R.B. Lemberg's Blog, page 24

Kickstarter

Originally posted by samhenderson at Kickstarter I have supported several  Kickstarter projects.

In response to calls to remove this Kickstarter, a guide to seducing woman by a person who, on Reddit, advised men to Don’t ask for permission, GRAB HER HAND, and put it right on your dick, Kickstarter responded:

Some of this material is abhorrent and inconsistent with our values as people and as an organization. Based on our current guidelines, however, the material on Reddit did not warrant the irreversible action of canceling the project.

Casey Malone has more details here. As Kickstarter does not consider sexual assault abhorrent enough to remove a guide by a person advocating it, I will not support any more Kickstarter projects until they reverse their position.

Grigorij Oster, "Harmful Advice" - on nose-picking

I am not a translator, but this is oddly thematic.

Нет приятнее занятья
Чем в носу поковырять.
Всем ужасно интересно,
Что там спрятано внутри.
А кому смотреть противно,
Тот пускай и не глядит.
Мы же в нос к нему не лезем!
Пусть и он не пристает.

In this world the greatest pleasure
is, for sure, to pick the nose.
We're all burning to discover
what is hidden there inside.
If you think it looks disgusting
you should look the other way -
we're not digging into your nose!
So you should leave us well alone.

It's not a fair conversation if you feel entitled to dictate all the terms.

This blog post by Keffy is a response to an entry/conversation started by Nancy Fulda. I am not going to link to NF's article; it is upsetting to me, and you can find it on her blog. Responses to Keffy's piece should go to Keffy's blog, therefore I am closing off comments.

It is important to distinguish and recognize hegemony. Christianity may not be the norm within SFF, but it is very much hegemonic within the rest of the society. Even though Christianity may not be the norm within SFF, hegemony extends to the domain of SFF. Institutionalized LGBTQIA oppression does not somehow disappear within SFF. Within US and many other countries, our rights to life and dignity are not the same as the rights of straight and/or cisgendered people; in the US, this is justified through religion, a particular religion: Christianity.

Also, please stop equating religion with Christianity. I am a religious person, but I am not a Christian. Tangentially, I am mightily struggling with my religion right now, and have been for some time, because my gender and sexual identity are incompatible with Orthodox Judaism. It is an issue. A huge issue.

Also, what Keffy said.

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Originally posted by kehrli at It's not a fair conversation if you feel entitled to dictate all the terms.Basically, it’s religious intolerance unless I remain completely polite in all instances, no matter what someone says? It’s religious intolerance if I emphatically distance myself from any single tenet of what someone believes?

Fuck that.

So leaving aside the hilarious irony that I seriously watched my Twitter feed fill up with Christians & Mormons eager to lecture on how horribly uncomfortable they are speaking about their religious views in mixed company to a bunch of Jews, atheists and pagans... Yeah, because we don’t fucking know what that’s like, I guess?

(Especially when previous comments by some made it rather clear that their objection was just that ohmygod we might end up being treated the way people of other faiths are?)

You think that you’re being perfectly fair, because you can’t tell what you’re asking of people. I wouldn't even be posting this except that my silence wasn't even enough, and you tracked me down twice to demand “dialogue” on the subject of whether or not it’s so fucking unfair that someone might call you homophobic if you say something homophobic. Well, and then wrote a public post because you hadn't had enough people actively and enthusiastically agreeing that you were being oppressed because someone might disagree with a view you actually hold. Previously, I had nothing to say. Now, I guess I do. Good job.

Do I sometimes feel uncomfortable when the conversation topic of "Richard Dawkins is fucking sexist, what’s wrong with the atheist community?" comes up? Yeah! But does that mean I should tell the people talking about it to STFU because they are ruining my ability to be an atheist and WAH WAH do they truly think that all people who are atheists hate women the same way he does? No. Because if you're going to point out that you aren't 100% defined by the group you belong to, then you should also be able to understand that a criticism of the group in general isn't necessarily a personal affront.

I don’t have to support or agree with everything your church says. It’s not my church. I don’t care what faith you have regarding it, or why you have that faith, or what the doctrines say. That isn’t my problem. My problem is that I cannot get away from your church. I can’t take for granted that it isn’t spending tax-free money to lobby against my rights as a human being. I can’t walk across a fucking public university campus without DAILY being harassed by your church’s missionaries who feel so entitled to my soul that they refuse to take, “No, I’m not interested.” Or “No, I’m gay,” or even “Please stop talking to me” as an answer. (One pair was so entitled that they stalked me, leaped out at me from behind public art, and yelled across large open spaces because for them it was some kind of game to make me feel unsafe. Yes. Unsafe. Because you know what feels unsafe? Two men considerably larger than I am cheerily laying physical ambushes for me. With Very Nice Smiles.) I can’t participate in a conversation about sexism in SF without getting derailed into you demanding that I console you because someone else dislikes that you TAKE ACTUAL HOMOPHOBIC ACTIONS.

If you want to start dialogue with, “I want to discuss this but refuse to change any aspect of my faith,” then why the fuck should I participate? What’s in it for me, except a gradual wearing down of my defenses until I smile pretty and agree that why yes anything you say is totally acceptable regardless of any potential harm it may do to others?

There is a tendency within the SFF community to demonize those who hold controversial opinions even when those opinions are expressed politely. This is divisive. Please stop.

Okay, two things:

1) Yeah, because the opinions themselves aren’t divisive? To point at another ongoing kerfluffle – Resnick and Malzberg worded their posts perfectly politely, and what they wrote was fucking awful. Here’s the thing. By the time I get to the point where I’m not polite anymore? THE DIVISION HAS ALREADY HAPPENED. Do you really think that if everyone smiles and swallows their harsh words that it means nothing hurtful has been said?

2) Wow, it must be really nice to be so privileged that as long as nobody raises their voice, you feel welcome and comfortable. That must be fucking amazing. You know what makes me feel unsafe in a space? When someone rolls out some bullshit about queers and then nobody SAYS ANYTHING BACK because we’re all just being nice here and arguing isn’t nice. Fuck nice.

That all said, if you want to talk about how there are a lot of people at SF conventions who say fucking awful things to one another without realizing that what they just said was awful, well, yeah. Someone could write a book.

Do I hate you? No. Do I hate your faith? No. Do I hate your church? No. But if you’re asking me to pretend that I have no problems with anything done in its name, then you are asking too much of me.

This is not escape - this is my way

For a few of you. You know who you are :)

interfictions, and Emerald Spires preview!

My unclassifiable piece "Bone Shadows" is up at the new Interfictions Online under Poetry. Many thanks to Sofia Samatar for giving this thing a home!

Also, Bogi Takács ( prezzey ) has posted the lineup and cover for the first Emerald Spires anthology, which includes a reprint of my trans* poem "Plucked from the Horo." I am so excited about this project!

And... short story sale!

My short magic realist story "Teffeu: A Book from the Library at Taarona" will appear in Strange Horizons. HURRAY! This story is about multilingualism, language study, and language loss. Strange Horizons sent me a rewrite request on it, but I found it difficult to return to the story, until finally, after my Strange Horizons interview, something shifted and I was able to finish the rewrite. Many thanks to Bogi Takács ( prezzey ) for eir support during the rewrite process, and to the Strange Horizons fiction team for their hard work!

Short story sale

"Theories of Pain," a flash story about a man who experienced pain as fruit, will appear in Daily Science Fiction. Yay!

crossposting issues, Strange Horizons interview, and translation

Trying to crosspost this from roselemberg.net and it is saying "Could not connect to www.livejournal.com. This post has not been crossposted. (-32300 : transport error - could not open socket)" Any idea what this is and how to fix it?

Crossposting manually. The wordpress entry is here.

An interview with me appeared today at Strange Horizons. It is entitled Noticing Language, and it is about language, linguistics, my novel, poetry, emerging poets, and various other things.

A few comments I wanted to add to the interview:

Rose Lemberg lived in Ukraine, subarctic Russia, and Israel before relocating to Berkeley for her Ph.D. She is now living and teaching in the Midwest, where she finally became an immigrant in 2010. She is relieved to be a resident, rather than a nonresident, alien.

I wrote this bio before the events at Boston, and I have since had the (dis)pleasure to travel by plane for a conference. I had the urge to change the bio after that experience, but I left it in. It is important for me to talk about this.

I recently had a chance to ask my students whether they view language as a "primary component of identity," a phrase we’ve found in an article. Many said no.

To follow up, I asked my students what they would consider a primary component of identity. Many immediately said "gender." I then asked how often they reflected on their gender. The discussion further developed along these lines; I thought it might be worth discussing/mentioning here.

I also note that answers would vary depending on the context. Students at my university are different demographically from the ones I had at Berkeley.

Yet, language is central to identity. For many monolinguals, especially those who speak the standard vernaculars, language is not something one notices in daily life

The issue of standard vernaculars is very interesting; do you want to discuss diglossic situations and language hegemony, or should we wait until Readercon?

Speaking about languages and translations, Seven Losses of Na Re has been translated into Spanish! This is the first time my story is translated - very exciting. Thank you, Marcheto!

The rhetoric of warfare

A conversation with one of you is prompting this post (feel free to identify yourself) on a topic which I already discussed and which is much on my mind. It is something that pops up: the language of warfare that is perpetuated when talking about disabilities, mental and physical health, and neuroatyicality.

"You need to fight your depression."
"The battle against obesity"
"A declaration of war on the epidemic of autism."

The rhetoric of violent resistance is often useful emotionally, and at many junctures of my life I found it emotionally useful. I was the lone warrior, resolute and brave, who must fight and win a battle against... my own body.

Yes, I fought my own body. I fought on all fronts. I fought my weight, my gender, my sexuality, my pain, my depression, my sensory issues. I won only self-hatred and a panic disorder; hope others had better luck.

I stopped some time after my son was diagnosed with autism. Because I did not have it in me to resist the rhetoric for myself, but by golly, I would not turn my child into a battlefield, not even when I was scrubbing poop from the walls. He's happy, personable, has his life and people who love him. Autism makes everything difficult because the world is not set up to accommodate autism. Not because people with autism are a threat to life, family, and happiness, as Autism Speaks and other organizations would make you believe.

It's difficult. It's very difficult. But I choose not to see my life as a battle against my own child, and so it is not a battle.

Nowadays my health is such that I am in pain every day. Today the pain is especially bad. I had to take painkillers repeatedly. Some days, though not today, my reaction to pain is to eat when I am not hungry. Sometimes - now very rarely, but sometimes - I binge. But I am no longer at war with my body. Sometimes my body needs to make itself comfortable through food because it is in pain. Often my body needs to be in a darkened room with minimal visual and aural distractions. Sometimes my nervous system is so frayed I stay online past bedtime.

I am not fighting my depression. I am not fighting my anxiety. I am not fighting my sensory integration dysfunction. I am accommodating them and learning to be compassionate towards myself.

I speak only for myself, but I am happier. It is a work in progress, but I am doing so much better when I am no longer the lone brave general fighting an army of me.

And sometimes it is not possible to fight. Sometimes it is possible only to continue. And how cruel it is for us to tell ourselves and others that we must fight when it is simply not feasible?

Thoughts welcome.

Post is open for now, but I might lock it or freeze comment threads. Please be considerate of a range of opinions and lived experiences that each of us brings to such discussions.

Various announcements

Since my roselemberg.net entry from last night is failing to crosspost, I am pasting manually!

My essay  "Feminist SF/F: on Feminist Characters" was selected to be included in Speculative Fiction 2012: The Year’s Best Online Reviews & Commentary. I have not sent it to them, so this was a surprise.

My long mythic poem "Between the Mountain and the Moon" is a Rhysling Award nominee.

Finally, "Between the Mountain and the Moon" won the Strange Horizons Readers' poll in the poetry category. In a somewhat bewildering turn of events, my pooem "The Three Immigrations" placed second.

MANY THANKS go to Sonya Taaffe ( sovay ), who plucked these poems from slush!

One of my very favorite stories, Alex Dally MacFarlane's ( alankria 's) "Feed Me the Bones of Our Saints," placed third in the fiction category. Congratulations also to the ever-wonderful Michele Bannister ( selidor ), Gwynne Garfinkle ( gwynnega ), Sofia Samatar, and Liz Bourke ( hawkwing_lb ) for placing/winning in various categories.