Control Valve Companion
CW: Transphobic Discourse, Bad Relationships, Alcoholism, Brief Mention of Suicidal Ideation
Venus Meets Venus (2014) is interesting in the fact that it feels like such a specific cultural object from 10 years ago. It's interfacing with a greasy and failed relationship of a cis lesbian dating a transwoman, 10 years ago. Basically in a time period where talking about that stuff was still out of bounds. Shockingly its hard to believe this, but for transwomen being spoken of in a large cultural group as these 'objects to have strong opinions on' didn't really catalyze until about 3 years ago with J.K. Rowling posting her (J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues) [https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/] (2020) essay.
So this whole discussion is a major sidebar but hear me out before you skip this paragraph. The important thing you have to know here is that even me interfacing with this post now would be dumb if we are just talking about Rowling and what shes doing. Sadly¹ the best reference point to make that point is that of a youtube video by detailed independent journalist Shaun over in the video "JK Rowling's New Friends" (2023) in which among lots of other things he points out that Rowling has some fairly extreme ties to the gender critical movement and the ways in which shes shaking hands with ultra conservative figures and supporting their desires to see shelters for trans people actively closed down. In most ways this concern trolling about Rowling being 'maybe not the worst for saying what she said' is completely out of date by design, and Shauns coverage in general points that out. Most news coverage is not like 'hey its no longer about what these people are saying, but what they are doing' because transphobia gets more clicks. This is not just Rowling specific by the way, there was a similar issue going on with the treatment of Dave Chappelle actually. Chappelle has been getting that similar concern trolling treatment all throughout the bookending of his own transphobic specials, which as you know pulled the Netflix development team into striking for a while, all the up to his most recent special. I don't even think its worth either of our time for me to go and find the name of those specials and talk that stuff out, because Chappelle being bad about trans people is literally not that important (and I'm saying this as a transfemme). You know what is important? When the dude threatened to block a housing proposal at a local commitee by pulling out a lot of money. That's actual horrifying news but that doesn't get clicks! It's the biggest deal about Chappelle to me, and a blip on most peoples radar. This is the problem, for most people everything exists on the level of a few words said wrong and not on the level of actually bad stuff happening.
This is what I mean, most of this stuff I just mentioned is literally out of date in the sense that a metric fuckton of cultural movement and politics has been happening even since then. It's only been Three Years since that particular event, and if your trans like me this probably comes as a shock, for us with all the stuff going on it feels like 10. So I can't sit here and show you all the awful shit going on in the world with that. That has to be something you learn about somewhere else, not from a random post on a wimpering social media website like this. But importantly, it puts into context why Venus Meets Venus is as culturally important as it is, its from 2014. The dynamics were more innocent, and most people thought that the only 2 things trans people were worried about was the trans panic defense and online TERFs. Even here Venus Meets Venus functions as a fracturing point actually and a rather important one, it illustrates through being so well written that relationship issues are a huge problem to. Even then we had a lot of terrible stuff we were dealing with, but we didn't really know about it like, statistically or whatever.
See the more 'economic' side of this was uncovered in "He Fucked the Girl Out of Me" (2022, Talyor McCue) which needed a bunch of statistics about how transfemmes have the harshest wage gap of any gender group we have census data on, and the trans panic defense needed to wear off a bit. Back in 2014 we just had 'feelings', really sapphic and confusing feelings about 'others'. If Venus Meets Venus shows anything then, its that through the thoroughness of its prose and broken bar relationship that being a 'good ally' is not being a good person in a relationship. There's a very profound passage where the main character asks her partner if she wants to go to the trans march, and she politely declines. It immediately becomes this prodding 'why' moment, you went to the dyke march after all and frusteratingly as a reader you're never given a 'good' reason as to why not. What would it have been? She passes, does she not want other trans people to see her as clocky? Does she not want to be 'seen'? Is she worried that she might be murdered by police or something? You're not really given an answer, nowadays she might have had one, but in that time period, in 2014, no was just all there was unless you were especially educated about the windows being broken and I mean come on, I was out in 2014 and the main thing I was thinking about with my crush on a homeless transfemme. Coercing your girlfriend into doing stuff they doing want to do, and pecking them into activism for their minority group more is not ok, and through the main narrator you learn that. It hits like a truck.
Thus in a beautifully put way you learn one of the most important struggles that LGBT people face: we are made the victim fairly often of other peoples maladaptive enthusiasm and have to watch ourselves about falling into it with each other. Maladaptive enthusiasm is the main theme of the work, and it hits like a truck. For me if I had to describe it, its basically the concept of loving somebody through your desire to 'help them out' and get them out of a rough spot. You other them as an object of political desire rather than romantic thoroughness. A desire for active and continuous solidarity that can rather franticly overwrite your other emotions and desires. For instance I had an extreme crush on my now transmother who was going through a housing crises at one point. I get her some basic nessecities from CVS once and shipped it to her, and obviously it put me in an emotional spot where my crush on her was getting toxic and out of hand. I was messaging her constantly to make sure she was ok, would actively tell her my worst intrusive thoughts, etc. which catalyzed into an event where I upset her by saying I was thinking about offing myself (this is years ago, I'm fine now). Demanding an intense emotional care from somebody who was in no place to give that. Soon after that happened, I realized I was trans myself and thats how I came out. This is actually the most chill version of this I can publicly talk about, in part because we have such a powerful and loving relationship now without the need for active check ups. This didn't happen immediately. I had to go take a year smoke break with myself and take a really long look in the mirror.
This acts then as the ultimate criticism of the piece. You can hurt people and have a point of healing happen with them later on, but the way this work frames that is as something that happens over a single night with a wine bottle and some tears. But especially once you do something outrageously hurtful (as is revealed in this text) you can't just cry it away. You need to take inventory of yourself and walk it off for a year or two. It's on this same note that I want to say that I'm not that far from becoming other peoples political projects rather than just as a person with some demons I'm fighting. For instance I tell most when I first meet them that I'm a transwoman, but I keep the fact that I'm plural and an alcoholic behind the teeth. Especially that second one. Because the moment people hear stuff like that they feel catalyzed to make a decision 'about me'.
Do I make this person my 'project' or do I discard this person as a result of these factors being 'too demanding' to put up with. Yet, I do everything in my power when these facts come up not to make it other peoples issues. This work operates as a tragic example of how barrelling into this way of thinking about us does us a disservice and dehumanizes us and allows you to act more vile. I would say this is a very necessary warning story, with an albeit awkward reunion note I don't agree with, and since it depicts a time in which trans people weren't a constant fox news paranoia, its actually worth playing through at some point despite this blunder.
Recently I've been opening up to people in the city I live about these other facts, and they still proceed with love in their hearts towards me with adjacency and not active doting. This powerful form of love, a love via adjacency, is likely necessary in order to build healthy relationships with people. I think we should help each other, but the political projects should happen on the street level, and not through courting. Highly recommended work of fiction, and extremely empowering to the concept that relationships for LGBT people can start out normal, but if you can overcome the occasional edginess of this text (for instance the 'counting chapter narration openers' for each section) there's a powerful few things to gauge from underneath. In a way, I think this text is a lot less about queer mistreatment, and a lot more about how bar romance seem to be the mecca for maladaptive enthusiasm, and even if you don't find time to play it (its only about a half hour read), it's best to try and actively keep suspicion of that pronged understanding of others in your life. Communicate your barriers and take inventory of your emotions when you can. Don't toss people away just because they have 'problems' c:
CW: Transphobic Discourse, Bad Relationships, Alcoholism, Brief Mention of Suicidal Ideation
Venus Meets Venus (2014) is interesting in the fact that it feels like such a specific cultural object from 10 years ago. It's interfacing with a greasy and failed relationship of a cis lesbian dating a transwoman, 10 years ago. Basically in a time period where talking about that stuff was still out of bounds. Shockingly its hard to believe this, but for transwomen being spoken of in a large cultural group as these 'objects to have strong opinions on' didn't really catalyze until about 3 years ago with J.K. Rowling posting her (J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues) [https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/] (2020) essay.
So this whole discussion is a major sidebar but hear me out before you skip this paragraph. The important thing you have to know here is that even me interfacing with this post now would be dumb if we are just talking about Rowling and what shes doing. Sadly¹ the best reference point to make that point is that of a youtube video by detailed independent journalist Shaun over in the video "JK Rowling's New Friends" (2023) in which among lots of other things he points out that Rowling has some fairly extreme ties to the gender critical movement and the ways in which shes shaking hands with ultra conservative figures and supporting their desires to see shelters for trans people actively closed down. In most ways this concern trolling about Rowling being 'maybe not the worst for saying what she said' is completely out of date by design, and Shauns coverage in general points that out. Most news coverage is not like 'hey its no longer about what these people are saying, but what they are doing' because transphobia gets more clicks. This is not just Rowling specific by the way, there was a similar issue going on with the treatment of Dave Chappelle actually. Chappelle has been getting that similar concern trolling treatment all throughout the bookending of his own transphobic specials, which as you know pulled the Netflix development team into striking for a while, all the up to his most recent special. I don't even think its worth either of our time for me to go and find the name of those specials and talk that stuff out, because Chappelle being bad about trans people is literally not that important (and I'm saying this as a transfemme). You know what is important? When the dude threatened to block a housing proposal at a local commitee by pulling out a lot of money. That's actual horrifying news but that doesn't get clicks! It's the biggest deal about Chappelle to me, and a blip on most peoples radar. This is the problem, for most people everything exists on the level of a few words said wrong and not on the level of actually bad stuff happening.
This is what I mean, most of this stuff I just mentioned is literally out of date in the sense that a metric fuckton of cultural movement and politics has been happening even since then. It's only been Three Years since that particular event, and if your trans like me this probably comes as a shock, for us with all the stuff going on it feels like 10. So I can't sit here and show you all the awful shit going on in the world with that. That has to be something you learn about somewhere else, not from a random post on a wimpering social media website like this. But importantly, it puts into context why Venus Meets Venus is as culturally important as it is, its from 2014. The dynamics were more innocent, and most people thought that the only 2 things trans people were worried about was the trans panic defense and online TERFs. Even here Venus Meets Venus functions as a fracturing point actually and a rather important one, it illustrates through being so well written that relationship issues are a huge problem to. Even then we had a lot of terrible stuff we were dealing with, but we didn't really know about it like, statistically or whatever.
See the more 'economic' side of this was uncovered in "He Fucked the Girl Out of Me" (2022, Talyor McCue) which needed a bunch of statistics about how transfemmes have the harshest wage gap of any gender group we have census data on, and the trans panic defense needed to wear off a bit. Back in 2014 we just had 'feelings', really sapphic and confusing feelings about 'others'. If Venus Meets Venus shows anything then, its that through the thoroughness of its prose and broken bar relationship that being a 'good ally' is not being a good person in a relationship. There's a very profound passage where the main character asks her partner if she wants to go to the trans march, and she politely declines. It immediately becomes this prodding 'why' moment, you went to the dyke march after all and frusteratingly as a reader you're never given a 'good' reason as to why not. What would it have been? She passes, does she not want other trans people to see her as clocky? Does she not want to be 'seen'? Is she worried that she might be murdered by police or something? You're not really given an answer, nowadays she might have had one, but in that time period, in 2014, no was just all there was unless you were especially educated about the windows being broken and I mean come on, I was out in 2014 and the main thing I was thinking about with my crush on a homeless transfemme. Coercing your girlfriend into doing stuff they doing want to do, and pecking them into activism for their minority group more is not ok, and through the main narrator you learn that. It hits like a truck.
Thus in a beautifully put way you learn one of the most important struggles that LGBT people face: we are made the victim fairly often of other peoples maladaptive enthusiasm and have to watch ourselves about falling into it with each other. Maladaptive enthusiasm is the main theme of the work, and it hits like a truck. For me if I had to describe it, its basically the concept of loving somebody through your desire to 'help them out' and get them out of a rough spot. You other them as an object of political desire rather than romantic thoroughness. A desire for active and continuous solidarity that can rather franticly overwrite your other emotions and desires. For instance I had an extreme crush on my now transmother who was going through a housing crises at one point. I get her some basic nessecities from CVS once and shipped it to her, and obviously it put me in an emotional spot where my crush on her was getting toxic and out of hand. I was messaging her constantly to make sure she was ok, would actively tell her my worst intrusive thoughts, etc. which catalyzed into an event where I upset her by saying I was thinking about offing myself (this is years ago, I'm fine now). Demanding an intense emotional care from somebody who was in no place to give that. Soon after that happened, I realized I was trans myself and thats how I came out. This is actually the most chill version of this I can publicly talk about, in part because we have such a powerful and loving relationship now without the need for active check ups. This didn't happen immediately. I had to go take a year smoke break with myself and take a really long look in the mirror.
This acts then as the ultimate criticism of the piece. You can hurt people and have a point of healing happen with them later on, but the way this work frames that is as something that happens over a single night with a wine bottle and some tears. But especially once you do something outrageously hurtful (as is revealed in this text) you can't just cry it away. You need to take inventory of yourself and walk it off for a year or two. It's on this same note that I want to say that I'm not that far from becoming other peoples political projects rather than just as a person with some demons I'm fighting. For instance I tell most when I first meet them that I'm a transwoman, but I keep the fact that I'm plural and an alcoholic behind the teeth. Especially that second one. Because the moment people hear stuff like that they feel catalyzed to make a decision 'about me'.
Do I make this person my 'project' or do I discard this person as a result of these factors being 'too demanding' to put up with. Yet, I do everything in my power when these facts come up not to make it other peoples issues. This work operates as a tragic example of how barrelling into this way of thinking about us does us a disservice and dehumanizes us and allows you to act more vile. I would say this is a very necessary warning story, with an albeit awkward reunion note I don't agree with, and since it depicts a time in which trans people weren't a constant fox news paranoia, its actually worth playing through at some point despite this blunder.
Recently I've been opening up to people in the city I live about these other facts, and they still proceed with love in their hearts towards me with adjacency and not active doting. This powerful form of love, a love via adjacency, is likely necessary in order to build healthy relationships with people. I think we should help each other, but the political projects should happen on the street level, and not through courting. Highly recommended work of fiction, and extremely empowering to the concept that relationships for LGBT people can start out normal, but if you can overcome the occasional edginess of this text (for instance the 'counting chapter narration openers' for each section) there's a powerful few things to gauge from underneath. In a way, I think this text is a lot less about queer mistreatment, and a lot more about how bar romance seem to be the mecca for maladaptive enthusiasm, and even if you don't find time to play it (its only about a half hour read), it's best to try and actively keep suspicion of that pronged understanding of others in your life. Communicate your barriers and take inventory of your emotions when you can. Don't toss people away just because they have 'problems' c:
Erato_Heti
3 months ago