As a trans woman who is also a magpie and likes surrounding myself with shiny and beautiful things, there is often a schism between the all too common leftist fetishism of poverty and my own desires.

It's incredibly important that we all learn how to redistribute wealth and participate in mutual aid, but sometimes I see this being translated into this weird obsession with shaming anything but a kind of ascetic denial as a form of bourgeoisie decadence.

This ends up creating a form of leftist thought that centers masculinity—things for utility or to do activities "out in the world" is fine, but anything determined as too frivolous (often a code for too feminine) is most often cast as being a bad leftist.

If the classic dude who has no interest in putting anything on his walls or investing in a bed-frame but also spends a huge amount on some hobby like knives because they're "useful" is somehow some sort of ideal leftist aesthetic exalted above others, then I want no part!

I'd hope we would want a revolution because we want the excess of our world to be shared among everyone—not to live in some sort of nightmare utility utopia where desiring beautiful things is seen as some sort of leftover symptom of the evil decadence of capitalism.

This brings to mind a few passages from a holy book I often go to for advice and comfort, and by that I mean "The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions":

Like "In the spaces created by ruined buildings, the queens have created a dazzling new world. It is all trickery, of course. Fabrics and dim lights and soft pillows and tinkly sounds and sweet smells and laughter everywhere as the queens dress for the streets."

Or "Some of the faggots are so poor that they have to only live off what is free. The tasty orgasm juice is free. So some of the faggots live on it. From other faggots they receive this juice quickly, secretively, and in abundance."

I want beautiful things and abundance as well as revolution, and that is not a contradiction