I’m just going to leave this here, I think: 

Other questions generated by means of Queer Theorising include, “Do I think I’m having sex with my dogs when they kiss my face?” Apparently, for Dr Rudy, a Professor of Women’s Studies, being licked by a dog is difficult to distinguish from kissing grandma on the cheek or being lost in a full-on erotic fever. And thus, we’re told, “The line between ‘animal lover’ and zoophile is not only thin, it is non-existent.” 

Previously in the land of Queer Theory. 

And of course this rather eye-widening example.

Also, open thread.

Best not to look down just yet. || Big trees. || Just breathe. || Coffee substitute. || Thirst quenched. || Selling lemonade. || It’s a thing, apparently. || I’ll just leave this here. || Legally haunted. || At last, a practical application for fluid dynamics. || The pretending can get competitive. || How to land a plane, a big one. || Go on, tickle his belly. || It’s noisy, but the view’s not bad. || “Observing whiteness.” It’s intersectional science, baby. || A day at the beach, 1928. || The thrill of Green Shield Stamps and “instant mashed potato,” 1977. || Incoming. || Outgoing. || It wasn’t me. || Attention, Seattle taxpayers. || Toy ads of yesteryear. || An uncanny transformation. || And finally, for the love of God, don’t tell your mother.

Lifted from the comments, where much of the fun happens:

Says Min,

Well, we live in unhinging times, so it can be hard to tell. It did occur to me that maybe the parent, the one seeking pre-approval for adjectives, could have been indulging in some elaborate wind-up, one that passed undetected by its target. Or maybe the anecdote is a fiction, a self-flattering fantasy. Again, it’s hard to be sure. As the archives here illustrate, a thing being farcical doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

But either way, it must be quite strange to go through every day with your own “identity” foregrounded, forever in mind and endlessly referred to, and always craving an affirmation that is at best a polite lie. And with unending deference and flattery as an aspiration, an ideal, an ‘A-plus.’

And oh yes, the adjectives expected.

Theodore Dalrymple finds himself denounced:

Dalrymple again, on habitual crime and perverse leniency:

Lifted from the comments, a thrilling development:

Because “gender fluid” and “bigender” employees should have “multiple pass-cards with different forms of gender expression or linked email accounts / intranet accounts with different names and photos.” You see, “workplace equality” will apparently be enhanced by enabling “non-binary employees to have their identities recognised on all employee-facing workplace systems.” And by introducing confusion and farce into the workplace, along with security complications and a kind of obligatory collective pretension. Such that employees may be unsure of which make-believe “identity” a colleague is inhabiting on any given day and, consequently, which email address to use in order to avoid complaints or claims of being oppressed.

Pulse of note. || Interspecies duet. || The Commodordion, an 8-bit accordion. || How to climb a tree. || Are you “living your best life” thanks to your smart ring? || The thrill of mechanical watches. || When A.I. generates an episode of Top Gear. || When you want it both ways. || Bubble simulator. || Hers is bigger than yours. || Because it can be done, apparently. || Today’s word is boundaries. || Satire, but only just. || She hopes this clears things up. || The ghost village of Craco. (h/t, Things) || Slow Roads, a driving game. || On the properties of hair. || A project for the weekend (h/t, Elephants Gerald). || The Volkswagen office chair. || The Sunday Format. || For when you need instant fabulousness. || The future is now. || And finally, we’ve been having one or two issues with the chocolate fountain.

Yes, 654. Or around 13,000 links. Since you ask.

They’re bringing us together with their intersectional piety:

Gettysburg College has postponed a painting and writing event hosted by its Gender Sexuality and Resource Centre for people who are “Tired of white cis men.” The private Pennsylvania college offered the event as part of a peace and justice, or “P&J,” senior project, but has since postponed it after it was shared online. The event, originally scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 12, told people to “come paint and write about” how they are tired of straight, white men. The pieces from the event would then be displayed in the school’s dining hall for the campus to view.

For a mere $76,000 a year, you too can receive such lofty moral instruction.

Update, via the comments:

Connor adds, “It’s like everything they say has to be reversed.”

Well, yes, frequently. It’s not obvious, for instance, how “peace” would be achieved by cultivating a pretentious and competitive disdain for one’s classmates, and for random passers-by, based on their sex and skin colour. It’s also somewhat doubtful that the supposedly oppressive and fatigue-inducing properties of any other racial demographic would be a basis for an art event at an upscale college.

But as Lionel Shriver once put it, “Progressives seem especially prone to disguising one feeling as another.” And so, a contrived, self-flattering resentment – and outright bigotry – become acts of woke piety. And students are encouraged to believe that badmouthing people based on their skin colour is a thing one does in order to bond and make friends, and to impress others and thereby become statusful.

As you can see, we have new digs. Told you I was busy.

Work is still ongoing and, inevitably, there will be things to tidy or hammer into shape. Or at least cover with a rug. If you spot anything scandalously up-buggered, do let me know. I’ll add it to the enormous list.

While I faff and tinker, and grumble about plug-ins, by all means pass the time by poking through the Reheated series.

Do make yourselves at home. And oh yes, open thread.

With my brief absence having resulted in the rending of hair and garments, it seems a good a time to remind patrons that this rickety barge is kept afloat by the kindness of strangers. If you’d like to help it remain buoyant a while longer, and remain ad-free, there are buttons in the sidebar with which to monetise any love. Debit and credit cards are accepted. If one-click haste is called for, my PayPal.Me page can be found here. As requested, I’ve also added SubscribeStar and Ko-Fi accounts, via which love may also be monetised, whether as one-off donations or monthly subscriptions.

Additionally, any Amazon UK shopping done via this link, or for Amazon US via this link, or via the buttons in the sidebar, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you. Feel free to buy things wildly and in bulk.

For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last decade and a half, in over 3,000 posts and 150,000 comments, the reheated series is a pretty good place to start – in particular, the end-of-year summaries, which convey the fullest flavour of what it is we do. A sort of blog concentrate. If you like what you find there… well, there’s lots more of that. If you can, do take a moment to poke through the discussion threads too. The posts are intended as starting points, not full stops, and the comments are where much of the good stuff is waiting to be found. And do please join in.

As always, thanks for the support, the comments, and the company. Consider this an open thread.

Genevieve Gluck brings news from Scandinavia:

A man in Norway is sparking outrage on social media after he was sympathetically interviewed about his decision to begin identifying as a disabled woman… In the interview, [he] stated that he had always wished he had been born a woman who was paralysed from the waist down.

So not just a woman, but a woman in a wheelchair, which confers bonus points. So many intersections. So many opportunities to impose on others. The gentleman in question, Jørund Viktoria Alme, is a 53-year-old senior credit analyst for Oslo’s Handelsbanken. He is of course able-bodied, if a tad high-maintenance:

“In the same way that I experience being a woman in a man’s body, I experience that I should have been paralysed from the waist down. This is not a desire to be a burden on society. It is about the wheelchair being an aid for me to function in everyday life, both privately and at work,” Alme stated.

Unsurprisingly, many actually disabled people, whose use of wheelchairs is not recreational or a prop in some theatrical psychodrama, have aired their reservations about this new frontier in the world of make-believe identities. Among them, Noomi Alexandersen, a woman with cerebral palsy, who told Norway’s TV 2 that Mr Alme’s professed “identity” is an insult. Mr Alme, however, prefers to think of himself – an activity well-practised – as an activist of sorts, overcoming prejudice and facilitating “diversity and inclusion.” It’s all terribly selfless and heroic.

Oh wait.