepped in to run the transitional government, they’re the ones causing the recent killings, rape and violations you’re hearing about right now. The military ruling right now is composed of people like general Hemediti, a man who has been accused of human rights violation years ago for arming militias and unleashing them on the rebels and civilian farmers in Darfur. He was recorded a few days ago threatening protestors who want to see civilian rule. The SPA is fighting back by calling for civil disobedience and nationwide strike. They’re still fighting for their fundamental demands which started all of the protests. They’re fighting for a civilian government, empowering women and ending the brutal militias. The peaceful protestors are being killed, raped and arrested. There has been an internet blackout and people are being silenced. Spreading awareness and making people pay attention to the current events will aid a lot in ending the terror Sudanese people are facing. People have been protesting for months to end the country’s suffering by overthrowing a dictator, their hard work can not end in them being ruled by militias and new dictators. This can’t be how it ends for them and we need to help in changing that. We have to be their voice now, they rely on us.
Source
“Image Credit: Carol Rossetti
When Brazilian graphic designer Carol Rossetti began posting colorful illustrations of women and their stories to Facebook, she had no idea how popular they would become.
Thousands of shares throughout the world later, the appeal of Rosetti’s work is clear. Much like the street art phenomenon Stop Telling Women To Smile, Rossetti’s empowering images are the kind you want to post on every street corner, as both a reminder and affirmation of women’s bodily autonomy.
“It has always bothered me, the world’s attempts to control women’s bodies, behavior and identities,” Rossetti told Mic via email. “It’s a kind of oppression so deeply entangled in our culture that most people don’t even see it’s there, and how cruel it can be.”
Rossetti’s illustrations touch upon an impressive range of intersectional topics, including LGBTQ identity, body image, ageism, racism, sexism and ableism. Some characters are based on the experiences of friends or her own life, while others draw inspiration from the stories many women have shared across the Internet.
“I see those situations I portray every day,” she wrote. “I lived some of them myself.”
Despite quickly garnering thousands of enthusiastic comments and shares on Facebook, the project started as something personal — so personal, in fact, that Rossetti is still figuring out what to call it. For now, the images reside in albums simply titled “WOMEN in english!“ or ”Mujeres en español!“ which is fitting: Rossetti’s illustrations encompass a vast set of experiences that together create a powerful picture of both women’s identity and oppression.
One of the most interesting aspects of the project is the way it has struck such a global chord. Rossetti originally wrote the text of the illustrations in Portuguese, and then worked with an Australian woman to translate them to English. A group of Israeli feminists also took it upon themselves to create versions of the illustrations in Hebrew. Now, more people have reached out to Rossetti through Facebook and offered to translate her work into even more languages. Next on the docket? Spanish, Russian, German and Lithuanian.
It’s an inspiring show of global solidarity, but the message of Rossetti’s art is clear in any language. Above all, her images celebrate being true to oneself, respecting others and questioning what society tells us is acceptable or beautiful.
“I can’t change the world by myself,” Rossetti said. “But I’d love to know that my work made people review their privileges and be more open to understanding and respecting one another.””
From the site: All images courtesy Carol Rossetti and used with permission. You can find more illustrations, as well as more languages, on her Facebook page.
🔥🔥🔥
— i get that it's become a sort of thing where people feel "safe" to post suggestive / nsfw content on sundays because it's done as a collective but it lowkey irks me to see a dash just full of nsfw on one singular day and people acting as if it's the only day they can do it. a large reason why nsfw topics remain so taboo ( and yet, simultaneously so overdone ) is because its kept to a single day or trend.
— i think this one might actually be wildly unpopular and begs actual critical reading skills bc i KNOW someone's gonna misinterpret. but if someone doesn't want to interact with a certain character, that's fine, but demonizing people who decide to write a problematic character is very weird to me. the rpc tends to cherrypick what villains are acceptable and what aren't, especially if the character had committed some form of sexual assault or dubious consent. it's just very odd considering people will be okay with murderers.
with that being said, i get WHY people don't write with depictions of such muses and it's because most people will either ignore, erase, or romanticize it. way too often will i see someone pick up a truly disgustingly fucked up muse and most of the posts will be like "omg whos gonna kiss them <3" MF WHAT !!!!! there are some who write niragi from aib ( canon sexual assaulter and attempted rapist ), vegas from kinnporsche ( canon sexual assaulter with dubious consent sexual intercourse with their kidnapped, imprisoned victim ), gangjae from my name ( canon attempted rapist ), and some others i can't recall off the top of my head — and they could be incredibly compelling characters to explore with caution and yet all that's focused on is shipping and smutting and woobifying them. isn't it funny that it's se/east - asian men and that the ships focused on are mlm? hm.
— i dont care how much asian media you consume, u will never be asian and you will never understand what it is to be asian. and i especially do not like when non - asians use asian pseudonyms. it's giving suki waterhouse. just don't do it. if u are reading this, and u are not asian and u are using an asian name — change it. i cannot tell who's asian irl and who isn't bc i don't always pay attention to irl posts but please..........please. hahahahah PLEASE.
Thank you for your answer!! I sent this ask before creating this blog.
On the consummation of their marriage: I do still believe that was rape; by saying he was gentle I only meant that he did not physically harm her and seemed upset by her tears, in contrast to subsequent couplings where she was in pain and he didn’t care when she cried.
I really wish Irri or Jhiqui had been a perspective character. I’d really like to know what other Dothraki thought of Drogo and his relationship to Dany. Or even Doreah, although she’s not Dothraki, she is a grown adult unlike Dany, Jhiqui, and Irri, and would have more wisdom.
Her marriage to Drogo is so sad. I really think her love for him is a coping mechanism. Many victims come to love their abusers and will excuse their actions endlessly, which is a really difficult mindset to escape. It was also likely a product of the way Viserys abused her. Viserys was overtly violent and threatened her routinely, and she loved him anyway. Drogo, who offered her protection, must have seemed much better. When someone has been abused by someone so close to them for so many years, they may fail to recognize what it really means to be treated with love.
What do you think of Khal Drogo? As someone who relates to and projects onto Daenerys more than any other fictional character, I have really complex feelings about him. I relate to Dany so much that I feel what she feels as I read. I felt her fear of him at first, then her love, and her grief. But as a 24 year old woman now, I cannot help but feel revulsion in my gut about a man older than I am bedding a girl of her age. I know that we can assume taking wives that young was acceptable for the Dothraki but it still twists my gut that he felt attracted to her. I also question the nature of their love. She certainly loved him, but was it a love born out of Stockholm syndrome? Of survival? Did she come to love him because if she didn’t, she would’ve gone mad? And did he truly love her? He was gentle when they consummated their marriage but then continued to bed her even when she cried. Did he simply love her as the mother of his unborn child? Would he have loved her had she not conceived? There’s also the matter that he declared that he wanted to rape the wives of Westerosi knights and enslave their children, which are things that are obviously condemnable, things that Dany herself is not okay with. What do you think?
Hi nonnie! I totally understand relating to Dany, so first of all there's nothing wrong with feeling her love and grief for Drogo. It just means Dany's chapters are very well-written, and Dany is herself a very-well written character. You can feel what she's feeling when you're reading and still know that Drogo raped her. If some people come at you for this, ignore them.
He did rape her even the first time. Some will argue that she said yes in the end, but she said no before. She was sold to him, she spent the whole chapter fearing what would happen, and she didn't have a choice. What would have happened if she hadn't finally said yes, one time? He would have let it go? Of course not. I also have to talk about the reactions someone’s body can have, as it’s used to say Drogo didn’t rape Dany as much as her finally saying “yes”. It happens more often than people think it does. A man can be raped by a woman, for example, and his body will react to make it possible. I’m trying to not be too graphic here, but it’s important. Well, a woman’s body can also have a reaction that people will consider as consent, when it’s not. This belongs in the list of the very long reasons why a victim of rape or sexual assault will not consider themselves as a victim, or will not dare to go to the police nowadays.
Another thing: when I say Dany was sold to Drogo, I'm not just talking about an arranged marriage which benefits both parties, like it happens in Westeros. First, the Dothraki culture is very different (for example, Drogo could have shared her), and Illyrio made profit of this wedding, which means she was traded. She was a slave, not just a woman in an arranged marriage. She knows what it's like, and that's why she's fighting slavery afterwards.
Basically, Dany didn't have a choice during her marriage to Drogo. Never. Yes, she cried. Yes, she was afraid. Yes, he raped her more than once, because she didn't consent. And saying yes once (although I’ve talked about how this “yes” doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape) doesn’t mean you consent for the next times. While the concept of marital rape didn't exist in those times, we know what it was:
“Yet every night, some time before the dawn, Drogo would come to her tent and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he rode his stallion. He always took her from behind, Dothraki fashion, for which Dany was grateful; that way her lord husband could not see the tears that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain.”
Daenerys III, A Game of Thrones
She thinks about suicide as the only way out:
“Day followed day, and night followed night, until Dany knew she could not endure a moment longer. She would kill herself rather than go on, she decided one night.”
Daenerys III, A Game of Thrones
She made the best of her situation though, to survive. What's interesting in Dany's chapters is that she blames her brother Viserys. I'm not saying she's wrong, but she's not blaming Drogo. Why? Because after adapting to the Dothraki culture, Dany felt safe with Drogo, loved even. It's called being an unreliable narrator, and as we read Dany's chapters in the first book, we can start thinking she's with a man she loves and who loves her. It's not the case: she's his slave. It’s only when Dany stops showing weakness that he seems to care about her. But Drogo also had a powerful impact on her. Dany starts to make decisions and come into power after her marriage to Drogo. She starts to stand up to her abusive brother after her marriage to Drogo. So her own feelings towards Drogo are still very confused:
“Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and I... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?”
Daenerys II, A Storm of Swords
This is just one example, but while Dany is against slavery and does realize she was Drogo’s possession, in her mind Drogo was good to her.
No, I don't believe Drogo ever loved Dany. The nicest things he says about her is when she's carrying his son. But it's very hard to guess what Drogo is thinking, as we don't have his POV. In fact, a huge issue with GRRM is that he doesn’t give any backstory to Drogo or any Dothraki. We do have a backstory or a POV for characters who are abusers and/or rapists, but they’re white. Without knowing anything about Drogo besides Dany’s thoughts, it’s easy to either romantize him or villainize him more than the others.
In the Dothraki culture, for Drogo, there’s literally nothing wrong with what he said he would do to get the throne for his son (again, it’s not for Dany). She’s not okay with it, because as much as she adapted to the Dothraki culture to survive, she’s against rape and slavery. She put a stop to the rape and enslaving of the Lhazareen women because she believes it to be wrong, despite having come to value aspects of the Dothraki culture.
“Princess”, he said, “you have a gentle heart, but you do not understand. This is how it has always been. Those men have shed blood for the khal. Now they claim their reward.”
Daenerys VII, A Game of Thrones
When Jorah tells her this, he’s stating a fact. Is there even a word for rape in Dothraki? They don’t understand why Dany says she wants no rape, she’s even being told that those riders do honor to those women. Why am I going there, after explaining that Drogo didn’t love Dany, that she was raped many times, that she was a slave? Because you asked me what I thought of Drogo, not just his relationship with Daenerys. And the answer is: I don’t know, because I don’t know him, only what he did to Daenerys.
“The knight gave her a curious look. “You are your brother’s sister, in truth.” “Viserys?” She did not understand. “No,” he answered. “Rhaegar.” He galloped off.”
—Jorah to Dany in AGoT, said while she claimed women as hers so no harm would come to them.
For this passage and others, I definitely don’t believe that Rhaegar raped Lyanna. Robert is the only character so far who has thought ill of him. Granted, I’m only on ACoK, but even Ned didn’t seem to bear hatred for Rhaegar. By all accounts, he seems to be a noble man.
But I also have trouble believing that Lyanna was his lover. I know that the books will most likely follow the show with this, but hear me out. Lyanna hates Robert’s promiscuous nature and specifically condemns it. To run off with a married man would be pretty hypocritical. And maybe she was a hypocrite, but that line from Jorah made me think otherwise. I haven’t checked timelines to see if it would make sense, but could Lyanna have already been pregnant BEFORE she was “abducted” by Rhaegar?
Both Ned and Cersei fear that Robert would react with violence if he found out Cersei’s kids were not his. Could Lyanna have feared the same? Could it be that the love between Lyanna and Rhaegar was platonic in nature, and he was taking her under his protection because she feared Robert? Or perhaps she wasn’t pregnant yet but still feared Robert and fell pregnant with another man’s child while under Rhaegar’s protection.
Given that Dany was trying to save these women specifically from rape, it’s also possible that Lyanna’s pregnancy was the result of rape by another man, but if I had creative control, I wouldn’t do this because I don’t want another story about rape. I’d even considered that maybe she sought Rhaegar’s protection after Robert himself raped her, but that would require an exception to the rule that Robert’s bastards all look like him, and Ned would need to not know what Robert did. Which is still possible. It could’ve happened and Lyanna feared that bearing his child would mean she could never escape Robert, so she sought shelter to make sure Robert would never find out. But again, I’d much prefer that Jon’s conception be the result of a consensual encounter.
It’s most likely that Rhaegar and Lyanna were lovers, I know. But the fact that Jorah said that to Dany specifically when she was giving these women protection made think: wouldn’t it be interesting if Lyanna, Westeros’s Helen of Troy, was being hidden for her protection? If Robert’s rebellion was triggered not because one woman was so beautiful and desirable, but because one man’s lust and rage was so fearsome?
(Sarcasm) Oh yeah they’re totally similar because um *checks notes* man who can use weapons brings girl who can use weapons from point A to point B
Someone: *compares Joel Miller to child abuser/child murderer/attempted child r*pist Sandor Clegane and likens Sandor's abusive dynamic with Arya to Joel's father/daughter dynamic with Ellie*
Me:
Thoughts from an evolutionary biologist: Genetics is also like… slightly more complicated than that. The amount of DNA you share with a relative, aside from your parents, is variable. We can guarantee we share 50% (by direct descent) of our DNA with our parents, and we max out at 50% for any aunt or uncle (if I’m doing the math right, I’m not fully awake yet…although it’s extraordinarily unlikely that you’ll be that related to them, statistics-wise, average is gonna be 25%), and at 25% for each of our grandparents and cousins. It just depends on which copies of genes each person inherits. You’re likely more related to one of your grandparents than the others. You may share more DNA with your siblings than you do with either parent, or you might share less.
Of course, this is talking about similarity by direct descent. Your DNA might be even MORE similar to your relatives depending on the rate of homozygosity (for anyone who doesn’t do genetics: there are variations in the code at given locations in the genome. We each have two copies of each gene, with the exception of mitochondrial DNA, which comes only from our mothers, and sex chromosomes for men since they only have one X and one Y and the two chromosome carry different genes. There are typically two or more possibilities of variation in these specific locations. If you have two of the same, you are homozygous for that locus. If you have two different copies, you are heterozygous). Small populations that experience little migration (or simply populations that do not allow for interbreeding with other populations) will accrue higher rates of homozygosity over time and individuals will end up more related to each other based on identical sequences even if there isn’t any mating between direct relatives. So if your family consists of all people with blonde hair, blue eyes, attached earlobes, no dimples, no widows peak, no cleft chin, including the ones who married into the family (I used these examples because they guarantee homozygosity at their associated loci because they are recessive and require homozygosity to be expressed. You might be homozygous if you have brown eyes, but we can’t guarantee that because brown eyes are dominant and don’t require homozygosity for expression) your DNA will be more identical to all of your relatives because you all have the same copies of genes. This is how populations become “inbred.” To say a population is inbred doesn’t mean that the individuals are all reproducing with direct relatives. It just means that, due to a lack of migration, genetic variation has been lost and the rate of homozygosity has gone up. Valyrians in Westeros, because they try to only reproduce with Valyrians, are going to be a highly inbred group of people regardless of which Valyrian they reproduce with. It’s really here nor there for them genetics wise whether or not they reproduce with a sibling or a cousin or a Valyrian even less “related” (by direct descent) because so much of their DNA is already going to be identical either way.
But in modern times, this isn’t why incest is taboo. Our avoidance of incest *is* an evolutionary mechanism to avoid inbreeding. But we develop our rejection of relatives as mates based on lived experience. We can’t see each other’s DNA. Our brains don’t know who our relatives our. We infer this. When adults raise a child, their brain recognizes them as offspring whether or not there’s any relation. When you’re raised as siblings, your brain infers this relationship. That’s why it’s rather uncommon for very close childhood friends to develop romance later in life. When you spend so much time with someone as a child, you brain will assume you must be relatives. Because of the way our brains usually reject relatives as mates, most examples of incest involve abuse and coercion, especially since most involve age differences and the associated power dynamics, especially when there’s a whole generation separating the individuals. If it was really about avoiding inbreeding, we’d be having the same moral reaction to small isolated populations on islands and we’d judge people who’s partners look fairly similar to them (which happens often because we’re drawn to familiarity. For this reason, siblings separated at birth often feel attracted to eachother without knowing they’re siblings. Their features are familiar but they didn’t have the lived experience required for their brains to recognize eachother as relatives). But… we don’t. To give a personal example, this is why Jonrya isn’t my cup of tea (don’t hate it though, just personal preference, no judgement here) but I love Jonerys. The former would likely recognize each other as relatives due to their upbringing, but the latter never knew each other growing up. Would it be possible in real life after years of separation for people raised as siblings to fall in love? Probably. Is it possible in Westeros? Of course. Like I said, no judgement there.
Based on canon, we can assume that Valyrians have lost via evolution this mechanism that rejects their relatives as mates. There would be evolutionary incentive for this to happen. It isn’t impossible for selection to favor inbreeding and it’d be plausible for them. If we assume it’s true that a certain % Valyrian blood is required for dragon riding, they directly benefit from the effects of inbreeding. The fitness advantage conferred by bonding with a dragon outweighs any negative effects of the inbreeding, so individuals who are not repulsed by mating with relatives are going to be more “fit.” The smaller the reproducing population, the faster evolution occurs. This is all just my headcanon as an evolutionary biologist, but it would make perfect sense in-universe for the Valyrian lineage to have simply lost the instinct that makes them repulsed by incest.
But more importantly: it’s fiction. My headcanon aside, GRRM has not given us reason to think that Targaryen incest is abusive the way real life incest is. Some Targaryen marriages are miserable (i.e., Helaena and Aegon II) but not because they’re incestuous. Our morals may dictate what we personally like (Daemyra isn’t a ship I love, but I feel very neutral about it, no hate or judgement, and I do like to think that Daemon loved Rhaenyra to the end because I love Rhaenyra and want her to be happy) but we can’t use our morals to decide what’s moral in-universe. We have to look for evidence GRRM has given us and he has not given us evidence that the Targaryens are repulsed by incest and thus must be abused and coerced into these relationships.
Regular viewers: Daemon and Rhaenyra are uncle/niece. It is better than sibling marriage. Me, a medical student studying genetics... They are also cousins once removed by Aemma and twice C1R by Baelon/Alyssa (Viserys is sibling/cousin to Daemon), so it adds another roughly 18% of shared DNA between them to regular 25%.
And considering their parents and grandparents were hella inbred, they tranferred more genes to their children. Hm. From a purely genetical POV, Daemon and Rhaenyra are closer to reg. siblings. But shhh. Let's not tell this to all incestphobes in this fandom.
Ah nonnie is this about my Aegon-Helaena shippers call-out post? If it is, let me clarify that I have zero problems with fictional incest between siblings, I literally shipped the Borgia siblings who on top of that were real people 😇 I have a problem with Aegon and Helaena specifically because Helaena was a 13 yo child forced to marry a canon rapist who despised her (and everybody else) and their shippers are crackheads as a whole, as you saw in my post. And the reason I ship Daemyra is not because they are not that incestuous, I ship them because they are hot AF.
But thank you for your info.
k so i was wrong abt the keys thing
“I learned to put my keys in between my fingers to use them as a weapon if I needed to” as a Universal Woman Experience.................
.....as someone who was in Krav Maga, I have serious questions
there is an on-going femicide in quebec, canada
and it’s not received the proper attention it deserves in the Canadian news, so I thought it would be good to make a post for ppl who aren’t Canadian as well to be informed and help the victims’ families, organisations and women’s shelters.
femicide is defined as the murder of women based primarily or solely on their gender. in almost all cases of femicide, the killer is a man close to the victim, most likely a romantic partner or family member. so far in 2021, there have been 8 murders in the Quebec area. the majority of these victims are Black and Indigenous women. all of them are victims of domestic abuse.
MARLY EDOUARD was a 32 year old Haitian musician, radio host and producer. on february 19th, she called 911 to report that she was receiving multiple violent death threats and met with police officers. less than 48 hours later, she was found murdered in front of her building. say her name.
REBEKAH HARRY was a 29 year old black woman and mother of one young boy under the age of 12. she was murdered by her boyfriend, Brandon McIntyre. in 2013, McIntyre was found guilty of domestic abuse towards his ex-wife. he beat Rebekah into a coma, and she died three days later on march 23rd. say her name.
KATALUK PANINGAYAK-NALUIYUK was a 43 year old Indigenous woman, mother of six and grandmother of two. she was murdered by her partner, Peter Ainalik, who took his own life afterwards. her sister, who has herself been in an abusive relationship for 19 years, confirmed that Kataluk’s been a victim of domestic abuse by Ainalik as well for many years.
NANCY ROY was a 44 year old woman. she was murdered on by her 53 year old ex-boyfriend, Jean-Yves Lajoie. Nancy’s mother told news and police that Nancy had been struggling for weeks to break up with Lajoie, who was possessive as well as physically and emotionally abusive. just days after she left him, Nancy was stabbed to death in her home by Lajoie.
NADÈGE JOLICOEUR was a 40 year old black woman and mother of five children. she was stabbed to death by her boyfriend, Enock Fenelon, in his taxi before he took his own life on march 19th. her family confirmed Nadège was a victim of domestic abuse which lead to her murder at the hands of Fenelon. say her name.
MYRIAM DALLAIRE (28) and her mother SYLVIE BISSON (60) were murdered on march 1st in their home by Myriam’s ex-boyfriend Benjamin Soudin. Myriam had left soudin after she accused him of domestic abuse.
ELISAPEE ANGMA was a 44 year old indigenous woman from Kuujjuaq and mother of four children. she was murdered by Thomassie Cain, her ex-partner, who had just been released from prison after abusing her then attacking her once more after she filed a restraining order against him.
Across Canada, 54% of the victim services surveyed reported an increase in the number of victims they served during the pandemic. Calls for domestic disturbances were also up 12% during the first few months of the pandemic. Keep in mind that the majority of victims of domestic abuse never call the police or speak up about their experiences in fear of their abusers.
I haven’t been able to find any gofundmes and donation links set up by the families of the victims. however, here are women’s shelters in Quebec and in Canada you can donate to and resources for women in Canada.
https://href.li/?https://www.chezdoris.org/en/
Since the incel community is getting a lot of headlines rn, I just wanna make a quick reminder that anyone who tries to console and pity them by attaching isolation and loneliness is full of shit since the incel community is vehemently against including gay men, who are statistically more likely to commit suicide due to isolation. They even make memes and valorise suicide. They’re not here to save men from themselves just like how meninists never gave a shit about police violence against black men. It’s rationalised white male entitlement and violent misogyny masquerading as community
It’s All A Fucking Joke, Right
In the few months I’ve been modding at fuckyeahasexual and touring ace Tumblr, there’s been a very. Steady. Stream of info that detail horrifically abusive situations and overall poor mental unhealth. Two a week in the inbox if I’m lucky, usually around seven-ten.
And there’s been so many, I can officially categorize all 500+ of these kinds of asks and submissions into an extensive bulletlist of Why Asexual Exclusionary Radicalism Is Incredibly Toxic And Shitty;
Coming Out To Family, Friends, And Employers
“My parents keep telling me that I’m something else, and it’s making me doubt my sense of judgement, not just about my sexual identity, but also about everything in general.”
“My family, friends, and co-workers keep referring to me as an inanimate object in a manner that’s clearly meant to humiliate and devastate me. Nothing I say will get them to stop.”
“My parents vocally/bodily forced me to undergo medical examinations, some of them concerning my sexual organs, many of them concerning blood tests and other trauma-centric procedures.”
“My family is intervening with my private life by changing my schedule to include exercise, socialization, friend influences, and whatever they think can ‘change’ me.”
“My friends/co-workers no longer respect my bodily boundaries when I came out to them, because they no longer see me as someone who should be respected. They regularly touch, fondle, grope, and prod me without permission, and/or verbally harass me, and don’t take my objections seriously.”
“My family, friends, and co-workers no longer just harass me, but also anyone I’m currently dating because they view my significant other as pathetic, underserved, or even being abused.”
First Few Days Of Dating
“My date got irrationally angry and confrontational when I came out to them, in a manner that made me fearful.” (SO many of these.)
“My date immediately lost any respect they had for my boundaries, no longer asked for consent, and {tried to} force themselves upon me.” (A lot of these, too)
“My date tried to verbally circumvent any boundaries and issues I confessed to, and it made me feel like I was in danger.”
“I didn’t come out to my date at first, and when they found out, they radically changed their behavior in an attempt to control and manipulate our new relationship to their benefit.”
Long-Term Relationships
“My partner has forcefully and radically changed our long-term relationship after finding out about my asexuality, and I’m now trapped and controlled in a way that I wasn’t before.”
“My partner broke up with me/is fighting with me because of my asexuality, and trying to make it seem like I’m hurting them. It’s made me doubt myself and my ability to trust my own intentions.”
“My partner is slowly changing from what was once supportive of my asexuality, and I’m wondering when I have the right to be worried and when I’d be overreacting. I’m aware of the worst case scenario, but I also worry that I’m being selfish and childish - which are things I’ve been told all throughout my asexual experience.”
Self-Care And Self Development
“I don’t trust my ability to say either yes or no in sexual situations, and this has extended to my life in general. I don’t feel comfortable in my ability to self-determinate.”
“The lack of authority, definition, and schooling of the concept of asexuality has made me very uncomfortable with what I think I am, and that uncertainty haunts me every waking moment.”
“I think it’s too late/too early to tell if I’m asexual, but the longer I hesitate, the worse my mental health and emotional wellbeing gets. I’m effectively stuck.”
“I see no benefit in coming out, or even identifying as asexual. There’s no positivity, role models, or supportive community for what I consider a big and scary part of my overall identity.”
“I think this was sexual abuse, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”
“I think I was treated badly by my parents/friends/partner, but I’m wondering if I’m just being selfish and childish.”
“I want to believe that I’m deserving of equal freedom and human respect paid to other, not asexual people, but people tell me I’m being selfish and childish.”
“No one encourages this part of me. And that makes me feel forgotten and abandoned in general.”
Shut the fuck up about your petty beef with tumblr bloggers and youtubers and Archie comics or whatever. I literally do not care, I can’t care. I see these messages every goddamn day - this post was written and drafted a month ago, and I very easily compiled most of this bulletpoint list from scratch, just by eyeing what I see in the askbox and what comes across my dash.
‘Ace discourse’ anger is empty and so meaningless. This is what I see by being part of this one 17k follow asexual ask blog for maybe half a year. I am so Done with all the faux rage posts and all the false positivity about how it’s ok to NOT be ace and all the acephobia that falls perfectly in line with the gaslighting typical of acephobia-101 while also having the audacity to claim it not so.
This is what’s real and I want to bleed it into your goddamn eyes.
hey, here’s a radical idea: someone saying “no” when you ask for sex is never an act of abuse, and saying otherwise in a conversation about rape victims is deplorable.
if there are other things that were done to you that were abusive, your trauma is always valid. but “not having sex with me” can never be added to the abuser’s list of offenses, because you are never owed sex.
if your partner says the reason they said ‘no’ was that you’re ugly, or stupid, or any number of demoralizing things- that is an act of abuse. but the act of abuse is in attacking your sense of self worth, and not in refusing sex.
the abusive act is that your abuser attributed their ‘no’ to a supposed lack of worthiness on your part. but denying sex in itself is never an act of abuse. when this occurs, you point out that you had your self worth attacked.
you don’t go around preaching that saying ‘no’ to sex is an abuse tactic, and you especially don’t do it in the chronological middle of a discussion regarding people being pressured into sex.
The “only have sex with people you are attracted to” discourse may be a reaction against women and teen girls (often lesbians in denial) being coerced into sex with people/men they didn’t want to have sex with, with their rapists not respecting “I’m not attracted to you” as a reason to refuse. So the logic is that if it’s a thing to have sex with people you’re not attracted to, that will be used as a weapon in lgbtq spaces to coerce/rape even more young women. Do you have thoughts on this?
Wanting to have sex with someone doesn’t require enthusiasm or attraction, but it does require want.
It’s up to the individual to decide if the desire to have sex with another person is rooted in expectations from others, or for personal interest.
I’ve had a lot of sex most of it wanted, some of it emphatically not, and some of it falling into an uncomfortable grey area.
I’m going to give examples of some of my sexual encounters, because humans are exceptional pattern matchers, and this is a very difficult and complex concept to express verbally. Usually it would be the kind of thing you learn from experience, first or second hand. So, here’s some experiences, second hand.
As an example of “enthusiastic consent,” there was a man I knew in college, let’s call him Kismet. Kismet and I had a very fraught relationship. We never dated, and in fact were rivals in our software development department. We had more shouting matches than not, about what constitutes meaningful fucking technical comments, primarily.
We also had a lot of extremely aggressive sex. We both looked forward to it at the end of long projects, and as I was something of a slut at the time, I enjoyed flirting shamelessly with pretty boys and girls in front of him as foreplay. When we fucked, it was with extreme desire on both our parts. We were hot college kids with a lot of emotions and shit. It was everything your entry level consent education courses say it should be: freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic, explicit, specific.
I would consider that the kind of gold standard that a lot of people imagine, but it’s only one way to have consensual sex.
As another example of consent, I was a popular “practice partner” in school. I always happily agreed to let other queer kids use my body as a way to explore their own desires. It was fun. I wasn’t attracted to most of them, in fact I only remember two of them out of around a dozen. I doubt most of them were attracted to me, beyond the fact that I was representative of some kind of opportunity. We all had fun, learned about ourselves, and moved on. This is what consent looks like without attraction, but with enthusiasm.
I have long term partners, now. And lifelong disabling illnesses. Sometimes, we want to have sex, but it’s impossible to get the energy together to be excited by the idea of it. Sometimes, we have sex lazily or after taking my painkillers, to make the physical activity of it easier. This is what consent looks like, without enthusiasm, but with want.
I also do sex work. I was full service for a while, and that required a very different type of consent. I had no desire to sleep with my clients. Only one was even moderately attractive to me physically, and all of them were rude and condescending. But, I did want their money, and I was more than willing to provide a service to get it. So, by extension, I wanted to have sex with them, for reasons other than my own physical satisfaction.
It was the easiest work I’ve ever done, and if I hadn’t literally doubled my weight in the last 6 years, I would go back to it. Because it benefits me. This is what convent looks like with none of the trappings of desire. A choice made on the belief that it will benefit you. This is how you can want to have sex with a person, without wanting that person’s body or mind.
That’s where the bottom line of consensual sex lies for me.
Then there’s coercive rape.
That’s the name for the type of pressuring you describe. And I’ve been there too. Careless sex positivity that doesn’t adequately educate kids on what the bottom line of consent is, is one of the worst things that a victim of this kind of rape can use against themselves.
Sexual consent is, at its root, no different than contract consent or medical consent: if you’ve been lied to, or been pressured into signing, it’s not a valid deal. It’s just rape.
Knowing what consent looks like, in all its forms, can help keep kids from getting cornered into sexual experimentation they’re too young for, or too scared of, just because someone else tells them to.
But, so often, people focus on only a single form of consent, that gold standard one up there that I led with. And then every other consensual act on this list becomes a cloud of grey that covers up what consent can look like. And if you don’t know what it looks like, it’s too easy to get confused and end up lost and hurt.
The fault always lies with the rapist here (though in cases like this, many of them don’t even know they’re being rapists), but when you learn that you could have avoided it somehow, it’s very easy to say you SHOULD have avoided it, and wrack yourself with guilt.
The whole “nuanced discussions of consent will get more girls coercively raped” line of thought is fault.
By having nuanced discussions of consent, more men will realize that their behaviour is unacceptable, and more women will be given the confidence to explain exactly why it’s unacceptable.
These kinds of discussions benefit people.
If, after having been given all this information, a man still does not take “no” for an answer, then he was never operating in good faith to begin with, and needs to be kicked in the teeth and sent away until he gets his act together.
But, generally, people want to be good, and having a discussion about the myriad types of consent will help people be good.
Rape Escape
Easy and very effective
Requires nothing but your body
Includes attack
I’ll make sure you never get a date again.
Over two years ago, I dated a boy for around 5 or 6 months. Let’s call him X. Ultimately, I broke up with X because he routinely sexually assaulted me, cheated on me, threatened to tell my mother horrific and untrue things about me if I left him, and many other things of that sort. We don’t talk regularly, but every time he likes a girl he’ll pretend to text me accidentally and tell me about it in an attempt to make me jealous. I have a friend who X talks to regularly, and this friend will then tell me the name of the girl he’s crushing on.
Every time this happens, I send the girl a DM. I tell her that I heard that X has been crushing on her, and that she’s free to make her own choices about dating him, but before she should do so she should know the kind of person he really is. I then tell her the truth about what he did to me, sprinkling in some old screenshots I’ve saved just for this occasion. I make sure to include that it’s entirely possible he may have changed, but should they date she should look out for those warning behaviors. I ask her to please not share any of the information I’ve given her, as he could still tell my mother many of the thing she threatened to before (not that she would believe him).
So far, I’ve done this with 4 girls. None of them have ever said anything, and all of them have unexpectedly stopped talking to him out of nowhere (according to the mutual friend). He posts on social media all the time about how he can never get a date, and occasionally rants about how women are so picky and choosy and always flake out halfway through a flirtatious relationship.
It may seem over the top, but the sexual abuse I suffered through has deeply affected me, and I fully intend to make sure he can never get a date again. Take that, b*tch. (source)
Tw // sexual assault discussions, CSA
"The word 'rape' is really harsh. But at the same time, I had to leave my body mentally in order to stay physically there. Then it's against your will."
I found this quote in a book today (the book is called "Cult Trip" by Anke Richter if you're interested - I do recommend it, but look up the trigger warnings; it contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault). I think it's important for people to hear, especially SA survivors, like we are. <3
Sending love to anyone who relates
"you cant handle jokes" and the joke in question is "i hope you get raped" ! what ! ! !
