But the truth is that romantic love was killing us—to borrow a phrase from queer writer and theorist Caleb Luna’s essay of the same name—long before COVID-19. Luna points out that the politicized nature of desire inherently impacts the ways that care is distributed, both interpersonally and systemically. These “economies of care,” as Luna calls them, leave those who do not or cannot fit the social mold of expected relationships without care. Luna, along with writer and professor Jina B. Kim, PhD, (in the interest of full disclosure, Kim is a former professor of mine), cite disability justice thinking at the heart of their theories on how love is killing us. Disability justice understands the political implications of carework—and Kim points out that “desire is political when it becomes a rubric for how we determine who is deserving is care.” This leads to the creation of care economies, which understand care as a commodity that most of us have been taught to dole out along a sort of hierarchy where romantic partners sit at the very top. (This is, of course, a particularly American conversion: Less individualistic cultures put more emphasis on caring for parents and other family members, whereas the vaunted U.S. institution of the “nuclear family” is a colonial institution.)
Won't somebody please write a poem about how sexy it is that I am dying of a disease?? Come with me on a journey through the costume design in Crimson Peak, and how an epidemic shaped the fashion of the Victorian Era.
In this episode, Alisha Grauso (@AlishaGrauso), Amanda Timpson (@amandarin), and Jessica Ellis (@baddestmamajama) join host Emily Edwards (@MsEmilyEdwards) in studio to rip him a new one, and provide context for the FBoi Archetype
Abduction as Romance is a media trope where a man kidnaps or imprisons a woman and she eventually falls in love with him. Abduction as Romance is one of a series of popular media tropes where violence against women and abusive male behavior is presented as necessary, exciting, or romantic.