things that are okay and things that aren’t.

there are two types of “things that people want”

there’s “things that society says you should want”

and there’s “ew gross what’s wrong with you, why would anyone ever want that”

someone tell me i’m not the only one that sees a big problem here.

here’s an example. just so you know, i’m generalizing, and i’m talking about western society because that’s all i know of and that’s what i see in the media. if i make mistakes, please do correct me, it’s late at night and i feel that this meanders a bit too much.

[tw: fat/weight shaming] 
it’s seen as good, healthy and ideal to want to be thin, to strive towards being thin and losing weight and having a certain look. particular emphasis is put on the female body in this matter. but if you want to gain weight, to become or to stay overweight, then it is seen as you “not trying hard enough”, “being lazy”, “being inconsiderate”, “being selfish”, “trying to make yourself unappealing” and god knows how many other awful things, most of which just are not true.

society will tell you, time and time again, that you should want to be thin. if you are not thin, or you do not want to be thin, you are told there is something wrong with you.

would you like another example.

[tw: talking about gender roles]
how about some of the masculine/feminine bullshit. it’s seen as (generally) acceptable for a woman to want to dress in more typically masculine clothing and adopt typically masculine mannerisms. a women in a position of power in business, for instance, may be expected to dress in this way. however, if a man decides to dress in typically feminine clothing and adopt typically feminine mannerisms, he is considered to be somehow “lowering himself”.

this is because society, in many ways, does not consider females and males to be equal. it considers the male, the masculine, to be the ideal and everything else is a shade of grey below it. there is a great act, in which to be feminine, especially by your own choice, is to have something wrong with you.

and another. this one is, for some reason, more controversial, but a lot shorter to say.

humans think they’re better than everything else. that’s it, that’s all, it’s fucking awful but there you go.

this is because they’ve made a system, a series of systems, which all raise the human to be seen as higher and better and more worthy than everything than is not human. humans then see this self-made system and take it as proof that they’re better than everything else.

and this is leading onto me talking about otherkin, and one of the reasons that i see to cause people to think it’s “not okay”.

otherkin, for the most part, identify as something that isn’t human. this is usually an animal, whether a physical animal or a fictional/mythical animal. i know there are a lot of otherkin that aren’t those things, but many otherkin fit into that category in some way, so i’ll take that for now.

there’s something that’s been pushed into the mind of practically everyone. everyone who has watched television, read a book, seen the news. this is the mantra of “humans are better than everything else” and despite the fact it’s quite simply, painfully wrong, a lot of people still believe it for some damn reason.

so why, people ask, would a human, who is at the top of this made-up pyramid, want to be lowered down. who would choose to not be at the top. who would embrace that, who would dare to not only say “i am this”, but say it proudly, without shame, without regret.

there is nothing wrong with being not human. but goddamn, you’re not meant to say that. you’re meant to say, “all life is equal”, but you were never meant to believe it. so they make it a bad thing, they make it something to be ashamed of. they attach slurs to the idea, they call it crazy, they call it wrong.

but the way i see it, they’re not calling it wrong because it is harmful or hurting anyone. most of the time, it’s not doing anything like that, is it. 

they’re calling it wrong because once you start thinking that maybe all life is equal, maybe the birds can have souls, maybe there are no gods, maybe i am not important simply because of the body i have, maybe there are intrinsic things that could be changed not only about my world but about this species i am part of and am responsible in part for - once you start thinking that, the precarious perch that the collective inflated sense of human self-worth is balanced upon might have to be shaken, just a little.

no one wants to believe they are only equal to a spider, because just the other day they killed a spider, just like that, and it was too easy for that to be equal to taking a life of a human, and so people justify it by saying that the spider is worth less. and you, you are worth less, if you want to be the spider, because you are wrong in the scheme of things, aren’t you.
but it’s a human scheme and it’s awful and it hurts so many creatures, all the time. there’s no more justified pride that comes with being human than comes with being the spider. it’s okay to be either, or neither. it’s not okay to hurt any of them, and it’s not okay to hurt those who stray the line between the two. let’s stop pretending they, and you, in a human body, are special because of the species we were all born as, and go find yourself an honest reason to be proud of whatever the hell you are.