Beyond pleasure activism: revisions and redirection from the club to the streets
ode to anger: the mean femme manifesto
hi friends 💌
I want to extend a gentle digital embrace out to everyone in this grief-filled period which, for many of us I believe, did not come as a shock or surprise due to our decentered approach to electoral politics. Nevertheless, this is the time to hold close all our loved ones, make methodical and sustainable approaches on how to show up for our communities, and prepare for the future because we keep each other safe.
The earth has lived long before us and will forever remain here long beyond our time, resilient and entwined with optimism and knowledge for all it hosts. I don’t wish to contribute to any doom-scrolling. We know there’s so much to be afraid of, but at the foundation of dismantling the structures of harm we live in and creating the change we wish to see is a deep love ethic - a belief that while love may not be the popular movement, it is the passion we hold at our core, despite the desire for reciprocity, to see better conditions for those who come behind us. I am a believer that love will overpower all that we fear.
Breathe with me. Enjoy a good meal to nourish your body if you forgot to eat today. Whatever it is your body needs: some music, some stretches, silence, listen to yourself, and take a moment. I’ll be here when you are ready ♡
🎶 Now playing: Paper Thin by Lianne la Havas 🎶
redirecting pleasure activism & pluto ingress aquarius reflections 𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚
A lot of my early twenties were framed and lived through the lens of pleasure activism and my definition of spiritual hedonism. Spiritual hedonism as I’ve defined it for myself highlights the idea that we all should have the right to pursue spiritually fulfilling pleasure and sensual self-indulgence in a way that decenters material hoarding, greed, and individualism. This belief in my daily life as a lesbian means respecting my pace and moving slowly through the world, trusting redirection rather than crumbling at rejection or changes of plan, and taking my time to take care of myself and understand others in resistance to living in a rushed, fanatically capitalist society. While pleasure activism is a strong core belief for me still, I want to emphasize (to not come off complacent) that pleasure activism alone will not be what saves us, but be the vehicle to heal and sustain us through methodical action rooted in empathy and genuine care for others whether we reap any benefits from it or not.
A lot of queer mobilizing is centered around pleasure, which of course is more than well-earned, but I fear often a lot of popularized queer community “activism” begins and ends at the club. I say this as a former party girl who used to be out dancing everywhere every weekend: the pandemic has given me the rude awakening that most people are unwilling to examine and change our actions that contradict the call to invest in the liberation of marginalized people. It’s moments like these that I succumb to my Capricorn moon’s Saturnian ways. But I don’t like being angry. I hate being bitter. Those emotions are the antithesis of my being/natural state and polarize me from the compassion and understanding I want to embody all the time. Yet I can’t help but feel this way when I see people comfortable with cops and corporations co-opt pride, when I watch queer collectives have no regard for disabled people, when I witness individuals drop all covid precautions and continue the chain of transmission, and when I observe people endorse and bootlick a politician passionately supporting genocide just because she’s “brat” or serving Bette Porter couture cackling away with a fresh silk press.
Respectfully, our queer ancestors used to throw bricks.
Respectfully, our queer ancestors died from the ignorance and isolation surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which was ignored for being a “Gay-Related Immuno-Deficiency” (hyperlink attached is an archived article from the NYT, see how it was talked about then and how it mirrors the eugenicist conversations around covid today)
Disrespectfully, why is it always a fight for a seat at tables we should be flipping?
As a lesbian, basic human empathy aside, it feels imperative to me to be vocal about disability justice, especially in fighting against eugenics and the misinformation around covid as anything less than a cardiovascular/acquired immune system deteriorating illness. My queerness doesn’t end at my sexual liberation but rather honors those who came before me, the lesbians who cared for queer men during the height of the AIDS epidemic and taught each other how to make hummus in community meetings. This history is precious to me and I share that to denounce all the ways in which this part of my identity and its history has been warped and watered down from its revolutionary past. I am examining the ways in which I am not present in my community beyond my comfort zone and inviting you to do so as well because radicalization is not an identity to adopt but a framework to act upon.
I believe this is part of my Pluto ingress to Aquarius journey now that it will move back into the water-bearing sign on the 19th. I am bracing myself for the destabilization many astrologers are predicting surrounding the election and assessing how I can show up within my capacities to undo as much damage as I can, taking accountability as someone who lives in the imperial core of the united states. Yes, I was not supposed to be here, but I am still here reaping all the benefits of colonialism even as a marginalized person. We have reached a point beyond existing in our comfort where we must assess where we are needed to do the harm reduction because many are finally realizing that electoral politics and our systems of power are not coming to help us. Optimism and love will get us through this, but we must honor our anger while it presents itself as an ally to create the change we wish to see. Whether we live to see it or not.
redefining community / the south WILL hold it down 𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚
I have been thinking a lot about community this year, having been sick and unwell for most of it, and how we define it today. I want to make this public introspection should it be of guidance to anyone.
As a 12th houser, I am not missing the emo kid not-fucking-with-the-people-from-my-hometown allegations. On a large part, towards a huge chunk of neighbors in my own demographic, it’s true.
And I still rep my city despite {in spite} because I deeply respect and love the land I come from, it has no fault for the racist and xenophobic rhetoric that gets spewed around its swamps, the legislations that pass on it, nor the hatred that it receives as part of the north american south which is full of victims of disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and regressive policies. The “sink Florida” jokes hurt after a while. There are so many beautiful folks here doing the heaviest work who deserve much more than this abandonment.
I woke up the other morning after I sat with my feelings post-election thinking about the boiling crab theory. How it really is your own sometimes who want to pull you back into a boiling pot because they can’t stomach someone else being better off elsewhere. I can’t list the amount of wealthy suburban houses I’ve driven past just five minutes out from my neighborhood with trump signs and american flags, despite living in a predominantly immigrant city. Too many people in my hometown are desensitized to the horrors and consequences of capitalism because of their detachment from the reality of others, failure of public education, and simply because some of them truly have no empathy or regard for others.
However, I have found nothing fruitful to come out of pointing fingers across rather than upwards. I have yelled to the point of tears arguing with family members on abortion rights, dinnertime brawls over contextualizing the values we grew up with to be entirely antithetical to widespread religious rhetoric in the modern day. Taking a hard look at myself and the ways I’ve isolated myself from most of my family, I recognized the fallacy in my beliefs about community and the ways I operated within mine.
The truth is real community also involves those who are difficult to keep around at times. Those we butt heads with and much rather cut off. We don’t all have the privilege to move through these spaces safely, but those of us who can fight and educate our family members and community members absolutely should. I maneuver around my familial relationships as a cishet woman because I am closeted and it’s none of their business. Within this privilege I take it as my personal responsibility to disrupt the room and address what’s important.
Therapy language has become wildly commodified and watered down from its purpose to evade discomfort but as we see, coddling is not pushing us anywhere. The revolution never promised to be comfortable and it’s in moments like these that I think of all the courage it took during the Haitian revolution and countless movements before my time that laid the foundation to the comforts and privileges I have today. It’s to be expected that many people involved in organizing historical mobilizations did not get along, therefore how effective can my actions be if they only exist within the queer bubbles I navigate the world through full of beautiful individuals who inspire me to do more or are just as down to dismantle these structures?
These are the questions I am asking myself now to be accountable:
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disability justice & 1st house profection year revelations
My experience of advocating for disability justice regarding covid precautions and urging others to use accessibility aids (masking) has been a process full of grief and disappointment. Before I got covid (for the very first time during this year’s summer surge mind you!! to attest to how effective proper masking is in keeping us safe) I felt the reactions around my pleas to mask were puzzled, condescending, and/or ignored until I became sick myself -even from people who I love and trusted.
I feel like I’m known for being uplifting and sanguine, which is true, because at my core, I am moved by deep love, patience, and faith in the mysterious ways in which the world moves. however, this year has infuriated me and broke me completely.
When I was in a car accident earlier this year due to being hit by someone speeding there was so much to be enraged by, from the negligent cops on the scene to the man who hit us, but what frustrated me most was the conversation I had to have with the EMTs in the ambulance when I begged them to mask for us. All the concern for my head injury from hitting the window dissipated when I asked them to mask. All compassion towards us faded when I told these men they should care because it’s a not just a flu, when I caringly suggested they follow up with their heart health after being told most of them had got it more than thrice. All I got in return was contempt when I asked them to inspect me closer because I felt glass in my hair. They didn’t even get my mom’s vitals. Long story short, I rode in the tow truck back home because neither of us felt safe in their care nor could afford it or had any other way back home. In the following months I couldn’t come to speak of the event, ask for any mutual aid, or even hold a conversation with anyone outside of my family and partner because of how fragile I felt. A part of my soul that wanted to believe in the best of others left me that day feeling abandoned since. How could it have been me? What greater reason was behind this? What was my lesson?
Things did not get better later on in the plethora of doctor appointments I had to make following my first covid infection that came to my partner and I during a brief -rather low-risk- encounter with a trusted friend in which we briefly unmasked to eat together outdoors. I felt betrayed, I didn’t understand why I deserved this when I’ve been so consistently vocal to my loved ones about masking. It had been so hard for me to forcefully ask and be confrontational with my loved ones about it and I was facing the consequences of not unapologetically advocating harder for myself. I didn’t know how to move on or forgive those who put me at risk and ultimately pushed me to regress in my healing from the prior months and acquire new ailments from covid that still affect me to this day.
In my moments of immediate despair, my judgment was clouded away from my usual rationality. Nobody ever deserves this. Whether or not someone chooses to find a greater meaning in it all is up to them but not all bad things happen as a consequence. I want to be transparent and candid when I say this because I normally choose to focus on the silver linings and light at the end of the tunnel: this year has tested me in ways beyond my understanding and made it so difficult for me to bounce back to my former state.
However, I am being grateful for it. I have suppressed my anger for many years (funnily enough, it was a first house year theme for me last time around at 12 as it is for me now at 24) due to the ways I wanted to be perceived and how I wanted to mold my reality. Being angry often feels to me like carrying the brunt weight of a burden that feels too heavy to carry on my own. I’m aware of how girls like me get pigeonholed as irrationally angry and feisty. I did so much to combat it, find light in every dark corner, drink it away, dance it away (word to Solange.) I have chosen forgiveness because, again, community is not curated. Sometimes community is difficult and painful and about who is going to be there for you at the end of the day. Its easy to run from our problems but its more gratifying to fight for our wellbeing the way we would naturally for others. Sometimes community calls for confrontation because you have the necessary insight to be a part of greater change through the microcosms of your social spheres. We never imagine how huge our actions are to others, even those we don’t even know that we reach.
With enough experience, I’m beginning to see time passing as a spiral rather than linear -radial! as I’ve delved into before through the lens of jazz (if you want to read <3.) Specifically in regard to the profection wheel, time as radial/spiral in the lessons and themes we relearn and relive.
I am also coming to define community in this way: a ripple in a lake, mycelium in a forest, symbiotic relations in the natural world that have their divine balance. A spiral where we meet many people multiple times through new vessels and eyes. I am choosing to be angry and vocal more often and voice my discomfort, even when I can’t control the outcome, because I never know the ripple effect it will have to keep others safe.
Anger is queer. Brash. Sometimes unwelcome, often turned away, abrasive, and yet sacred. Queer anger is just as sacred as queer joy. I talked to a beloved about the 4B movement and realized I live it. I am an altar of all the lesbians that came before me who gave their life to thrive, who never fathomed joy as a birthright. Lesbians I’ll never know. Lesbians who laid down the asphalt for me to take off running. Lesbians who kept each other safe. I am choosing to honor them by being angry publically because being palatable may keep me adored, but it won’t bring the change I wish to see.
This letter is my altar to being unapologetically angry and uncomfortable.
My message: one of the easiest most revolutionary things you can do right now is mask. Please don’t wait for someone to beg you.
Nobody wants to talk about covid and I get it, its stressful, panic-inducing, and destabilizing having dealt with the suspicions of having long-covid myself. I don’t want to read another article about children dying of cardiovascular problems during recess, I don’t want to read more tweets about all the new findings of different places covid affects your body and how it lives in your brain long after you die. But I do. I do because somebody has to care. Public health is all our responsibilities and it shouldn’t be up to your overwhelmed anxious friend being the sole educator and dispeller of covid myths as the government has orchestrated to mobilize everyone back into a capitalist-forward momentum. “We keep us safe” should include cutting the chain of transmission in our communities so disabled and non-disabled folks can coexist with ease. If it is clear that the government is not here to save anybody, why oblige to the urge to perform hyper-capitalistic and voyeuristic ideals and succumb to surveillance and labor abuse (because covid is a labor issue as well.)
I say this as someone whose artistic framework is escapism and joy centering queer BIPOC: the hard work has always needed to be done, way before the recent election and masking is first on the list of things we need to do. Activism and radical views are not an identity but a framework for our actions. I personally am finding ways to make this fight sustainable for me and my body and finding ways to honor my anger and need for confrontation. Anger isn’t easy for everyone to feel, but a passage, an ancestor for us to learn to from. In these moments where are all scrambling to figure out what to do next, often times the answer is simmering within us, begging for our attention. When we learn to work with this anger, we will leave behind fear and find faith in the love and passion that is at the root of it which dreams of restoration and safety for all.
These revisions and realizations would be useless if I didn’t use what platforms I have to speak on them, so I am writing this to forward all the resources I can informally gather that I’ve been collecting for the past few years
resources ⋆｡‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧｡⋆
maskbloc.org , a BLESSING of a directory for finding different accessibility groups from mask blocs providing high quality masks free of charge to purifier lending libraries and clean air clubs.
November thread of covid PPE deals by twitter user ifuekonadine
general mask deal thread by twitter user spikenerxx (which includes bonafide masks where I last bought masks for my loved ones and I on a huge discount)
how to show up for people with long covid and ME/CFS thread by @clean_air_club
Sharing Our Sacred Rage, a virtual panel series to express, celebrate, and channel expansive ancestral rage for colonized folks, which includes
‘s panel “Burning it down! Pluto in Sag as the wildfire generation” on Wednesday, November 27th.Botanica de Palabras, my beloved
‘s new podcast exploring earthwork and spirituality <3⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩
I had a dream the other night, standing on top of a new york city building with others after a flood, skies clear and crystal blue with all the skyscrapers gone after the catastrophe. The streets were wiped back to a blank slate and we all looked at each other, alive and sharing a breath, ready to rebuild. This is the energy of Pluto in Aquarius, the tower card, that seeks that justice, that opportunity to start anew from the wreckage. Things pass, but we will always have each other and have the earth and anger as a guide for as long as we allow ourselves to.
May Pluto, now in Aquarius, saint of the scythe and reaper all rotting, show us that which does not serve us so we can timely let go, and be shaped by survival so that we may seek beyond it. If saturn is familiar with the scythe, then he is also, as planetary ruler of aquarius, akin to the harvest. Pluto in Aquarius, like the tower card in the major arcana, calls for all foundations to crumble to bring space for better. Time will pass, and darkness must eventually become light -as is the cycle- but even in the hardships, there is a glimmer of our ancestors, sacred rage, that will guide us to the change we seek.
Yours in resistance and rapture
Love, Neptunemuse ✨🌺
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