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「やがて君になる」/ “Yagate Kimi ni Naru”: an aro/ace coded, sapphic ‘love story’…?
cw: non-consensual touch and invasion of personal space this past Friday say the TV premiere of 「やがて君になる」 / “Yagate Kimi ni Naru” (“Bloom Into You”), a new anime based on the on-going manga of the same name by 仲谷鳰 / Nio Nakatani. while those who understand Japanese will benefit from the trailer shown above (and here, have another one), continue reading if you’re able to stomach my rudimentary rendition of the basic premise of the anime and what happened in the first episode that has me clinging to my seat in the hope that this particular series may not be your typical 百合 / yuri (sapphic / lesbian) story, but rather an aro/ace coded, mixed orientation ‘love story’. a story about two girls– one an avid reader of romance manga who struggles with having never once experienced for herself the love she reads about, the other having never experienced attraction…
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Black Mirror: “San Junipero”
got home from work, made dinner and sat down to watch another episode of Black Mirror on Netflix before bed, as one does. was totally not prepared for what turned out not to be the queerbaiting i first assumed it to be, but to instead be a heart-wrenching queer romance between a bi / multiple gender attracted black woman and a gay woman exploring intimacy for the first time. not only was the story itself a tear-jerker, the characters themselves were well-developed and included quite possibly the most in-depth and positive representation that i’ve ever seen of a bi black woman character in particular in popular media. even consent– something that a lot of media doesn’t put enough thought into– was handled fairly well (imho) and the episode certainly explored things that other media tends to only dance around if touch upon at all, all crammed into a 60 minute…
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Starbucks wifi censorship
so i’m at Starbucks using Starbuck’s free wifi while i work on stuff, as usual, when i randomly go on Tumblr and see the name of a familiar website, Black Lesbian Love Lab, being recommended to me. i didn’t know they were on Tumblr, so i clicked on the recommendation to check it out and was brought to the above page telling me that i’m unable to access @blacklesbianlovelab because of stipulations in the wifi service’s terms of use? wtf? i’m immediately reminded of the fiasco not that long ago when Tumblr marked the entire #lesbian tag NSFW, which i thought they’d fixed but? at the very least this seems like a remnant of that? although the wifi service itself is also involved, i can still access the BLLL website without issue and the content of the Tumblr blog by no means warrants it being treated like a porn blog. again,…
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♫ RADWIMPS – 「光」 / “Hikari”
last month the popular Japanese band RADWIMPS released the music video for their song 「光」 / “Hikari” (”Light”) from their new album 「人間開花」 / “Human Bloom”. a song about love in the face of adversity, the music video features two women on an adventure called “love”. translated lyrics below.
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“Dyke Deck” by Catherine Opie
…so somehow this vintage deck of lesbian-themed playing cards made it all the way from Los Angeles to a christmas market in middle-of-nowhere Japan and into my hands today. [“Dyke Deck” by Catherine Opie] were sold at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles but are SOLD OUT. Includes 52 playing cards, 2 jokers, instruction sheet, and case. Opie created this humorous deck to explore the issue of the lesbian body in photography. Many of the women in the photos are friends of Opie’s while others came to an open call in San Francisco. In the “Dyke Deck” Opie divided up the imags into four categories to correspond with the four suits: couples are hearts, jocks are clubs, femmes are diamonds and butches are spades. as a lover and enthusiast of black & white photography and queer person myself, this feels a bit like that thing some people call “fate”?…
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Q&A: “…i’ve been thinking i may not be a lesbian but asexual…”
anonymous said: For a while i considered myself a lesbian and now im “talking” to a girl and i’ve been thinking i may not be a lesbian but asexual. I mean there was a time where i didn’t like anyone romantically and sexually. Now this realization is making things really confusing for me and I mean I want to try a relationship with the girl Im talking to but things are just so confusing. Lmao sorry for bothering you about my problems but idk what to do?? you’re not bothering me, anon. no worries. questioning can be really tough in general, but even more so when you’re in the middle of wanting to try having a relationship with someone. that said, questioning doesn’t have to stop you from going ahead and trying a to have a relationship if you don’t want it to. some may prefer to hold off on…
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Q&A: “I can’t explain why it’s so easy for me to say I’m trans and so hard to say I’m a lesbian…”
anonymous said: Hello. I’ve always been aware and proud, even as a kid, of my transgender identity. It was never hidden. But when it comes to sexuality it’s another story. Now that I’m older, I know that I have always been a lesbian but the less I can say is that I’m not very clear about it, I’m ambiguous when I speak about sexual orientation with people. Always fighting for lgbt rights but not saying clearly that I’m gay. I can’t explain why it’s so easy for me to say I’m trans and so hard to say I’m a lesbian hi, anon. i’m afraid that i don’t have any solid answers for you… i’m sure that a lot is involved in why you find it so hard to be as open about your sexuality as you are about being trans. to throw out but a few (among many) possible factors,…
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Q&A not Q&A: “maybe anon has a problem with compulsory heterosexuality…”
anonymous said: maybe anon has a problem with compulsory heterosexuality / the fact that they were raised to be available to men? I have a similar problem – logically I don’t CARE if men find me attractive, and yet I can’t stop fretting over not being “acceptable” to them. I don’t have this problem with other people even though men are the group I’m actually least interested in. I hate this and I’m trying to let go of this feeling, but it’s hard. (re: this post) that thought occurred to me, but i didn’t want to make assumptions about anon’s gender or even their AGAB, so i erred on the side of giving general commentary with that ask. but yeah, internalized heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexuality is definitely a thing that many people struggle with and anon may also be struggling with. it’s social programming that can be extremely difficult to…
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Feedback: “Thanks for the heteroromantic homosexual flag and thank you for your responses…”
anonymous said: Thanks for the heteroromantic homosexual flag and thank you for your responses and other people for their nice comments when this other tumblr user was more or less telling I’m not normal. It took more than 30 years before I could name my orientation and I was so happy when I was finally could do it. So it’s not nice to be insulted by someone who wasn’t asked a thing. Sorry if you were annoyed because of me and sorry for my bad English, it’s not my mother tongue. And again THANKS. (re: this post) no problem, anon, and no worries. i’m more than happy to help when i can and your English is great. i was annoyed at the other person, not you. 🙂
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Q&A: “Do you know a pride flag for heteroromantic homosexual?”
anonymous said: Hi. Do you know a pride flag for heteroromantic homosexual? Thanks hello. 🙂 there are no ‘official’ flags for mixed orientations (romantic & sexual orientations which differ from each other), but many people use the flag that is common for sexual orientations with a heart in the center in the colors of their romantic orientation. since i couldn’t find a decent example to link you to, i made one. here you go.
