New York City has extended voting rights to noncitizens so they can now vote in local elections.
In other ways, a real pushback is becoming to form against the idea of “life as it has always been.” While many states in the US have or plan to put in place legislation that may limit voting access, others have expanded their respective programs. The UK’s Nationality and Borders Bill stirs controversy as opponents claim such a measure increases authority to strip individuals of their British citizenship and places more obstacles in the way of asylum seekers. Russia’s conflict with Ukraine is one of the largest armed struggles of its kind in recent history and has already led to the large-scale displacement of over a million people. When all of this is taken into account, especially when we examine recent rulings passed down by new court appointees, it appears quite likely that a whole generation of conservative-leaning legislation could be headed our way.
Census data was collected in 2020 which means the US is due for political redistricting, though there are claims that the Trump administration went to “unprecedented” lengths to interfere in this process. A recent bill meant to strengthen voting rights died on the floor while many red states passed legislation that some say will make voting far more difficult, a path recently made possible after the Supreme Court gut a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (which previously allowed for laws deemed discriminatory to be blocked before being put into practice). Wade’s 49th birthday passed recently, all the while the Supreme Court and lower courts in states like Texas are slated to curtail or roll back federal protections. In the time that has passed from that post to now, many discussions previously thought to have been settled in the States are being reopened and arguably face new threats. Games like Degrees of Lewdity explore this within the realm of eroticism where unique forms of fantasy fulfillment take place. Erotic games take this one step further by expounding on the ways in which video games call for active, involved “players” as opposed to more passive forms of viewership. If we think of art as something that lives within the realm of possibility, then transgressive art as a genre utilizes this space in ways that force viewers to confront taboo. In an attempt to delve through this space, I explored various time periods and pulled from an array of sources such as grind films, anti-porn feminists, psychoanalytic views on cyberporn, Mary Douglas’s Dirt and Purity, Deleuze’s reading of Masoch, and Beauvoir’s defense of De Sade. Last post unpacked the notion that social norms around sexual expression and gender identity are tied to a psychosocial space that lies between that which is sacred and profane. During our conversation we discussed DoL’s use of violence, navigating the tricky politics of going on “gender bends” around town, his favorite erotic games, and how he spends time IRL. Ecstatic, I reached out and asked for an interview (to which he agreed). A few months ago Vrelnir, Degrees of Lewdity’s developer, left a comment under my review of his game.
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