Category Archives: Ranty ones
The facile debate about separating art from artist
“Can you separate the art from the artist?” is a ludicrous question, and it’s one I’ve wanted to tackle for a really long time. The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ depending on the art, the artist and you, the person who consumes it. There are always examples in the media of artists who have fallen from grace (or, less euphemistically, done something so morally repulsive that the idea of listening to their songs/watching their shows/reading their books now feels obscene), and often when a new person turns out to be a wrong ‘un, some thinkpiece or other claims we must learn to ‘separate the art from the artist’, which makes my brain twitch so I throw down a few notes. I’ve never written properly about this, because apparently I’ve never quite found the right fire to burn the whole question to the ground, but I think I’ve got the torch now, so I’m gonna pick it up and hope you join me in the flames. Let’s talk about ‘separating art from artist’, and specifically let’s talk JK Rowling.
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It’s genocide
Some days it doesn’t feel right to publish silly posts about sex, or self-pitying navelgazing about whatever sadness is swirling round in my head. Today is one of those days. In fact, at the moment, every day feels like one of those days. Every single day we wake up to more appalling images from Gaza, of children being deliberately starved. What is happening in Gaza is a genocide. I can’t comprehend how it is possible to see what’s going on and conclude it is anything but. The aid trucks queuing outside the border, refused entry, and the people inside clamouring for food and being met with bullets instead. We are watching a genocide play out on our screens, and our governments are locking people up for stating this obvious fact.
I want to spit him out
I want to spit him out of me. Bear with me as I heave this blog post up, please. I have never written anything this bitter because I have never felt this way before in my life. I feel like I’ve swallowed slow-acting poison: his love is poison, and I want to spit him out of me.
Please don’t use AI to write porn
Cast your mind back to the last time something gave you a kick of surprising new lust. You know what I mean, right? The little moments during sex when someone said something with a particular intonation and it caused you to melt from the inside. The written erotica that made just a few tweaks to the kind of phrases you think about when you masturbate, and suddenly opened the door to a whole new avenue of fantasy. Maybe you were scrolling through your favourite porn site, and you discovered a fresh way to position two subs for a beating that gave you… well… feelings. Cast your mind back to how you felt when you were last turned on by something that surprised you. Now hold that thought, and treasure it: it may be much rarer in the future.
Transphobia harms all of us
CN: transphobia.
Late on Friday night the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released an ‘interim update’, offering advice to businesses and public bodies in which it tells them that “trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities”. The update also notes that “in some circumstances the law also allows trans women (biological men) not to be permitted to use the men’s facilities, and trans men (biological woman) not to be permitted to use the women’s facilities”. This is in response to the UK Supreme Court judgment last week which defined ‘woman’ as someone who is ‘biologically female’. A judgment the court told us “does not remove protection from trans people” is immediately being used as the justification to try and remove important protections from trans people. I think the judgment is profoundly wrong and deeply harmful.