Woegothe, the Session Guardian

2 days ago

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𝐸𝓃𝑔𝓁𝒾𝓈𝒽'𝓈 𝒞𝒽𝑜𝓈𝑒𝓃

𝓞𝓷𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓮𝓵𝓮𝓬𝓽 𝓯𝓮𝔀 𝓲𝓷 𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓿𝓲𝓬𝓮.

@woeGothic[WG]

I would like to address something regarding my fellow sapphics. There is a particular kind of individual who encounters lesbian culture only through a series of poorly photocopied warnings left under their windshield wiper. It is always a special little miracle when a gay man discovers lesbian culture the way a Victorian physician discovers a woman with opinions. Clipboard out. Brow furrowed. Suddenly very concerned about hysteria. Somehow, he has acquired a remarkably heteronormative view of a nuanced queer topic. Because, of course, when straight men say lesbians are dramatic, predatory, sexless, angry, unfeminine, cliquish, or fundamentally broken, we recognize the sound. It is boring. It is ancestral. It smells faintly of mildew and fatherhood. But when a gay man says it, he often expects the critique to arrive pre-washed. He, too, has been harmed by heteronormativity. He cannot possibly be speaking in its ancient and cruel tongues. He is merely trying to help. Unfortunately, Dirk, not only do you speak in its accent, you have mastered the dialect. How generous. Dirk’s little #lesbianlifehack series is interesting because it occasionally wanders within spitting distance of a real point, then immediately wraps that point in such a thick, glistening membrane of contempt that one is forced to ask whether the lesson is “lesbians should have healthier relationships” or “Dirk should not be allowed near women unless supervised by a committee of exhausted school counselors.” Let us begin with the emotionally unavailable woman. Yes. Congratulations. Some people are terrible to date. Some people are dangerous to date. Avoidant, self-destructive, addicted, cruel, radioactive. It is perfectly fair to say, “Do not romanticize someone who will harm you and call it love.” Bravo. It becomes less fair when the description turns into a fetishized wanted poster of a tall, handsome, substance-adjacent, vaguely masc woman who “would be a real stunner if she would man up and start T already.” Textbook gender resentment wearing a little paper hat that says “concern.” You are not helping lesbians by implying every troubled masculine woman is a proto-man who has failed to complete the customer survey. You are not protecting women by teaching them to read masculinity, addiction, and emotional unavailability as one big predatory silhouette. You are not critiquing harm. You are eroticizing the hazard sign, then blaming lesbians for looking at it. Yes. Do not build your nest in the ribcage of a woman who cannot hold you without making it feel like a hostage negotiation. Do not convince yourself that her distance is mystique. Do not confuse addiction, avoidance, cultivated indifference, or unresolved trauma with hidden tenderness that only you are clever and beautiful enough to excavate. That is useful advice. Unfortunately, Dirk cannot simply deliver useful advice. His advice is studded with little barbs slid between the ribs of each sentence. He cannot resist treating gender nonconformity as diagnostic material. Nor can he resist a cisgendered narrative. How quaint. How refreshing. The wounded seductress who eats girls alive because she is empty inside. That woman exists. She is also not a species. The problem is not that lesbians are drawn to masculine women. Or complicated women. Or traumatized women. Or women with nicotine habits, hard faces, and poor coping mechanisms. The problem is romanticizing unavailability. The problem is treating damage as proof of depth. The problem is deciding that if someone cannot love you well, the failure must mean the love is profound. Dirk found the correct door. However. He kicked it open with a boot full of misogyny confetti. So yes. Hit the bricks when someone shows you she cannot give back what you put in. But do not mistake every haunted woman for a trap. Do not mistake every masc woman for a threat. Do not mistake every hard-edged lesbian for a spider. And do not let a gay man with a clipboard convince you that his contempt counts as field research. Quite literally everything he has said about lesbians can be flipped on virtually any orientation. The outright targeting of women, sapphics, lesbians, femineity, feminine adjacent individuals, brought in under this microscopic lens is not unlike the wretched magnifying glass burning our little ant hill. A tool for research being used as a weapon again. I will continue these rants shortly.