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I hate it minority communities (and I'm not talking about any specific type of minority here- just communities that represent other than the majority in any way) hijack the oppressions of other minority communities.
For example: "People who are into (insert fetish) have been oppressed and forced to hide their true selves, JUST LIKE GAY PEOPLE!"
No, NOT just like gay people. If your community has been oppressed, it has been oppressed JUST LIKE THAT COMMUNITY. Not any other. To say that x community shares the experiences and history of any other minority- particularly one with as violent a history as the gay community- cheapens the lives and deaths of the people who were beaten and killed for their identity.
Sometimes switching minorities is a good way to check your own prejudices at the door; but it's not always a good way to complain about oppression. It can be smart to think, "Would I say that about a racial minority," before you say something about, say, a body type minority, but that's checking your comment against your own privilege- NOT an excuse to make a complaint. Complaining that, "Fat people experience hate JUST LIKE BLACKS DO," not only shows a remarkable lack of understanding of body image issues and self-advocacy for people of non-mainstream body types, it also is incredibly offensive the people who actually DO experience hate JUST LIKE BLACKS DO because they ARE BLACK.
The first example particularly irritates me because so often fetish communities (and if you know me, you know I'm a very sex-positive person and don't hate fetishists at all) try to claim oppression when in reality the complaint is not that others want to prevent them from enjoying their sex lives; it's that others don't want to PARTICIPATE in their sex lives. What, Mom? You mean I can't bring my slave for family Christmas dinner and spank her on the table? YOU'RE FORCING ME INTO THE CLOSET JUST LIKE THEY DID TO THE GAYS!
No, in that situation, Mom is refusing to participate in YOUR sex life. She is not coming into your bedroom and telling you not to spank someone who's consenting to a spanking- she's saying keep it off the kitchen table. She's not saying don't bring your partner to dinner. She's saying don't enact a sexual scene with her at dinner. That does not REMOTELY compare to the oppression of GBLTQ people throughout history.
Another one: The off-brand furries who, unlike most furries, are mostly interested in that fandom for the pornographic/fetishistic aspects, and who complain if someone doesn't want to look at the latest furry porn they've drawn or downloaded, claiming that, "You're just another furry hater! It's so hard to come out as a furry because of the haters!"
It's NOT coming out, mmmkay? It's discussing either a fandom or a fetish, and I'm no more oppressed for my liking Harry Potter fanfiction than you are for liking furry porn. Yes, you have a nice close knit community. Bully for you. I still don't want to look at your naked foxes! Go look at them with your close-knit community, and I won't send you pictures of a naked Severus Snape!
Being bi and poly, I take care not to over-analogize discrimination. Do I get called a slut sometimes? Do people hit on me simply because they think poly/bi = easy? Sure. But does that make me the same as, say, a woman of color who is slammed with the n-word? No.
Don't play "My oppression is worse than yours," and don't play "My oppression is JUST LIKE yours."
Many minority communities are oppressed, and it hurts everyone to lump those experiences together or compare them amateurishly as a way of demanding tolerance.
For example: "People who are into (insert fetish) have been oppressed and forced to hide their true selves, JUST LIKE GAY PEOPLE!"
No, NOT just like gay people. If your community has been oppressed, it has been oppressed JUST LIKE THAT COMMUNITY. Not any other. To say that x community shares the experiences and history of any other minority- particularly one with as violent a history as the gay community- cheapens the lives and deaths of the people who were beaten and killed for their identity.
Sometimes switching minorities is a good way to check your own prejudices at the door; but it's not always a good way to complain about oppression. It can be smart to think, "Would I say that about a racial minority," before you say something about, say, a body type minority, but that's checking your comment against your own privilege- NOT an excuse to make a complaint. Complaining that, "Fat people experience hate JUST LIKE BLACKS DO," not only shows a remarkable lack of understanding of body image issues and self-advocacy for people of non-mainstream body types, it also is incredibly offensive the people who actually DO experience hate JUST LIKE BLACKS DO because they ARE BLACK.
The first example particularly irritates me because so often fetish communities (and if you know me, you know I'm a very sex-positive person and don't hate fetishists at all) try to claim oppression when in reality the complaint is not that others want to prevent them from enjoying their sex lives; it's that others don't want to PARTICIPATE in their sex lives. What, Mom? You mean I can't bring my slave for family Christmas dinner and spank her on the table? YOU'RE FORCING ME INTO THE CLOSET JUST LIKE THEY DID TO THE GAYS!
No, in that situation, Mom is refusing to participate in YOUR sex life. She is not coming into your bedroom and telling you not to spank someone who's consenting to a spanking- she's saying keep it off the kitchen table. She's not saying don't bring your partner to dinner. She's saying don't enact a sexual scene with her at dinner. That does not REMOTELY compare to the oppression of GBLTQ people throughout history.
Another one: The off-brand furries who, unlike most furries, are mostly interested in that fandom for the pornographic/fetishistic aspects, and who complain if someone doesn't want to look at the latest furry porn they've drawn or downloaded, claiming that, "You're just another furry hater! It's so hard to come out as a furry because of the haters!"
It's NOT coming out, mmmkay? It's discussing either a fandom or a fetish, and I'm no more oppressed for my liking Harry Potter fanfiction than you are for liking furry porn. Yes, you have a nice close knit community. Bully for you. I still don't want to look at your naked foxes! Go look at them with your close-knit community, and I won't send you pictures of a naked Severus Snape!
Being bi and poly, I take care not to over-analogize discrimination. Do I get called a slut sometimes? Do people hit on me simply because they think poly/bi = easy? Sure. But does that make me the same as, say, a woman of color who is slammed with the n-word? No.
Don't play "My oppression is worse than yours," and don't play "My oppression is JUST LIKE yours."
Many minority communities are oppressed, and it hurts everyone to lump those experiences together or compare them amateurishly as a way of demanding tolerance.
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