Links Round-up: What I've Been Reading

Ben Lehman's blog. I own Ben Lehman's Polaris, which is a tragic and ethereal game that I'd love to get back to playing at some point. There's a lot of eye-opening and disquieting stuff on there: in particular, Who are rape survivors? on the realities of sexual assault and on failures of allyship and Compassion for Evil, on the uncomfortable fact that we share our humanity with the most monstrous of people. TW: pedophilia, sexual assault

The Best That We Are Able from the Slacktivist, on the true meaning of Christmas and the way that we ask much more tolerance and generosity of ourselves at the end of the year:

Either we’re admitting that we’re actually capable of treating each other and ourselves much better than we do most of the time, or else we’re admitting that we’re not, and that this little season of respite and forced decency we muster up at the end of every year is just an illusion and the best that we can expect of ourselves and of one another.

I wonder what the world would look like if we all acted like our Christmas selves, every day of the year. Could we even?

The X-Card and the Question of Safe and Healthy from nckclrk on Tumblr, on actual experiences playing with the X-card.

One section that particularly resonated with me was the mention of a campaign where people were polite and put up with the things that made them uncomfortable. I've played those before. The table is polite; the post-game gossip is not.

The Problem with Calling Women Females from Jezebel was very satisfying in articulating in a calm and collected manner my problem with the word "females" being used to describe woman. Seeing the word "females", usually in an online post, is a pretty good signal that I'm going to be offended by whatever content follows because it treats women as the Other. Often, as something that should be lured like stray cats. "Why are there not more females in the gaming community? do we need to put out more kibble in the alley?" In addition to the cissexism and sexism of reducing women to a set of biology, it's often followed by blanket statements of what "females" are and what females like.