marshtide: (Default)
"Att säga "vi måste tala om gränser i sex" förändrar inget - sprängkraften ligger i att faktiskt göra det." (Det räcker nog för varning? Diskussion om personliga gränser och sexuell övergrepp, förstås.)

Prata om det

Jag har inte velat prata om det av Anna-Karin Lind

Därför prata vi inte om det av Martin Halldin

Känns självklart att man bör prata om det, men det är också klart att vi ofta vill inte. Jag har ju inte velat prata om det heller. Det finns många saker som jag har helt enkelt aldrig pratat om för nån och har nästan inte orkat tänka på, mer och mindre traumatisk, saker som jag skäms för eller är arg över eller både och. Jag har inte haft en bra förhållande med min egen kropp, jag har inte haft respekt för mig själv, jag har inte vågat sätta gränser.

Många av oss har inte haft nån som har lärt oss att göra det. Vi har behövde lära det själv, och det har tagit tid, och vi har hamnat i idiotiska, obekväma eller farliga situationer medan vi har lärt.

Och vi har inte känt att vi prata om det. För att det inte kändes så allvarlig. Eller så var det våra egna fel. Eller... det finns ju många möjliga skäl.

Men det är nog dags for mig att prata om det snart. Vi får se om jag känner mig tillräcklig modig.

Tyckte att några av er som kan svenska skulle vara intresserad av diskussionen ändå.

(Summary: The Swedish feminist part of the internet talks about sex and boundaries. Hoorah, people having interesting conversations in the wake of THE ENTIRE INTERNET NAY WORLD being stupid in countless different directions re: Assange.)

(P.S.: this entire discussion was apparently started by Johanna Koljonen, of Nördorama, which is still the best radio programme evah.)
marshtide: (Mårran)




(This post is partly prompted by talking a little earlier with [personal profile] starlady about old shojo, and partly by [personal profile] timeasmymeasure's post about female characters. Because I've been meaning to inflict some of my favourites on you for ages. I also want to put disclaimers all over this saying I don't know what I'm talking about. Because I don't! But hell with it! Let's roll!)

Let's talk a bit about the group of female manga artists in the 70s often referred to as the year 24 group. They produced a lot of series that are now classics and they pushed, as far as I can tell, more or less every boundary they could think of. Quite a few of them were particularly interested in gender and in sexuality. In the way relationships worked. Or didn't.

From this we get a lot of stories about powerful women and women who struggle for power and women who just don't have much of it at all. We get philosophical stories. We get stories about negotiating gender, including stories which tackle trans issues in a pretty serious (if generally not upbeat) way and stories that play with the construction of gender. And we get stories about gay or ambiguous characters - both male and female, although more often male (in other words, the beginning of shonen-ai). These stories are generally deeply depressing. I get the feeling that a lot of the people who wrote these stories had more questions than answers - and that there were other constraints on what they could actually tackle and how they could show it, to some extent, though I am not that well read up on this stuff. But Oniisama E's pasted on heterosexuality? Yeah, sure, I totally bought that. And the characters who challenge norms tend to die and abuse is rampant and half the characters in a lot of these stories are actually insane and all the rest.

One can view it, in that way, as something negative. But I actually feel like that whole movement was really powerful, anyway, and had really interesting, good ideas, which were pretty far ahead of the curve in some respects. I have a lot of respect for their stuff, even with the dead lesbians/gay people/trans people. Positive representation is great, but what they were doing was pretty amazing on other levels. It is also not, by any means, absolutely all negative.

A few of my favourite series ever come from this lot's work.

My absolute favourite of these writers - of the ones I've managed to track down and read - is Ikeda Riyoko (Rose of Versailles, Oniisama E, Claudine, Window of Orpheus). I think the degree to which she actually nails her ideas is better than quite a few of the others. And her non-gender-conforming women? Yes please.

Possibly one of her best series, and the one I would make everyone read/watch if it was widely available, is Rose of Versailles, set in the run-up to the French revolution. It is gender-defying as anything!

Rose of Versailes. And Oscar. Mostly Oscar actually. )


This post doesn't need to be longer. I'll get back to you about some of the other series and characters I really fell for.


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