“By Hays’ reasoning, penetrating a rectum with a penis is a violation of how God meant humans to function. However, penetrating a human body with a sword, a common way to kill people in biblical times, is acceptable. Apparently human bodies were designed to be penetrated by metal implements, but not by flesh.”
― Hector Avalos
Category Archives: Opinion
Double-Edged Sword: How Homophobia and Violence Against Women Coexist
“Truth: Rape does indeed happen between girlfriend and boyfriend, husband and wife. Men who force their girlfriends or wives into having sex are committing rape, period. The laws are blurry, and in some countries marital rape is legal. But it still is rape.”
― Patti Feuereisen, Invisible Girls: The Truth About Sexual Abuse–A Book for Teen Girls, Young Women, and Everyone Who Cares About Them
I Ain’t Reading All That; I’m Happy For U Tho, or Sorry That Happened
“Doomscrolling is nothing new, people used to do the same with tv remote, switching channel after channel, rarely settling on any one program. And heads buried in social media news feed is nothing new either – before smartphone and internet heads used to be buried in actual physical newspapers. Only the means have changed, not the habit. This is not advancement, it’s recurring derangement. I’ll call it progress when you put down your phone or remote and actually listen to another person. Sure, phones can be a supplement to organic conversation, but never a replacement.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science
Permanent Recession: Homophobia’s Hefty Economic Pricetag
If government statistical agencies and economists saw a 1
percent drop in a country’s economic activity that lasted for a while, they
would eventually call it a recession. So in a sense, homophobia and
transphobia puts economies in a permanent recession, with economic output
below what the people of a country could produce.
– M.V. Lee Badgett- The Economic Case for LGBT Equality – Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All
Op-ed: Algorithmic Justice Won’t Save Sudan and DRC
“But if you sit around thinking what to do and end up not doing anything, why bother even thinking about it? You’re better off going out on the town and having a good time. No, we have to think and act. That’s what we’re doing here, and that’s what you have to do.”
― Elvia Alvarado, Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo
Gospel of Hatred: Recipe for Fatal Trust and Regressive Revolutions
“The prophecy, like an angered beast, had gone berserk and was destroying his mind with the ferocity of madness . . . until all that he knew, all that was him, all that had become him was left in disarray. To my brother, Ikenna, the fear of death as prophesied by Abulu had become palpable, a caged world within which he was irretrievably trapped, and beyond which nothing else existed.”
― Chigozie Obioma, The Fishermen
Pink Camouflage – The Pinkwashing of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
“In the case of Israel-Palestine, a one-state solution will arise only on the U.S. model: with extermination or expulsion of the indigenous population.”
― Noam Chomsky, Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on the U.S.-Israeli War on the Palestinians
Gospel of Hate: How Uganda Became an Ideological Battleground
“The Government of Uganda must significantly improve its record and hold accountable those responsible for flawed election conduct, violence, and intimidation. The U.S. Government will continue to evaluate additional actions against individuals complicit in undermining democracy and human rights in Uganda, as well as their immediate family members.” – Antony Blinken
Red, Yellow, White, and Blue: How the Vietnam War Shaped US and Global LGBTQIA+ Rights Discourse
“A lot of them were like prissy. 1 mean looked on the faggoty-type side. You could tell they were corpsmen.
But I mean if that guy was in marine boot camp he’d of got bounced out. Or he’d have so many problems within the system that he fucking wouldn’t be able to hack it. He’d go out of his mind. He’d be called “a faggot.” – ARVN as Faggots: Inverted Warfare in Vietnam
Hollywood Inclusivity and African-South Asian Queer Visibility
“That episode ended. I waited for the following week to see more. This was
before you could binge-watch series. When the day came, I worked things
out again so I’d have the TV to myself. The plot went something like this: Guy’s dad doesn’t know he’s gay, keeps trying to get son with girl, but suspects son’s new flatmate is homosexual. I cringed, heart fluttering, whenever the flatmate sauntered into a scene like he had the right to set everyone else on edge.” – Siya Khumalo: You Have To Be Gay to Know God
As Good as a Mile: Inches as Masculinity and Attraction Currency
“With his pendulous penis swinging from side to side, the beast clip-clopped up a rickety flight of stairs led by Pablo Zapata’s wife, who took him through a beaded curtain into a room where a bevy of sullen women reclined on tatty sofas. A collective gasp rang out among the group and many crossed themselves in silent prayer.”
― Kevin Ansbro, The Minotaur’s Son & Other Wild Tales
Elephant in the Room: The True Scale of Suicide in South East Asia
“I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
No Gays in Iran: Dogged Anti-LGBTQIA+ Efforts Hound Queer Iranians at Home and Abroad
“LGBTI people suffered systemic discrimination and violence. Consensual same-sex sexual relations remained criminalized with punishments ranging from flogging to the death penalty. State-endorsed “conversion therapies” amounting to torture or other ill-treatment remained prevalent, including against children. Hormone therapy and surgical procedures including sterilization were mandatory for legal gender changes. Gender non-conforming individuals risked criminalization and denial of access to education and employment.” – Amnesty International
Desirability Politics: The Slow Transformation of “Asian” in Hollywood’s Hierarchy
While continental Asia holds is home to a population of 4.561 billion as of 2018 and is divided into over 45 countries, many of which boast of great ethnic and cultural diversity, the term “Asian” is one that confounds much of the rest of the world. From Japan, North and South Korea, and the PhilippinesContinue reading “Desirability Politics: The Slow Transformation of “Asian” in Hollywood’s Hierarchy”
Matty Healy and the Cult of the White Savior: The Problem with Performative Allyship
“There are so many ways of being of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.”
– James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room
BL Chronicles: The Birth of a Genre and Intellectual Claims
“So you can like girls, but I can’t like boys? Is your love bigger than the love I give? Tell me, what’s the difference between your love and mine? Help me go to hell then.”
– Your Name Engraved Herein, Taiwan
So, Uhm…: Voicing the Crushing Silence of Depression
“If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.
Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.”
― Stephen Fry
Unraveled – Death of S.A Teacher Highlights Casual Racism in China’s Medical Industry
“If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected – those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most! – and listens to their testimony.”
– No Name on the Street, James Baldwin
Colorsplained – The Struggle of Being Mixed-Race in China’s Queer Dating Market
“Intimacy lies in the body and the soul, in scent, in touch and taste and sound. A man whose name you don’t know can tell you a tale to move you to tears, just by filling and emptying his lungs, by moving his tongue and lips, his fingers. Even after, you might never know him.”
― Indra Das, The Devourers
Queer Sexual Economics: Color Theory and the Dark Side of the Moon
“And then he thought, profoundly, how there was something grand about living in hope, but also something terribly unreal and incomplete about it, because when you were hoping, you were not doing or living or experiencing the Now,”
― Larry Kramer, Faggots
Piquing Duck 