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Only somewhat related to recent discussion, I just want to say that it is not an easy choice for marginalized people to point out the bigoted aspects of popular media. Doing so draws attention to themselves and, with it, harassment and attacks. Especially in today’s highly linked world of social media, any marginalized person engaging in such criticism is almost certainly not doing so disingenuously. They’re doing it for the sake of education, for the sake of improvement, and they’re doing so at a risk. So when someone points out problematic language or structures or mechanics out of a position of their lived experiences as a marginalized person, I recommend listening to them and not trying to second guess or triple check what they’re saying.
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Dec 29, 2018 14:39
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I think you probably run into a clunker when you hit biology because then you're left describing snails and earthworms as something like "posessing male and female genitalia", instead, but the fact that's the usual point of comparison maybe suggests the problem attaching it to people.
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Dec 29, 2018 14:41
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The word 'hermaphrodite' literally comes from mythology describing a god that was a combination of male and female in the first place. For most people, the whole spectrum of non-binary sexuality is completely new to them, and even for those who are, the terminology and norms do not even seem to be settled. Not surprised the authors feel like they're being jumped on for breaking arbitrary rules they literally had no idea existed.
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Dec 29, 2018 15:27
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TBH it takes very little research to learn any of this but it does require that you not assume you know everything already.
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Dec 29, 2018 15:28
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Ghost Leviathan posted:The word 'hermaphrodite' literally comes from mythology describing a god that was a combination of male and female in the first place. They're not exactly being jumped on. They're being made aware that there's a viewpoint that their idea of - and what they're specifically pointing to as - representation needs work. Even as someone with my own reservations about the application of point 3 to mythology and divinities I don't think we particularly need to rally to the cause of bad writing.
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Dec 29, 2018 15:35
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Ghost Leviathan posted:The word 'hermaphrodite' literally comes from mythology describing a god that was a combination of male and female in the first place.
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Dec 29, 2018 15:50
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Okay, I didn't know the details on that end so I see the point. The rules are definitely different when it comes to touting something as representation rather than just briefly featuring or alluding to the concept.
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Dec 29, 2018 15:54
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Ghost Leviathan posted:The word 'hermaphrodite' literally comes from mythology describing a god that was a combination of male and female in the first place. Could have hired non-binary sensitivity readers imo Like, we exist, we’re out here, and sensitivity reads are relatively cheap.
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Dec 29, 2018 15:55
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Is "hermaphrodite" actually used as a slur? I understand how it does not apply to most, if not all queer or intersex people, but my understanding is that to constitute a slur it needs to be a negatively loaded term and/or used with malign intent, or do terms that are simply used inaccurately also constitute as slurs? Also, in general, is non-preferred terminology slurs? Would that not be very dependent on the person in question, and whether or not you are aware of their preferred terminology?
thotsky fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 16:03
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Biomute posted:Is "hermaphrodite" actually used as a slur? I understand how it does not apply to most, if not all queer or intersex people, but my understanding is that to constitute a slur it needs to be a negatively loaded term and/or used with malign intent, or do terms that are simply used inaccurately also constitute as slurs? Also, in general, is non-preferred terminology slurs? Would that not be very dependent on the person in question, and whether or not you are aware of their preferred terminology? It certainly has been, though not as readily as he-she or shim. A lot of its malus derives from medicalization however, rather than active maliciousness. Intersex advocacy groups fairly broadly consider it stigmatizing, which is distinct from being a slur, on the basis that it's been too loaded when it refers to people as conveying some kind of status outside of the gender binary and inauthenticity.
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Dec 29, 2018 16:09
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Biomute posted:Is "hermaphrodite" actually used as a slur? I understand how it does not apply to most, if not all queer or intersex people, but my understanding is that to constitute a slur it needs to be a negatively loaded term and/or used with malign intent, or do terms that are simply used inaccurately also constitute as slurs? Also, in general, is non-preferred terminology slurs? Would that not be very dependent on the person in question, and whether or not you are aware of their preferred terminology? “Hermaphrodite” has additional baggage when talking about human beings beyond simply being non-preferred terminology. It is to medicalize intersex or non-binary people, to suggest that they are a problem that needs to be fixed rather than a legitimate identity in and of itself. It also suggests that intersex people are some form of magical combination of male and female, when the actual biology realities are much more complex and individualized. Also: context matters. If the word had occurred in the midst of a text that was largely better researched and considered and understanding, that would be one thing. But by and large, all of the context surrounding the usage that is currently being discussed is real hecking bad! Finally, It’s probably wise to just use preferred terminology and if you don’t know it, google it or ask. While not all cases of outdated terminology are considered slurs, a great many of them are and so it’d be better to be safe than sorry.
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Dec 29, 2018 16:23
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People sometimes use it about trans people, often out of ignorance, but in any case it's a word people use to describe trans people wrongly, so it carries a lot of bad and painful associations of being misunderstood and forced into an ill-fitting box.
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Dec 29, 2018 16:25
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Unfortunately a lot of my delusional magician brethren fall into that trap, too. A lot of us esteem the esoteric hermaphrodite, which is a perfect union of a dualistic cosmos into a single form, but too many confuse that for transpeople and intersex people generally, which leads to some Weird poo poo. Brucato fell into that with M20, for a tabletop specific example.
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Dec 29, 2018 16:26
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Loomer posted:Unfortunately a lot of my delusional magician brethren fall into that trap, too. A lot of us esteem the esoteric hermaphrodite, which is a perfect union of a dualistic cosmos into a single form, but too many confuse that for transpeople and intersex people generally, which leads to some Weird poo poo. Brucato fell into that with M20, for a tabletop specific example. Also Unknown Armies, very prominently.
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Dec 29, 2018 16:30
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In my experience, most elfgamers don't have anything approaching a mythological context. What they know of mythology comes from a unit in high school english and Deities and Demigods. And oh, shite. In a facebook group the other day, a woman posted about a friend saying that they thought she was some spiritual union of masculine and feminine because she'd come out as trans, and what did we think? I refrained from answering that I was a woman treating a really lovely birth defect, and that suggestions that I'm actually some kind of magical Other is the same kind of white 'spirituality' that brought us Indigo Children and EST. And goodness gently caress, the Freak.
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Dec 29, 2018 16:58
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Pope Guilty posted:Also Unknown Armies, very prominently. Man, I liked the idea when I read UA... 20 years ago... but the Freak has not aged well.
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Dec 29, 2018 17:00
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Dawgstar posted:Man, I liked the idea when I read UA... 20 years ago... but the Freak has not aged well. Fortunately she's in a much better place in her life in the third edition.
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Dec 29, 2018 17:08
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I thought hermaphrodite was relatively more commonly used to refer to intersex people who had both male and female genitalia, albeit I last remember that being used on a Jerry Springer episode which is probably an extremely bad source to go on. Strikes me as one of those terms where the meaning differs wildly depending on the context and the circles it's used in, and most consistent in its use in biology.
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Dec 29, 2018 17:15
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I thought hermaphrodite was relatively more commonly used to refer to intersex people who had both male and female genitalia, albeit I last remember that being used on a Jerry Springer episode which is probably an extremely bad source to go on. Part of the move away from it is that the consensus is that intersex people cannot possess both male and female genitalia, just their own genitalia.
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Dec 29, 2018 17:20
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Hermaphrodite is still a term used in some biological contexts yes, it's just not used with human beings for various reasons; where it has been used, it's been applied to intersex people in a way that is heavily stigmatizing, on top of being inaccurate. So yes, it's intrinsically dehumanizing, by virtue of being a term that is almost exclusively applied to plants and some animals in ways that don't, by definition, apply to human beings. I will say I ran into this issue when designing a campaign setting that included a race inspired by the Gethen from Left Hand of Darkness that could shift their sex and gender at will, and had whole social constructs built around their ability to do this and when and how it was appropriate to do so. Ultimately I ended up dropping the term because it's just too loaded when applied to people. Reene fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 17:24
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Reene kind of beat me there, but, yeah, from the inverse point of view, a hermaphrodite animal isn't what an intersex person is. Hermaphrodites are species where an animal is both fertilising and can be fertilised, which is essentially impossible in humans for an enormous number of reasons. EDIT: And, like, a majority of hermaphrodite animals are insects and molluscs. If you're referring to a human, why are you using terms that, scientifically, are for bugs?
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Dec 29, 2018 17:31
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I wonder how a certain someone will spin this particular discussion on getting representation right and considering the contextual use of words carefully into us being sex-hating anti-feminists.
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Dec 29, 2018 17:35
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Reene posted:I will say I ran into this issue when designing a campaign setting that included a race inspired by the Gethen from Left Hand of Darkness that could shift their sex and gender at will, and had whole social constructs built around their ability to do this and when and how it was appropriate to do so. Ultimately I ended up dropping the term because it's just too loaded when applied to people. Wouldn't this more bump into the real world concept of genderfluidity than being intersex, necessarily? Like, as Loomer mentioned, intersex people are intersex, whereas genderfluid people would be a human-parallel culture that goes from masculine to feminine identities. Unless that's not how it worked and I misunderstood.
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Dec 29, 2018 17:40
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The species has fully functional male and female sex organs much in the way that, say, a snail does, plus a third neuter/sexless state, and then a bunch of social categories and beliefs and expectations around each of those things. I tried not to graft too much real life stuff/baggage onto it, but I don't expect I was perfect.
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Dec 29, 2018 17:48
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The main problem I have is the fact that the writing is trying to be fluffed out like a school essay and it's attached to an aspect of D&D (the gods in general) that only has weight if you give them any weight or time of day and don't just use d20 as a means by which to make your own world. They're coaching the language in trappings and examples to try and soften the meaning of what they're saying when what they mean should be a lot more simple. "You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. LGBT+ identities such as being nonbinary, trans or gay are all valid choices for what makes your character your character. Use them to flesh out their identity and personality but don't use them as props or behavioral shorthand. If you don't feel comfortable exploring these identities, that's okay. Just be respectful and supportive of other players who do." e: upon walking away for a second I realize it should be gender identity and sexual orientation, that's a lot more clear and accurate. I'm not going to pretend what I'm putting forth is perfect. It isn't. I didn't say anything about queer folks or ace/aro folks, it's just a matter of the fact that the rule of three examples lends itself well to getting points across and that's why I chose the LGBT+ banner because from my understanding that encompasses the longer form of the acronym which is why I mentioned nonbinary people. I just think a concise and clear mini paragraph that doesn't have any Appeals To Lore is a good starting off point. ee: the more I think about it the more I think it's weird to keep calling Corellion "gloriously fluid". It's the implication of the word glorious; is Correllion being fetishized for being fluid or is the way they're fluid glorious and if so how exactly are they glorious. "Oh look, there's Correllion being Fluid As Hell again, that's just how they do." Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 18:48
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I mean, mainly I just really dislike queerness being relegated to a sidebar with wishy-washy, noncommittal language and calling that inclusivity. If you want to be inclusive you need to actually weave that into your story and setting and write it with those in mind, not quarantine it into (literally) a tiny ignorable box. Plus, every species in the PHB having the exact same ideas about sex and gender roles (and relatedly, romantic relationships and family units) is both boring and dumb. Why should the male/female binary even apply to them? Why have every race cleave to the idea of each child having one mother and one father who are female and male? They aren't human. Do something else! Even real actual humans have more variance than that poo poo, just look at things like partible paternity. Let your Elves or whatever do something you don't see on every American sitcom. It gives you that much more space to build a setting that actually feels fantastic and worth exploring.
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Dec 29, 2018 19:41
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To not just continue to call D&D a big box of amalgamated Legos bought at a garage sale with some notable parts, your points are absolutely valid and should definitely be considered.
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Dec 29, 2018 19:46
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Reene posted:I mean, mainly I just really dislike queerness being relegated to a sidebar with wishy-washy, noncommittal language and calling that inclusivity. If you want to be inclusive you need to actually weave that into your story and setting and write it with those in mind, not quarantine it into (literally) a tiny ignorable box. Elf ears aren’t ears, they’re seed pods. When an elf grows old, their ears sprout long, fuzzy hairs that catch the wind, then fly off to new lands, to form the core of a new elf forest.
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Dec 29, 2018 19:50
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Dwarves and orcs are competing strains of underground fungus
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Dec 29, 2018 20:10
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Reene posted:Plus, every species in the PHB having the exact same ideas about sex and gender roles (and relatedly, romantic relationships and family units) is both boring and dumb. Why should the male/female binary even apply to them? Why have every race cleave to the idea of each child having one mother and one father who are female and male? They aren't human. Do something else! Even real actual humans have more variance than that poo poo, just look at things like partible paternity. Let your Elves or whatever do something you don't see on every American sitcom. It gives you that much more space to build a setting that actually feels fantastic and worth exploring. This is one of those key differences between science fiction and fantasy that really turn me off to the fantasy genre in general. Contemporary science fiction to the time of D&D gives us everything from line-marriage polygamy (Heinlein) to genderless sex-fluid grey aces (Le Guin) to secretive ritual marriage (Trek). Fantasy brings orgies and weird fetish poo poo. Sexuality and romantic nature is such a huge topic to explore and it's all ignored. Hell, even Tolkien's Noldor don't really understand the Numenorian concept of marriage; they have partners but the idea of loving someone "for life" is pretty ridiculous when you live forever. (Also, it's highly implied that Elves don't have a sex drive or at least don't engage in sex as recreation the way we do.)
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Dec 29, 2018 20:17
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To given an example of how a different recently published new edition of an RPG from the seventies handles it: Not a sidebar, it's actually the first point in the last part of chargen, and doesn't conflate sex and gender, even.
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Dec 29, 2018 20:23
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Zurui posted:This is one of those key differences between science fiction and fantasy that really turn me off to the fantasy genre in general. Contemporary science fiction to the time of D&D gives us everything from line-marriage polygamy (Heinlein) to genderless sex-fluid grey aces (Le Guin) to secretive ritual marriage (Trek). Fantasy brings orgies and weird fetish poo poo. Sexuality and romantic nature is such a huge topic to explore and it's all ignored. Hell, even Tolkien's Noldor don't really understand the Numenorian concept of marriage; they have partners but the idea of loving someone "for life" is pretty ridiculous when you live forever. (Also, it's highly implied that Elves don't have a sex drive or at least don't engage in sex as recreation the way we do.) Are you really gonna bring up Heinlein and then lambaste fantasy for weird fetishes? Like, I don't disagree that fantasy often neglects or fucks up sex stuff, but Heinlein is your counterexample?
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Dec 29, 2018 20:37
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Mors Rattus posted:Are you really gonna bring up Heinlein and then lambaste fantasy for weird fetishes? Yeah, Heinlein is like Exhibit A for the case for nerds not to talk about sex.
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Dec 29, 2018 20:48
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I think the overall point is pretty spot on, though. A lot of sci-fi depicts societies that are either very progressive or are imaginatively different from our own, while fantasy on the whole spent decades depicting regressive societies. There is still more regressive poo poo in fantasy than in sci-fi. Heinlein may be a bad example (I've never actually read any Heinlein beyond a short story or two - I somehow missed out on him in my teens and then always had better stuff to read as an adult), but to illustrate the point, just look at Iain M Banks' work. Even fantasy authors who are themselves very progressive tend to gravitate towards stories about nonconforming people in repressive societies overcoming that repression (e.g. Terry Pratchett, NK Jemisin's Broken Earth), rather than imagine societies that are already better.
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Dec 29, 2018 20:59
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Ratoslov posted:Yeah, Heinlein is like Exhibit A for the case for nerds not to talk about sex. Yeah, I specifically pulled Moon is a Harsh Mistress from Heinlein because it's probably the only book of his where he talks about interpersonal relationships at any level but doesn't devolve into weird sex stuff. (Run far and fast from anyone who says Stranger in a Strange Land is a favorite.) My point in general is what was said above though. Science Fiction imagines what could be, Fantasy imagines what already has been. Exceptions tend to prove the rule - despite being the protagonist being "from Mars" Stranger is about as sci-fi as your average Robert Jordan novel.
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Dec 29, 2018 21:17
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Eh, 60 and 70s sci-fi optimism tends a lot towards white, male optimism, which, as noted, tends to be more about men's sexual fantasies rather than ennobling the disadvantaged. Look at how much of Tiptree's sci-fi is about men just inevitably murdering women, or how Norman Spinrad formulated Hitler as an ideal sci-fi author. It's a lot easier to imagine a future of "what could be" when you're not so imminently encountering how entrenched the current day is. But, really, I feel this discussion is also driven by issues of genre bounding: a dark, edgy fantasy series is still considered as much fantasy as "Good King Richard and the Noble Knights of Everbright Hall," while dark, edgy sci-fi gets classified as a different genre (post-apocalypse, cyberpunk, or dystopia).
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Dec 29, 2018 22:01
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Reene posted:I mean, mainly I just really dislike queerness being relegated to a sidebar with wishy-washy, noncommittal language and calling that inclusivity. If you want to be inclusive you need to actually weave that into your story and setting and write it with those in mind, not quarantine it into (literally) a tiny ignorable box. It largely boils down to fantasy being an intensely conservative genre in most aspects. Even beyond it's take on sexuality and sex and gender, the most common fantasy story is "a thing is happening - stop it from happening!" Fantasy heroes rarely make the world a better place - they tend instead to simply uphold the status quo. This isn't even touching fantasy's fetishization of a non-existent medieval state complete with "good kings" and "peasantry rabble," and a terrifyingly racist outlook where each "race" has their own kingdom they stay in, basically glorifying a series of goddamn ethno-states. My favorite take on dwarves is what someone posted earlier. All dwarves have beards, and that's how dwarves identify themselves. Various beard stylings are in fact how dwarves make declarative statements about themselves. A beard woven one way means this, a beard styled another way means that. While dwarves tend to be very rigid with very defined genders, there's absolutely more then two, and you are free to change your identity to different genders or sexuality as easy as...well, combing out your beard and restyling it. In turn, for the most horrific of crimes, a dwarf is ritualistically shaven and disallowed to regrow their beard as a part of their exile - effectively exiling them not only physically, but denying them the ability to even be considered a dwarf. Elves aren't nearly as rigid. I've always liked the idea of elves being naturally fluid not just in a sense of sexuality, but in their physical appearance completely. Elves begin to take on physical features of wherever they live in just a generation, and sometimes even shorter; "high elves" of the plains who move to the forest will have "wood elf" children, and may themselves slowly turn into "wood elves" in enough time. In turn, elves can tweak and alter themselves with a bit of focus and time. This means elves don't really have the long list of genders and sexes that dwarves have, because literally every elf can simply shape themselves differently, and elves tend to side-eye other peoples desire to categorize sex and gender - they have no need to categorize things when it's all completely subject to personal desire. Hell, there'd probably be times where elves develop their own subcultures based entirely on how they're designing their own bodies. This also means anything that permanently effects your body would most likely be taken as seriously as possible.
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Dec 29, 2018 22:15
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I do not have direct quotes cuz social media, but I recall the Tome of Foe's take on sex-shifting elves being viewed as iffy some in my circles on account of the unnecessary gamification of the subject ("you can change your sex once per long rest") along with the implicit implication of it being an elf-only thing.
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Dec 29, 2018 22:34
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Libertad! posted:I do not have direct quotes cuz social media, but I recall the Tome of Foe's take on sex-shifting elves being viewed as iffy some in my circles on account of the unnecessary gamification of the subject ("you can change your sex once per long rest") along with the implicit implication of it being an elf-only thing. I can give you one right here and now: I don't like transness and other forms of queerness being made the domain of specific fantasy creatures, because it implies being trans/queer is like being a fantasy creature, sets up the trans/queer as an Other, and implies that humans should be cishetero.
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Dec 29, 2018 22:50
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I feel like fantasy creatures often end up standing in for other groups and cultures as well and it never feels right. Where those people would show up in a story otherwise, in fantasy, there appears the fantastic creature to take their place and deflect from having to take responsibility for how that character was portrayed. "Oh, I'm not being racist, that's just how Orcs are, they are born evil and dumb and uncivilized and no matter how they are treated or raised they will never be able to rise above their lot in life."
remusclaw fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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