GLITTER POLITIC

Dear Ashley

As my public gender problems have been unfolding I have had to start thinking as critically about my masculinity as I have my femininity. I’ve noticed that often you and I (and many people we look up to) are looking to explode femininity, destroy it, or reconfigure or define it with our presentations. We have spent countless hours talking about that together and I carry those conversations with me through my incongruent experience of my gender. I carry them with me because I strive to constantly remember the way that gender works and who it disenfranchises so I can think critically about the ways I embody my gender and the privilege it affords me. As I turn a critical eye to masculinity I am more and more aware of what it feels like to embody masculinity and have masculine privilege. I would say that it hurts and that it is an immense struggle to embody masculinity in a way that does not feel rooted in the hatred of femininity. The other day I said to Jessica “I feel like masculinity means being really hard on yourself”. Lately, I have started to think about what it means to destroy masculinity. Queer theory is all about destroying or exploding identities and gender and I am interested in how I can redefine, destroy and totally pervert masculinity as a normative gender category. I want to look at the larger paradigms of how the world is fucking us over and the fact that our current historical situations have been brought to us in part by binary gender rubs me the wrong way. If we were all allowed to experience ourselves and our genders in a variety of different ways, what would the world look like? I think it might hurt less for many of us if we could concentrate on other things that make us feel whole. The other day I posted something on my tumblr that said “just out to destroy masculinity, nbd”. A lot of people got their backs up about and it, which frustrated me because so often masculinity rests on or is intimately connected to the vehement rejection and hatred of femininity. It’s even okay for masculinity to destroy and dominate femininity (which happens all of the time, in so many different ways). So why then, do people feel threatened by my desire to infect and defile masculinity, not just online but in my daily life? Perhaps it is because people are scared that they might lose something that is important to them, something that gives them stability and privilege. I guess what I am wondering is, is it wrong of me to want to kick down doors and make more room to dismantle gender so that other people can feel like they have space? In my opinion, we’re not gonna get anywhere if we don’t blow some shit up.

This is incomplete Ashley, but I just needed to get it out there. Hopefully you have some words of wisdom for me. If you need me I will be just across the ocean, overthinking everything.

Love you something fierce,

-Majestic

Hungry Virgin Profilez ft. Smith Hammy Woodsmith

SUBTITLES HERE

In this compelling docudrama, self identified porker Smith Woodsmith fulfills all of your preconceived notions about fat people (and all of your wildest dreams).

* Special thanx to Kingsley Cricket for the fancy editing!

Ashley Aron, Betch

GLITTER POLICY 3.0:

ALL GLITTER POLITICIANS SHALL PUNCH CAPITALISM, PATRIARCHY, AND WHITE SUPREMACY IN THE PROVERBIAL DICK EVERY DAY TO THE BEST OF THIER ABILITIES, INSOFAR AS THEY SEE FIT.

Emotional Pants Shitting

I just found this on Ashley’s computer and I thought it was really beautiful. She wrote it a few months ago, but sometimes I am still surprised by how much heartbreak smarts, even as time passes. I love that I have people who challenge me to feel my feelings with honesty and courage. Thanks Ashley.

********

Majestic and I are both strugglin’. Man, are we hurting right now. We are both suffering extreme losses and a complete re-fabrication of our lives, really an alteration of the molecular makeup of who we are. It’s interesting that we experience that together. I rarely see Majestic around other people. Most of our friendship takes place at the breakfast table, the dinner table, in sweatpants, or in hotpants. Majestic is one of the toughest bitches I’ve ever known. They are so strong and bad-ass, and even though they doesn’t always see it as authentic, they are kicking the shit out of their heartbreak and gently stroking its hair at the same time. Tough as nails.

Last night they said to me, “Fuck, I am pretending so hard right now. I didn’t know I could hurt this badly. I almost never cry, and sometimes it comes out in the most awkward moments.”

I was reminded of an experience I had a couple summers ago, when I got severe food poisoning. I was shitting black rivers for weeks. More than once, I had it coming out of me at both ends. At. The. Same. Time. I had lost all control. It was terrifying, but at the same time, a little bit liberating too. I mean, either I was going to have to take a disgusting, loud, repulsive, embarrassing crap in public…or I was going to shit my pants. I mean, those were my choices. So I let go.

I think sometimes we get emotional food poisoning. We’re thrust by some catalytic event into a public bathroom and the only choice we have is to just explode. Letting go of that control is really scary because people stop seeing us as pillars, we stop seeing ourselves as pillars. We become human and touchable in those moments. We are exposed, bare, vulnerable, and there is not a fucking thing we can do about it. Learning to embrace emotional pants-shitting is super important. And finding someone who will do it with you is an unimaginable gift.

Thanks for letting go with me, Majestic.

- Ashley

OBESITY: AN EPIDEMIC A.K.A. HUNGRY VIRGINZ PART 2

SUBTITLES HERE (If anyone knows how to get them to embed, let us know)

Tonight with the hot and sexy Many Bothans we made yet ANOTHER video about fat stereotypes and what it takes to live an obese lifestyle. IT WAS DELICIOUS.

XOXO

- Ashley and Majestic

* obese lifestyle copyright, trademarked, etc. by fat mer-slut productions. patent pending.

SUBMIT YOUR ART! THE BODY LOVE LETTER PROJECT

Hey, remember that zine you all submitted your beautiful body love letters to? IT’S HAPPENING! Now we want your art. This can mean many things: draw yourself as a mythical creature, pictures of yourself playing as a child, sexy nudie shots and more! Whatever body love means to you, put that into art and send it to us. Send all the arts to glitterpolitic@gmail.com The end date for this call-out is MONDAY, JULY 18TH. You can do it!

love,

Ashley and Majestic

** For those of you who have submitted a letter, we want to say that although we really would love for you to submit some of your fabulous and beautiful art, we can’t promise it will correspond with you letter.

*** For those of you who didn’t get to submit a letter, DO NOT FRET! We have some super fancy things in the works which we will be telling all of you about real soon!

GLITTER POLITIC EMBODIED

Glitter Politic. It’s kind of like a super power. From the minute we are born, the world injects us with poison. This poison takes the form of self-hatred, fear, disempowerment, loneliness, and worthlessness. The poison has become part of us, and has corroded us from the inside. Embodying a Glitter Politic is the act of taking those parts of ourselves that feel toxic – those deeply terrifying, seemingly ugly parts – and seeing ourselves as whole. It is about having compassion for the impossibilities within and around us. It is about throwing those parts of ourselves that feel infected back out into the world in the form of beauty, like a weapon. In doing so, we suddenly have the power to unlearn, challenge, and redefine what is beautiful.

When we re-imagine, re-define, re-create beauty and share that with the world, people internalize it and it incites a chain reaction. It becomes its own virus – a glitter pandemic. When we become aware of the ways in which our world privileges certain bodies over others, and actively reject those destructive value systems, we have within us the power to annihilate beauty as we know it.

Self-love is volcanic. When we externalize our love for ourselves, we erupt love from its cold, ashy hollow and it surges forth, hot with promise, into the hearts and minds of others. Self-love collapses the imagined borders and walls we have built with the hope of protecting ourselves. It unravels the ropes that bind and isolate us from each other. Suddenly, our interconnectedness becomes profoundly obvious. Through self-love we can shatter the dominant narratives that tell us we are autonomous, non-connected individuals. Self-love in the face of fear and hate cracks open a space teeming with possibilities for connection and transformation.

It’s time for us to turn our feelings back on. Embodying a Glitter Politic is about returning to the body. It is about willingly entering a space of vulnerability, that place of uncertainty and ambiguity. This place is terrifying because it is mysterious, shifting, inexplicable. What does it even feel like to be in love with our bodies? What does it feel like to see our bodies as liminal, as shaky, as undefinable? What does it feel like, inside our bodies, to exist in this marginal place? Are we raw here? Are we scared here? It is in these indiscernible places that compassion – a recognition that in our loneliest moments, we are not alone – becomes possible. Embodying a Glitter Politic is a challenge, a call to action. It is a mission to begin the journey of engaging with ourselves fully. Only from this place can we connect, and only then can we see change.

-Ashley and Majestic

HUNGRY VIRGINZ

just a video we made about how it’s really hilarious and fab to recreate/perpetuate/reclaim fat stereotypes. subtitles ASAP!

-ASH AND MAJEST

Ashley Aron is a 27 year old queer femme currently living in Victoria, BC. A recent graduate of Women’s Studies after a whopping 7 year degree, Ashley now spends her time coordinating outfits and adding to her ridiculous collection of lipsticks. When asked to discuss her gender identity, Ashley likes to refer to herself as a “Real Piece of Work.” It takes a lot of energy, creativity, and theory to look this fine, people. Ashley has a tender heart and strives to take care of it the best she can by healing through playing music, extensive therapy, and eating whatever she wants – whenever she wants. Ashley has a lot of rage and a whole lot of student loan debt that make her a pretty articulate bitch, so you can look forward to some scathing social reviews from her in the extremely near future.