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Grace Lavery / Joseph Lavery & Daniel M. Lavery / Mallory Ortberg - "Straight with extra steps" couple trooning out to avoid "dwindling into mere heterosexuality"
I just had a IRL Joe sighting with his message as part of a pro tranny collage. What a time to be alive.
But I will say I've been pleasantly surprised by the response. I know a lot of uni professors who are usually pushing lefty tweets and libdem pamphlets in my direction yet I've counted only 2 token messages of disappointment. Not even displeasure at the ruling, just expressions of support and the hope that it wont harm their immediate friends and colleagues. The only person whose gone mad is the one tranny who posted the Joe rant.
Most of these are super liberal middle age women who never show a hint of anti tranny sentiment but who will privately admit to being extremely uncomfortable with the situation.
A friend who once had to apologize for saying she admired Germaine Greer even told me she cried, so it's all rather happy if only behind closed doors.
There's still an audience for twee and precious. Remembering her old, popular Toast pieces, in another timeline Mal could be getting updoots with the equivalent of Strange Planet.
I mean, she should see if he needs a ghostwriter.
the only part about the toast-mal-nicole's money situation that is unusual is how much everyone knows about it. early popular internet sites were usually being propped up by somebody else's money, there are very, very few exceptions (we are currently on one)
Very considerate of Pope Francis to die when she needed more content.
Her religious yearnings fascinate me. She can’t return to her own religion, because she identifies it with her father. The Catholic Church has campness, solemnity, fancy outfits and literary connections so of course she fetishises it. I can see her contemplating conversion, but the reality of Catholicism’s demands (detransing and living in holy matrimony sans Lily) are too much, at least for now. Unlike her father, the Catholic Church remains firmly disapproving of all her recent life choices, thankfully.
Of course, the funniest would be Joe and Mal jointly converting and attempting to live a holy life as followers of Christ. Joe writing a book about encyclicals plus pop culture would be hilarious. I wouldn’t rule it out eventually, tbh - another performative larp to shock the bourgeoisie.
I've been surprised she hasn't taken up with one stripe of cult or another after falling (spiritually) in love with The Leader who is too pure to do anything more with her than trade speshul looks of enlightenment.
Well, I guess she has really. Just a very small cult that puts out very bad pamphlets.
I remember this too. She doesn't seem attracted to Joe at all, and none of her writing ever mentions any kind of attraction to men that I can remember. Like she'll say a certain man or male character is cool or a silly chap or something, but does she even think men are hot?
I can see her contemplating conversion, but the reality of Catholicism’s demands (detransing and living in holy matrimony sans Lily) are too much, at least for now.
There are, but that pooner is a cradle Catholic, so she was already in the club. She is sinning by attempting to correct a mistake, as she sees it - by implication, God’s mistake. It takes a lot to be denied communion, or be kicked out, so she can keep on her merry way and just get constant reminders of her sin.
A convert by contrast has to show a commitment to living a wholly Christian life. Denying a convert baptism is serious, so it is possible a pozzed priest might overlook some aspects of her life, but trans, unchaste, and raising a child in a throuple? There is simply too much unrepentant sinning going on to pass the laugh test, no real commitment.
I remember this too. She doesn't seem attracted to Joe at all, and none of her writing ever mentions any kind of attraction to men that I can remember. Like she'll say a certain man or male character is cool or a silly chap or something, but does she even think men are hot?
She’s definitely not a “I’m a gay man!!” pooner. Zero hetero leanings detected. Mal chose Joe for her primary pair bond because she sensed that he would torture and debase her in the way she felt she deserved. Clearly, he delivered that for her. I think Mal is a non practicing lesbian. (Technically an old school repressed Married Lesbian, really.) Maybe it’s part of her masochism? Or the root of it? At any rate, all her pre poon photos just say cute lesbian to me. And her post poon ones say sad or self hating lesbian.
Mal chose Joe for her primary pair bond because she sensed that he would torture and debase her in the way she felt she deserved. Clearly, he delivered that for her. I think Mal is a non practicing lesbian.
I always thought of it as convenience. A Lesbian and a gay man marry to keep up appearances and then do as they please with others romantically. Now literary women marrying gay or “bi” men as a form of
torture, or self-harm, I am familiar with that, that seemed very common.
She’s definitely not a “I’m a gay man!!” pooner. Zero hetero leanings detected. Mal chose Joe for her primary pair bond because she sensed that he would torture and debase her in the way she felt she deserved. Clearly, he delivered that for her. I think Mal is a non practicing lesbian. (Technically an old school repressed Married Lesbian, really.) Maybe it’s part of her masochism? Or the root of it? At any rate, all her pre poon photos just say cute lesbian to me. And her post poon ones say sad or self hating lesbian.
She isn't a lesbian. She is a weak person who ran in circles where being a lesbian is seen as cool and being a "basic becky cishet" is seen as lowbrow and suspect. See for reference her and Joe's wedding vows as described in the subtitle of this thread.
Mallory was always pissy about men in the exact manner of the wallflower who always has a crush but never has the guts to say something to him.
The reason people think she's a lesbian is that her friendships with girls were very intense because she didn't feel like she could be grownup enough to do grownup things like being in a heterosexual relationship. Literal Freudian arrested development.
All her "lol men are so BORING amirite" stuff had the air of a woman who doesn't actually have men talking to her but really wished she did. I suspect that Joe was genuinely the first man who really paid a lot of attention to her and praised her intellect just so and really listened when she talked about her day (in the early phase of the relationship, anyway). And all she had to do in exchange was a ton of degrading sex acts! She would not be the first wallflower to fall into such a trap.
But I disagree on the wallflower thing. I suspect she got male attention. She would definitely appeal to a nice Christian boy at a nice Christian college. Whether they appealed to her is another question. I suspect she’s brainrotted from literature. Think of the heroes in Austen or better yet Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre:
older
English
more educated
higher social status
appreciates literature
damaged (Rochester is first damaged emotionally by his disastrous first marriage, and then blinded and disabled by the fire at the end).
Enter Joe: older, English, a Ph.D., teaches literature, has a few marriages behind him, and like her a recovering alcoholic. She can support and tend to her wounded hero! And with the appearance of Bobby Joe she even gets to raise his child by another woman, as Jane Eyre does. The only major difference, apart from the physical swap of roles, is that Jane and Mr Rochester don’t eventually die from fermented botulism.
Agreed that she was likely simply unwilling to join any club that would have her as a member in the dating world, for a long time.
Joe's bitchy snipes at her and his sexual insanity could be easily read as a wild, artistic temperament by any girl who always wished she'd been invited for extra tutoring by her bohemian, fashionable lit professor with the accent.
Enter Joe: older, English, a Ph.D., teaches literature, has a few marriages behind him, and like her a recovering alcoholic. She can support and tend to her wounded hero! And with the appearance of Bobby Joe she even gets to raise his child by another woman, as Jane Eyre does. The only major difference, apart from the physical swap of roles, is that Jane and Mr Rochester don’t eventually die from fermented botulism.
Joe also has that messianic cult leader quest to slay the gender dragon which helps. I suspect it is also what attracts Lilly, who seems overall less spergy and more well balanced if only because she is willing to live vicariously through others.
The most common critique of the sexual revolution is that it fundamentally disadvantaged women more then men. As they were the ones left settled with unwanted children and responsibilities, while men went around having carefree sex. True or not we have something similar going on with Mal, who seems to have plunged head first into a commitment that Joe, for all his big words, was only ever wiling to flirt with.
I always feel bad for her. No mean feat considering how unlikable she can be.
the reality of Catholicism’s demands (detransing and living in holy matrimony sans Lily) are too much, at least for now. Unlike her father, the Catholic Church remains firmly disapproving of all her recent life choices, thankfully.
Raised Catholic, with Catholic school education (elementary): Getting every single solitary tard scribble seared/lasered off and not getting any new ones.
Learning, and practicing, humility and grace. Not the kind Sideshow rubs her nose in. Mallory cannot write. Mallory needs to get out there and interact with real people with jobs and real life problems.
Maybe then, she'll develop the skills to write for something better than garage sale ads for the Thrifty Nickel.
She ain't called Tard Baby for nuthin'. Mal is a poster child for our fucked up times in many respects. Her social class insulates and enables her to live in a subjective reality. She has common ground with Sideshow there.
I suspect she’s brainrotted from literature. Think of the heroes in Austen or better yet Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre:
older
English
more educated
higher social status
appreciates literature
damaged (Rochester is first damaged emotionally by his disastrous first marriage, and then blinded and disabled by the fire at the end).
Enter Joe: older, English, a Ph.D., teaches literature, has a few marriages behind him, and like her a recovering alcoholic. She can support and tend to her wounded hero! And with the appearance of Bobby Joe she even gets to raise his child by another woman, as Jane Eyre does
I think you're on to something there. Fandom and its archetypes and gestalts can lodge deep. Jane Erye was an orphan (with boundless humility, generosity, and a strong moral code) who returned to her wounded hero after after he was nearly killed by the mad wife shut away in the attic. (LOL. Which one will Mal end up being in the end? Jane or the insane jilted wife who attempts to burn everything down?)
The most common critique of the sexual revolution is that it fundamentally disadvantaged women more than men. As they were the ones left settled with unwanted children and responsibilities, while men went around having carefree sex.
Huh? The sexual revolution the result of hormonal birth control, and eventually legal abortion, so women could have carefree sex without risking pregnancy…for the first time in human history.
Women have always risked unwanted children as a result of sex. Birth control finally leveled the sexual playing field for women. The first and primary reason women had to be extremely selective about sexual partners was pregnancy. BC removed that giant roadblock from the equation. Every sexual encounter suddenly wasn’t fraught with the risk of permanent life altering consequences.
I’m not sure what critiques of the sexual revolution you read, there are many, but it removed for women the very solid reason they could easily refuse sex with a pushy paramour that nobody could argue with - pregnancy. Suddenly women had to be more brutally honest if they didn’t want to sleep with a man - you weren’t attracted to him or he was nice guy but not fuckable. Or you had to profess to being “old fashioned” and still believe sex was for marriage. In some ways it took away the effective armor not so pious women had always used for fending off horny men - pregnancy.
There is a book by Vance Packard “The Sexual Wilderness” published in 1968 and it interviews young people about their feelings and behaviors in the thick of the so called “sexual revolution” and it’s very enlightening. You definitely get the idea that women raised to be nice and docile were now left without their best defense to ward off constant sexually aggressive men. Men were equally confused and being told no was a much bigger ego blow to them. In the past it was simply a woman being practical. Why would they say no if they didn’t have to worry about having a baby?
Mallory was raised in a home and community that tightly embraced pre-sexual revolution mores. It’s probably why she enjoyed Victorian literature so much, tits an entire world that shared the same set of morals and principles she was raised with. But Mallory lived in the Bay Area, so she was lived in a small religious bubble with an extreme version of the post-sexual revolution world teeming around her. San Francisco was the free love capital of the world ffs.
I think this dichotomy always caused her a lot of internal conflict.
I think in her 20’s she privately clung way tighter to her Christian sexual mores and values than her public writing persona would ever lead one to believe. It was the reason lesbian rumors, or romance, were convenient and comfy for her. In evangelical Christianity it’s only “sex” if a penis is involved. Also people assuming she was a lesbian was better than thinking she’s scared of dick or can’t get a suitable date.
I think meeting Joe spurred her to rid herself of all the Christian values and sexual morality baggage and try out being as transgressive as possible. Live the leftist lifestyle she had supported on a public intellectual level, but not on a personal one. Her new behaviors and lifestyle choices also titillated and attracted Joe. “Joe, I need an expert like you to guide me in a new erotic tranny lifestyle.”
Plenty of men could have filled this role for Mallory, but she still required a level of respectability and status. Joe’s Berkeley professor title was just the ticket for intellectually approved, lefty, artsy, avant-garde degeneracy she desired. One must be verbose, thoughtful, self-absorbed and literary about becoming a female cuckhold in a polycule after all.
Enter Joe: older, English, a Ph.D., teaches literature, has a few marriages behind him, and like her a recovering alcoholic. She can support and tend to her wounded hero! And with the appearance of Bobby Joe she even gets to raise his child by another woman, as Jane Eyre does. The only major difference, apart from the physical swap of roles, is that Jane and Mr Rochester don’t eventually die from fermented botulism.
I don’t think one can overestimate the appeal of a male Victorian literature professor from the UK, tenured at Berkeley, to Mallory. I think almost any man with that title would have been a dreamboat to her, but a sickly, weak chinned English one? Her loins were on fire and no sacrifice or humiliation was too great to get her “man”, not even pretending to be one herself.
I mean what what type of husband would the woman who wrote a book titled “texts from Jane Eyre” want? Even finding a non-gay man who has read Jane Austen is big challenge. A male, English accented, Victorian lit college professor almost seems like a character out of harlequin romance novel until you meet Joe, then it turns to modern psychology horror story.
do you guys seriously not know like a dozen evangelical raised millenial female virgins? mallory's sexuality looks to me like a standard result of this kind of upbringing, and if she hadn't become a minor celebrity she would have ended up like the kind of women I have a hard time believing none of you know - millenial female virgins who were so spooked by their upbringing that they just never managed to jump that particular fence. and the older they get the weirder it gets, so they just have a job and cats and a fandom.
Raised Catholic, with Catholic school education (elementary): Getting every single solitary tard scribble seared/lasered off and not getting any new ones.
Women have always risked unwanted children as a result of sex. Birth control finally leveled the sexual playing field for women. The first and primary reason women had to be extremely selective about sexual partners was pregnancy.
![nathan-pyle-comic-2[1].webp](http://uploads.kiwifarms.st/data/attachments/7239/7239619-d85a6bf1b74d35155532e50509dd31ab.jpg?hash=gLTtSWDUoZ "nathan-pyle-comic-2[1].webp")
We are talking after all about a person who got 