Disabled Folks Are Better At Sex! The Public Pooping Of The Pants! ‘Science’ Sanctions Sexism!
Dearest PULP-y humans—
My uncle died last week (not from COVID, he was old and sick and adversarial about Western medicine that would have saved his life), and I was wracked with grief. Not because of his death — although of course, I mourned at the Tommy-shaped hole now in the world — but because I believed there was not enough grief surrounding his absence.
I knew very little of his life outside of his role in my family which was fraught and eccentric if loving and kind. I felt like I’d swallowed gravel and millipedes — I was crawling with a horrible sensation — a kind of reckoning if I’m honest — that people fall from this earth, not back to grace but to oblivion.
I was terrified that his life had not mattered all that much.
I threw myself into organizing a ZOOM memorial, gathering photos from my family for a slideshow and sending emails to his friends inviting them to join us in “honoring Tommy,” and to please let me know if they’d like to say anything so I could put them on the schedule. I was mostly met with the sound of crickets.
But as we all gathered together on Friday — traversing the two coasts of America — I was met with the faces and voices and beings of 20 people who all had extraordinary things to say about my uncle. His brilliance, his kindness, his unwillingness to accept the status quo. His fledgling Buddhism; his profound contributions to biomechanics and tennis.
We should all be so lucky to have built the community and admiration my uncle fostered.
I say all this because I was so wrong about something I felt I couldn’t be wrong about and it was one of the most important and humbling lessons I’ve had in a long time.
My uncle Tommy had an entire orbit, a small but potent universe brimming with stars and streaking comets winking their light, but I wasn’t able to glimpse it because I was so consumed in my own small orbit. I confused my being as the center of something, but of course, the center of anything is relative.
I guess what I’m saying is, keep your eyes on the horizon—to the sky and stars and far beyond what you can actually see—and bear witness to its stories.
You’ll be surprised what is revealed in the absence of mere sight.
Ever and always,
Katie (+July)
How Rom-Coms Made Me Think I Was Straight, by Marie Eberle
When I see a “hopeless romantic” woman on screen who never initiates anything with men, I don’t see someone who deep-down wishes to be swept off her feet. I see someone with the absolute lack of interest in men that I know from myself.
On Netflix’s ‘Bonding’ And How Misogyny Invades Kink Art, by Lauren Parker
While I want to live in a world where kink is not the platform that we play out gender roles, I accept no realm is untouched. There are going to be tops and bottoms who are gross misogynists, and their attraction to BDSM comes from a deeply misogynistic place, but I bristle that kink should to be the theatre that the vanilla public uses to sort out their misogyny.
Disabled People Are Better At Sex, by Katie Tastrom
Here’s a secret. Talking about bodies, pleasure, and sex is hard, but disabled people have a head start, as we’ve had to talk about them (a lot) more than other people.
How Can We Say Yes If We Can’t Say No?, by Taneasha White
How much of the unfulfilling sex that’s had with cis het men is caused by lack of effort, and how much is bred by societal standards that lead to communication issues? How many fake orgasms have been performed out of fear?
“It’s Only Natural”: The Dubious Science Sanctioning Sexism, by Marieke Bigg
What is “natural” is actually just culture. With the values and ideologies that keep the powerful remaining on top.
PULP It Like It’s Hot: The Public Pooping Of The Pants, by Katie Tandy
I hear my stomach scream audibly. I grow desperate. I consider the bushes. “I could crouch under that,” my addled mind offers.
MAY 2020 TAROTSCOPES: Held In Your Ancestors’ Hands, by Dacia Holliday
…and this week’s playlist by July Westhale! Music to capture the frenzy and different states we’re all occupying, even in something as solidifying as a global pandemic.
