No matter how you slice it –setting aside the frequent intellectual pretense and critical/theoretical aspirations: Acetylene Eyes is a Tumblr sex blog.

There’s A LOT of invisible privilege that goes into the making something like that. Although I’m Asian-American, I mostly pass as white. I have a job that pays a living wage in New York Goddamn Fucking City–which is not nothing.

Additionally, I have several top of the line devices that keep me all-but-constantly connected. Not to mention enough down time after paying my bills, feeding myself, keeping a roof over my head and clothes on my back to keep up with this endeavor.

That’s amounts to a mountain of privilege and I don’t take that lightly/I realize being able to do this necessitates a certain social responsibility. So every 50th post, I make a point of taking a step back and point to the fact that the focus of this blog is an infinitesimal speck in a much larger, much more pervasively unequal and fucked system.

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With these posts I usually try to opt for something comprehensive. I’m not sure that’s possible here. The western media is focusing on the continued terrorist attacks (both by Daesh inspired malcontents and Islamaphobe asshat bigots) in London; continuing the trend of overlooking much more staggering and brazen attacks in predominantly Muslim countries. (Also, in London there was a devastating fire in a predominantly low incoming high rise that was both preventable and had been warned about. No one listened and as many as 80 people died including Khadija Saye–an accomplished photographer whose career seemed to be on the cusp of exploding with notoriety before she perished in the fire.)

In the U.S., another trans woman Josie Berrios became the 13th Trans Woman murdered in 2017.

Charleena Lyles, a WoC + mother of four who was pregnant was killed by Seattle Police after reporting a burglary. Not to mention the miscarriage of justice that was the acquitting on all charges of the despicable racist piece of garbage that is Officer Jeronimo Yanez who as you’ll recall murdered Philando Castile for smoking pot in front of his daughter. (As a friendly reminder: don’t call the police; FUCK THE POLICE. And if that offends you, then maybe you should research the racist ass history of the police and realize that there is no differentiation between Blues Lives Matter, the KKK and the fucking pigs.)

There was a shooting at the practice for a charity baseball game for GOP house representatives. Of course the news is fixated on the fact that the shooter was a Bernie Bro. And are overlooking the fact that he had a history of domestic assault charges. Or, you know, that the slavish dedication to the NRA’s agenda that is a central facet of the Republican party directly led to this attack. Oh and the fact that virtually every mass shooting for the last 20 years has been perpetuated by a white, cishet Xtian male but no, one whiff of a potential leftist bias and the GOP are suddenly up in arms about how the left needs to chill their divisive rhetoric. Continuing the tone deaf Repub hypocrisy that is becoming the defining characteristic of the current regime. Oh yeah, and a queer WoC ends up saving the life of one of the most blatantly homophobic bigots/NRA supporters in the House. How’s that for irony…

And speaking of irony: remember how North Carolina wanted to protect women and girls from the threat of sharing restrooms with trans woman? Yeah, well they just passed a bill that once a woman has consented to sex, she can’t revoke it. So really the concern wasn’t for women, it was all about men policing women and access to them.

And that’s not even getting into the verdict in the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial or the current efforts of the Senate to ram through a disastrous health care bill, composed with almost no public oversight, a proposal that’s nothing more than an effort to give massive tax breaks to the fabulously wealthy at the expense of the poor and middle class.

Lastly: the first year I lived in NYC (2007) I remember subtle shifts in the way things went down that signaled the dot.com crash. Those same premonitions are beginning to manifest on a much grander scale. I fear things are about to go from awful to much, much worse.

Kiss your friends and never let an opportunity pass to tell those you love most that you love them. Shit’s scary enough out there already. Worse isn’t something I can even begin to process at the moment.

Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

Disdain for Human Rights

Identification of Enemies as a Unifying Cause

Supremacy of the Military

Rampant Sexism

Controlled Mass Media (via suggestion that any media which doesn’t toe the party line is ‘fake news’)

Obsession with National Security

Religion and Government Intertwined

Corporate Power Protected

Labor Power Suppressed

Disdain for Intellectuals and The Arts

Obsession with Crime and Punishment

Rampant Cronyism & Corruption

Fraudulent Elections (considering that in the 2016 election there were 3 cases of voter fraud that affected the candidates running for President and one related to a ballot initiative–note: that the 3 cases of Fraud all supported 45.)

Running what essentially boils down to an arty, pretentious sex blog is a privilege. I mean I have the resources (monetary, leisure time, a decent computer and internet access) and an overpriced (but dearly treasured) liberal arts education.

This realization isn’t something I take lightly. Thus: every fiftieth post I take time out to firmly re-contextualize the arguably frivolous nature of what I do here within the broader geopolitical reality of current events.

To be entirely honest: I’ve been avoiding keeping track of the news and current events of late–between my chronic struggles with mental health, my pervasive sense of alienation/aloneness, feelings of uncertainty, insecurity and desperation at not only my life but the growing sense of doomed despair I derive as a direct result of engaging with the news is overwhelming.

To say it like that sounds melodramatic but the current president of the country of which I am a citizen claims without a shred of evidence that the previous president wiretapped him. The same man who continues to claim that the truth is a lies and that lies are the truth; who also maintains that sexual assault is a good way to pick up women when you’re rich and famous. Now pretend you’re a girl who was forced to perform oral sex and have oral sex performed on her at the direction of the pastor of your parents’ church with his son and daughter–all while he pleasured himself to the proceedings.

Imagine enduring this persistent gaslighting when for your entire life, those people who have told you they loved you have used those words as both a carrot and a stick but never as anything else.

Imagine realizing you’re a non-binary trans girl with no desire to medically transition at the same time that both the right and left are throwing trans people under the bus.

Consider what it’s like to spend the better part of a year–so sick that any process with more than three steps, you’ll forget whether you were on the second or third step and have to start over again. Then to find out almost by accident that marijuana makes it so you can go from 15% functionality back to 85% functionality. Thrill as the tide of the country you live in turns in favor of legalization. And then a racist ass white piece of shit takes over as attorney general and thinks that marijuana is actually worse then heroin. (Add the guilt of knowing that despite not being white, knowing you pass and because of that face little if any recriminations for acquiring and using marijuana illegally–as opposed to PoC who probably are struggling with the same conditions and who would benefit from pot but stand very real and damaging reactions if they are caught using or in possession.)

Think about how my countries Vice-President believes it’s inappropriate for a married man to have dinner with a woman he isn’t married to. And what it’s like to be a woman in a world where decisions regarding your health care are made in a room that looks like this.

Cross reference with the fact that your abusive shit hell of a father just had a “massive and devastating” stroke is on his death bed and the hospital is calling your mother because there’s no one left in his life to make medical decisions. Despite the fact that your mother has been divorced from him for 20 years. (They’ll let her make decisions based on having once been married but gay and lesbian couples won’t be allowed to visit their partner in the hospital?)

Be dealing with the fact that although your father is a terrible person, he’s one of those people who believes he’s a good person. Think about how you’ve lived your life convinced that you’re a terrible person and be constantly trying to do the right thing, to be supportive and helpful of those you love for fear of doing great harm to others in much the same way it was done to you. Know that your father had the stroke and then lay on the floor of his shitty apartment for 3-5 days before anyone found him. Realize that despite living your life in a completely different fashion, that your fate will probably be the same. That in death there is no distinction between monsters and the angels of our better natures.

Realize that when he passes–and at this point its only a matter of time–that your mom doesn’t make enough to support herself without his monthly alimony payments. And that with the shift that will have to be made, that you can only support yourself for 4 more months before everything collapses. Watch everything you’ve worked for for years–photography, getting out of tech support, moving to California. None of it is going to happen now.

Have your ex–who has attempted to commit suicide four times in the last eight months–confide in you that because her parents watch Fox News believe that the librulls are coming for your guns, buy a semi-automatic pistol that they keep loaded and accessible in their house, she attempted to kill herself. She only survived because there wasn’t a round chambered and after the first trigger pull and dull click without a report, the second attempt somehow resulted in a misfire. Now she’s convinced that it was a sign and she wants to live, to get the help she needs and to figure out how to get back together with you. Despite the lies, gaslighting, manipulation and abuse. But she’s the only one whose ever wanted you. Even if she persistently misgenders you and treats you like a glorified fixer.

And watch video of Syrian civilians including children suffocating and dying agonizing deaths due to deployment of chemical weapons.

It’s Tuesday. Early afternoon. Sunny. This is the most helpless and hopeless I have ever felt in my life but it feels like that point on a roller coaster right before the bottom falls out.

EDIT: It’s Friday. Early morning. The incompetent idiot fuck who banned refugees is now (ironically) upset that they’ve been gassed and has essentially declared war on Syria–while completely oblivious to the complex situation on the ground. This is a nightmare.

It’s great to have the time and resources to be able to pursue what translates ultimately into a frivolous vanity project running off at the mouth about the intersections of art, pornography and transgression.

It’s also an enormous privilege–one I try not to take lightly. As such, I dedicate every 50th posts to news and current events that have had an impact on me or managed to get up under my skin:

The fight over the environmental disaster that the Dakota Access Pipeline will unequivocally entail if it’s construction is allowed.

Maternal Mortality in Texas is a “National Embarrassment”

Keith Olbermann gives 176 reasons Trump Shouldn’t Be President

I have been doing my best to keep things here running somewhat smoothly. If I’ve fallen short, I apologize; I’m not in an especially good head space–the few folks I care about truly, madly, deeply have spent a fair amount of time ghosting on me–and my profound terror w/r/t to abandonment has been wrecking havoc on my mental health.

Although, I can’t really blame my loved ones for their absence–shit is dark and nasty and bleak as fuck out there.

I’m not sure what we’re up to as far as police killing black men extra-judicially. There were two prominent instances: Baton Route PD executed Alton Sterling; several days later, Philando Castile was murdered by an officer in Minnesota during a ‘routine’ traffic stop.

Unpacking all this is extremely complicated and I can’t possibly hit all the most crucial points in a blog post but there are somethings I think it is important to keep in mind.

First, the standard response of most conservative white folks is that the reason black folks have six times as likely a chance of being killed by police as white folks–it’s actually 18 times when you account for the disparity between respective population densities–is that they don’t comply with the officer.

Remember? That’s what everyone on Faux News was screaming when the NYPD killed Eric Garner. I mean never mind that the officer used a choke hold that was expressly forbidden because it was deemed too dangerous.

The white narrative is that black folks don’t respect and comply with cops. Now, this is enormously problematic–with the existence of stop and frisk programs and the pretty much sterling example that although blacks make of 15% of the US’ population, they represent the focus for 45% of all law enforcement attention. (Yeah, I’m not gonna source that. You can start with incarceration statistics by race and then look at the numbers on stops by race in places like Ferguson, MO or Baton Route, LA and see that the figure I’m suggesting is actually on the low end.)

But what we’ve been seeing is the slow dismantling of that bullshit notion. Phllando Castile was a licensed gun-owner. He told this the officer and that there was a loaded gun in the car. He complied and the officer shot him four times when he tried to produce his ID–as requested.. He was in the car with his girlfriend and young daughter.

The notion that compliance is what is required is a fallacy. I’ve read several things racist shits posted on social media after Castile’s murder. About how they’d been pulled over by cops carrying and been fine because they told the cop and complied with orders. But I do notice something about these cases: these folks were asked where the gun was and then are requested to exit the care and surrender the gun to the officer. Interesting that Castile was asked to produce his ID and license to carry. Meaning–unfortunately–that like what we’ve seen with Freddie Grey’s murder, the officer is likely not to face charges because police fear as a justification for murder is pretty well enshrined in the law.

One of the only responses from either of these two shootings that I thought was appropriate was Officer Nakia Jones impassioned calling out of the Blue Wall of silence. Police are expected to stand by their own. And this demands that they stand shoulder to shoulder with racists shits who use the badge as a shield for lynching.

It was an especially interesting development to notice how the police reacted to protests in Baton Route after Sterling’s murder. You’re likely familiar with Jonathan Bachman’s image of a woman being arrested by cops in full riot gear. But there were also numerous examples of BRPD trampling peoples rights. One instance in particular involved police trying to trap people in the street so that they could arrest them and a home owner allowing protestors to stand on her property. The pigs took umbrage to this and came onto her property and started dragging people off into the street. (This is a blatant violation of the law.) Some accounts even have the cops rushing into the house and attacking the home owner.)

Now I do not support cop killing. However, I do have to point out that you cannot go around flagrantly flouting the law that you are supposed to uphold, composing yourself like fully militarized bullies in the street and not expect some sort of eventual retaliation.

And that thing about that retaliation that I think is interesting to note is that both the cop killer in Dallas and the killer in Baton Rouge were both former military and contrary to the right wing narrative… had nothing to do with Black Lives Matter. (With regard to the incidents in Dallas, the use of a robotic bomb by police should immediately remind you of Philadelphia PD’s bombing of a building occupied by members of a black liberation group called Move–this correlation should be deeply concerning to you.)

What was unbelievable to me in the aftermath of the police murders in Dallas and Baton Rouge was the resurgence of animosity towards Black Lives Matter. I saw all kinds of screams that All Lives Matter. (And here’s the thing: All Lives Matter has been so thoroughly co-opted by racists that if you aren’t a racist, don’t say it. And if that prescription bothers you, read this and if you still feel like we should be saying All Lives Matter, you are–in fact–a racist. Work on that shit.) But what’s worse is the people admonishing that All Lives Matter in the same breath they insist Blue Lives Matter. Pick one you fuck wit; by your own assertion it can’t be both and insisting that it is, only proves you a white supremacist piece of shit.

I know I’ll get accused of Godwin’s law here but the police have a vested interest in protecting the status quo. The status quo is rich, white, cismale and heterosexual. If you aren’t those things, the system does not serve you and you’re a fool to think it does simply because of having more than one point of similarity with the status quo. I do not support the police–partly because my political ideology tends to skew towards anarchism but also because I believe capitalism requires oppression and oppression needs some means of state sanctioned enforcement. Law enforcement is one of the implements. So my attitude has been for years and will remain: fuck the police.

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I can’t even go near the Republican National Convention and the DNC wasn’t must better.

What I want to touch on is the aftermath, this pervasive wave of people suggesting that when the vote is so clearly between a centrist and an actual fascist that if you won’t vote for the centrist then your liberalism is nothing more than narcissism.

I really have a problem with that. I was a Sander’s outlier. He was the closest candidate to demonstrating my ideology that I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m still pretty left of him but it was such a refreshing thing to see someone pulling hard left against the increasingly absurd rightward veer of the GOP.

I don’t identify with the Bernie or Bust crowd. And I think they conducted themselves at the convention on a level that would be shameful for an infant, not to mention grown ass adults.

But I really, fundamentally have a problem with HRC and even moreso with her ardent supporters. I’ve covered this before and I won’t belabor the point further but the problem I have is that similar to how Djingo Unhinged is not required to abide by the GOP platform, neither is HRC required to abide by the DNC platform–which a lot of people are using as ammunition against the Bernie or Bust-ers.

HRC is to the right of Obama. I’ve been saying for quite some time that she’ll get the nomination and then run to the right. Her pick of Tim Kaine as her VP only proves that point. Kaine is right of Clinton and there are some late 80s centrist Republicans that he’s right in line with ideologically.

My concern with HRC as president boil down to two key points. First, in an effort to get things done, HRC will continue rightward–which will allow the Tea Party, Evangelical right to pull even harder in an authoritarian, theocratic direction.

Secondly, HRC is the only candidate that there’s any chance the GOP will hate as much if not more than Obama. In effect, the DNC’s insistence on installing her as a candidate (and don’t get me started on DNC malfeasance), means they opted to run the weaker candidate against an actual fascist. So, if HRC loses, most folks are going to blame Sanders, instead of the DNC.

But what we’re seeing is HRC is the only candidate that unites the saner GOP elements with the racist, white supremacist, evangelical rest-of-the-party. So the DNC has given the GOP a candidate that if she wins, will unify the divided GOP base and we’re likely to see a right-wing candidate with broad support come 2020. How will HRC win, when she has basically said to the left-leaning half of her party that she doesn’t need them? She won’t and we will end up with Ted Cruz or worse as an unstoppable candidate. The DNC will have made it’s bed but instead of laying in it they’ll blame Sanders.

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Another reason I don’t trust HRC is like Obama, she’s anti-whistleblower.

Remember Chelsea Manning? A patriot and hero. Well, she attempted to commit suicide and now the government is trying to sentence her to 30 years in solitary. So it’s like, we’re disappointed you didn’t succeed and are gonna make sure you get it right.

And while we’re on the subject let’s loop back to what marriage equality without legal protection against discrimination and transgender folk openly serving in the military are empty measures. (Another thing I can’t accept re: HRC, it wasn’t okay with Obama was openly in favor of marriage equality as a senator and then in the interest of electoral expediency, backed off that only to embrace it again when the tide started to turn; recall that HRC wasn’t ever for LGBTQ+ folks until 2013. In other words, she doesn’t even have the lousy excuse of political expediency to justify that she ever support LGBTQ+ folk. Yet we see all these people who damn well should know better parading around her projecting their interests on to her.

This election is a choice between anti-democratic/pro-oligarchy and an actual fascist. And people are trying to package this like it represents a real and revelatory choice? Fucking spare me, please.

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So if I don’t seem like I’m doing so well, it’s because I’m really not doing so well.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about how after the city of Charlotte passed an ordinance protecting transfolk from discrimination for using the correct bathroom, the state of North Carolina subsequently voted to–on the grounds of protecting religious freedom–initiate a statewide ban on anyone using a restroom other than the one designated for their gender assigned at birth.

This is hugely problematic for any number of reasons. However, it’s worth noting two. First, there is a hate mongering fear campaign that prays upon the lack of information by those who are uneducated in matters relating to gender–people believe that if you let transfolks use the correct bathroom, you’ll get a bunch of men trying to spy on women while they pee. It’s absurd. A transperson isn’t going to go into a restroom unless they really have to and then it really is to do nothing more than urinate quickly and get the fuck out. The misinformation about sexual predators exists despite the fact that more U.S. Senators have been arrested for misconduct in public restrooms than have transfolks; also, the US Senate has more instances of former Speakers of the House who have confessed to sexual assault involving children. (I’ll give you three guesses as to which party the above hail from and the first two guesses don’t count–hint: it’s the same idiotic fucktards sponsoring these laws.)

The other problem is that Republicans supposed believe that state’s rights trump all else. It’s how they justify that the civil war wasn’t racist–because they allege it was fought for state’s right–completely overlooking the fact that at issue was a state’s right to fucking own other people. A huge plank in the anti-marriage equality movement’s rhetoric is that state’s shouldn’t be forced to enact things that are against their sincerely held religious beliefs. (Where does this sound familiar. If you guessed that it’s virtually identical to objections to interracial marriage, you’d be 100% correct.)

So now the Republicans have basically exercised their state’s right argument despite the fact that they’ve created something which they allegedly reject–a sort of libertarian autonomy when it comes to governing. By passing this legislation, N.C. Republicans have pissed all over their own ideals as a result of hate, fear and intolerance. And, in case you’re brain dead and don’t have sensible senses, this should be the turning point where you realize this has nothing to do with ideology and has everything to do with maintaining the status quo of rich, white male hegemony.

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France passed laws criminalizing payment for sex. This move to the so-called Nordic model–which has been roundly criticized by folks who are currently sex workers (and who, subsequently, should be the ones most aware of what sort of reforms are needed and which aren’t).

The NYTimes actually ran a reasonably even handed long read on the subject of what to do with sex work. It’s notable especially for it’s willingness to distinguish between feminists in the ivory tower, former sex workers and current sex works. It also, surprisingly, stops just sort of saying The Nordic Model is actually really bad for sex workers. It’s definitely worth the read.

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This crossed my dash today and I had to include it as I’m dating someone who suffers from chronic debilitating pain: Prince did not die from pain pills – he died from chronic pain.

Shit out there is fucked up and bullshit. Please, PLEASE take care of yourselves and each other.