no boys allowed in the room!!!!

also no one's "stomping around"? discomfort does not mean you aren't safe, and the calls might be coming from inside the house

Roxy, please leave it.

I appreciate the sentiment, but really? The information that someone dislikes me so intensely, that I make them uncomfortable? Is valuable information. It helps inform my interactions with them. I would rather just know if someone feels that way. Like, no, I do not feel it is my place to leave an online space that is one of the few long-term supports available in my life right now? But also, I can be aware of that discomfort, and make a decision not to engage with or trouble that person in other spaces.

I am having ~so many feelings~ about the musician / groupie / "girls as treats" power structures being discussed in multiple spaces - like, I feel I have so much to add to that conversation? Like, how can we do this in a way that lampshades the power structures in the entertainment industry as a site of fantasy - but that doesn't a) shame the desires and fantasies of the "girls" in question (how do I recconcile these conversations with the fact that 14 year old me would totally have fucked the shit out of, e.g. David Bowie, had I ever had a chance?) yet b) does not indulge those lazybad 'any man in this position would do the same' generalisations. (Honestly? And people think *I'm* a misandrist?) Abuse is a function of power. Misogynist structures exist to keep power in the hands of some genders, but not others. It's nothing inherent in the category of "man" or "men". But desire is a form of power, and the entire entertainment industry is based around the commodification of fans' desire.

But wow, given recent experiences, do I not want to risk venturing anything on open ILX that could be open to being misinterpreted.

got it <3

I am having ~so many feelings~ about the musician / groupie / "girls as treats" power structures being discussed in multiple spaces

same though maybe different contexts (maybe not idk). i've been following the epstein stuff really intensely and it took me a while to figure out how badly and directly it was impacting my mental health. i have OCD which (often) thrives on feelings and thoughts of not having control, and my god the layers of having no control involved in that thing and also involved in just living in the world as a survivor, as a woman, as a poor, whatever. i've not been doing great mentally lately in general, and returning to ilx is probs like, a manifestation of that and also categorically not helping it

also i'm sorry i even brought that shit up (epstein) in this space, i tbh don't even want to talk about it and hope we can go back to talking about haircuts

yeah same :( i also self-destructively engage with this material that gives me waking nightmares and then wonder why i feel so awful. i would throw myself into work but that is very tentative at the moment and with the social isolation of ronatimes i just have very few places to turn.
i should avoid turning to threads about sexual harassment and abuse! that is what i should do.

Aw, I'm sorry you're having those feelings and experiences, Roxy, even though I'm always happy to see you on here, I know this is not always the greatest space for any of us. But also, this is one of the few spaces (the "no boys" thread) where we can always engage with people who are just like, "yeah, I get it, I totally get it!" and that is such a huge relief, and source of comfort and solidarity that helps counteract all the doomscrolling and the online OCD scratching at the bad shit (I get it, I so get it!)

LL, I always appreciate whenever you turn up on one of those threads, and just bring such calm, reasonable, sense - but I also recognise how much that must cost you, mentally.

Haircuts - I've just ordered the rainbow Wahl and I just need to go out into the 35 degree heat to go and pick it up.

the current heat and humidity has been oppressive and very sad for my hair

Will no one stop this hot damn climate change from oppressing our poor sad hair, dammit!

It was 36 degrees out there. Thirty Six of your earth degrees. That's just unacceptable.

i have OCD which (often) thrives on feelings and thoughts of not having control, and my god the layers of having no control involved in that thing

I don't think I have strong OCD tendencies but I was OCD-ish about covid news from around the world from sometime in Jan/Feb, and then when the devastation broke all around us I was actually able to stop doom-scrolling because the worst had kinda happened?

Now I'm just trying to live and cut my hair and grow food and get in water.

solidarity gyac

This was me actually for a while, and I did have health anxiety that sent me to the doctor on multiple occasions years before I was ever diagnosed. Feels like validation, in a way?

I am autistic, so it's sometimes really hard to separate out 'OCD tendencies' from 'executive function at 0, cannot achieve state change from current activity'.

Combine that with rona-based social isolation, where literally any social contact, even 'squabbling with people on the interwebs' feels like a boost to the brain chemicals, and that is a total recipe for being unable to stop the scrolling.

(LOL, I literally deactivated my twitter a few days ago, in a desperate attempt to try to stop the constant rat-like cage-pacing which was both alleviation of and cause of lots of the anxiety, but... here I am back on ILX instead ;_;)

Like, how can we do this in a way that lampshades the power structures in the entertainment industry as a site of fantasy - but that doesn't a) shame the desires and fantasies of the "girls" in question

You should contribute if you feel up to it! I was actually thinking of you the other day when I was being interviewed by a journalist friend about my experiences with this stuff. ... Anyway, I went in.

part of that interview was about "toxic masculinity" -- and this goes back to what we were talking about earlier w/r/t queerness and gender -- and I told my friend that, in the context of male dominated cultures where "toxic masculinity" plays a major role, it isn't just cis-men that can practice it. Like, during the time period I was being interviewed about, I was one of the only cis-female venue-operators in the scene, and those were my, lol, soft butch years ... because I felt the need to present as male and assume this masculine behavior and mindset in order to "fit in" or "comply with community standards" ... because it's the dominant culture, toxic masculinity and masculinity, in general, is not just the province of cis-men ... similar to how "white supremacy" is something that blacks/POC can internalize and practice, even though they aren't white.

Yeah, thanks for bringing up those points, they are very salient!

I think I need to cogitate and think on it more. There was another thread on this previously, like more of a discussions / "what can be done" type thread that I so nearly jumped in on. To try to say, "these industries are in the business of commodifying sexual desire; you cannot separate desire from the basic structure of their existence. The power structures are bad and can become intensely abusive, because power corrupts, but this whole thing is predicated on selling sex, selling the illusion of intimacy" (my friend who invented crowdfunding, said she took the entire model from the pornographic industry, that the very basic idea was not selling music, but selling intimacy.)

You can address the power structures and the imbalances, but you *have* to acknowledge the forces of desire at work here. Desire is complicated.

But as soon as you say "desire is complicated" it's like you are wading straight into the dirty business of making excuses for rapists and abusers, whether you intend to or not.

x-post will probably think on that, too

hahah also, when a band comes through and starts loading in their gear, and asks to talk to the sound person ... this is what I reasoned ... they are more likely to respect someone wearing a black band t-shirt, dickies, and combat boots as opposed to someone wearing a cute dress and make-up. ... Still though, some of them really struggled with the fact that the sound person was a woman. ... Even the most entrenched ones "got it" when they first saw me and I was actually setting up the PA.

B -- sorry, I was typing the other thing while you posted -- and the thread itself, it also gets into different types of fandom, like -- I don't want to dredge up the gazillion different discussions about "how we talk about the music we like and why we like it" ... but it often confuses me when I see so many people posting about music they like devoid of that sex/desire / intimacy motivation that shaped a lot of why I like what I like.

because I felt the need to present as male and assume this masculine behavior and mindset in order to "fit in" or "comply with community standards" ... because it's the dominant culture, toxic masculinity and masculinity, in general, is not just the province of cis-men ... similar to how "white supremacy" is something that blacks/POC can internalize and practice, even though they aren't white.

This is why I want every man, woman and genderqueer on the planet (or at least ~The West~) to read Down Girl by Kate Manne. Misogyny is not just a thing that "men", cis or otherwise, do. It is a system that wraps up *everyone* in its internal logic, unless you take constant and vigilant steps to avoid it, fight it, counter it. That many women (cis and trans women) can internalise it completely, not to mention trans men and sometimes enbies. Often, the *only* power that seems available to cis women in particular, within the structure of male supremacy, is to conform to the standards of misogyny - either by becoming impossibly perfectly feminine and weaponising femininity against women who are less feminine; or by invoking the ~Laddette~ and playing masculinity harder than the boys (lord knows I did) back in the 90s - even though the small power one can access through playing that loophole girl is *always* on sufferance, can always be revoked at any time, and *will* be revoked if you ever actually challenge male supremacy in any meaningful way.

I don't wanna talk about misogyny any more, I want to talk about shagging pop stars and collecting dick like rare seven inches, because I was never cute enough to be part of that scene, but wow, was I fascinated by it?

but it often confuses me when I see so many people posting about music they like devoid of that sex/desire / intimacy motivation that shaped a lot of why I like what I like.

LOL, I remember starting a thread on ILM where I was like "I actually feel sorry for people who don't experience the power of sex / desire / intimacy in music" and of course I got crucified for that, even though it's true...

oh and to answer your question from way earlier -- Wahl is a solid brand of clippers -- like the Toyota of clippers, or the Fender of clippers, or the Korg of clippers -- respectable and reliable.

Yeah, I now have a brand new set of Wahl clippers, and an undercut. (I still haven't worked out what to do with the mop on top, but at least the awful hot sweaty clutter at the base of my neck that was bothering me so much is gone.)

xp -- oh geez, it's always weird to me when there are those big retrospective polls of artists/bands I was a fan of as a young person and people go on about "the guitar tone" or the recording quality when for me, it was like, this song inspired so many vivid romantic fantasies for me at the time.

xp THE BEST. I LOVE HAVING A CLEAN NECK!

this is on my agenda for the weekend btw -- clean neck self care

THERE WAS LIKE TWO SOLID INCHES OF HAIR BACK THERE!!!! It was so disgusting. I don't even know how that happened because I just trimmed it with a pair of scissors at the start of lockdown?

But wow, number 1 on the back of the neck is the best velvety feeling ever, and now I can have it WHENEVER I WANT!

(I am going to be stimming with these damn clippers all the time now)

i can't deny that I have experienced arousal with that number 1 back of the neck thing.

Whenever I step onto pretty much any thread except this one, I feel like... have I taken powerful hallucinogens that render everything I say completely unintelligble and garbled, or have the people around me taken some powereful hallucinogens that cause people to hear random things unrelated to, or even the opposite of what I'm saying and doing? It's a genuine mind-trip, to see what I write, and how people choose to interpret it. Seriously, I haven't slept in like 4 days, so am I going crazy here, or is this actually as bizarre as it seems to me?

i think past history is part of it, and also, idk maybe it's an age thing? i have no idea ... i am reading the pushback and going wtf along with you, for the most part.

i know i am at the age where i have to make an effort to change habits and language, and that things that "were acceptable" are not anymore. It's kinda the one thing that is a disadvantage to being middle-aged, whereas so much else is way better than being a young person. ... though I think I have at least 5 yrs before the menopause so ... I am trying to enjoy the fuck out of the rest of my 40s.

It's weird, because I actually have a ton of younger friends from other messageboards who are trans and nonbinary, and... they don't behave like this? We have reasonable conversations, and they actually view me as some kind of... "wow, a 50 year old nonbinary person!" like they love that I'm old and I am still this way, because it validates that it's not just some ~Tumblr fashion thing~ that we have been around forever, even if we didn't have words for ourselves back then.

Maybe it is a specific ILX thing. The level of projection from these people is seriously just off the scale.

ILX has always been full of bullies, it is in some way kind of a haven for bullies, but this feels like... the people who used to bully me in the olden days were just plain old misogynists and transphobes who couldn't stand the idea of a "woman" who behaved "like a boy".

It's bizarre when the bullying and the mobbing and the dogpiling is coming from inside your own community.

it makes me question whether healthy respectful conflict resolution is possible ... idk ... or going back to the part of the whole call-out/cancel process where there is supposedly accountability and reparations and healing, but that seems to be the most difficult part for us (at least in America).

The way that the #metoo thing is wending its way down to more subculture musicians, I am seeing friends coming to terms with the fact their bandmates and friends who are in other bands have done shitty things that aren't acceptable, and that they have to hold the bandmate/friend accountable and the messiness that is separating the person from the behavior, and caring for someone that has done a horrible thing, and having that process be somewhat public ...

I'm just feeling really down on the fact that it seems like it's perfectly fine for other people to scream, to swear, to call me names, call me a "piece of shit", to tell me to fuck off, and to act... unbelievably rude and aggressive and just over the top behaviour towards me, and apparently that doesn't reflect badly on them.

But for me, to like, deviate from absolute perfect, impossible precion and politeness in any way, means that I deserve every piece of abuse that gets hurled at me.

The double standards are just... wow, they really are something, huh.

Sorry, I'm gonna come back to the callout/accountability process of subculture musicians at another time. It's exhausting dealing with this.

Reminds me of that old chestnut - if you want to know where power lies, it's visible in who is allowed to display anger, and how much.

if you want to know where power lies, it's visible in who is allowed to display anger, and how much.

definitely!

...speaking of badly behaved subculture musicians, it applies there, too!

Whose rage is acceptable and even legitimises them; and whose rage totally disqualifies them.

ah yes ... the righteous anger vs. being the "crazy bitch"

There are like four threads going on at the moment all going round the same circles and I really, really don't get what ILX is about sometimes.

Neither do I, Kinder, neither do I.

The way that the #metoo thing is wending its way down to more subculture musicians, I am seeing friends coming to terms with the fact their bandmates and friends who are in other bands have done shitty things that aren't acceptable, and that they have to hold the bandmate/friend accountable and the messiness that is separating the person from the behavior, and caring for someone that has done a horrible thing, and having that process be somewhat public ...

It's much easier to produce the Correct Opinion when you're talking about the behaviour of Jimmy Page or Bobby Gillespie or That Guy With The Haircut From That Popular Band whose name I've forgotten (though obviously, some people cannot make the leaps through 'I like this person's music' and 'does liking a bad person's music make me a bad person?' to 'bad people can make stuff I like, but it's important not to dismiss or deny the badness of their actions').

When it's 'that guy who's the Missing Stair in your own scene' it is much, much harder, because those leaps become so personal. It's no longer 'does liking music by the bad person make me a bad person' - it's 'did I turn a blind eye to stuff that was happening under my nose; did I ignore or downplay or make light of some shitty stuff; am I personally implicated in this; is this a badness in *me* that goes beyond "well I like some questionable music"' That it's not actually about the bad behaviour of the shitty dude, or even about *their* accountability - the discomfort is about recognising one's own complicity in allowing the missing stair to go unaccounted for so long.

And I think a lot of the "well, any dude would act the same in the same situation" is a kind of handwaving way of both admitting and denying one's own complicity - "any of us could have done it" means no one is really culpable for it.

There is discomfort in 'the messiness that is separating the person from the behavior' (that shit is difficult) - but looking at yourself and realising that messiness has spattered all over you, whether you think of yourself as ~one of the good ones~ or not is, I think, what makes the process so difficult for many people to handle.

Is this something I would have to read ILM to understand?

Haha, yeah probably. It's exactly what you would expect from a clash of music nerds and #MeToo

Today, in my continued quest to re-examine the most ~difficult~ of the demon radical feminists of yores, I've been reading Barbara Walker - Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, and I'm having such a fun time with it. It is both so charmingly old school ~new age wymxn~ in a way that now seems adorably quaint, and at the same time, still kinda startling - or at least, for me, who was a priest's child at a seriously religious school, raised on serious Critical Bible Studious and Greek Myths.

#PostsVeryMuchInCharacter

Is this something I would have to read ILM to understand?

― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit), Saturday, August 1, 2020 8:50 AM (three hours ago)

in summary, previously celebrity musicians are targeted by #metoo callouts. In the past month or so, less famous musicians have been called out and smaller labels are cancelling acts, so the focus has gone from "oh shit, this guy in my fave band when I was a teenager" to "this guy my friend used to be in a band with/date"

and, to show my age, lots of people in my cohort thinking, "fuck, what would I have done at the time, if #metoo had been a thing 10-20 years ago? Good thing I'm no longer in a band and am a boring middle class wage slave with a kid"

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/592f4f5a2994cac7907b461b/1551897574685-MZ3WGIZM2NJJSV05BCZW/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kFMMQA9k7Q_pQQJjdOYnlXB7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z4YTzHvnKhyp6Da-NYroOW3ZGjoBKy3azqku80C789l0mhydAgiKdIfeAoxVgE7c7oK07iYyEOLLXo4fTIvdjyaFEF5moreGOi38zza8M7wUw/IMG-3856+%281%29.JPG

Is a passing spacecadet still around?

harbl: yes! It blows my mind that the Myths and Secrets author is also the Treasury of Knitting Patterns author.

And she a created a Tarot deck!

wait it IS the same person?!?!