If they're working they're not flirting, a PSA for strangers everywhere

Dear Boys and Men who flirt with Cashiers and Waitresses,

I have been working entry level customer service jobs since I was eighteen and I feel like I should mention that were kinda sick of you. 

People in customer service related positions are literally paid to be polite to everyone who talks to them. A smile is not an invitation to ask for someones number, or when their shift ends, or if they have a romantic partner, that behavior from you is absolutely terrifying. 

I personally have dealt with this behavior only three times in my career, each one was on a day when I was endeavoring to present as feminine with full makeup, nice hair, and a slightly friendlier attitude for completely unrelated reasons, and I will now list them  to give you an example of how it can be some scary shit.

On the first two occasions I was working at a gas station food court 24 hour workplace, both incidents were on the night shift when I was alone in the food court but not alone in the station.

Incident 1; Midnight; Pre-prepping a batch of cookies to be baked the next morning; A large tow truck driver entered the court and ordered a sandwich, which I of course began preparing for the fellow. things start out business as usual, I'm preparing the food, and smiling and answering random regular questions about the business and how many customers generally arrive during the season, because it is a particularly busy day of the year. Then things get creepy. The person starts flirting "you have a pretty smile" "I like your hair" "do you have a boyfriend" (unrelated note I had a girlfriend at the time and as this was a small town in the south I was not about to mention her to a stranger) I answer no because i don't understand flirting and was just answering on automatic, the questions got creepier. "do you want one?" "what time are you off?" "I could give you a lift home". I am now terrified. luckily this incident ended swiftly as a large man working in our truck repair area showed up on his lunch break and acted like a pushy customer to boot the man out of line, the other man left because our truck guy was scary af.

Incident two; Eight pm To midnight; Working  my usual stuff; the other employees actually nicknamed this incident "the creeper"; An old man showed up and started asking the women working with me about their sex lives and marital statuses, he continued to harrass me after all the other food court employees were gone, as soon as I was able I retreated to the backroom to prep food, I heard the bell ring and went to the door only to find the man behind the counter. I went through the side door which leads to a hall to the bathrooms and got the manager who had a few of our truck repair men escort "the creeper" out of the building. I got calls from my coworkers later in the day when I was at home having a four hour anxiety attack, they seemed concerned.

The third incident was at my current retail workplace I was working the late shift as the final cashier of the night and a man came in smiling and asking about my day, he was the second to last customer of the night, he was asking if I got off when the store closed, I said no, he asked for my number, I said no, he got louder, the old woman behind him in line threatened him and he left. when I finished my shift I stayed inside until my mothers van could be seen outside, his vehicle was also visible outside. I called my mothers cell phone and told her to drive to the front while I wiped off my makeup, messed up my hair, changed my shirt in the bathroom, and slid on my jacket that hides my chest very well, I don't think he recognized me because we were not followed.

Every time a man flirts with a customer service worker these are the incidents we think of

Leave us alone

-Mod Frey

Yuletide Recipe Ideas

Just some things I found for the final Sabbat of the year.

Recipes For A Pagan Soul

Yule Celebration Teen Recipes

Yule Recipes: Food To Delight The Tastebuds

Yule Cooking

On The Intersection Of Arophobia And Misogyny

Recently on Aven, there was a thread - mostly dominated by women and nonbinary people - in which aros talked about the "You'll Meet The Right Guy Someday" speech that so many arospec DFAB people have gotten from our families and friends. I commented something that a lot of arospec women apparently found relatable, about how allosexual aro women, specifically, are affected by amatonormativity, arophobia, and our culture's weird mix of sex-obsession and sexual repression.

Here's the comment: (CW: slut shaming, misogyny, heterosexism, sexualization of children, amatonormativity, arophobia, romance mentions, sex mentions)

I'm bisexual aro and I keep hearing people say things like this. If I mention my romance repulsion, I'm told that "romance isn't bad". No it isn't, but amatonormativity is and could you stop assuming that everyone innately wants to date?

And I feel like things like this are especially harmful to aromantic allosexual women. From a young age, romance is pretty much shoved down our throats. It's in virtually every piece of media we consume. It's what saves Cinderella from an abusive family, wakes up Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, turns the Beast human. Romance is considered a defining factor in what makes someone human, what makes life worth living. And the romances that we saw as children were always always always between women and men. They always included traditionally attractive white men "saving" traditionally attractive white women, and we internalized the belief that men needed to save and protect us.

Then we would go to school and see other little girls, straight little girls, go boy-crazy and not know what to say when they ask us who our crushes were. We'd be "reassured" that we'd have one someday.

We'd listen to our mothers talk about how good girls didn't have sex, especially not with boys they weren't in a serious romantic relationship with and DEFINITELY not ever with other girls, and hear laughingly about how we might not have any crushes on boys right now but we'd meet one some day. We'd listen to our fathers talk about how boys just wanted to use us - what is it with men attacking other men but then turning around and accusing feminists of misandry? - and how we weren't allowed to date until we were thirty, as if it was inevitable that we'd be straight. We were told that we were Daddy's little girls, extensions of our parents but not truly people in our own right.

When we got older, all our friends would get into monogamous, heterosexual romantic relationships and we'd wonder why we weren't interested. If we were sexually attracted to other girls, we would be told that girls like that were disgusting and predatory. If we were sexually attracted to boys, we were told that we were sluts and bitches for wanting sex with boys but not dating them. And god forbid we be attracted to both.

From the mainstream gay rights movement, we'd hear all kinds of "affirming" rhetoric about how love was love, how everyone felt love, how love was what made us human. But then how come we didn't love the same way everyone else did? For aromantic LBPQ girls who didn't feel platonic or familial love either, did they even feel human at all? 

We were told that being gay wasn't about sex - as if there was anything wrong with being a girl and wanting and enjoying sex with girls - but for us, it WAS. It WAS about sex, and because of that we were made to feel that we were "bad lesbians" or "bad bisexuals", that we just had internalized homophobia, that we weren't really gay or bi if we didn't want to date women, that we were justifying homophobia by being sexually attracted to women but not romantically. 

If and when we entered a queerplatonic relationship, we were told that we should call it friendship but at the same time heard language that devalued friendship while putting romance on a pedestal. "Just friends", "more than friends", "serious relationship" (as if friendship couldn't be a serious relationship), "friendzone" (as if we owed men, or anyone else for that matter, sex for being nice to us; as if our friendship was a punishment or a consolation prize). As aros, our friends in romantic relationships would treat us like background noise, always secondary to their romantic partners but still come to us to talk about them whether we wanted to hear it or not. As women, we were expected to do everyone else's emotional labor for them and to not have any needs of our own. As aro women, we were expected to be okay with all of this.

Aro women shouldn't be expected to be okay with ANY of this. 

If you also identify, at least partly, as an arospec woman, comment and share your own experiences with the intersection of arophobia and misogyny.

Holiday Carols That Aren't About Christmas

With the radio not playing any songs for holidays besides Christmas, I thought non-Christian people of faith (like myself) in the western world might have been tired of not hearing anything about our own wintertime - or summertime, if you live in the southern hemisphere - holidays in music. That's why I'm making a playlist of non-Christian holiday songs that I found and liked. We'll be including Karina Skye, the Maccabeats, Matisyahu...all that good stuff. Enjoy!

Share the Light - Karina Skye (good for any religious holiday in December)

Candlelight - The Maccabeats (Chanukah)

Miracle - Matisyahu (Chanukah)

Milad Un Nabi songs (Milad Un Nabi, and please note that I know exactly zero words of Arabic)

Sikh Devotional Songs (I don't know what Sikhs celebrate this time of year, and I also speak exactly zero words of Punjabi)

Religious Hindu Songs (While we had a unit on Hinduism in World Religions, we didn't cover December holidays and Google isn't turning up anything.)

Yule Pagan Songs - A Playlist By Miguel Viana

Wiccan Yule Songs - a Playlist By Rose Hayden

Shine - The Maccabeats (Chanukah)

Happy Hanukkah - Matisyahu (Chanukah)

Feel free to submit a link in the comments, and Happy Holidays! )o(

My asexual experience - mod frey

To give the readers a bit of backstory I'd like to start by saying that i grew up in a town, and family, wherein asexuality was never mentioned. As in I literally didn't know that was a thing that existed until I was about sixteen and I didn't think it was a real thing until I was eighteen years old. That kinda makes growing up ace a bit difficult.

Where I grew up all the other in my school would talk about love and sex as though they were mutually exclusive and the adults would constantly talk to the AFAB kids as though marriage and children were the endgame, The ultimate goal, Our most desirable outcome. The "sexual education" course we took in high school had a segment where we were taught that we would need to "fulfill only our husbands needs" and because I did in fact live in the semi southern united states I went to a church where my pastor actually had a sermon about how women "belonged to their husbands" and how we should "always be ready to please him". I realize that the marriage and children bit has little to do with asexuality but when you and every other kid around you thinks sex is an inevitable thing in marriage, you kinda join the two topics in your head.

I should have known I was asexual when the girls around me would talk about how attractive such and such was or the boys would mention what they'd like to do at some point and all I could contribute was "i heard their good at some silly thing I also like"

I should have known I was asexual when my friends were hooking up and all I thought about it was "whatever"

I should have known I was asexual when a girl I'd been with for a while tried to get intimate and I just kept thinking about how far I was in Skyrim and how hard the next bit would be.

There are many other, possibly more relatable, examples of how I should have known but I am uncomfortable sharing them

I found out what asexual was from my gay friend, and he made fun of it constantly. I asked my Aunty about it and she said "some people are just prudes" I honestly started to think that asexuality was just some silly thing people said they were to get attention.

When I was eighteen and starting to figure out that I exist outside of my "friends and family's" perception of me I actually started looking into what may be going on with me.

Why didn't I want to be with my girlfriend?

Why did I have trouble seeing how people could be interested in other peoples body's?

Why didn't I want what other people wanted?

I looked up asexuality to understand a friggin Tumblr post and somehow something in my brain went "OH THAT? THATS IT! THATS ME!" I didn't really accept it until I'd read the satanic bible and felt really friggin validated by what LaVey had to say on the subject, even if it is a bit shallow.

I spent the next three years To This Date tryng to explain to my family and friends that 'yes this is an actual thing!' 'No I have not decided to be a nun someday!' 'NO I am not trying to avoid coming out as a lesbian for fricks sake mom I already told you!' 

That's my asexual experience in a nutshell I guess, not very interesting but it's basically the bare bones of how everything went down.

Satanism! In a Nutshell

LaVeyan Satanism can be summed up in the Nine Satanic Statements, which I will now list word for word and comma for comma straight from the satanic bible itself.

1. Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence!

2. Satan represents vital existence, instead of spiritual pipe dreams!

3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom, instead of hypocritical self-deceit!

4. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it, instead of love wasted on ingrates!

5. Satan represents vengeance, instead of turning the other cheek!

6. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible, instead of concern for psychic vampires!

7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his "divine spiritual and intellectual development," has become the most vicious animal of all!

8. Satan represents all of the so called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!

9. Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!

That doesn't sound too bad does it? but to be kind I think I should clarify what was meant by these words instead of just throwing them at you with no background information.

The first statement says indulgence over abstinence, some people may be thinking "this means the rumors about satanic orgies and pigging out on everything good to eat must be true!"

 They are not and I am offended if you thought that. This statement is actually just saying that a Satanist does not have to follow some silly moral code about never indulging in sexual activities of whatever variety or relationship and that if a satanist wants to eat, than they should be allowed to eat. The Bible later goes on to state that either of these should be done in moderation to suit ones individual needs not just the views of others in society.

The second statement is pretty clear. It just means that you should live the life you are living instead of living for hopes of an afterlife full of all the things you weren't allowed to have or do in life, shouldn't have to write that one down to be honest but everyone has their beliefs.

The third statement is talking about the dangers of willful ignorance and narcissism, see Tumblr's anti sjw movement for references.

The fourth is pretty easy to explain it just means that the people who are good to you and make you happy deserve kindness far more than anybody who treats you poorly, including family and very long time "friends". Just to clarify this also means that you don't have to love your family "just because you're family"

The fifth may seem just a bit harsh, but I'm going to blame that on televised revenge tropes. Vengeance in this context means fighting back instead of letting people walk all over you, it means not pulling your punches when telling someone they've hurt you, it means that when someone is being an ass you clapback. It does not mean spending twenty plus years in your basement plotting their demise.

The sixth is...harder to explain. A psychic vampire is a person who latches onto someone else and uses them for money, or encouragement, or any kind of help really, without ever offering anything back and when they do offer anything they hold it over you for the entirety of your relationship, whatever that relationship may be. This statement is saying that these kind of people should be let go, cut off, just removed from your life so you may focus on yourself and the people who actually make your life better.

The seventh is self explanatory, or at least I think so, but I'll clarify. It means that we are no better than animals because, shockingly enough, we ARE animals. It does not mean that we should act badly though.

The eighth is referring to the Seven Deadly Sins moreso than the Ten Commandment sins after all a few of our rules DO line up with a couple of those commandments, like not murdering or stealing anything.

The ninth, I think, is just a bit of humor LaVey felt was appropriate during the time he was writing the bible.

That's Satanism in a nutshell, 

Mod Frey

Otherkin Is Not A Gender

TW: transphobia, rape mention, murder mention

Despite not identifying as ace anymore, I still have an account on Aven. And there's been a debate on the Hot Box of said site about otherkin and whether they should be treated as validly as "transgenders" are (if you can't tell, the thread mostly had cis people in it and they're usually the ones advocating for otherkin).

So trans people are treated as valid, apparently????? There's no conversion therapy, no job discrimination, nobody staring at our bodies or fleeing in fear when we're in public facilities, no kids being kicked out of their homes or harassed at school, no corrective rape, no trans women of color being murdered basically every goddamn week? I might have a life expectancy of eightysomething instead of around 40??? Like, holy fuck. I had no idea. Why didn't someone tell me, so I could cash in on this sudden wealth of privilege I have?!

Really though, I have no problem with the otherkin and therian communities as a whole. I believe in reincarnation and the multiverse theory, if only as possibilities that I have never been given conclusive proof are incorrect. So sure, if that's how being otherkin works...it could be possible for them to actually exist.

My issue comes when they (especially the cis ones) consider kin/therian/fictive identity an axis of oppression or compare themselves to trans people. The ONLY experience comparable to being transgender (except possibly being intersex or gender nonconforming) is being transgender, and to imply otherwise is transphobic.

Yes, even if you're trans. I don't consent to having my gender compared to being otherkin. Nor do I consent to having my gender compared to a white woman wearing blackface or an abled person identifying as "transabled". Neither does most of the trans community, as far as I know. Comparing our identities, without our consent, to those of ableist, racist transphobes is...well, ableist, racist, and transphobic.

I was peacefully reading through the thread, rolling my eyes at the ignorance surrounding trans identity and the usage of the words "transgendered" and "transgenders", when I came across a comment from a cis man that actually ate away at my patience a little. Blah blah blah how can trans people complain about being misgendered when they do the exact same thing to otherkin...

And the minute I pointed out why this was transphobic without censoring my anger like a good little freak, every cis person on the goddamn thread lost their shit. Cissplaining, whining, feeling entitled to an opinion on transphobia, telling me there wasn't anything transphobic in the comment even after I fucking re-analyzed it for them. At one point someone reported me to the admins and one of them came in and helpfully advised that we "not make personal attacks". Really? When a trans person tells you, a cis person, that you're being transphobic, your first response should not be to run to mommy and daddy crying about how the meanie transgender called you a name.

Something else that pissed me off was that there was just so much cis privilege and such a double standard in this comment. Cis people, especially cis men, have the luxury of being as nasty and awful as they damn well please and still never being misgendered for it. Trans people can't do that. Our genders, according to cis people, are something they grant to us - if we earn it. Namely by kissing their collective ass and being white, abled, thin, and conventionally attractive according white cis norms.

Don't tell me that this is just the internet. I KNOW it's the internet.

I also know that the internet is where the privileged feel free to express views they know feminists won't let them get away with in real life. It's where cis men sexualize and slut shame teenage girls and rail against Planned Parenthood and feminism with barely any consequence but cis women and trans people are called transphobic and sexist slurs if we fight back, where white people commiserate about affirmative action and immigrants stealing our resources without fear of retribution from the big scary black people, where cishets whine about how LGBTQ people are just too offended by homophobia and transphobia, where Nicki Minaj and Beyonce are shamed for showing off their bodies but Miley Cyrus is praised for doing the same thing with hers, and where "autism moms" complain together about how fucking hard it is to be a class-privileged allistic white cishet woman with a disabled kid.

The things cis people say about trans people on the internet are the things they think about us in real life. And as much as I don't want to care, as much as I'd like to believe that it doesn't matter what anyone thinks about people like me, I know it does.

Trans people aren't the legislators who have the power to change my life and sign away my rights with just one document, or the administrators who prevent trans teenagers from learning about our cultural history in school, or the ones correctively raping us, or the ones who care more about their petty feelings than about our physical safety.

Trans people aren't the ones not caring about trans lives until they're just a hashtag on that same internet that has the power to make so much change.

A Follow-Up

I feel like my last post set up being cis as some kind of default. So...it's not.

A lot of trans people argue that if you don't have dysphoria, especially body dysphoria, you're not really trans. They're called truscum.

Truth be told, I sort of see where they're coming from. I hate the idea of someone identifying as trans for "political" reasons, and I know that's something some people do.

And there can be some sexist motives behind choosing to take on that identity if you're not dysphoric and you're either masculine and DFAB or feminine and DMAB. There's no reason cis women shouldn't be masculine and cis men shouldn't be feminine. There's nothing wrong with being that.

I also agree with the truscum beliefs that we need to prioritize dysphoric people before non-dysphoric people and that cis people shouldn't get a say or an opinion in the fight between truscum and tucutes, no matter what their thoughts on the subject are.

But I also know that gender identity is way more complicated than discomfort with your chest and junk. Biological/assigned sex is a rather irritating social construct that, in a lot of ways, many people would be better off without. And a lot of intersex people feel that their intersex identity is directly linked to, or influences, their gender. A lot of neurodivergent people, myself included, feel the same way about our disabilities.

I don't identify my gender as my neurotype and I don't feel that my neurotype IS my gender. But the two do seem to be linked.

I hate the idea that only cis people should be able to feel completely comfortable and safe in their bodies or happy with their genders, and that trans people become cis after transitioning. That's transphobic and cisnormative as hell. It's not like oppression just magically goes away after transitioning, either.

There's an Ollie Schminkey slam poem where the writer talks about how they knew they were queer and transgender. They talk about how being trans is so much more complicated than being born in the wrong body, like a lot of cis people assume. How, for them, it's more like the problem is that other people use their body to "chain me to woman, to lady, to girl - silly girl, you don't get to decide". How they can only love their chest like a good cry, how they weren't born into the wrong body but into a world that doesn't allow them to define what that body means.

I love that poem.

Look, some trans people really do feel they were born into the wrong body. One trans man whose blog I read once said that he felt like "somebody ran off with my dick before I was born".

He's no less valid than I am. I'm no less valid than him. Being trans is different for everyone.

And no matter what our experiences are, there's no reason it should be a default for us to identify as cis. Because cis is not the default setting.