Digs

Sex talks: The language of sexual negotiation must go far beyond ‘consent’ and ‘refusal’ if we are to foster ethical, autonomous sex, by Rebecca Kukkla for Aeon.

I found this piece really interesting, skeptical as I was, given that Kukkla seems uninformed or uninterested here in the relationship between the feminist language of consent and its analysis of gender violence. But she draws distinctions between requests, invitations, and gift offers as types of speech in a way that seems like it might actually have some uses in prevention education and policy-making.

The "Tragedy of the Commons" was invented by a white supremacist based on a false history, by Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing.

I had no idea!

Ingenious: Vijay Iyer, by Kevin Berger at Nautilus

This interview is from back in 2014 but I just returned to it and I really like it. Iyer, a jazz pianist, has a really nuanced way of talking about the relationship of "genius" to political and historical context.

Words, binary and biphobia: or, why "bi" is binary but "FTM" is not, by Shiri Eisner at radicalbi

A long and thoughtful consideration of the "'bi' means 'two' so it's binary and transphobic" argument. Eisner is writing as a bi, genderqueer activist. I self-identify as bisexual or queer, but not pan, and I was thinking about that and this gave me some food for thought on, you know, the Discourse.

Sundown Towns in the United States: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism -- the website for the book by James Loewen

Found my way here through a twitter conversation about "best places to live," hometowns, and sundown towns; I particularly recommend the searchable database. The town where I grew up isn't listed, but the longer-established posher town one over sure is.