Category: Mixed Topic posts

Counseling or Therapy Options

Published on by rainbowamoryLeave a comment

7cups  

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I was searching Google one day and found this website that offers a counseling service that is free. There are volunteers on there who play the role of ‘Listeners’. Some of these people are in training to become psychologists or therapists. I saw there’s also a section for LGBT-specific issues. It would be great for someone who doesn’t want to talk over the phone or meet a therapist in person or if you can’t afford to pay for therapy.

It’s called 7cups and this is the site: www.7cups.com

You just make a free account and go from there. The person you talk to might not be able to talk to you forever, but as long as they are on there, you can contact them on different days. If you find someone you click with, it could help offer a distraction in tough times.

I would recommend it to LGBT people. Paid therapists are also available through the site, but the ‘Listeners’ option is free.

All Hearts United – Therapy (requires payment)

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This second service is another option for anyone needing therapy, but it’s also good for those who want to talk about Consanguinamory with a non-judgmental professional therapist. I describe it more Here.

This therapist can also be reached at THeart@AllHeartsUnited.org

Just sharing this info for anyone who might need it because mental health is important.

Would you consider incest a valid sect in the lgbtq+ community?

Published on by rainbowamory3 Comments

That’s a very good question, and a tough one.

Even within already existing definitions of the queer community, there is division and debate on who should be included under the LGBTQ spectrum. That’s why you see several different versions of the group (LGBT, LGBTQIA, etc). I personally like this one the most: LGBTQ*, because the asterisk leaves it open for others without limiting the scope of the community.

The other minorities that don’t always fit in include those who are asexual, polyamorous, intersex, pansexual. The asterisk leaves an open door for these people to participate in the queer community if they want to. But these groups can also make their own spaces, which they often do so they can express themselves without the ignorance of others in the LGBT community who may not understand them.

When it comes to Consensual Incest, there are a whole host of other concerns that are specific to incestuous relationships, such as concerns around reproduction or how it affects familial roles as we know them. And they too have their divisions according to type of relationship. It’s the kind of situation that warrants a whole separate community where they can discuss issues specific to them.

I think there is a theme in the LGBTQ+ community and it has to do with sexual fluidity between the sexes and gender fluidity. It’s important to keep this theme at the core in order to effectively spread knowledge about gay and trans-specific issues.

I’ve chatted with some people who are involved in incestuous relationships online and a couple of them who were in queer incestuous relationships. They said so themselves that they feel like they’re in a whole other category. They felt they didn’t really belong under
the LGBTQ umbrella.  It’s not even about lack of acceptance… they just feel they are experiencing something different from ordinary (non-related) relationships altogether.

At the end of the day, there is a larger umbrella that contains both communities and it’s the Sexual Minority umbrella. I believe that Consensual Incest can exist as its own community under this larger umbrella. It doesn’t really need to be part of LGBT and it doesn’t really fit in. However, considering that they are another sexual minority, I think the queer community should at least approach them with a neutral attitude.

Because of intersectionality, there will always be people who fall in between these two groups (queer incestuous couples, trans incestuous, poly incestuous, etc etc etc). So the two communities can never be wholly separate just as all people are connected. I like talking about both communities in one space because they both fascinate me, from an aspiring writer’s perspective. But in the real world they would function best as two separate communities, for the reasons I mentioned above.

Evil vs Unconventional

Published on by rainbowamoryLeave a comment

[also posted in Consanguinamory Fiction Forum]

I wanted to share some thoughts I had while reading a fandom info page online on the subject of consanguiamory in media and fiction; kind of like wiki pages but from a different site.

Most of the contributors couldn’t seem to talk about it without imposing their own negative views or sense of discomfort with the topic, and did not hold back their glaring bias even though the pages were supposed to be for the public and should’ve been neutral.

Well, the part that irritated me most was when someone was talking about these vampire twins (Hänsel and Gretel) from an anime called Black Lagoon. Pic below.

 

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The author of that information page was discussion sibling pairings in fiction. Their opinion was that the taboo relationship between the twins was an extension of their already evil personas, as remorseless serial killers who enjoyed torturing their victims.

I don’t know the background of their story but from the little I read of them, it does seem like they have some traits that could genuinely be considered ‘evil,’ in the blackest sense of the term. But I don’t think that their relationship should be counted as a part of that evil.

Their actions (in the way they treat others) are in many ways wrong and cruel, but their relationship is simply unconventional… strange, yes. Unusual, yes. But not EVIL in itself. The twins seemed to have a strong bond with each other which involves sexual attraction as well. The writer’s interpretation of this part of their relationship was grossly tainted by personal biases towards incest.
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One of the things about some writers of consanguinamory that irritates me to no end is this inability to tell the difference between something being evil vs merely unconventional.

I admit I like character pairs where the guy is considered at least somewhat ‘evil’. That’s because I relate most to male characters who exist in a grey area in their behavior/motives…  BUT, I make a big distinction between the morality of their love vs. their other actions. When it comes to my own fiction, I would never see my character’s love as something that is an extension of the darker parts of him… for me it represents the better part of who he is. The ability to love is a testament to the good in someone’s heart. The darker parts are in no way meant to reflect negatively on the nature of incestuous love..

It disappoints and disturbs me when people can’t make the distinction between someone’s being part of a minority/misunderstood/strange and someone being downright evil.

I think the kind of person who doesn’t make this distinction is not acknowledging the character’s true complexity.

 

Consanguinamory Writers’ Forum

Published on by rainbowamoryLeave a comment

Have you ever wished there was a place where you can share your original character pairings who are related? Are you a shipper of consensual incest relationships and want to write your own characters of that kind?

If so, check out our forum!

                                            Focus of the Forum

To bring together aspiring writers to discuss our original characters and writing, specifically those pairings that would be considered “taboo” in various parts of our world: Sibling and Cousin pairings, straight or gay, GSA or non-GSA, romantic and/or sexual. You must be 18+ to join.

                                            Forum Rules

Please read the rules before joining.

Here is a link: http://consang-fiction.forumotion.com/t1-rules-of-our-forum

                                            Forum Sections

A list of all forum sections only visible to members: http://consang-fiction.forumotion.com/t24-forum-categories-permissions

Mental Health Counceling

Published on by rainbowamoryLeave a comment

Hey,

I wanted to share this with anyone who might want to know this information.

If you are part of a minority then you’d know how challenging life can be sometimes. And when it comes to looking for therapy, maybe you feel scared to discuss what is in your heart.

Well, this therapist posted in a consanguinamory group on facebook:

http://www.allheartsunited.org

You can e-mail them at:

THeart@AllHeartsUnited.org

I messaged her a bit and sent her a link to my blog and she said it would be ok for me to post a link to her site here. So if you are looking for a professional therapist who will be non-judgmental and with whom you can be open about your attractions and relationships, you can check out her page (sliding scale is also an option for pricing)

She offers Skype sessions as well. Currently they can only accept clients in the U.S. If you can’t afford her prices, maybe she can refer you to other therapists who would be willing to offer the same kind of services.

I hope someone finds this helpful.

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Forum for Original cousin/cousin or sibling/sibling Pairs in Fiction!

Published on by rainbowamoryLeave a comment
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(Image: one of my unfinished, rough sketches of my cousin pairing. It’s not done so pls ignore the disproportion going on…)

Okay peoples,

I’ve written up the rules for the forum, and I made the categories. Now all I need are members! Please read the rules before joining and please spread the word!!

Here is a link: http://consang-fiction.forumotion.com/

We can improve it with time, including the rules, but below I will outline some of the things I hope this forum can do for those of us interested in making this community:

                                           Focus of the Forum

To bring together aspiring writers to discuss our characters and writing, specifically those pairings that would be considered “taboo” in various parts of our world: Sibling and Cousin pairings, straight or gay, GSA or non-GSA, romantic and/or sexual, Canon or very near canon. This forum is not for purely platonic relationships–as lovely as those are.

                         ___How we can make use of the Forum___

There are various ways we can make use of this forum. Here are just some possibilities:

  • We could do bi-weekly writing exercises to practice writing scenes and dialogue, to get a good sense of how our characters would act and talk.
    • We could discuss the nature of “double love” and how the familial and the romantic intertwine in a consang relationship.
    • We can discuss stigma, its origins and how the characters deal with it in their societies.
    • We can talk about our own fears or anxieties about writing/publishing fiction containing “controversial” material, how we could remain strong and dedicated despite the judgment we may face as writers of such relationships.
    • We can do research together (e.g. share links to documentaries, scholarly articles, author/actor interviews, commentary, or other material on this subject) so that our writing could be better informed by facts and existing dialogues.
    • We can help each other develop points in our fictional character & relationship arcs in a way that suits our individual visions.
    • We can provide each other with feedback on our writing styles so that we can improve the quality.
    • We can discuss fandom and ships… in connection with what we hope do with our original fiction. E.g. What are our fav ships/dynamics? What we can learn from the writers of the past? What can/should we do differently?

To read rules in full, go here: http://consang-fiction.forumotion.com/t1-rules-of-our-forum#1

Published on by rainbowamoryLeave a comment

I wanted to share this clip of author Chimamanda
Adichie’s speech about Single Stories. I thought her words were really powerful and something writers should keep in mind if they value realism in a story. Even if they don’t value realism, they should keep in mind that what they write has the power to spread ignorance or spread knowledge, and they shouldn’t take that power lightly. Her words resonated alot with me since I want to be an author someday. I put in bold the parts that are most relevant to our usual topics of discussion here.

Here are

Chimamanda Adichie’s words Quoted:

“I come from a conventional, middle class,
Nigerian family. My father was a professor. My mother was an administrator. And
so we had (as was the norm) live-in domestic help who would often come from
nearby rural villages. So the year I turned 8, we got a new house boy. His name
was Philip. The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was
very poor […] so I felt enormous pity for Philip’s family.

Then one Saturday we
went to visit and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket […] that
his brother has made. I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in
his family could actually make something. All that I had heard about them was
how poor they were so that it had become impossible for me to see them as
anything but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them […] When I left
Nigeria to go to university in the United States […] My roommate had a single
story of Africa… a single story of catastrophe. In this single story there was
no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way—no possibility of
feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals
[…] that is how to create a single story: show a people as one thing and only
one thing over and over again and that is what they become.

It is impossible to talk about the single
story without talking about power. There is a word […] I think about whenever I
think about the power structures of the world and it is ______. It’s a noun that
loosely translates to ‘to be greater than another’. Like our economic and
political walls, stories too are defined by the principle of ______; how they
are told, who tells them, when they are told, how many stories are told… are
really dependent on power. Power is the ability not just to tell the story of
another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.”

Stories matter […] Stories have been used
to dispossess and to malign but stories can also be used to empower and to
humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people but stories can also repair
that broken dignity […] when we reject the single story, when we realize that
there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Plenty of fish in the sea

Published on by rainbowamoryLeave a comment

When people look perplexed at your sexual or romantic choices, saying that there are plenty of other people you could choose from, its senseless. If you are monogamous, then you’d end up with one person anyway, so it doesn’t matter how many people there are in the world… the important thing is that the one you pick is the right one, for you.

Published on by rainbowamoryLeave a comment

Wow, that was one interesting argument. I was kind of surprised by what he said at the very end, about incest and homosexuality grossing him out, but I think he was simply expressing that it’s not his kind of thing. What’s important is that even while feeling that way, with nothing to gain from supporting this cause, he still stands up for other people’s rights. If more people tried to think this way or at least attempted to maintain a neutral stance on this subject, life would be a little bit easier for such couples. And the world would become a little bit more humane and tolerant, in general.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)