Racing Turtles

Does anyone know of good writing specifically about trans women, class and sex work? I feel like sex work is a fantastic place to start analysing class from, esp in a population that disproportionately does sex work, and I feel like the way socioeconomic class division among trans women is ignored is a huge part of the neoliberalisation of trans politics in the maintstream. I'd quite like to write about the intersection of those three or an analysis of class in the trans community starting from sex work, but it'd be cool to find other writing about that if it already exists

RBing this. I've picked up Transgender Marxism and Revolting Prostitutes and I had a chat with someone from SWARM for Red Planet a few months ago, and there is my own experience going FSSW after my income collapsed, but I'd love more sources to draw from esp if they're about trans women and sex work specifically.

A thing that really stood out that I'm probably going to write about was the uniformity of the response from other trans women who I told that I was doing FSSW to be able to pay rent who told me that they'd considered doing it or thought about having to do it if they needed to as well, though the women I was talking to were in a huge variety of different material circumstances. An ex of mine talked about maybe doing FSSW but looking for dyke clients, and it became clear that she was imagining having her extant sex life as is but she would get paid for it. I think in a lot of the discussions I've seen these kinds of "sure I'd just do sw it would be easy" is understood as whorephobia and I don't really disagree that it is but I think it's interesting in a community where sex work is so common that this specific kind of ignorance around sw is also an occlusion of class politics within our community

The social production of a population who are seen as fetish objects by broader society and sometimes by each other means the social production of a class of potential sex workers, and when the usual differences in background, education, racialized identity, etc promote some within that group to a position where they can speak for them despite not having experienced something that constitutes a widespread class trauma it flattens the material realities of transness into a liberal identity category. In short: since liberal allies suddenly love listening to trannies, where are all the trans sex workers of colour?

you absolutely should not read dunmesh for the yaoi, you will be disappointed. dont read it for the yuri either, i did and was sorely disappointed. read it because you have autism and you will be obsessed with this intricate and beautiful world and story and the sincere and complex picture of living with autism and food and class and above all desires, the ones we repress the ones we overindulge the ones that hurt us and the ones no one will allow us to fill

80% of "passing" is having enough money to purchase the clothes and services that will allow you to pass. Please stop holding being able to stealth up as the pinnacle of trans achievement. That place belongs to surviving. It belongs to finding joy. It belongs to love and community, not people who are rich enough to have professional makeup artists and tailors.

Comic about something that happened in 2019

The same exact thing happened to me in my first week into college. I was already so done and kept thinking “pls pls pls I really hope we won’t have to meet tomorrow for class.” A few hours later, our prof sent an email that we won’t be meeting onsite because she got into a car accident. I felt so guilty after that. Thankfully she only suffered minor injuries 😭

I've seen pieces from this extra comic before, but never read the full thing until today. And holy shit does it hammer home just how much the story is about class.

Multiple times, when food comes up in this comic, it’s also in context of money:

I've seen this last panel on the right brought up before in context of like, dungeon meshi's relationship with fat and eating, but in the full context of the comic it really hits how much adventuring directly consumes bodies for money.

As much as this has been part of the story the whole time, showcased as early chapters 19 and 20...

It never fully hit me before how often adventuring comes down to having no other way to make money but to throw yourself into death repeatedly. To be used, whether it’s by individual selfish people (like the resurrection group that is happy to try and get Kabru's group to kill each other to get extra gold from them in chapter 32), or by the greater cog of the Dungeon Economy in general.

Which, to be clear, is all too often how things work in the real world, too. So many jobs burn through the health and lives of workers. Dungeon Meshi just makes it literal in a new way: by making the healing and resurrection, a core part to the adventuring loop, directly use fat, muscle, and energy from the body being healed.

Imagine Amazon, but if you got injured at work, they could literally burn up some of your body to get you back to working sooner. And that was seen as an advantage of the job.

And then you have Laios, thinking about eating monsters:

Not just because he likes monsters a lot. But because it would help. He says something similar in the actual manga too, during the chapter discussing his dream with the Winged Lion

Laios wants to be able to make a home for Falin. He wants to give her a place where she never has to eat alone. And when he gets a party, he wants to give them a way to eat well. And when he runs a country, well…

He wants to ensure that everyone has enough to eat.

Food is political. Food ties into class, and money. What is deemed "proper" to eat, what is a luxury, what is crass… so much of it comes down to money.

Being judged for eating what's available, when what is “proper” isn't affordable, is already a thing that happens. People forced into work that consumes their energy is already a thing that happens.

Dungeon Meshi has a lot of fantastical elements, but boy is its examination of food and class very real.

it really underscores how intelligent, resourceful, and conscientious laios is in the context of a manga that's thought this deeply about where the calories come from and where they go, because laois is BIG. he and fallin are clearly hardy northern peasant stock, inclined to be tall and broadly built, but laios is undeniably fit and healthy, he has a lot of muscle, he has fat over that muscle. considering that healing takes fat, and fat takes food, and food takes money, it suddenly makes brutal sense that his armor is a sound investment even though--or especially because--his sister is a healer. he's the party tank, but to actually function as a tank he needs to go as far as he can with as little damage landed as possible. and it works! he's getting it to work! considering the economic and metabolic pressures in play, even though they're just breaking even, it's impressive as hell that they ARE breaking even.

and it's really cool to consider how this isn't the kind of story where the protagonist gets a big, strong, heroic body for free, or from a miracle, or some cheery montage: laois got his body like that through very, very prudent budgeting.

John grew up playing with secondhand toys, went to a school where the majority of the student body were on scholarship — he probably didn't have much money. Probably same goes for G—, John's childhood friend

But Augustine. Augustine who was the liaison with the project investors and whose little brother was an hedge fund manager... I hope we can all agree that A— grew up rich. Alfred showed up at the cow compound in his leather briefcase and gucci loafers

#augustine grew up so rich that even without his original memory im not sure g1deon registers to him as a full person#and that after there were only 3 other immortals for him to socialize with(via@arrows-for-pens) ^^^

I’m a big fan of the guy from the neighborhood watch logo. he’s got style. pizazz. I want his poise.

I get that he’s supposed to be The Suspicious Bad Guy but he looks so film noir and I am not immune to the genre

however his upturned collar does look a little bit like a jutting lower jaw so he’s got a bit of a goofy Homestar Runner thing going on

Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Planers, 1875

All hail Gustave Caillebotte, the only Impressionist who bothered to say “You know what this art movement doesn’t have enough of? Shirtless rough trade, that’s what!” And then he became the change he wanted to see in the world, and I think that’s beautiful.

i saw this in a museum once and i gotta go off on this for a second– not only is it a gorgeous display of technical mastery over light, darkness, composition, form. it’s also a slap in the face to artistic conventions at the time. at the time, you could have nudes but they had to be heroic. they had to be virtuous. 1875, paris– art was supposed to be elevating. it was for the wealthy, it was to be uplifting, it was so everyone who commissioned the pictures could flex their classics education. okay?

so here’s the floor planers. they’re workmen. they’re workmen. they’re not some rent boy you dolled up with a helmet to be achilles or adonis. artists have been hornily painting working-class models (and sex-worker boyfriends) into their portraits forever, but you’re supposed to frame your appreciation for the male form as an intellectually irreproachable appreciation for the heroic body from literature, or, conversely you could depict the humble beauty of peasants, if you must, but it had to be a sort of ode to nature and the simple life. peasants could be art, as long as they were… out there, you know. in a field. being a metaphor. so there’s your options for looking at a shirtless guy: he’s got to be mythic.

but no. look, here, at the workmen. the floor planers. the workmen’s bodies not dressed up in sandals and helmet, in flowers, on a pedestal. the workmen not employed as some distant paean to an arcadian countryside, not stacking sheaves or holding a lamb or elevating the beauty of nature. they’re here, they’re urban, they’re in a room just like you might have. the workers of your world, in your home, in this reality. the male body as a very real, very nonfigurative tool, humble and employed, but still gorgeous. the beauty of the men that the patrician class pays not to see. the men who come into your mansion through the back door and work unseen and leave unseen. those men. there, right there, this painting, glowing and beautiful.

not adonis. but beautiful.

anyway at the time everyone fucking hated this picture because it’s a direct slap across the classist chops. they were BIG MAD, this was filthy, it was an affront. they hated it. the paris salon rejected it. established intellectuals didn’t want anything to do with this kind of confrontation. it wasn’t art.

i just love that.

like, look at those hot guys go. look at the shine on the floor and the way their arms are. no virtuous framing, no classic allusions. just some regular guys making the floors nice for a rich fucker who never laid eyes on them at all. but here they are: look at them.

they’re still beautiful.

Yes OvO

This is entirely a segue but I wanted to build on roach's mention of pastoral art:

They're landscapes. The reason peasants could be painted/sculpted/written about in pastoral art is because they are presented in it as part of the landscape. This was more literal than we realize when we consider all the ways "rural" residents(in the classical era: slaves) of aristo-plantations were described directly in relation to the land: "salt of the earth", "people of the soil", "common clay/sod", etc etc etc. And why? Cuz the ACTUAL reason for pastoral art was never to celebrate the peasants or nature but to celebrate rich people OWNING it. From the very beginning, from frigging Hesiod, it was to celebrate rich people Owning Nature, and the people who worked it for their profit, and having access to nature which the urban working-class didn't.

when a british actor does an american accent everyone’s like “i didn’t even know they were british until they were on colbert.” but when americans do a british accent everyone’s like “they’re supposed to be from east cocksford but their glottal e’s are north dicksford. shameful.”

Saw an interesting interview with Hugh Laurie talking about this (on playing House and 'getting away with' doing an American accent):

".... because they're much less interested...they don't have that 'Professor Higgins' ear for.... class and background and geography and the way the British are much more attuned to wait a second where are you from and what trick are you trying to pull on me by... with that particular choice of words. I think partly again because it's such a big country nobody really.... it doesn't bother people so much where you're from or why you sound the way you sound. America's a country that's too big to know itself. Someone living in Florida's go no idea how people behave or what they eat or how they dress in Oregon, it's just so far away - whereas we know, of course, we know absolutely everything about... every British drama we watch, we're like, well that's High Wycombe, that could never happen because it's a one way system there! whereas America's so mythically grand, it's too big to know it'self, and that actually has an affect with things like accent. "

Anyway here is your reminder that poor effeminate men existed in the 18th century and any reading of class that acts as tho every poor man was a hyper masculine rugged labourer and every rich man was a effeminate fop is an inherently flawed reading of class 🙃

reblogging again for this extremely important point, thanks for putting it so succinctly @carfuckerlynch

Becca Schuh, Bad Waitress

it’s just hard not to think about the fact that in 1915, JRR Tolkien went to war not with but certainly in the same army and many of the same battles as his 3 best school friends, all nicely upper class young men who had never known much loss, and only he and one other came back alive - and a couple decades later, he wrote a book in which 3 nicely upper class young men (and one very excellent gardener) who have never known much loss go to war together, or at least they start out together, and they all come home alive. (Though one cannot bear it, and does not stay.)

What more it wasn’t just losing his friends, he was a commanding officer of a battalion of working class men. All farmers and miners from the same area of Lancashire. He felt affinity for them, but wasn’t allowed to socialize between the ranks due to military protocol and he hated it. 

 "The most improper job of any man … is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.“

I don’t think it was even 6 months later that he contracted trench fever and was sent home. 

His entire command was wiped out in one charge shortly after, the majority of a whole countryside’s youths slaughtered while he survived. Youths who were brave and steadfast, but thought of as lesser than their superior officers while still being the ones carrying the actual battle. Youths who deserved fellowship, respect, and above all to go home and dance with their own Rosie.

“My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflection of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself”. 

TRIES NOT TO CRY

There is a reason Frodo, who represents the English gentry, in the end falls and is caught by Samwise, who represents the common man.

But there is a soldier in Lord of the Rings who does not come back, and I don’t mean Boromir.

I mean the being who was a common hobbit, but who became corrupted by darkness and poison, who’s face is described in ways reminiscent of a gas mask.

The soldier who doesn’t come home, who is poisoned by gas and stress and insanity.

Is Gollum.

this is the funniest thing i’ve seen all day

because can you imagine the gaang thinks that iroh is the mature one? they’ve not really been around him for that long apart from when hes got his game face on for the war

and with all the story’s that zukos told them all about him, they would probably think that irohs the adult constantly running around after zukos shit

and then after the war ends they finally spend some time around the two of them together and witness zuko dragging iroh away from a cup of tea because ‘uncle the maid saw somebody put poison in it before it left the kitchen you can’t drink it!’ while irohs trying to desperately reach for it like ‘but its my favourite flavour!’

and the gaang are just like

oh

i just realized this very moment that iroh has probably never lived alone, on his own, without support staff. he was a prince his whole life, and a war leader, so he’s smart and wise and great at handling people… but he’s always had people to take care of him.

iroh is clever, patient, tactically brilliant, empathetic, but when has he ever had to develop the kind of self discipline a refugee has?  he’s never had to go hungry before: even in a campaign when rations were tight, he was the prince, he would have gotten enough. he’s never had to make a budget and stick to it: he’s a prince, he would have had secretaries and quartermasters to work with. he’s never had to go all that long without medical care: if he was poisoned, if he was wounded, someone would get him help. even when he was doing some traveling right after lu ten’s death, he was still a prince, still confident, powerful, rich. 

old people learn things too! i think iroh learns a lot over the course of the show, it’s just a lot more subtle because he seems so sagely and confident the whole time. 

By the way isn't it funny how class is never ever mentioned with the whole "ownvoices" thing

Not that you can just neatly be like "look, a book that was written by a poor person!"

but it really feels like the people that are writing the popular/praised poems and books and stuff of our contemporary time are starting to be farther and farther away from like. average people.

There's less and less of the "spent a decade working as a pizza delivery guy, paint salesman, and window washer while writing scenes on napkins behind the pizza place" best-selling writers and more and more of the "graduated from an ivy league school, landed a $700,000 book deal at age 23 and is now a full time writer" best-selling writers

Like this is a big problem with literary magazines, they try to publish writers that are "diverse," but those writers are virtually all people that have the ability to pursue a MFA and/or a PhD in poetry

which, believe me, is a Category of person

I think the thing that drives me the most batshit about the medical fatphobia conversation is that the burden of proof feels so exactly backwards. Just from an obvious best practices standpoint???

Things like intentional malnourishment, intentionally incapacitating vital organs through surgery, denial of potentially lifesaving medical care until those things are done, etc.

Those are all pretty extreme. The kinds of things it feels like a “first do no harm” system should have a lot of solid evidence for before recommending or implementing them.

But they’re so bog standard and accepted and everyone from doctors to your own family will look at you like you’re a flat-earther when you suggest maybe we shouldn’t be defaulting to that.

“We have proved there is an association between larger bodies and certain illnesses!”

Okay, have you proved the fat caused the illnesses?

“No.”

Have you proved people have better long term outcomes from losing weight?

“We can’t.”

Right. And why is that again?

“Well to measure that, we’d have to compare the health outcomes of three populations - thin people, fat people, and fat people who became thin through weight loss.”

So do that.

“But there actually are not enough people who became thin through weight loss and kept it off for us to do a long term study on how that impacts their health. The sample size is too small.”

So you can’t prove that changing fat people to thin people would change their health outcomes to those of thin people.

Because you can’t prove that fat people can reliably become thin in the first place.

But you’re still telling them to do that as your primary prescription.

Even when the recommended and unproven methods to do so are potentially very dangerous.

“Yeah, but”

What if as a doctor I found out pale people get skin cancer more often than darker skin people, so to prevent skin cancer, started recommending tanning to my palest patients? Would that be good health care?

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not what we’re doing.” Isn’t it though???

I’m dropping the bit. I’m losing my shit. I get so used to living in bizarro land but sometimes I just want to shake everyone. Calories are bad science! They are nearly meaningless! The BMI is bad science! It’s nearly meaningless! The presumptions made in weight loss studies are so bad!!! And we’ve known this for decades!!! And we just keep!!! Ruining lives!!! Why are we so invested in this clearly unfounded ideology about bodies???

does anyone remember someone telling you the cheerios joke as a kid. the one about cheerios that live in a cheerio caste system

so there’s this guy, right? and he’s a plain cheerio. they live in a world where there are three kinds of cheerios; there are plain cheerios, the underclass. the worst of all of them. then honey nut cheerios. a middle class. they can live a comfortable life. and then finally, the cinnamon cheerios. they are the wealthiest of all cheerios. they live a good life; they are powerful and rich and happy. and most importantly, once a year, they vote on a plain cheerio to ritualistically feast on. 

unfortunately, this year, it so happens that our cheerio’s number came up. he doesn’t want this to happen! he has a beautiful wife, and several kids. he has an okay job, and most importantly, he wants to live. so he goes to the cheerio bureau and asks what can be done about it. and they say, ‘well, there is one thing, but you might not like it…’. they explain to him that there is a notoriously difficult entrance exam, and any plain cheerio that makes it can be doused in honey nuts and become a honey nut cheerio and therefore be saved from the ritualistic eating. however, there are two caveats: the exam is ridiculously difficult, and to prevent just anyone from taking it, anyone who fails the exam will immediately be subject to death. the second is that plain cheerios are forbidden to fraternize with the upperclasses. he will have to leave his wife and children behind. 

he thinks about it. he talks it over with his wife. the first part doesn’t bother him; he would die anyway if he fails the test. the second part, though, is a lot. he kisses his wife and promises her that if he passes this test, he’ll find a way to find her again. she tells him she loves him and escorts him to the test center. 

(now, this part is very important, so pay attention) when he takes the test, he uses a green pencil, and he’s writing it on blue paper. green pencil; blue paper. the questions are hard. they’ve never tested him this hard in his life. he’s asked to remember obscure cheerio laws, nutritional calculations, seminal essays about cheeriodom. he’s nervous. he’s sweating. he doesn’t know if he can make it. but he looks down at his green pencil and he thinks of his wife. and that love pushes him through. 

the blue paper is being put through the scantron now. he’s waiting, bated breath. and the results come back: a perfect score. he now qualifies to become a honey nut cheerio. 

the dousing is easy; painless and almost comfortable, and suddenly, he has access to a whole world he’s never seen before. beautiful cheerio girls who never would have given him the time of day look at him. he can quit his shitty job and suddenly access dozens of better ones, with superior opportunities and pay. he’s invited to parties- real parties with punch and wine and snacks abound! it’s comfortable, and he settles into a routine fairly quickly. he never does learn what poor plain cheerio was chosen for the feasting in his place. 

he thinks of his wife at times, of course; his children, too. but suddenly, her cheerio face is not as beautiful to him as it once was. and with the new wealth of honey nut women who he can meet, eventually, he starts to… forget. he meets another woman; a honey nut cheerio with a comfortable 9-to-5 middle class lifestyle. she’s pretty and active and kind to him, and soon, they fall in love. they can afford amenities he never could before; they get an okay house, and he is happy. 

but proximity to power means proximity to a greener grass, and the more time he spends away from the plain cheerios, the closer he can see the lifestyles of the cinnamon cheerios. and it doesn’t even compare: cheerio yachts, constant parties, no need to work; they just live it up. the most expensive nights out, the most beautiful women, the biggest houses. it’s incredible. 

and eventually, a nice, pleasant, average lifestyle pales in comparison. he is saved from the death of a plain cheerio, but what kind of life is mediocrity? he goes to the cheerio bureau again and asks if anything can be done. the cheerio tsks. sucks her teeth. thinks. and says, ‘i’m really not supposed to do this, but there is another test you can take. if you pass, you can become a cinnamon cheerio. but this one is higher-stakes than before. if you fail it, you will not only be killed, but your friends and family will as well? are you willing to take that risk?’. the honey nut cheerio thinks for half a second, and just like that; agrees. 

the second test is even harder than before. he’s asked to solve complex calculations; to memorize the geography of the wheat fields from whence they came; to recite hundreds of pages of the cheerio code from memory. now, this time, instead of a green pencil on blue paper, he’s using a blue pencil on green paper. blue pencil; green paper. he looks down at the green paper, and he thinks of his girlfriend. he thinks of his life, and hers, and for just a split second, he thinks of his old wife. where is she now? and finally, he thinks of the life he could lead as a cinnamon cheerio. wealth, beauty, constant parties with no downsides. this is what he wants. 

the scantron is reading his results. he waits. he ruminates. the green paper comes out. he’s passed. 

he is doused in cinnamon. now, he is a god.

life as a cinnamon cheerio is just as perfect as he imagined it. he is happy. he is wealthy. he had to leave his last girlfriend and house behind, sure, but she is barely average compared to the cinnamon cheerio women, all of him are practically falling on themselves to be with him. he has a massive mansion, a cheerio yacht, a cheerio rolex; a fridge that dispenses milk on command. and even better, once a year, he gets to feed on a lowly plain cheerio. the idea that he was ever one of those things horrifies him now. can you imagine!? 

now, he’s at a party, thrown by a wealthy and popular cinnamon cheerio, and the decorations today are a little peculiar. all the flowers are green, and all the grass is blue. why those colours? why today? a beautiful girl sits on the edge of a milk pool, tanning and resting. he gets up and talks to her. she looks so familiar, but he can’t put his finger on it. have they met? 

they strike up a quick conversation, but it’s clear that she wants free drinks before they can engage any further. something about her has him so curious that he doesn’t mind at all. he goes over to the wine table, but there’s such a long line, and waiting would keep him from her. so he goes over to the juice table, but there’s a long juice line too. finally, he goes over to the punch table, and there’s no punch line.

Ima start saying shit like “im retiring for the evening”

more please. and soon. & now