reasoning: for a lot of kids exercise is boring. fortine dancing isnt
other reasoning: theyre fucking children and controversially i think fun should be allowed
Bonus: fun is good for everyone, even those who aren’t participating. Don’t condition people that fun is bad. Society does that enough already.
Secret Unlock: If you instead participate with them (if you’re comfortable doing so) they will either be happy that you know it or laugh cause you can’t do it, and either way it’s good and positive bonding
My boyfriend is trying to explain cricket to me again. “He’s only got two balls to make 48 runs”, he says. The camera focuses on a man. Underneath him it says LEFT ARM FAST MEDIUM. A ball flies into the stands and presumably fractures someone’s skull. “There’s a free six”, my boyfriend says. 348 SIXES says the screen. A child in the audience waves a sign referencing Weet-Bix
The first time he showed me this I assumed he was pranking me
if people haven’t been exposed to cricket before, here is the experience. The person who likes cricket turns on a radio with an air of happy expectation. “We’ll just catch up with the cricket,” they say.
An elderly British man with an accent – you can picture exactly what he looks like and what he is wearing, somehow, and you know that he will explain the important concept of Yorkshire to you at length if you make eye contact – is saying “And w’ four snickets t’ wicket, Umbleby dives under the covers and romps home for a sticky bicket.”
There is a deep and satisfied silence. Weather happens over the radio. This lasts for three minutes.
A gentle young gentleman with an Indian accent, whose perfect and beautiful clear voice makes him sound like a poet sipping from a cup of honeyed drink always, says mildly “Of course we cannot forget that when Pakistan last had the biscuit under the covers, they were thrown out of bed. In 1957, I believe.”
You mouth “what the fucking fuck.”
A morally ambiguous villain from a superhero movie says off-microphone, “Crumbs everywhere.”
Apparently continuing a previous conversation, the villain asks, “Do seagulls eat tacos?”
“I’m sure someone will tell us eventually,” the poet says. His voice is so beautiful that it should be familiar; he should be the only announcer on the radio, the only reader of audiobooks.
The villain says with sudden interest, “Oh, a leg over straight and under the covers, Peterson and Singh are rumping along with a straight fine leg and good pumping action. Thanks to his powerful thighs, Peterson is an excellent legspinner, apart from being rude on Twitter.”
The man from Yorkshire roars potently, like a bull seeing another bull. There might be words in his roar, but otherwise it is primal and sizzling.
“That isn’t straight,” the poet says. “It’s silly.”
“What the fucking fuck,” you say out loud at this point.
“Shh,” says the person who likes cricket. They listen, tensely. Something in the distance makes a very small “thwack,” like a baby dropping an egg.
“Was that a doosra or a googly?” the villain asks.
“IT’S A WRONG ‘UN,” roars the Yorkshireman in his wrath. A powerful insult has been offered. They begin to scuffle.
“With that double doozy, Crumpet is baffled for three turns, Agarwal is deep in the biscuit tin and Padgett has gone to the shops undercover,” the poet says quickly, to cover the action while his companions are busy. The villain is being throttled, in a friendly companionable way.
An intern apparently brings a message scrawled on a scrap of paper like a courier sprinting across a battlefield. “Reddy has rolled a nat 20,” the poet says with barely contained excitement. “Australia is both a continent and an island. But we’re running out of time!”
“Is that true?” You ask suddenly.
“Shh!” Says the person who likes cricket. “It’s a test match.”
“About Australia.”
“We won’t know THAT until the third DAY.”
A distant “pock” noise. The sound of thirty people saying “tsk,” sorrowfully.
“And the baby’s dropped the egg. Four legs over or we’re done for, as long as it doesn’t rain.”
The villain might be dead? You begin to find yourself emotionally invested.
There are mild distant cheers. “Oh, and with twelve sticky wickets t’ over and t’ seagull’s exploded,” the man from the North says as if all of his dreams have come true. “What a beautiful day.” Your person who likes cricket relaxes. It is tea break.
The villain, apparently alive, describes the best hat in the audience as “like a funnel made of dove-colored net, but backwards, with flies trapped in it.”
This is every bit as good as that time in Australia in 1975, they all agree, drinking their tea and eating home-made cakes sent in by the fans. The poet comments favorably on the icing and sugar-preserved violets. The Yorkshire man discourses on the nature of sponge. The villain clatters his cup too hard on his saucer. To cover his embarrassment, the poet begins scrolling through Twitter on his phone, reading aloud the best memes in his enchanting milky voice. Then, with joy, he reads an @ from an ornithologist at the University of Reading: seagulls do eat tacos! A reference is cited; the poet reads it aloud. Everyone cheers.
You are honestly – against your will – kind of into it! but also: weirdly enraged.
“Was that … it?” you ask, deeming it safe to interrupt.
“No,” says the person who likes cricket, “This is second tea break on the first day. We won’t know where we really are until lunch tomorrow.”
And – because you cannot stop them – you have to accept this; if cricket teaches you anything, it is this gentle and radical acceptance.
I understand why you’re uncomfortable. You’ve got this idea that authoritarianism is only something that appears in totalitarian regimes that tend to target queer people like myself, so you don’t think it’s appropriate to compare exclusionists to authoritarians.
Only, I’m not presenting a tone deaf or ignorant analysis of the problem. The problem is actually that you don’t understand what authoritarianism is, and in your ignorance you send me a message like this.
Authoritarianism isn’t a political ideology, it’s a cognitive flaw that exists in all human cultures. Here’s a quick primer, pulled from similar things I’ve already said on my blog before:
Authoritarians are people who create a social power structure that requires obedience to a core authority, usually an individual but sometimes an ideology. They exhibit the following three behaviors as a core part of what they do.
Establish an in-group and then police it. People don’t just have to look like you, they also have to talk like you. If they don’t, they’re the enemy and you have to push them into the out-group.
Identify an out-group. These people are the enemy and must be attacked to keep the community safe.
Take your biggest, meanest, most violent person and put them in charge. They are now mom/dad and they will keep you safe.
Authoritarianism is, at its root, a cognitive flaw created by emotional immaturity. People who are emotionally immature build power structures that they think will keep them safe, and those power structures work by hurting other people. That’s why they have to imagine that they face an existential threat from people who pose no threat to them. To conservative Christians, it’s everything from leftists to Muslims. To TERFs, it’s trans women. And to exclusionists, it’s aces.
That’s why we keep pointing out that exclusionists talk like TERFs. Because they do. Because both groups are an expression of authoritarianism in the LGBTQ+ community.
Not satisfied? Neither am I, let’s go further.
Exclusionists are absolutely authoritarians. Here’s a short list of reasons why:
They have an in-group and they police it. To exclusionists, there is only the LGBT community. Anyone among those groups that don’t agree with exclusionists are policed in an attempt to exclude them from the community.
They have an out-group that they attack. Asexual people. And before that, bisexual people and trans people.
Their in-group doesn’t match reality. Asexual people have been a recognized part of the LGBTQ+ community for more than 50 years, but since that pokes a hole in exclusionism, they need to lie about it and claim that asexuality was a trend started by David Jay when he founded AVEN.
People in the LGBTQ+ community have been calling themselves queer for longer than I’ve been alive, but to exclusionists queer is a slur that must never be said by anyone.
Their out-group directly attacks people in the LGBTQ+ community in an effort to invalidate them, erase them, and deny them resources that they have every right to access.
Their fear of the out-group is entirely imaginary. Aces don’t take anything away from the LGBTQ+ community. Diversity is not a threat. Exclusionists just think it is because they’re authoritarians and authoritarians are always fearful and xenophobic.
This is not rocket science. Exclusionists argue that aces are a threat to the community because they take resources away from us. When we demonstrate how faulty that reasoning is, they fall back to claiming that aces aren’t actually oppressed. When we demonstrate how faulty and immoral that is, they fall back to their actual position.
Aces are the enemy, so exclusionists are going to label them as cishets and drive them out of the community for the sake of everyone’s safety.
And when we point out how that last argument isn’t just faulty, but also immoral and disgusting? Their true colors show and slurs and insults abound. Scratch an exclusionist and a hateful bigot bleeds.Your position is ignorant and tone deaf. You don’t understand what authoritarianism is and I find it personally insulting that you’d try to shame me into silence because you’re either too ignorant of the facts or too uncomfortable to acknowledge them.
Exclusionists are authoritarians. Learn to deal with it.
This is a good post.
I just want to add this:
When establishing an ‘out-group’ to harass and blame for all their problems, authoritarians frequently – maybe always – aim at people of similar or less social power than themselves, but claim that the designated out-group is more powerful than them.
This paints the authoritarian group as an underdog fighting a great foe, which encourages internal solidarity. But the bonus is doubled because the ‘great foe’ is actually fairly easy to gain political or legislative victories over; pretending this is nigh-impossible makes every victory a huge morale booster.
Examples:
TWERFs target trans women as the outgroup, but claim they are really fighting cis men.
SWERFs target sex workers as the outgroup, but claim they are fighting sex traffickers/the porn industry.
Exclusionists target ace people as the outgroup, but claim they are really fighting straight, cis people.
White nationalists target non-white refugees as the outgroup (& many others), but claim they are really fighting invaders who want to commit white genocide.
Gatekeepers need excuses for gatekeeping, after all, or they’re out of a job. But it’s not fun to gatekeep when you’re facing real enemies that might hurt you, so keeping busy with the ones you can kick around easily is a common pastime.
konekorambles 