New readers: an “Occasional Link Roundup” is when I periodically link to awesome blog posts I’ve recently come across. I tried in vain to do this on a particular day of the week and/or with some sort of regularity, but failed. Now I just do it whenever the hell I want to, hence the name.
Also, you can self-promote in the comments section!
1. The TV show Grey’s Anatomy is a guilty pleasure of mine, but this blog post critiques its approach to disability and mental illness brilliantly.
2. Cassy wrote this account of being harassed on the El. Trigger warning for street harassment. “If you can read this anecdote and still not acknowledge the necessity of feminism, then you have lost the plot entirely. I can’t tell you how often I’m told by men to relax while they attempt to ensnare me, that I don’t know better than they do with regards to a woman’s place in the world, that I should take sexual harassment as a compliment rather than as a privileged affront to my gender, that I’m making a big fuss over nothing if I recoil at the greedy hands of a stranger.”
3. And in response to that, Chana discussed the only appropriate way to respond to a personal story about sexual harassment or assault, and how not to respond.
4. Why labels for sexual orientation/gender identity/relationship style can be really useful.
5. Tips for men who want to be conscious of consent. “In propositioning people, I try to be aware of the effects of rape culture. I know that if I proposition someone for something, and they’re not interested, they have to try to intuit how I’ll respond to rejection. Will I take it gracefully? Will I be an asshole? Will I become belligerent? Not knowing can be scary. What I try to do, insofar as it is possible, is to remove that ambiguity. I try to make it as obvious as I can that I can and will take no for an answer, and to make it as easy as I possibly can for someone to say no.”
6. A writer with depression responds to people who find her mental illness irritating. “I know I’m not much fun to be around right now. I may even be irritating. But making me feel bad about feeling bad isn’t going to make me feel any better.”
7. In defense of polyamory as an orientation rather than simply a lifestyle choice, which is what Dan Savage believes. “A gay man might possess the physical capability of having sexual intercourse with a woman, but what that ignores is that man might not be capable of being happy in a sexual relationship with a woman. It will probably feel on some level deeply unsatisfying, if not downright unnatural….The same is true of polyamorous relationships. I could no more be happy in a monogamous relationship than I could be in a relationship with another man; such a relationship would feel, on a basic level that seems to have nothing to do with conscious choice, deeply unnatural, constricting, and wrong to me.”
8. A definition of sexual objectification. Some of the advertisements shown here are a bit disturbing, just a warning.
9. David Futrelle writes about MRAbot2000, the most hilarious Reddit account I’ve ever seen.
10. How to be a male ally. Just brilliant.
Feel free to self-promote!