Tatakau Shisho, First Episode, Review

Okay, so I decided to give this anime a shot.  It opened up pretty well, with nice almost chilling atmosphere as a person repeats answers in a sort of empty, brainwashed manner to a phonograph. 

Except then, it ruins the somewhat morbid mood of the show with these:

Meet the Boobs.  You will see them more often than her face.  Seriously, this character's face is not shown when she is introduced, only her extremely large physics defying breasts.  This show takes every excuse to pan up her body to show her chest, including a hilarious sequence where she's talking to a woman telepathically and all you see is her breasts.  Shit, I don't know, maybe they are telepathic boobs.

We get a neat battlescene with a lot of action and some gore.  Which is going well, but then the Boobs show up again to kill the mood.

Yes, her shirt is wet.  No, that's not particularly important to anything in the plot.  This show actually has a lot going for it, the story seems interesting overall.  We've got human bombs, brainwashing, cults...but the cheap excuse to show those Boobs is a total buzzkill.  I can like this anime, the one with somber images and hints at an underlying nasty of social systems and torment:

Not this one, which is gratuitous images of ecchi boobs:

On "Safe Spaces"

There are some debates around the notion of "safe spaces" and here are a few of my thoughts:

A space cannot be safe for oppressed people and, to some lesser degree, their supporters if it does not have a general atmosphere and understanding of working towards not engaging in oppression against them.  A safe space for a queer person must be a non-homophobic space, a safe space for a trans person must be a non-transphobic space, a safe space for a black person must be a non-racist space.

Can any place with privileged people (especially with them in the majority) be a completely non-oppressive space?  We all internalize and participate in oppressions, but this is especially true for privileged people, as they benefit from the oppression.  Yes, there are privileged people who work on trying to stop engaging in oppression/combat oppressive systems, but this is often a hard issue with a lot of struggle.

However, if you make it an exclusive space, you end up risking having to police the boundaries of the oppressed class.  Also, it's obvious that even without that issue, you can't just set aside issues of making safe groups which will be mixed by their nature, as well as the issue of multiple axis of oppression.  If I can only have a group of low income (or low income raised), disabled, queer, genderqueer, atheist, etc. people for any activity, that's going to make it really hard to organize any groups at all.

That's not to say that I think there's never any value in exclusive spaces, I just don't think they are an ideal solution in many situations.

I tend to feel that "safe space" like coalition, is something that you build as a part of an ongoing process.  You can't just declare that something is safe, or tell someone something is safe if they express concerns about things going on. 

Maybe it would be better to try and work on building safer spaces rather than declaring safe spaces.

Look, Talking Boobs (a.k.a. Sexual Objectification is Still Totally a Thing)

This is an actual panel from the Ao No Exorcist manga:

Female characters are depicted as sexual objects.  She is reduced to nothing but a pair of waterballoon breasts.  By the way, reading this manga will also teach you that her boobs and top do not obey the laws of physics.  Of course, the bikini has to be magic to keep them from popping out.

Sensa Fatphobic Ads, Part 2

So, here's yet another fatphobic Sensa ad.  This time, I got screengrabs of both the beginning and end result of the animation.

In addition to being organ free at the end, you'll note she must be incredibly short at the beginning too (and grows in height for the end measurements), judging by the text, as she's supposedly the "size 14".  Here's what a size 14 looks like:

The ad both distorts the end body beyond all possibility and misrepresents what a typical size 14 body would look like. 

Just for the record, here's a model who is between size 8 and 10, notice all of the room for organs and such:

Women's bodies come in many shapes and sizes, but none of them come in the shape and size of the end result of these Sensa ads.

Is Genderqueer a Political Identity?

Yes and no.  No, being genderqueer isn’t like being pro-gun control, it is an identity, not a position.  Does being genderqueer identified say something about me and the way I view gender?  Yes, but by that standard, so does the identities of those who are cis, are binary IDed, etc.  If my gender identity is political, so are binary IDed cis people’s.  Binary cisgendered identities are only seen as apolitical insofar as they are treated as the norm and as the default human.  

We often do this with marginalized or stigmatized identities.  The rights and lives of trans people, queer/lgb people, people of color, people with disabilities, women, poor people, colonized people, etc. are seen as objects of public scrutiny and as “political issues”.  But marginalized identities are not inherently more political than centered ones.  Oppression is not primarily an “issue” of the oppressed, rather it is an issue with the oppressors.  If being against an enforced binary gender system is a political position, than the opposite position, being in support of an enforced binary system, is also a political position. 

You know what?  I would fucking love it if being genderqueer were as easily accepted, acknowledged, and given rights as being cis and binary and we didn't have to engage in political and social struggles.  I would fucking love not having to fight for rights, not having to navigate through unfavorable legal and social minefields, not having to swallow the vomit that rises in my throat when confronted with being forced to put myself in a gendered box.  It would make my life so much easier.  I would love to not have to be “political”, but until that day comes, I won’t accept being told to stop fighting to protect myself or others like me (and others not like me who are given shit too).  The frontlines of this “political” struggle isn’t a game to me, it is my life.