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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   30011 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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This Wikipedia article has not only amused me greatly, but provided hope, something that I didn't think a Wikipedia article could ever do. I thought we had reached a point where saying "trans women are men" was socially equivalent to using a racial slur, a signal that you oppose trans rights and/or hate trans people outright. Now, there is a popular meme that plays on the fact that trans women are men, while acknowledging that it's okay for them to live in a way that's consistent with who they want to be.

I think that's what's happening.

See, I mainly know the word "bussy" in the context of discussing hypothetical sex with trans women, but that's because of the kind of people I talk to and the kinds of things I read. Is this use of the word an outlier? Is it mostly used to refer to homosexual cis men (which makes the joke much less funny)? Would a lefty who uses the term to refer to cis mens' anuses be offended if I used it to talk about trans women's anuses?

  • -15

I’ll provide another hand for ‘gay guys referring to bottoms in both senses’, and I can provide a number of examples in the tumblr and furry spheres, albeit almost entirely NSFW (though notably e621 nixed both bussy and boy-pussy as tags).

I have seen it used in trans contexts, but it’s much more acceptable for trans men (and tbh, I find it less obnoxious there than for cis guys!) and various gender-weird contexts. It’s definitely something that would be at best controversial and more often close to fighting words for trans women, even not-hugely-lefty trans women. I think I’ve seen some conversation between two trans women use bussy without starting WWIII, but they were both already very close.

I believe the word signifies a slightly more significant cultural shift than others might suggest. It's a joke, but it's a joke that trans people sometimes use. This indicates that some individuals are becoming more relaxed about the nuances in their sexuality. While this won't necessarily lead to trans people giving up, for instance, the fight to be included in sports, it's likely a sign that language norms are becoming less strict, more playful, and less serious.

Of course, this is downstream of cultural victories on the trans side. They become more secure as queer sexuality becomes more normalized and positively coded.

..If I didn't know better, I'd say this means that to the key to defeating wokeness and returning to the culture of 2003 is actually to let wokeness win.

I'm wouldn't go that far. I mean, it would end this culture war, but the pendulum would end up with leftist censorship for a while before people chilled out. And you'd end up with trans women in sports.

I think this is somewhat cyclical too. The culture war will wind up again eventually, on another topic.

If 2003 culture norms are what you want, then you have to fight for 2003 culture norms.

If you're ok with trans people existing, but want things to be chill again, then you have it a bit easier, because you can compromise on their behavior being ok but wanting your language to be uncensored.

Either way though. Things have gotten very spicy. It's hard to prove that you want peace while holding tools others have used as weapons. That's why it's 'bussy' and not 'manhole' or something. And it's a lot easier to maintain a compromise with a small group of friends who have already chilled out about it a bit than to end the culture war when so many people still feel so much more strongly about it on both sides.

Math got there first. “-ussy” is just crass shorthand for “homotopic to the unit circle.”

Extremely disappointed by their failure to include clussy.

That's not what's happening here. "Bussy", in the literal sense, refers to a man's ass/asshole in the context of gay men. It then became a queer meme, and then ussy became a broader quirky teenger-taboo sex meme. It's not anti-trans in any way.

I see. There was at least one trans rights protest where someone has a "less hate, more bussy" sign, but I suppose it is an outlier, like my friends who use the term.

/images/16836748623814692.webp

yeah in that context it's just "MORE QUEER GAY SEX STUFF" in a funny way

It's a trans protest, specifically, though. Maybe if it was a pride parade I'd buy it as a gay thing.

They may be saying that they want it, not that they have it.

I'd rather see this a bit more fleshed out for a top level comment, personally. This feels like it belongs more in SQS.

I first heard of bussy from cis gay male friends in college. The Wikipedia article references donutussy (the center whole in a donut) which seems a good indicator that appending -ussy to things is mostly a joke and not some deep aspect of gender identification. I am not in the habit of discussing trans women's anuses but my guess is that with most jokey euphemisms for genitalia the appropriateness depends overwhelmingly on context and personal dynamics and can't be deduced from the etymology of the term.

Ditto - I mostly know the word as applying to normal gay men.

Would a lefty who uses the term to refer to cis mens' anuses be offended if I used it to talk about trans women's anuses?

I hate to reply with ‘I don’t care’, but even asking this question is giving it more credence than it’s worth. It’s just so ridiculous that worrying about it is almost as dumb as actually getting offended about it.

As I age, I'm really beginning to understand the experience of feeling old with regard to cultural trends. At first, it was just seeing something and it not being for me, which I didn't really think much of, because plenty of things aren't for me. But when I see the Zoomer haircut or hear "bussy", I begin to understand why the Boomers looked at some millennial things and said, "that's just fucking stupid".

But when I see the Zoomer haircut

Won't load for me, is that the cauliflower perm?

That's the one.

What the heck did I just read?

Boosts my confidence in the decision to never get near anything related to TikTok though.

I haven't run into the word "bussy" much, but I never got the sense that it had anything to do with transwomen. If anything, it was more associated with gay men. Or rather, with boys who were to be the receivers of gay men, whether or not those boys themselves were gay.

And to think this placed used to have a big overlap with /r/drama, where “dude bussy lmao” was respected discourse. Truly, how far have we fallen?

But in seriousness yes, it’s usually a term applied, sometimes with a touch of irony, to Femboys & twinks and other entries into the genre of feminine or feminized men on the recieving end.

And to think this placed used to have a big overlap with /r/drama, where “dude bussy lmao” was respected discourse.

As a non-Dramanaut, I've always been under the impression that that was more an accident of history.

I thought we had reached a point where saying "trans women are men" was socially equivalent to using a racial slur, a signal that you oppose trans rights and/or hate trans people outright.

It is.

Is this use of the word an outlier? Is it mostly used to refer to homosexual cis men (which makes the joke much less funny)?

Yes, it's most commonly used to refer to cis men, in a semi-joking fashion.

Would a lefty who uses the term to refer to cis mens' anuses be offended if I used it to talk about trans women's anuses?

Decent chance, yeah.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

That's very disappointing. What I loved about the article wasn't just that it was funny, but that it seemingly signified a cultural change, that we were once again allowed to laugh about differences and not take everything so seriously. I want to go back to the 00's so much that it's physically painful.

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