On Using Potential Slurs

I was bullied with the term queer as a teenager. With Queer Theory in the 1990s, I wholeheartedly reclaimed the term for myself and acknowledged my queerness. I currently label myself as a queer demisexual.

I am severely disabled, essentially what used to be called crippled. I have reclaimed this term as well as queer and use both in my own blog's title. Friends can call me gay, queer, cripple/d and it is meant humorously and with zero spite. I will insult them back in kind, and we all laugh.

Being shouted at by a stranger or strangers in the street is a completely different matter. These words all become slurs loaded with spite & malice.

Context is everything.

Nevertheless I would not use the R-word [r*t*rd], ever.

This leads me to suggest that it is better to talk about an individual's behaviour rather than labelling the person. The act of two straight men kissing (as was used in a German awareness campaign §) might be described as a gay or queer act, but it does not make the men gay or queer, they are still straight. Would the men be insulted to be called gay or queer. In the example cited they would not, as they were strong allies of the LGBTQIA+ communities. Would the man-in-the-street? It totally depends on their own beliefs: some would take offence, others would not care less. As we cannot know a stranger's beliefs, we ought to refrain from using terms that could be construed as an insult.

Essentially it comes down to treating others as we wish to be treated: with kindness & respect. Try to empathise with the other person. Feel and express your own fearless humanity.

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Photo & ©️GQ Germany.

Mundpropaganda video on YouTube from GQ Germany.

Per Google AI:

The campaign you are looking for is "#Mundpropaganda – Gentlemen Against Homophobia", launched in December 2013 by GQ Germany. The anti-intolerance initiative featured 13 prominent heterosexual male celebrities—including actors and athletes—photographed sharing tender kisses on the lips to promote solidarity and a free, open society. [1, 2]

Key Campaign Details

• Meaning of the Name: "Mundpropaganda" is a German pun combining the terms for "word of mouth" and "kissing propaganda". [1]
• The Goal: The campaign was created to fight homophobia and show solidarity for LGBTQ+ rights, partly in response to anti-gay legislation that was circulating in Russia at the time. [1, 2]
• The Participants: The heterosexual figures who locked lips included actors August Diehl and Kostja Ullmann, Olympic beach volleyball champions Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann, and rock stars like Johannes Strate (from the band Revolverheld). [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
• Impact: The photos were featured heavily across Germany on public transport, large-scale billboards, and inside the January 2014 print issue. [1, 2]

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On a personal note, I apologise for the lack of updates. I am severely disabled & chronically ill. 2026 thus far has been my worst year from a health-perspective since I first became disabled and ill back in the late 1990s.

I am working on several posts behind the scenes, but it takes me a very long time to complete a single blog-post.

Nevertheless, I thank first-time and returning readers for taking an interest in my thoughts.

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The Indy Scapegoats The Poor!

This balderdash from The Independent newspaper really gets my goat!

“Reeves stealth taxes ‘hammering’ workers while pensioners and benefits claimants ‘better off’” 02.01.2026

There is zero balance to the article, but rather a deliberate anti-social neoliberal slant.

40% of folk on benefits are in employment, but jobs pay so badly that the State is topping up their income. It ought to be pointed out that UK benefits pay mere survival rates no where near reaching the level of a Living Wage, with many foregoing food, heating &/or medications. Most users of food-banks are benefit-recipients with disabilities, severe illnesses or children.

Yes, children! Some 4,500,000 children in the United Kingdom live in poverty. Scrapping the two-child limit means that more Child Benefit will be paid out, a desperate fillip that in no way makes up for the ever-ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

As to pensioners, UK pensioners are by far the worst-off in Western Europe, and below average for OECD countries.

That the once-balanced and fair Indy cites an example of someone earning £50,000 (£31,602 is the median UK annual income per O.N.S.) per year having to pay £505 p.a. more tax without explaining that those receiving Social Security are on such low levels of support and have experienced real-term cuts* for years, absolutely disgusts me.

* Increases based on general inflation do not recognise the above-inflation increases in food & energy prices, let alone medications & prescriptions & optician & dental-care & mobility-aids, etc. that force folk in the lower income deciles to often borrow money to pay for basic necessities of life.

Link to description of data of DWP benefit claims.

Is Antisocial Neoliberalism on the Wane?

Neoliberalism, a type of antisocial corporatism, is the economic model used by Western countries for the past 40 years or so. The system affirms the primacy of un-regulated or under-regulated markets, to the detriment of ordinary folk. The system is ultimately destructive to community and social democracy, as almost all populations struggle with the cost-of-living crises (that have emerged and will continue to ensue) and their respective governments have fully given up on ensuring fairness and equity in respect to the redistribution of wealth, and most especially extreme wealth.

Housemate & I recently discussed Richard Murphy’s article “Young people are alienated by neoliberalism”, and reflected that a couple of weeks ago we were hearing about 50+ folk being edged out of jobs (experience costs too much presumably, e.g. teachers). Now we see that 20-24 year olds cannot access employment.

Does that mean most employers now only employ 25-50 year olds? And if so, that must have implications? Apart from the limiting of work-cultures to exclude experience and perhaps seeing the job through younger eyes, that would also seem to exclude more folk from buying their home if mortgages last 25 years.

I was fortunate enough to be given a 100% mortgage back in 1986 aged 21, in part because I demonstrated that my monthly rent & savings exceeded the mortgage payment. Now almost no single person could do so. In Inverness, rents far exceed mortgage costs, but the ban on 100% mortgages means folk are not given the opportunity I was given. In Inverness, it is not just youngsters who are brassed off.

I am fortunate to reside on a mixed (ethnically, culturally & socio-economically) housing-estate in a leafy Manchester suburb, but even middle-class neighbours are feeling the pinch and are fed up of job-insecurity (businesses in constant cost-cutting mode). Neighbours have been let go several times and this appears to be normalising, for management rôles at least.

One neighbour in a senior rôle, let go due to a merger along with all experienced staff, found out that because they were made redundant prior to the new bosses determining what employees actually did and no documentation to refer to, the business now does not have sufficient folk to do all that is needed. The minimal managers remaining were given double the number of folk to manage for no more pay.

I reälise this is a long-winded way of saying it, but it seems that almost everyone whether never-worked, in-work or out-of-work is unhappy with the system. My father, a bus-driver, advised me in the 1970’s, that the ‘pan-internationals’ would creäte ever more ‘monopolies’ and control us whilst destroying our communities. Thatcherism may have expedited same, but all subsequent UK governments have continued to control the populace. Dismay, despair & apathy abound. Almost no-one trusts our politicos. Newspapers & news-channels on the whole are not trusted.

The UK and the Globe need a new vision and hope. Perhaps we have the seeds of change. The new mayor of New York; the new president of Ireland; the new leader of a revitalised and seemingly more competent Green Party - are all examples of folk getting their ideas across to electorates and winning. I sincerely hope change is a-coming, sooner rather than later, for young folk, for older folk, and for those in the middle.

Horripilation - a poem

[Image description: looking upwards through a transparent umbrella to view multiple raindrops.

Photo ©️ & courtesy @paubearman on Instagram.]

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horripilation

a wonderful

if infrequent

horripilant event

a mild evening

a light rain falling

shooting-stars

visible momentarily

passing through

the amber glow

of street-lighting

raindrops tickle

on exposed flesh

a cool breeze

tousling my hair

though

not worrying

how I appear

a sweet, earthy scent

exudes from nature’s pores

penetrates

my nostrils

and stimulates

my olfactory sense

a total

sensual

experience

my id and ego

are in accord

just for once

my physiology

responds

messages

are dispatched

rapidly

breathing deepens

contraction

of cutaneous muscles

erection

of hairs on my skin

temporary pimples

spread like a rash

goose-flesh

and in turn

this arouses

a further reaction

another deep inhalation

then a shiver

takes root in my chest

sending its tendrils

to my neck

and chills

down my spine

all the way to my coccyx

the ignition

to a body-wide

explosion

of pleasurable

sensation

such

horripilation

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A Spanish-language translation of this updated poem will hopefully follow shortly!

 

A Queer, Asexual's Sexual Fantasising?

WARNING: this blog-post deals with sexual matters. If the reader might be offended, do not proceed.

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My own sexual route

It took me longer than most to learn that I am a sexual being. I was late to masturbation; but once discovered, I loved the sense of vitality it invoked in me. Although I can go months without the need to self-pleasure. For most of my life I have been and am asexual. However, if I connect strongly with an individual I can be sexually turned on by them. This makes me a demisexual, a term only coined at the beginning of the twenty-first century. [For more on demisexuality see my blog-post here.]

Whilst I occasionally dipped into affinities with a sexual aspect, I did not actually fantasise about having sex until 1992 when I was twenty-eight. I went to university as a mature student. I met lots of interesting individuals, males and females, one of whom was a young lady to whom I felt a great attraction. It was a pleasant surprise to find myself fantasising about having sexual intercourse with her. This was my very first fantasy of having sex with someone.

There was a five year gap before I again enjoyed sexual fantasies, in 1997. This time it was fellatio with a man I had come to love. He averred that the feeling was reciprocated, but I do not believe he was capable of loving anyone, even himself. The relationship went nowhere and the fantasies quickly stopped.

My next sexual fantasies started a couple of years later in 1999. This time I had separate dreams of a man and a woman. My fantasies had me fucking the man, something I had not contemplated previously. My dreams with the woman had her fucking me with a strap-on and light BDSM, the first time I had fantasised about myself being the recipient of anal-intercourse. I sporadically enjoyed these lusty imaginings with one or the other of the two into 2001.

In 2001, I met a man who became my boyfriend, lover and then partner over several years. The sexual fantasies ceased; presumably as I had no need of them. The relationship ended in 2012.

I did not again experience any sexual fantasies until 2024 with the chap I was dating at the time. Once the affinity ended, so did the fantasies.

Before and between these sexual fantasies I had relationships with a sexual aspect. However, I have no idea as to why some affinities stimulated fantasies whilst others did not. Perhaps I was longing for more from a specific person than I in fact received. Perhaps I was longing for more from myself. When I am with someone I enjoy the sex we share in the moment. I cannot deny that for a short time afterwards I crave more sex with the person; but this yearning rapidly dissipates. But the desire does not transmute into fantasy.

Magazine articles and other media imply that men and women are constantly fantasising about having sex. If they are correct, then it may be my innate asexuality that is responsible for my lack of sexual fantasy.

Asexuality

[Histogram of minority sexualities listed in the England & Wales 2021 Census.]

I ought to point out that asexuality is considered to be a spectrum. Some individuals never have any kind of sexual attraction to anyone. Some folk may fantasise about engaging in sex, but have no desire to ever actually have sex with anyone. Some asexuals masturbate; others do not. There is, as one can perceive, no dichotomy.

Whilst asexuality has been known about since at least 1790, for which the Oxford English Dictionary (O.E.D.) can attest, there has been little research into the subject. It is estimated that one percent of the Western population is asexual. The highly-qualified statistics for the 2021 England & Wales Census suggest a figure of 0.6%, but asexuality is considered to have been under-reported.

Never have I been able to force a sexual fantasy, they simply suddenly make an appearance in my reveries.

These days having sexual fantasies is considered normal (except where such lead to obsessions, compulsions and behaviours that have a negative impact). So, if experiencing sexual fantasies is healthy is not having them unhealthy? Again, it depends on the circumstances. If a lack of same causes distress then obviously it is problematic. However, if there are no issues, then a lack of sexual fantasising is quite healthy. And, to be sure, asexuals often do not experience sexual fantasies.

Queerness

As a youth I was often supposedly insulted by bullies with the term queer. Actually I was and am queer, in the sense of being atypical. In the late 1980s gay men began to reclaim the term and into the 1990s Queer Theory was developed. Since then I have appropriated the term queer to describe myself in a positive sense rather than the pejorative sense my former bullies implied.

I am queer in the sense of being unique, and I do not mind that at all. I am queer in the way I experience sexual fantasies. And I am happy to accept my sexuality or lack thereof. I only ever experience sexual fantasies when I have a strong emotional attraction leading to a sexual attraction with another, i.e. during periods when I am demisexual. For the majority of the time I am asexual and do not experience sexual fantasies. And there's nothing abnormal or unhealthy about that.

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NB I am not a trained medical professional. If the reader has any qualms, then please seek advice from an appropriately trained source.