The most important news in today’s Boob(s On Your) Tube is that Natalie is hosting GAY SMOOCHING MARCH MADNESS. (That’s not the official name, but maybe next year.)
This week Kayla had some very complicated feelings about Riverdale, Riese wrote about a show she loves called You Me Her, Carmen recapped the latest Black Lightning and shared some beautiful thoughts on The Fosters season finale, and Valerie wrote about the triumphs of feminist storytelling in Jessica Jones‘ second season.
Here’s what else!
The Arrangement: Season Two
Written by Riese
One of E!’s few scripted series, The Arrangement follows a young actress, Megan Morrison, who scores an audition opposite Kyle West, a massive star heavily involved with an organization called The Institute for The Higher Mind.(AHEM it’s about Scientology!) Megan and Kyle hit it off, and she snags a role in his film and the role of his girlfriend — yannow, like the Katie Holmes / Tom Cruise thing. The Institute is headed up by Terrence, a tightly wound smooth talker sociopath. In the first season we learn that he has a very rocky open relationship with his wife, Deann, who at first seems like a scheming Alpha Bitch but eventually reveals herself to be the far more competent, intelligent and level-headed member of their little leadership team. Her bisexuality is revealed to us in Season One via a torrid, clumsy situation with an idiotic white woman they hire to do some recon that eventually leads to a blackmail thing and it seemed likely that Deann’s lady-feelings could quite possibly fade into the background with that little mess and never appear again.
But my friends, they most certainly did not! Season Two’s first episode finds Deann texting with “Mason,” a lover she apparently sees one weekend a year and is truly itching to see again. When Mason strolls into the bar — Mason is a lady, surprise! — Deann lights up like a g-ddamn Chanukkah bush. In the second episode, Deann and Mason are tangled up in the sheets together in post-coital bliss, which’s gorgeous because they are and also because we so rarely see two women of color in a relationship on the teevee! Mason can stay in town extra long this time, she says, and Deann says oh but if you do that it will be an affair, not just a weekend, but also clearly she cannot resist the siren song of this potential affair. The way Deann acts around Mason is radically different than we’ve ever seen her before. Like, she seems happy? I love Deann.
Meanwhile, their marriage counselor tells Deann and Terrance that a successful open relationship involves sleeping with each other, not just other partners, but at the end of the episode, Deann tells Terrance that they should just chill on the sex pressure right now because she’s super stressed about the movie. But the real reason is that she’s gonna spend the season in bed with Mason and I am very excited about this. I won’t be offering regular mini-caps in BOYT ‘cause I’m pretty sure nobody on earth besides me watches this show, but if it’s worth an end-of-season write-up or anything otherwise earth-shattering happens, I will report back.
grown-ish 112: “Crew Love”
Written by Natalie
Did I write this recap solely as an excuse to post this picture of Emily Arlook in this suit? Probably so.
We often romanticize memories of our college years. We talk about how free from the expectations of our families we were able to explore and experiment and, ultimately, figure out who we wanted to be, both personally and professionally. But what often gets left out of that romanticized version of the story? The truth: finding yourself can be messy AF. It’s a lesson Ana learns the hard way this week on grown-ish.
The girls are getting ready for the freshman formal, perfecting their hair and make-up, accessorizing with Zoey’s eBay finds (in some very weird product placement) and getting sufficiently lit by playing a little game called “Never Have I Ever.” The game — which was, for the record, the bane of my college existence — reveals that Ana hasn’t really done anything: no smoking weed, no skinny-dipping, no DUI on a bike and, certainly, no kissing girls. She may have left her parents’ expectations behind in Florida, but Ana’s feeling the pressure from a whole different set of expectations at Cal U and to cope, she commits to getting white girl wasted.
Everyone’s having a fun at formal, dancing and snapping plenty of pictures/video to capture the moments… Ana, especially, since she keeps taking sips from a flask that she’s hiding in her bosom. Once the intermission arrives, Nomi invites a drunken Ana to go get water with her, a request that Ana responds to a little too gleefully and, already, you can see where this is going.
Dodging bullets like Neo in The Matrix.
Later, Ana tries to pull Nomi back on the dance floor but Nomi resists — because, in the same episode that grown-ish is pimping eBay Fashion, they’re also putting a college freshman in Louboutins — so, instead, Ana just dances up against Nomi. Content to let her drunk friend do her thing, Nomi grins and bears it until Ana leans in for a kiss. Nomi responds harshly, saying that she won’t be some girl’s experiment.
She just wanted to live, Ana says in her defense, pointing out that Nomi had to kiss her first girl at some point. Nomi takes her point but points out a clear distinction, “I did it ’cause I had legit feelings for her, not ’cause I was checking off boxes on some freshman bucket list.”
But, as mad as Nomi is about the near kiss, she still spends the night taking care of her drunken friend, eventually taking Ana home and tucking her into bed. It’s a stark contrast from the scene recounted in grown-ish‘s first episode, where Ana gets drunk, embarrases herself and Zoey abandons her. Before she drifts off, Ana apologizes for offending Nomi and is rewarded with a kiss.
“There,” Nomi says. “You’ve lived, bitch.”
Ultimately, it’s less about the kiss and more about the message: exploring your identity and experimenting sexually are, for the most part, good things but that exploration and experimentation shouldn’t come at the expense of others, especially not without their consent. Nomi (and all LGBT women) deserve more than to be treated like sample stations at Costco by straight women. It was refreshing to see that play out on television.
But also: did you see Emily Arlook in that suit?
Legends of Tomorrow 315: “Necromancing the Stone”
Written by Valerie Anne
This week’s episode opens with Sara mid-nightmare, seeing a little girl screaming her little head off, and Sara wakes up in a panic. But luckily, Ava is there in bed with her and immediately reaches out to calm her.
record scratch
AVA. IS IN BED. WITH SARA.
And is comforting her about her nightmare.
Much calmer about waking up with Sara than I’d be, even after all this time.
Ava asks, kindly, not accusingly, about John, a name Sara was calling out in her sleep. Sara says he’s a demonologist who maybe she sort of slept with a few weeks ago. But Sara assures Ava it was before she had a girlfriend. GIRLFRIEND. Sara hasn’t had a girlfriend — hasn’t even come close — since Nyssa al Ghul disappeared from her life. And here she is, good ol’ Sara Lance, smiling up at a girl she wants to call her girlfriend.
They giggle and start to go under the covers together and it’s so FUCKING CUTE but then Gideon interrupts because time itself is falling apart or whatever.
Now listen I don’t usually have much to say one way or the other about Nate, but he nonchalantly says good morning to his captain and just as nonchalantly asks where “Mrs. Captain” is and she nonchalantly answers and it’s nonchalantly BEAUTIFUL.
As soon as the Legends split up to fix some time cracks and Sara finds herself alone no the Waverider, she feels the Death Totem calling to her and follows the call. The Black Canary appears, just as Sara looked after she died the…second time? back in season three of Arrow. She tries to tempt our White Canary, saying she can stop feeling guilt over the lives she’s taken, bring back her sister. Become a commander of death.
Sara can’t fight the darkness, so she puts the Death Totem on.
When Zari and Amaya, aka The Dream Team, aka only I call them that, Gideon is half shut down, Ray is unconscious and injured, and it is immediately clear that chaos is afoot. They quickly find Sara, but it’s not the Sara they know. It’s not the White Canary, it’s not even the Black Canary. It’s the Death Canary.
Die die, motherfuckers!
Mallus (which I keep hearing as Mollusk even though I know it’s not true) speaks through Sara, saying their captain is lost to them, but her team calls out to her anyway. With good reason, because Sara is not lost, she’s just in the Ravenswood-blue-filtered land of Mallus.
Mallus tries to keep her there while saying this is the monster Sara truly is, just what she’s always feared; and while her team doesn’t believe her evil, they know a Death Totum amplifying an assassin/demon combo can’t be great.
Ava holograms in and tries to be nice about Sara’s new goth vibes but when she walks right through her without saying a word, Ava knows something’s up with her girl.
She goes to the Legends and explains how she’s dead-set on getting her Sara back, and so she doesn’t bat an eye when she has to go to the very man she was just experiencing jealousy about to save her.
Constantine’s first suggestion is to kill Sara, but Ava a) will not stand for that b) explains that Sara is bonded with the Death Totem, so Constantine knows they have to handle this more delicately.
Constantine says he’s going in after Sara and Ava demands she go too; she has just as much of a connection with Constantine, if not more. Constantine is amused and asks for Ava’s hand, which Ava laughs at, and gives him one finger as a compromise. It’s a very cute scene.
Alas, that plan doesn’t work.
Ava admits to Constantine that she was a little jealous of him, because she’s not sure if Sara is a one-woman woman, but Constantine points out that Sara Lance is worth the risk. Using D&D as a guide, Gary, of all people, gives Constantine an idea of how to find the Legends and the Waverider.
Constantine kisses him on the mouth and Gary smiles like he just defeated an ancient black dragon with your blood axe after a long and harrowing battle. Long story short, they have to try to locate the totems, not the ship or the Legends themselves.
Meanwhile, Nora tries to woo Sara into the darkness, saying the darkness is part of them, saying Sara can’t fight her true nature, saying once a killer always a killer. Nora shows her a vision of when she was in the League of Assassins and she killed a target, only to find out he had a daughter. A pang of guilt she’s carried with her; though one she might have started to let go until this whole Mallus thing, given we haven’t seen the little girl until now, and the girl mentioned something about having been away.
Eventually Ava, Constantine and Gary show up and throw holy water on Sara and call out to Ava. Mick uses the fire totem to knock Sara down, and Ava rushes to her side to try to bring her girl back.
Nora tries to use Ava against her, asking if Ava knows what Sara has done, but the thing is, she has. And Ava’s voice is in her head now, calling her brave and strong, begging her to come back, asking her to come home.
THIS IS SOME EPIC SCI-FI ROMANCE SHIT
Ava puts her hand over Sara’s heart, the way she did this morning when she woke up from her nightmare, and Sara looks at Nora with a renewed sense of determination. Sara doesn’t want to give up on her life, she doesn’t want to belong to Mallus, even if it would supposedly be a life without pain.
Sara will not wield death. She will not bring more death to this world.
Sara comes back into her body and her eyes get their blue sparkle back. She smiles at Ava and says, “You saved me again,” and Ava just laugh-cries her relief.
“The price of love is loss, but still we pay. We love anyway.”
Later, Sara and Constantine celebrate with a drink, and Sara admits she’s afraid of hurting Ava. That fear carries her through to her bedroom, where Ava is waiting for her. But she just used her own Canary hands to break the bones and beat the blood out of the people she cares about most, so she can’t risk hurting Ava, too. She says she is death, and even though Ava thinks death becomes her, even though Sara is the happiest she’s ever been, Sara breaks up with Ava with a wavering voice and teary eyes.
After Ava leaves, Sara lies down in her bed and finds a note under her pillow saying the spot was reserved for “the girlfriend of Sara Lance.” So Sara gets up with renewed purpose, in what I can only imagine was a fierce determination to defeat Mallus and Darhk once and for all so she can get her girl back. Hopefully. All I know is Ava Sharpe isn’t going to give up the girl without a fight.
Though, then again, Ava Sharpe has secrets of her own, many of them, all with her same face, marching all over next week’s episode. Dun dun dun!
Fresh Off the Boat 419: “King in the North”
Written by Heather
Nicole’s storylines continue to surprise and delight me on Fresh Off the Boat. This week she and Eddie and their friends decide to wear the orange and blue tuxes from Dumb and Dumber to a school dance — man, they love Jim Carrey — but are thwarted by the adult dance committee who jumps in at the last minute and says girls have to wear dresses and boys have to wear pants. At first Eddie doesn’t get why Nicole’s so upset about it; she wears skirts all the time. She busts out the word “gender conformity” and says she’ll wear a skirt when she wants to wear a skirt; what she’s not down with is the PTA expecting boys and girls to look and act a certain way. “What they’re really trying to say is girls need to like boys and boys need to like girls,” she snaps. “They want us to all be a certain way but some of us aren’t!”
Eddie gets it. He knows what it’s like to be different and so he shows up at Nicole’s house the night of the dance wearing a tux top and a cheerleading skirt bottom. He even shaved his legs because if he’s gonna show ’em, he’s gonna show ’em. Their friends band together with them, Rudy-style, saying if Nicole and Eddie are banned then they’re all going to be banned.
And do they all get banned.
But! Two “bisexual sirens” flirt with them in the parking lot and even though they blow it, they still have their yearbooks to try to track them down and ask them out.
Special shout out to Jessica, who finally got her book — A Case of the Knife in the Brain — published with a cover quote she lifted from Stephen King’s restraining order against her. Kubrick will never go Kubricking all over the work of her genius.
Quick Hits
9-1-1 110: “A Whole New You”
This week was the finale of 9-1-1‘s first season and — surprise, surprise — it ended happily for Hen Wilson. At the end of the hour, Karen returns home to her wife, with a plea to not make her regret the move. The reconciliation felt a little unearned — aside from the dearth of groveling, Hen never really explored what made her cheat in the first place — so I fear for the future, but for now, I’ll just celebrate that we had a black lesbian firefighter on a Ryan Murphy show and she survived. — Natalie
Once Upon a Time 713: “Knightfall”
Not a lot happened on Once Upon A Time last week for our interests, but they covered a bit of Alice’s origin story, which, casts her as a “Rapunzel” figure. She’s locked in a tower by Mother Gothel and cannot get out. I like the twist! In real time, Alice’s cursed persona, Tilly, is being framed by Gothel for murder. Don’t worry, I suspect the accusations won’t stick! Mostly I am writing this to tell you that tonight’s episode is Robin and Alice’s meet cute! I know someone in the comment section was asking when that would happen. We will catch up on it during next Friday’s Boobs Tube column! — Carmen
Grey’s Anatomy 1416: “Caught Somewhere in Time”
For Arizona Robbins it’s Bring Your Daughter to Work Day! Which means we all were treated with a few wonderful scenes with one of my favorite Grey’s kids, Sofia Robbin Sloan Torres! Sofia is sad because she misses New York and she misses her other Mom (Join the club, kid! We all miss Callie Torres everyday!), so Arizona treats her to a day around the hospital. It’s all very cute, and I hope we get to see more of Arizona and Sofia bonding in the future. Also, Candis Cayne made another appearance as Dr. Michelle Velez. She received her gender confirmation surgery, but not without some funny side drama between my favorite mother/son duo — Catherine and Jackson Avery — first. It all worked out in the end for Dr. Velez, and I hope we get at least one more episode with her before she departs for good. — Carmen
Brooklyn Nine-Nine 512: “Safe House”
Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s back! While Rosa’s waiting for Gina Rodriguez to show up and sweep her off her feet, she goes undercover at a salon to try to get a hairdresser to gossip about where her boyfriend, the crime boss who’s threatening Holt’s husband. It’s an absolute joy for two reasons: 1) Marc Evan Jackson as Kevin Cozner is never not hilarious. 2) Rosa goes blonde and gets a perm. — Heather
Life Sentence 102: “Re-Inventing The Abbots”
Nothing gay to report on the second episode of Life Sentence, except Ida is not apologizing for “coming out as a bi” and after I finished watching it I said to my cat, “I like this show and I don’t care what anybody else thinks.” — Heather
Is it just me, or is the actress the cast as kid Sofia (as opposed to toddler Sofia?) look just like Callie and Arizona??? Whenever I see her face, I see the two of them.
Kind of ironic, because I don’t think she looks like Mark at all ??♀️
I think a lot of it is mannerisms- it would make sense that she would take on Arizona’s lil quirks, y’know?
(also, a child with Mark Sloan’s steely blue eyes would be creepy af)
Haha, that’s a good point!
I did not start watching Legends regularly just for Sara to break up with Ava! I sure hope Sara goes and gets her girlfriend back, and also that whatever is going on with the Ava clones is something non-sinister.
I’m not really over the news that Arizona is leaving Grey’s. I think last night’s episode hinted at why she might be leaving and at least it’s for a good reason. But it’s still sad to know she’ll be gone next season.
i swear this is the most we’ve seen of Arizona in YEARS. it was so nice to see her being an actual person with thoughts and feelings!!!
This is true! I take some comfort in that fact!
I refuse to give up on Sara and Ava.
Eddie Huang is such a good ally WHO EVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT????
honestly, his friendship with Nicole is my favorite relationship on the show (although Emory, Evan, and Louis singing “Somewhere Out There” got me a little teary-eyed).
Eddie is my third least favorite character on the show (after his super creepy little friend and Matthew Chesnut), but if he keeps being such a good friend to Nicole, he might make a big move up my list!
Eddie is growing on me but Evan is still my favorite
I also watch The Arrangement. So you’re not the only one Riese. And i’m looking forward to seeing more romance between Deann and Mason. But who are we kidding, it’s not going to end well.
Legends of Tomorrow. I hate it when shows use a man to affirm a female queer relationship. I hate how Constantine was the one telling Ava that Sara is worth the risk. Just pissed me off. Pls get the hell outta here.
But I am scared now. Constantine has been promoted to a series regular from next season. And i’m pretty sure Ava will not be. So it seems Sara and Constantine will be the new couple and I am so sick already.
i am so pleased to hear about another human watching “the arrangement”
Constantine has Gary. He even went and played D&D with him, if that isn’t love I don’t know what is.
Demonic Nerd (TM) is my OTP.
I’m watching season two of “Santa Clarita Diet” (Heather Hogan, you might want to stay FAR away from this one), and I’m loving two things:
– Natalie Morales is doing great as the lesbian deputy who’s shacking up with the missing deputy’s wife.
– Liv Hewson as Abby the daughter, with her motorcycle riding, black leather jacket (with a giant “Pussy Magnet” patch on the back) wearing, “I’M THE FUCKING QUEEN OF ENGLAND” self. I REALLY hope that she decides to take a dip in the lady pond.
I’ve been watching that today. It’s hilarious. I love that the actress playing the deputy’s wife was on The Grinder with Natalie Morales. That show was hilarious too, imo.
I saw a screenshot of that show on Twitter and had to LIE DOWN.
LoT:
I have not been a full blown Legends viewer but from what I have seen or rather what I’ve kind of taken away of the characters, Sara doesn’t strike me as the type to be gooey in a relationship. Actually she doesn’t strike me as the relationship type of girl so when she dropped the “Girlfriend” bomb after 3 weeks, I was like what? The episode itself really turned a mirror on her and I believe that her breaking things off with Ava is only a temporary thing. I think Sara probably got spooked because she has never been this all in with someone before or in a long time. As for what secrets Ava has, I think it will be very good and very surprising.
GREYS:
I loved seeing Sofia this episode but it also seemed to lay the ground work for Arizona’s departure. I think it is safe to assume that she is going to take Sofia back to NY and stay there. Maybe after dealing with the Maternal Mortality she wants a fresh start and she sees the opportunity in NY.
I am doubtful we will get a Calzona happy ending but the writers will leave it open ended that Calzona are now in the same city together and let the fanfic writers take over.
I’ve watched the 3rd episode of Life Sentence, and while they mention Poppy a few times she hasn’t been back since episode 1, and I suspect we won’t see her against until there is an episode focused on Ida.
Aside from Riverdale, Jane the Virgin and Black Lightning which I’m sure you’ll cover elsewhere there were a couple of shows of interest this week.
The Magicians featured the return of Marina (no spoilers) and she was definitely interested in Julia. During a conversation she asks Julia if the tension between them is “the fun kind”. So hopefully they will pursue that further in upcoming episodes.
On Shadowhunters Ollie had a much larger role in the first episode of the new season. No sign of her girlfriend Samantha though.
And Lucifer seems to be moving into a Mazikeen arc so maybe she’ll end up with a girlfriend (not holding out much hope though).
Speaking of the title, do you imply that Sara is also in love with Constantine? Or that Ava is bisexual even though I’m pretty sure absolutely nothing is known about her sexuality except for the fact she’s into Sara?
OK, I know, it’s to emphasize Sara’s sexual orientation. For bi visibility which apparently matters more than visibility of other sexual minorites (please notice that Autostraddle never even mentions Lesbian Visibility Day but celebrates each year Bi Visibility Day for the whole week, or as in “identities” category on top, there’s one for bisexuals but lesbians are left excluded).
I remember when Diva Magazine called Rose&Rosie (everyone knows Rose&Rosie, right?) a ‘bisexual couple’ most likely for the same reason (Rosie is bisexual, Rose is a lesbian), and it really hurt Rose since it contributed to rumors that she wasn’t ‘genuine lesbian’ and was faking it etc., as her wife Rosie explained in a Tumblr post where she called out Diva Magazine.
In this case it’s about fictional people, but what it’s doing is encouraging attitudes that affect real, living humans.
Sara has explicitly stated that she’s into guys and gals, while our only clues to Ava’s sexuality are the comment she made to that Viking dude about not being a “husband kind of girl” and her disinterest in holding John’s hand. I read her as a lesbian, but others might disagree with that assessment. Being bisexual doesn’t mean Sara would be in love with a man and a woman at the same time–that to me would indicate a tendency toward polyamory or non-monogamy, neither of which she has expressed as part of her identity.
On AE’s promotion of bi-visibility: As a lesbian married to a bisexual woman, I appreciate their efforts to keep bisexuality visible, as it is often rendered invisible once a person enters into a committed, long-term relationship, being with a woman somehow means that she is now a lesbian and being with a man means that she is now straight. I don’t feel invalidated as a lesbian by seeing bisexuality made legible on this website. On the contrary, I applaud their efforts to celebrate, defend, and shine a light on sexuality in all its magnificent manifestations.
Well, that was a slip of the keystroke. I meant “AS,” not “AE.”
Reading your response made me finally understand everything, as for the aforementioned real life example of the issue in question, Rose feeling hurt when her and Rosie’s relationship was called bisexual was just a sign of biphobia, and in case of her bisexual wife taking her side, internalized biphobia, they are just not enlightened enough to understand that it was just effort to make bisexuality seen legible by Diva Magazine.
Jokes aside, you wilfully ignored and misrepresented everything I wrote.
I find words “I applaud their efforts to celebrate, defend, and shine a light on sexuality in all its magnificent manifestations” really disingenuous considering that I just provided solid evidence debunking exactly such claim, by pointing out that Autostraddle specifically EXCLUDED lesbians (unlike bisexual and trans women) from “Identity” category on top (it leads to articles tagged with certain words, so bisexuals can find stuff specifically for themselves, as well as trans women, but Autostraddle intentionally excluded lesbians from this so we have nothing made just for us here), or that, like I mentioned, Autostraddle celebrates ALL visibility days OTHER than Lesbian Visibility Day. And let’s not even start what kind of lesbophobic comments are accepted in comment section here and get many upvotes, you can find responses to some of it in my comment history.
Please explain, why is it OK to exclude and erase lesbians? Do you believe we’re in some sort of similar privileged position like white straight men?
I never said it was okay to exclude or erase lesbians. Just because a headline has the word “bisexual” in it does not mean that lesbians should feel threatened by the contents of the article, but it sure does seem to trigger you in some way that I find difficult to comprehend. And my appreciation for AS’s inclusivity is not disingenuous, as I am sincerely grateful for this website and this community.
Well like I explained below, I probably wouldn’t be so ‘triggered’ if not the history of bullying. Notice how that lowly personal attack already gained so many likes, which tells you a lot about your typical Autostraddle users. It was like that from the start by the way, that time I was called a biphobe for asking a commenter to at least make sure people know she’s bi and not gay when she calls herself dyke, so it’s not like people just got tired of my comments.
Hi Amelia, I was all up for discussing your weird fascination with lesbians winning the oppression olympics, but I’m tired and cannot be arsed. So if you could just get to fuck, I’m so over your bullshit.
Ah, memories. The first time I dared to complain here about related issue (IIRC, it was about the call to ‘reclaim’ the dyke label by some bisexual commenters – I just politely asked to at least make sure no one would confuse the people who wanted to do it with gay women, since that’s what that word is considered to be the synonym to, and I continued about the homophobic stereotypes such thing would reinforce – and in response I was called biphobic.
Next time, when talking about the double standards in treatment of different sexual minorities on this site, instead of any reference to my points I met the response that I obviously don’t care so much about bisexuals as I do about lesbians so I’m a shitty person and a biphobe.
Then, after seeing insanely offensive comments towards lesbians as whole group getting huge amount of likes here, I’ve had it enough.
I’m not writing this to you since you obviously are not interested in any point of view other than your own, but I hope someone will read it with open mind. I wouldn’t react so strongly to this particular article if not the bigger picture I described above. This place feels more and more hostile towards gay women. I don’t say this to win any “opression olympics”, but because I feel unwanted here just for being a lesbian. I’m sorry but if I can’t safely talk about lesbian issues without being jumped on and name-called, and when the upvotes clearly show that such bullying is actively cheered by the community here, I don’t know how else could I feel about it. And it’s not just users – when the site by design does everything to show you that you’re not the part of the community, when all the specific groups of queer women BUT lesbians are celebrated here, it’s pretty clear message that we’re not really welcome here.
And it’s not just this site, in general the spaces for queer women start to feel more and more anti-lesbian, so to say, and sadly, there are evil assholes that try to use it. For example, I’ve noticed Twitter bot accounts following news related to this subject, spreading transphobic hate. On one anonymous lesbian forum I lurk I see constant comments in similar line, as if they were automatic.
It’s really obvious alt-right tries to divide us, instigate hate and radicalize weaker minds, so instead of personal attacks we should discuss how to solve this problem.
I explained why I feel excluded from this community, if someone doesn’t see it the same way I would gladly talk about it with them.
I also agree that, in general the spaces for queer women start to feel more and more anti-lesbian and that I can’t safely talk about lesbian issues without being jumped on and name-called.
By no means is this message supposed to instigate further, but you talk a lot of game for someone who isn’t a paid supporting member of Autostraddle. It’s hard to take the desire for discussion seriously.
Secondly, I’m personally pretty adverse to discussion in these spheres because it ends up casting shade on folks like me (gender nonconforming, trans). But for the sake of humoring discussion, when I use queer to refer to people I use it to capture non-cis gender identities & non-straight sexualities, but in no means to I believe that it replaces those individual identities. And personally, given Autostraddle’s own description of itself I don’t think they’re trying to erase anyone’s identity either.
For reference to my comment: https://develop.autostraddle.com/about/
I don’t live in USA and for my reasons I don’t want to have it on my credit card history, not to mention it’s a lot of money where I live, and most of all, why would I want to pay for something I already explained in length that I feel that excludes and at very least creates toxic environment encouraging and validating people who are hostile to people like me?
I registered here 5 years ago and unlike you, don’t hide my comment history, I’m open for everyone to judge if my desire for discussion is serious.
As for the first sentence of the second paragraph of your comment, I assume you mean that people who complain about mistreatment of lesbians in our media are often transphobic? First of all, it’s not OK you imply something like that a priori to a person you discuss with, but regardless, I wrote about that issue in the comment above, please read it again. It is visible that there are attempts to radicalize people from opressed minorities for political purpose, lesbians are not different in that regard, and when the ‘mainstream’ queer media are hostile to you it’s easy to fall for the message blaming it on yet another “others”.
As for the rest of your comment, ‘queer’ was never an issue here. The issue initially was about calling female same-sex romantic relationship ‘bisexual’ because one of the women is bisexual, which in turn erases sexuality of the other woman.
As for Autostraddle’s description, that’s cool, but actions speak louder than words. I already provided examples of double standards.
I’ll friend you so you can go through my comments. You can’t see them unless we’re friends.
Would it help you find peace if both people in a relationship identified their sexual orientation?
For example, a lesbian-bisexual relationship. Or bisexual-bisexual relationship. Or queer-bisexual-lesbian-bisexual relationship, if you count poly folk into the mix.
Clarify for me when is enough or splitting hairs?
And frankly, yes, being in divisive conversations about lesbian theory and I’m the only trans person in the room is enough to raise my warning hackles. I think it’s worth saying that if your points were more concise I’d concern myself with reading them more fully. So please accept my apologies if I implied some undue transphobia.
Caitlin, I didn’t know comment feed being only seen by friends is how this is set by default, I thought it’s like on Disqus so I’m sorry about that accusation.
As for the subject in question, like I said in other comments I was concerned it could encourage some problematic attitudes in real life which affect gay women negatively. At the same time I understand the reason why it was called that way, I wrote about it in my original comment. I just don’t think bisexual visibility has to be done at the expense of anyone else, Heather could easily highlight Sara’s sexual orientation in some other way.
“As for the subject in question, like I said in other comments I was concerned it could encourage some problematic attitudes in real life which affect gay women negatively. At the same time I understand the reason why it was called that way, I wrote about it in my original comment. I just don’t think bisexual visibility has to be done at the expense of anyone else, Heather could easily highlight Sara’s sexual orientation in some other way.”
A+ members have the ability to leave priority comments for the staff. Given my A+ status, I’d like to help make this point for you, if you’ll allow me. Obviously, I can’t guarantee anything, but if you want me to pass along a message like this to the contact box I can totally do that. Also, I believe the section you’re talking about was written by Valerie, so maybe direct it her way instead of Heather’s. The article’s segmented into pieces, I assume, for time reasons.
I call you biphobic because you only ever comment to shout about lesbians being maligned on articles that are about bisexual people. I actually agree with you about lesbian day being celebrated, but your need for any fictional monosexual queer to be labelled a lesbian, and outlined as such at every opportunity, just strikes me as divisive. Why does it bother you that Sara is explicitly bisexual? Why does that stop you from enjoying a storyline where she falls in love with a woman? Labels hold power, yes, but why do you only turn up in the comments when bi people are given a highlight? Does it also bother you that there is no cis people category on AS? No way of filtering down to stories about white people?
“I call you biphobic because you only ever comment to shout about lesbians being maligned on articles that are about bisexual people.”
Didn’t take you long to do it openly. And of course, your accusation of biphobia is not based on any concrete evidence. This is site for queer women, the chances that I have something to complain about under an article that in any way references to bisexual women is huge here, since AS as I pointed out above tries really hard to not make anything to be just about lesbians. But the claim that I do it ONLY under such articles is not true anyway. My last call out on related issue for example was about Hayley Kiyoko up until recently never being referred to by her lesbian label but by general ‘queer’.
Back when I commented on AE before it got taken over, I often called out its more straight-forward lesbophobia, like praising movies and TV shows containing the trope of ‘lesbian having sex with a man and loving it’ (and once even calling one such director responsible for that trash in completely un-ironic way as “almost genius” in the same interview where he said that all lesbians want to sleep with men), which happened on regular basis. Well, AS at least doesn’t have that.
“Why does it bother you that Sara is explicitly bisexual? Why does that stop you from enjoying a storyline where she falls in love with a woman?”
If you think that Sara’s bisexuality bothers me then you really didn’t understand anything I wrote. I had problem solely with “bisexual love story” part. Because the ‘bisexual’ adjective there does not refer to the gender composition of the parties involved. Linguistically, it doesn’t make sense. That relates to your another untrue statement about me: “your need for any fictional monosexual queer to be labelled a lesbian”. I never said that, but linguistically, it makes more sense.
“Lesbian” is a synonym to female homosexual. Homosexual means same-sex. In relation to a person, it means a woman with homosexual orientation. In relation to someone’s feelings, it means same-sex desires. In relation to for example relationship, it means female same-sex relationship.
Meanwhile bisexual basically can be used only in relation to the person. Or feelings, in this case it means attraction to both men and women (which basically only bisexual people have anyway). But a relationship? “Two-sexes relationship”?
When you say ‘bisexual relationship’ you always imply both people in that relationship are of bisexual orientation, since otherwise it just doesn’t make any sense, and if one party is not bisexual, you erase their sexuality.
That’s why for equal standards reason I’m not really a fan of the phrase ‘lesbian relationship’ when both women are not lesbians, even if from linguistic point of view at least it does make sense, and a person with some education should understand that lesbian as an adjective is not the same as lesbian as a noun.
Either way, I didn’t write it in mean-spirited way, I provided the example of Rose and Rosie to stress out that things like that have negative real-life consequences. You could highlight Sara’s bisexuality in many other ways that didn’t require erasing someone else’s sexuality.
Last but not least, in reference to the two last sentences in your comment, did you really just compare lesbians to white cis straight people? You really believe that homosexual women are privileged like white cis straight people, and because of that, do not deserve the same treatment as you do?
Came here to say that, as a lesbian, It also bothers me that Autostraddle doesn’t even mentions Lesbian Visibility Day.
And although I understand that it’s for SEO purposes it bothers me that “lesbian” is only consistently used when it’s related to sex.
I’m going to make three points, and I’m probably not going to bother checking back for your inevitable bop-bag reply that will pop back up from the void in three days or so (though good job keeping things thematically relevant for Easter I guess?).
Point 1: Nobody hides their comments. You can see your own comments and those of the people you’ve friended on AS. That’s a default setting.
Point 2: On that subject, since you can see your own comments, maybe you’d like to take a few moments to go back and read over them. I’m guessing (though I don’t know, since we’re not friends and I can’t see them) that >90% of them consist of you arguing with authors of AS posts, or with other commenters who have replied to your arguments.
Point 3: While you’re doing that, consider that there have been very, very few antagonistic disputes on this website over the last couple of years since AS started requiring commenters to make an account. It’s been quite nice and diplomatic and harmonious, for the most part. Disagreements are generally resolved with good faith on both parts, between people who interact with each other in a multitude of other ways than constant hostile griping. Based on my own admittedly anecdotal observations, I would be willing to bet that out of those few antagonistic disputes that we have seen here in the last couple of years, you are at the centre of the vast majority of them. So I’m just going to make a suggestion here – and, you know, feel free to ignore it if it’s too uncomfortable – but it seems like maybe, just maybe, the problem is not the totality of everyone else who comments and writes for this website, but maybe just possibly it’s you.
I think it’s important to point out that Chandra is the poster who few years ago called for the reclamation of the dyke label by bisexuals, namecalled and called biphobic the lesbian poster who dared to argue with it, and when I joined the conversation she did the same to me.
I didn’t even say that she shouldn’t use that label, even though it’s appropriation. Just asked her politely to do some preparations while doing so, and explained why otherwise it could be damaging, considering homophobic stereotypes etc. She didn’t care, just straight up name-called me and throwed accusations of biphobia.
And now she has the nerve to talk about “nice and diplomatic and harmonious” atmosphere here. Unbelievable. It’s nice when you’re only surrounded by sycophants who in dozens upvote comments like “this is why I don’t want to hang out with lesbians” (in response to some story of a lesbian doing something shitty, and our Typical Autostraddle Posters felt excused to show their hatred towards all lesbians), and I bet that the only thing that angered you in that situation was my response to that comment.
Chandra, you are evidently stalking me. This old convo, and not long ago you mocked my concerns about lesbian celebrities not being referred to by their label but by generic ‘queer’, which was problematic especially considering the fact there’s only few out lesbian celebrities. What triggered you so much in that comment that you felt so much need to bring me down for it?
Chandra, I’m not surprised someone with your attitudes toward lesbians doesn’t notice any problem here. You only see what you want to see. And of course don’t see another glaring example of lesbophobia above, which of course received many likes from the users here, the comparison of lesbians to white cis straight men, painting opressed sexual minority as some overprivileged group to make it an excuse for double standards, for why we don’t receive the same treatment on Autostraddle as the other groups of queer women.
You’re blind to obvious signs of lesbophobia, you try to appropriate our visibility and therefore, you’re supporting lesbian erasure, any point on behalf of lesbians makes you angry. I’m sorry but that suggests some serious prejudices.
“I didn’t even say that she shouldn’t use that label, even though it’s appropriation. Just asked her politely to do some preparations while doing so, and explained why otherwise it could be damaging, considering homophobic stereotypes etc.”
How many paragraphs did you write to make this point? Because this is the first concise statement I’ve seen you write. Please link to your sources.
“It’s nice when you’re only surrounded by sycophants who in dozens upvote comments like “this is why I don’t want to hang out with lesbians” (in response to some story of a lesbian doing something shitty, and our Typical Autostraddle Posters felt excused to show their hatred towards all lesbians), and I bet that the only thing that angered you in that situation was my response to that comment.”
This sounds like one of the implications you were so kind to point out in my comments. I’ve never personally heard her say anything like this. There’s no evidence that directly attributes Chandra to upvoting those comments.
“What triggered you so much in that comment that you felt so much need to bring me down for it?”
I don’t think my wife was overly happy that you went after me. Further, I think she doesn’t really care about you as much as you think she does, if she did, she’d check back. She said at the top of her paragraph she wasn’t going to, and I know she’s not stalking your comments.
“… the comparison of lesbians to white cis straight men, painting [oppressed] sexual minority as some [over-privileged] group to make it an excuse for double standards, for why we don’t receive the same treatment on Autostraddle as the other groups of queer women.”
You’re starting to make Gilbert’s point here about the Oppression Olympics. Moreover, I provided Autostraddle’s own written statement which includes the word ‘lesbian’ more often (9 times) than ‘queer’ (7 times) and the word ‘bisexual’ (5 times). I can’t see how catering to multiple queer audiences is a bad thing.
“You’re blind to obvious signs of lesbophobia, you try to appropriate our visibility and therefore, you’re supporting lesbian erasure, any point on behalf of lesbians makes you angry.”
This statement is literally insane. Chandra doesn’t even identify as bisexual.
Lol. I’m a frequent commenter on this website, so if replying to multiple posts from the same person makes me a “stalker” I guess I’m stalking an awful lot of people here? Or maybe it’s actually that when my friends and my wife are involved in a dispute, I hear about it and jump in. And once again, as I’ve said previously, the environment has changed here in the last couple of years. Yes, it used to be more toxic. It is less so now. That was exactly my point.
Anyway, for those who might be interested, here are the previous arguments Amelia is referring to. I more than welcome anyone to read them over and draw your own conclusions.
https://develop.autostraddle.com/yo-thats-not-cool-4-barista-crush-400077/#show-comments – under Lex’s comment (note that I didn’t even participate in this conversation?)
https://develop.autostraddle.com/the-best-bisexuals-ever-on-television-394325/#show-comments – under queer girl’s comment
https://develop.autostraddle.com/nsfw-lesbosexy-sunday-wants-her-face-between-your-legs-284538/#show-comments – under Dykish’s comment
My theory about Ava’s secret based on next week’s sneak peek:
“Ava” is probably a codename for a project which goal is to create general purpose robots. That is why we see different “Ava” in the trailer. They are designed to serve different purposes in society (nurse traffic regulator, nany etc…). I also think Rip was somewhat involved or even the creator of this project that is why he asked Gideon to delete the file about Ava.
Rip also said Director Sharpe is special. Well I think even though Sharpe is also a robot, maybe that particular specimen evolved beyond its purpose. That particular AI became sentient and that is why Rip kept her and ivolved her in the time bureau. It could also explain his surprise when he saw Ava and Sarah kiss. Ava keeps evolving so much to the point she can feel love.
My only grip with this theory is how come Ava is not aware she is a robot and can a robot actually cry? Because she was teary eyed when Sarah broke up with her. So I don’t know
Westworld robots can cry… I’m really hoping they’re not robots, though. Maybe cloning? Or that the copies are robots, but Ava herself is human (maybe a genetically special human?) I know that’s probably a stretch, I just really want Ava to be human.