BDE

goddecks:

queeranarchism:

I can’t really imagine body-positive activists saying that ‘anyone can have skinny energy’ or ‘anyone can have clear skin energy’ and thinking that’s progressive, so how are the same people so comfortable with their ‘lol anyone can have big dick energy’ and think that doesn’t reproduce existing notions about which genitals are good and which are shameful?

Like, I get that it’s all a joke and that a big part of the joke is that ‘big dick energy’ is not related to anyone’s actual genitals and that it challenges toxic masculinity, but it still ascribed positive values to the concept of a big dick and negative values to the concept of a small dick.

Vox put it this way pretty accurately:

Reducing men’s worth to their bodies is not harmful in the same way that
it is harmful to do the same to women: one of the ways that the
patriarchy systemically oppresses women is by reducing them to their
bodies. Joking about big dick energy does not reinforce systemic sexism.
What it does do is reinforce a system of masculinity that eventually
leads to toxic masculinity.  The dick part of BDE is just a metaphor, but
that metaphor is not value-neutral.

When I remember previous activist failures (remember the horrible
‘Trump with a micropenis’ statue?), this is just another reminder that a lot of activists are happy to mock men’s bodies without considering how that reinforces toxic masculinity and will throw the self-worth of fat men, trans men, intersex men, etc. under the bus the moment there is a chance to joke about a big or a tiny penis.

So, ya know, I’d be very happy to see this thing disappear again ASAP and I’ll side-eye anyone who uses it while describing themselves as ‘body-positive’.

a lot of cissexist assumptions here

I’m not sure why you’d say that. I’ve adressed that the ‘men should have big dicks’ also effects trans men and as far as I can tell it doesn’t directly effect trans women since trans women are vilified and attacked for having any dick at all, of any size.

Non-binary people of course might be effected by this depending on where their gender and social presentation is at, but since this is mainly about what society thinks a man’s body should be like, this mainly effects cis and trans men.