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when people talk about media, especially books, I want to hear about the themes and central questions! what does it ask or say about the human condition? what is the author trying to get at through telling this story? is it about loss? class struggles? queerness + faith crisis? blood family vs found family and where ones loyalties should ultimately lay? trust and betrayal and whether anything can truly be repaired? the importance of joy? even if it's "just the hero's journey again" or "yet another Faust tale", is the writer bringing something new with that??
I hate seeing promo of "I wrote a sapphic enemies to lovers in space with a trans ace character" like yes I would happily read a book like that and I'm glad it exists, but please don't have your synopsis just be a hodgepodge of tropes!! I want to know that this is a thoughtfully crafted piece!! don't sell your hard work as something trendy!!! Don't just list boxes it checks off! What is it *doing*???
Added: Like...I would actually *expect* a book with that description to explore some important, deep themes! or else it would almost be an injustice! like even if you're not focusing on trans pain, a transition even in a utopian, accepting society would still be an opportunity to explore identity and autonomy and what changes vs what doesn't (and tbh I want to see someone dissect the "i'm still the same person" idea, like is changing a bad thing? do we owe it to anyone to still be recognizable to them? to make it easier for them?). asexuality has questions about what is or isn't central to the human condition and what 'coming of age' means for different people! enemies to lovers is about first impressions and whether people are capable of changing! these are all INTERESTING themes! but the themes are what sells it for me! this is a marketing gripe I have, I have no problem with the plot points themselves i promise
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I've noticed this has been the main through line connecting a lot of my favorite media in the past few years! My favorite movie is Bones & All, one of my favorite shows recently has been Interview with the Vampire, I love Car Seat Headrest's music, and my favorite book is The Goldfinch. All of those have been really impactful to me as a queer person especially. A lot of media with this theme seems to lean supernatural as well, since vampirism & other freaky inhuman conditions work well as allegories about repressing your desires or identity.
Dec 4, 2024
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fuckin uhhhh,, wrote this at like 4 am for a powerpoint night,,, examining cannibalism thru litcrit,,,, no promises about that part 2 but i do have Thoughts
title: eating you (out): the inherent sexuality of cannibalism
So much of our sexual language contains also that of hunger. Conversely, cannibalism contains within it the hunger of sexuality – the hunger for another’s body. “I’m starved for touch” “Oh I could just eat you up” “they were eating each others’ faces” “Eat my pussy” The knowledge of cannibalism as erotic — and eroticism as cannibalistic — is carried through our language of sexuality hunger from tender to sensual to pornographic. Cannibalism is the ultimate act of a possessive, starving sexuality. It is the ultimate knowledge of the other, from whence there can be no return. Once you have partaken of another’s flesh, you are something different. You’re full.
The King James Bible often translates sexual acts as "knowing"; thus knowing someone, in the biblical sense, is a carnal knowledge. And what knowledge is more intimate, more totalizing, than the knowledge of another’s taste? Cannibalism is a carnal knowledge, but it also exemplifies the horrors of being known intimately, the fears associated with sex. Will I become absorbed by this person, this other? What does their knowledge of me mean for my selfhood? How much of me can they Know before I cease to exist entirely?
Thus, cultural depictions of cannibalism are overwhelmingly stories where love and horror coexist. In the ancient greek myths, we can see these inklings of a cannibalism borne out of love. When Saturn, or Cronos, hears the prophecy of his destruction at the hands of his children, he knows he must kill them. But rather than merely dispatching them in some sterile, unphysical way, he retakes into his body that which came from it. He cannot allow his children to live, and yet he cannot live without them; they must become a part of him. This presents a painful physicality of love that could only be expressed as cannibalism. This is the erotic complexity of cannibalism – possession, love, knowledge, sex, fear, consumption.
Modern tv and movies have heightened awareness of the sexual nature of cannibalism to a degree that cannot be ignored. [slide w/ NBC Hannibal and Twilight posters] Both these depictions are deeply possessive, and certainly toxic – I need you so much that I must bend your body to my will and consume you totally — yet hold space for tenderness, intimacy, friendship, and marriage.
In NBC’s 2012 horror/comedy masterpiece Hannibal, we see the ways in which cannibalism can present both this deep possessiveness and hunger (literally and figuratively), but also the ways in which cooking and eating someone is an act of intimacy. Hannibal spends hours making people into gourmet meals, familiarizing himself with their bodies before taking them into his own. Imagine the caress of spices before the heat of the gas stove flame. He remembers each of his meals like one might remember an old lover.
We might say that the relationship between pleasure and pain is central to the cannibalism’s sexuality — the pleasure and the pain of being known, the dichotomy of possessiveness and tenderness.
Cannibalism is kinky, it’s sadomasochistic.
In Twilight, Edward's vampirism, the capital-b Bite, is a clear metaphor for sex. Metatexually, the story needs this metaphorical distancing because of Meyer’s Mormonism, but the choice of vampirism, of cannibalism, as the sexual metaphor exposes the already existing cultural linkages between the two. Bella’s erotic fascination with the Bite, and Edward’s shame at his bloody desires, entwine the cannibalistic act of vampirism with sex and sexuality. Let us not forget that Twilight spawned the massive softcore kink book/movie franchise Fifty Shades of Grey. Reading these texts together, we can see clearly how the vampiristic, cannibalistic hunger of Twilight IS the kinky, sadomasochistic sex of Fifty Shades. These authors are writing the same thing.
An interesting dynamic that arises with regard to the sexuality of cannibalism is the aspect of penetration. There is a double penetration occuring – that of the carving knife, and that of the flesh. In the first instance, the cannibal as the power-holder is doing the penetrating; this is to be expected in a cisheteronormative culture. But the second penetration is that of the cannibalized into the cannibal — the cannibal is allowing someone else’s flesh into them, is allowing their body to be changed by someone else’s. Here, although the cannibal is still (obviously) in a dominant role, they experience vulnerability and penetration at the hands of their partner. This is queer as fuck!!
Cannibalism is not just sexual, it embodies a queer sadomasochistic sexuality. Bones and All (2022) highlights this perfectly -- the eroticism of satiating a hunger that has been condemned and relegated to psychiatric institutions and subversive subcultures.
We as a culture have accepted --- and even adore --- the sexual nature of cannibalism in our media. But how has the sexual cannibal presented throughout history? What institutions does it support, and is the sexuality of cannibalism something that must be destroyed? Stay tuned for part 2 for a historical materialist analysis of sexy cannibalism :)
Feb 21, 2025
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been reading about this lately, it's a fascinating idea that i can't help but hate
the way it gets used is to analyze everything as performance which exposes the silliness of a lot of social norms and ceremony
especially in modern queer theory is interesting and often used as funny and irreverent
but i can't help feel this perspective has an emptiness underneath it
if everything is exposed as performance it can also be dismissed as performance
and yes, performance can become real if we buy into etc. etc. and is not to be dismissed lightly etc. etc.
but i can't help wanting something more
i don't like performativity even though it's necessary
that's not such a terrible thing
even though it's not very functional
Mar 20, 2025
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this photo is from september 2018 and I still haven’t seen anything like it since
May 26, 2025
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That’s just not what we’re doing here
6d ago
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Did you know that the music used in the “you wouldn’t steal a car” anti-piracy ad was pirated? Apparently the FONT was stolen too lmaoooooo the irony
May 22, 2025