After the last Queer Mutiny Party, the paddling pool had been removed and I was mopping the dalek ejaculate and expired lube off the floor when I started to wonder what's it all about, really, when you get down to it. And by it I meant Queer Mutiny. Did we just want to throw a series of admittedly rather entertaining parties?

 Then we all got distracted by other stuff for a few months and by the time we had time to really start thinking of QM again, we were all sort of broke. We also wanted to get back to QM's roots. The mainstream scene is very commercial and treats us all as a demographic. What did we actually believe (that we could agree on)?:

   1. That GLBT shouldn't describe the pecking order.
   2. That people shouldn't have to shoehorn themselves into one of those categories anyway.
   3. That "positive representations" of queers as 6 figure income earning, mostly white, professionals is not only assimilationist (whatever that means) but camouflages the reality that we're actually more vulnerable to the most extreme forms of poverty and social exclusion. That it encourages pointless consumerism.
   4. That we should do something about all of that, it's been a harsh winter and it's shaping up to be a really vicious sort of year. We need each other.
   5. That we should get to have a fucking awesome time without having to pay through the nose to a bunch of club owners.

So here's the proposal. The QM party loosely divided into three segments on the same evening. The first part is where we all have a meal and there should be informations about all the various activists groups available. This would be a good time for guest speakers or to show short films. Hopefully people can kick back and have violent disagreements over minor political points. Also this is the time for skill shares or workshops on pretty much anything we might need to know: stencilling, urban and rural scavenging, close quarters combat, elementary computer hacking, necromancy, etc. The space is big enough that people who don't want to be involved can just chill out under the balcony and enjoy the food.7-9pm.

Next performers. Musicians of course, we've had some awesome bands so far, but also dancers, performance art, theatre, anything really. If you've borne witness to The Fannies you'll know how broad a category "anything" can be. 9-11pm.

By this point in the evening people will probably have drunk enough for the dancing to start so the last two hours we have an uninhibited dance party. 11-1am.

It might be nice to go on to 3am but that means fewer people available for cleanup which has sometimes lasted until 5. We might have an afterparty, I'm not sure.

So what we were thinking was a combination dance party, art event, paramilitary occultism training and an elegant salon for filthy, dirt poor weirdoes. Instead of trying to be everything to all people, QM could be a hub that linked up interested people with the many awesome groups that already exist. So far we were thinking: Queer resistance against the cuts, Coal Action Scotland, Queers Without Borders, Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty. If you've got a group in mind, we'd like to hear it.

There's a lot of ways people could help but to be honest the two main ones are:

   1. Come. Just show up and give us your prescence. Even if all you do is sit and cower in the corner, somebody's got to do it and I'll be too busy. If you can talk amongst yourselves, all the better. Incidentally if you sniggered at the word "come" for heavens sake grow up, we're not in a carry on movie.
   2. Tell people. Whether or not you plan to go yourself, telling people who might be interested would help. Getting the word out is the most labour intensive side of things.

A couple of us are going to be at The Forest Café from about half four to five. If you can't make it but want to contribute, there'll be other meetings and you can talk here or you can message the profile (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=737363115) or write on the Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21589648024) wall. We even have an email, EdinburghQueerMutiny &] gmail d0t c0m. Sorry I haven't given much notice but this took an insanely amount of time to write because I was worried about offending people. And my word choice and sentence construction is still appallingly sloppy after endless drafts.

Thinking it over though, there are some people I don't mind offending. Gay conservatives, those who don't have a problem with Stonewall commending Julie Bindel, people who "aren't racist, it's just that the country is full". Get thee to CC's and suckle on the teat of thy despair, also known as [REDACTED FOR LEGAL REASONS] and there's not enough bleach in the world to clean that up. This is too long. I'm going to sleep now.

Rhubarb (whose views may not fully represent those of the whole QM collective but who has ended up writing this anyway)

PS: If you're on the email list or your friends with the profile you may end up seeing this more than once. Hope you'll be Vikings about it.