You can use it as an adjective for your SGA but if you’re not gay or a lesbian there’s no need to use it outside of that.
Just admit you don’t want gay men or lesbians to exclusively have even a word to themselves lol.
then only use the word exclusively – if that’s applied consistently, fine
don’t assume that if i’m kissing a boy, i’m gay. don’t apply the term ‘gay’ to me if i can’t use it myself
don’t use phrases like ‘gay marriage’ and ‘gay rights’ and ‘gay community’ if you mean to include anyone but gay people in that
if you want it to be exclusive, use it exclusively, stop forcibly applying it to others and then denying them use of the term
No one does that omg?? This is cut and dry hyperbole you’re displaying. The English language is tricky and people continue to use words because the word in question they’re using is more widely understood even if there’s a better, more broad term to use. If a man marries a man it’s gay marriage, whether or not one of the guys is bi/pan, that’s why it’s used as a ‘broad’ term in that context. Same with anyone who isn’t a straight couple.
9/10 times I see ‘LGBT community’ as the umbrella and very rarely now hear ‘the gay community’ and when I do it’s usually referring to the community exclusively for people who are gay and lesbians. I very rarely hear it as an umbrella but I know my experience is not universal. And again, I’m not saying bi/pan people can’t use it as a descriptor for their SGA, it’s when they start to use it as an identifier (like gay men and lesbians) it gets messy. I should state this is based on what I’ve regularly heard/read from lesbians and gay men and I can’t speak on it more than a ‘surface level’ view from a pan person.
You don’t automatically get to adapt words for your identity just bc someone calls you that. If someone saw me kissing a girl and called me the d slur that wouldn’t make it suddenly okay for me to start using it for myself and in general. Of course gay back then was the umbrella term and still is in some places but that doesn’t invalidate the concerns gay men and lesbians have with bi/pan people using ‘gay’ outside of describing their SGA.
“no one does that”
“if a man marries a man, it’s gay marriage, whether or not they’re bi/pan”
someone just put me out of my misery already
That’s not me using it as a broad term, that’s me using it bc it applies to a specific situation, nice try tho lol.
I like how you tried to be cute bc you don’t have any good counterpoints or arguments. Bye.
you’re literally making my point
you’re forcing the label ‘gay’ onto my relationships with men and simultaneously saying that i can’t identify as gay
that’s so fucked up
if gay is an exclusive term, then my relationships with men are not gay relationships, because i’m not exclusively gay
I’m fuckin’ screaming.
“If a man marries a man it’s gay marriage, whether or not one of the guys
is bi/pan, that’s why it’s used as a ‘broad’ term in that context”
Did they … did they read what they wrote? And that’s somehow support for bi/pan/multi sexualities not being allowed to use the word gay.
These are some of the reasons I stay away from the ““gay”“ community.
I NEVER KNEW THAT WAS WHAT AMERICANS MEANT WHEN THEY SAID “QUITE”
WHY DIDN’T ANYBODY TELL ME
SUDDENLY THAT ONE SONG THAT GOES “HELLO I MISS YOU QUITE TERRIBLY” MAKES LIKE A MILLION TIMES MORE SENSE
are you serious british people
i feel like this means i’ve been overestimating your enthusiasm about things for my entire life
And thus we have defined British/American relations for the last 3 decades
The Great British Baking Show will never be the same again after this.
When you’re on Tumblr and suddenly the new post notification is up to like (40) so you go o_0 and reload, then see the first thing on your dash, who reblogged it, and what it is, and suddenly that number makes sense.
For the original ask, requesting the definition of squick, please see this post.
Squick is a fun term that was often used as both a noun and a verb. Either X was one of your squicks, or X squicked you, or squicked you out, or squicked you hard.
It was often used in fic exchanges. They would ask for a list of your squicks so that the gifting author would know not to include any hint of them. It was also used in casual conversation with fandom friends, authors, artists, etc. It could be left in comments, or as a reason you just didn’t read your best fandom friend’s latest fic. “Sorry, bff, you know I love your writing, but you have X tagged at the top, and that just squicks me out.” “Hey, no worries, best reader friend! I totally get it. Give this one a pass, but I’ll send you a note when I post my next one! I promise it will be totally X-free!”
Here’s the thing though. In your example, you explain why X is your squick with Y. But the beauty of squick was that (at least in my experience) no explanation was necessary. Not only was it not necessary, it was rarely asked for. A squick is a squick, and there doesn’t have to be any rhyme or reason. In fact, why would you have a rational, bullet-pointed, well-thought-out argument as to why something squicked you out? Very often it’s a visceral reaction, and if you don’t like the thing, you’re likely not going to sit and do deep meditation on why not.
Squicks were respected by fandom. You don’t like the thing, okay, we will tag the thing appropriately, you do not have to read the thing, no judgments on either side. There was no fandom policing, only respect.
And this, I think, is super important, because fandom policing is a problem, especially when it comes to triggers. “Trigger” has become so overused, so all-encompassing, that people feel they have to defend their legitimate triggers. If X triggers you, it triggers you, and you DO NOT need to provide an explanation. But because “trigger” is so often used in place of “squick,” some people feel they have the right to “call out” those who use the word. They want explanations, they want you to tell them what that triggering concept does to you, so they can call bullshit and feel superior. You don’t have to explain either your squicks or your triggers, but using the correct word stops the fandom police from feeling as though they have the right to ask.
Bring “squick” back, people. Don’t devalue triggers, which are horrible, nasty, dangerous things.
the culture of justifying dislike on an ideological/moral basis in part one: chapter one of my novel, Let Me Show You My Issues With Tumblr Fandom. the requirement for ideological purity has become so impossibly strict, and is valued so highly, that tearing the thing you dislike from an ideological standpoint is the quickest way to shut it down. it’s a cheap, disingenuous shortcut that exploits social justice language for personal leverage. it’s not like we were free of wankery and ship wars back in ye olde lj days, god, far from it, but at least the insults we flung at each other were subjective: A is so bad for B and if you can’t see that you’re an idiot!!! B/C OTP!!! (i should also disclaim that we did have moral policing as well, it was just FAR less extensive.) leveraging social justice concepts is an attempt to gain a kind of objective superiority. “they’re a dark ship and i don’t like that” holds little power; “they’re abusive and you support abuse by shipping this” is a trump card to shut down the content you don’t like and the people who fan it. that kind of rhetoric is all over the damn place and it continues to be propagated because it works and it has created a culture from which a variety of problems like the trigger issue explained above consistently arise.
…i would go into further chapters on my novel but i am tired now
As an additional data point, as far as I know the term “squick” comes from the BDSM community, originally. At least that’s where I first encountered it, on BDSM message boards on usenet in the mid-90s – yes, I was on BDSM message boards in the mid-90s; long story. As such, the implicit lack of judgment is important to the meaning of the word; you need a word to mean “I really don’t want to do that, and I don’t want to watch you doing that, but I don’t judge YOU for liking that and I don’t mind if YOU do it … somewhere far away from me.”
I can’t really think of any other words we have for the same concept that aren’t judgmental to some extent. Anything I can think of to try to define “squick” using non-slangy words (disgusting, unpleasant, etc) have a judgy sort of vibe. And we really do need a word to talk about tropes and kinks in the same kind of way we can talk about how you like that ship and I like this ship but that doesn’t make your ship bad.
(Er, ideally we’d be able to talk about ships that way, obviously, in a perfect world … XD)
I was also thinking about how the original ask implies a very modern fannish mindset that’s just … not there, in the original fandom milieu that the squick concept came out of. Not that I’m saying fandom was better in the old days or anything, god no. But trying to explain why you have a squick, or asking someone else why they have theirs, is just not a thing you’d generally do. Squicks are irrational; that’s baked into the meaning of the word. Squicks aren’t something you explain. They just are. I mean, you could obviously try to figure it out, just like you can try to figure out why you have a particular kink, but in both cases, you don’t have to explain or justify it in order for other people to accept it as valid. I don’t need to explain that I like h/c for X and Y reasons in order to request it in an exchange. And squick functions the same way.
All of which makes it a very useful word for talking about fandom concepts without implying that someone else’s tastes make them a bad person!
My tired old soul reflecting on how ideas, concepts, sensibilities, can just disappear.
Squicks are not triggers. I have both: much better as I’m feeling these days, certain visuals can trigger my OCD. Once triggered, my OCD must be handled or it will fucking impair me.
This is so utterly different from encountering a squick. Look, dude, Omegaverse dynamics are a squick of mine. Stumbling over Omegaverse Turkfic will not force me to get my CBT and exposure practice going on. It will make me feel icky and I will stop reading and move on, grateful for all the kind souls who tag their Omegaverse fiction.
Now I live in this world where no one, apparently, should produce content that squicks anyone else, because squick=trigger, and triggering people is immoral. I can’t figure out how we landed here, as fans.
An important distinction like the difference between “squick” and “trigger” should not disappear in the name of protecting people from culture.
Squick is such a great word and really necessary. I have zero triggers, but there’s stuff that, as Judy said, makes me feel icky and I stop reading/watching.
I took a ten year long black out from fandom anything online (life happened) and when I got back, I was so confused. Bring back squick. Use it, own the expirence you want without the need to judge or demand or label what other people want from their expirence.
Seeing Rocket cry puts me in the pits of depression and I just want to cuddle him and tell him everything will be okay.
What she says: I’m fine.
What she means: Sometimes I think about how when the Guardians went to see the Collector, he immediately latched onto Groot as unique and valuable, even among so many wonders. And then he just dismisses Rocket as a thing barely worth noting, even though he has traveled the universe and he knows what’s out there. He’d know there is nothing like Rocket, maybe even knows of Rocket already. And yet, Rocket is worthless. And for Rocket, whose only defense to the world–and perhaps, even, to himself–that he is worth something as a being, is that he is unique. What must that have felt like? Even a collector of rarities doesn’t find him worthy of existence as so much as a stuffed corpse on display. (Sometimes I also think the Collector was interested but carefully knows how to play his marks, because had he expressed interest at all, Rocket would have made sure he would never get his hands on him.) But all Rocket gets from the Collector is that he, no matter how unique he is, is not worthy of a place among these wonders and rarities of the universe. And sometimes I think about that.
Queerness, to me, is about far more than homosexual attraction. It’s about a willingness to see all other taboos broken down. Sure, many of us start on this path when we first feel “same sex” or “same gender” attraction (though what is sex? And what is gender? And does anyone really have the same sex or gender as anyone else?). But queerness doesn’t stop there.
This is a somewhat controversial stance, but to me queer means something completely different than “gay” or “lesbian” or “bisexual.” A queer person is usually someone who has come to a non-binary view of gender, who recognizes the validity of all trans identities, and who, given this understanding of infinite gender possibilities, finds it hard to define their sexuality any longer in a gender-based way. Queer people understand and support non-monogamy even if they do not engage in it themselves. They can grok being asexual or aromantic. (What does sex have to do with love, or love with sex, necessarily?) A queer can view promiscuous (protected) public bathhouse sex with strangers and complete abstinence as equally healthy.
Queers understand that people have different relationships to their bodies. We get what it means to be stone. We know what body dysphoria is about. We understand that not everyone likes to get touched the same way or to get touched at all. We realize that people with disabilities may have different sexual needs, and that people with survivor histories often have sexual triggers. We can negotiate safe and creative ways to be intimate with people with HIV/AIDs and other STIs.
Queers understand the range of power and sensation and the diversity of sexual dynamics. We are tops and bottoms, doms and subs, sadists and masochists and sadomasochists, versatiles and switches. We know what we like and don’t like in bed.
We embrace a wide range of relationship types. We can be partners, lovers, friends with benefits, platonic sweethearts, chosen family. We can have very different dynamics with different people, often all at once. We don’t expect one person to be able to fulfill all our diverse needs, fantasies and ideals indefinitely.
Because our views on relationships, sex, gender, love, bodies, and family are so unconventional, we are of necessity anti-assimilationist. Because under the kyriarchy we suffer, and watch the people we love suffering, we are political. Because we want to survive, we fight. We only want the freedom to be ourselves, love ourselves, love each other, and live together. Because we are routinely denied that, we are pissed.
Queer doesn’t mean “don’t label me,” it means “I am naming myself.” It means “ask me more questions if you curious” and in the same breath means “fuck off.”
Aka those ships you love that have under 50 fics on AO3, only around 20 pieces of art for them (and they’re almost all by you/one person), the ones that are popular in other continuities but there’s next to nothing for the universe you like them in, etc
I wanna see who else is in Rare Pair Hell with me
Mirage/Wheeljack (G1, but I’ll take what I can get anywhere)
Oh gods…
Starscream/Blurr
Blurr/Mirage
Blurr/Twins
and more….
Mirage/Sideswipe/Sunstreaker… 7 on Ao3, 2 are mine, 3 are the same series.
Verilidaine's Scrapbook 