catwort

i'm drinking my options and dying of thirst

[catwort]

find less curation and more personal bullshit @velnoga

[aemperatrix]

FURUYA KŌRIN from Shasei Sōka Moyō 1907

[reverie-quotes]

There is something about the snow-laden sky in winter in the late afternoon that brings to the heart elation and the lovely meaninglessness of time.

— Mary Oliver, "Walking Home from Oak-Head"

[jareckiworld]

Jan Švankmajer — Anthropology "Bird's Head" (aquarell, mixed media on paperboard, 1973)

[thunderstruck9]

Zao Wou-ki (Chinese/French, 1920-2013), 27.01.86, 1986. Oil on canvas, 200 x 162 cm.

[outofeverythingthisnamewasleft]

Magdan City, Russia by Barry Lewis

[thunderstruck9]

Cecily Brown (British, b. 1969), Lady with a Little Dog, 2009-10. Oil on canvas, 104 x 89 in.

[gatheringbones]

[“The first guideline is to reject nonconsensuality. It should be self-evident by this point why engaging in sexual activities with individuals who do not or cannot consent is reprehensible (not to mention illegal). But there are other ways in which nonconsensuality may play out in our sexual lives.

I previously introduced the concept of derivatization: when we view other people as mere derivatives of our own thoughts and desires, and expect them to behave accordingly. Derivatization encapsulates precisely what’s wrong with nonconsensual objectification—namely, it involves treating others as mere extensions of ourselves rather than as distinct individuals with desires of their own. At the same time, this term doesn’t discount the legitimate pleasure that can come from being appreciated as the object of somebody else’s desire in other contexts, such as consensual relationships or solitary fantasies. We should avoid derivatizing other people, as it both invalidates the targeted person’s perspective, and simultaneously denies the significant differences in sexual interests and interpretations that exist within the population. Or, to put it differently, while nonconsensuality is sometimes driven by a deliberate disregard for the other party’s wishes and well-being, it may also take the form of assuming that the other party must want the exact same things we want, or expects the same things we expect, due to a lack of imagination or consideration on our part. Therefore, rejecting nonconsensuality also requires us to ditch our reliance on assumptions, and to turn instead to honest and direct communication, in order to better understand our potential partners’ perspectives and desires.

The second guideline is to stop divvying up sex into “good” and “bad” categories. Obviously, we each have personal preferences in these regards, in much the same way that certain foods may taste pleasant or unpleasant to us. However, we should refrain from intellectualizing these preferences and projecting them onto other people, as we saw with the psychologists who divide up the sexual world into “normophilic” versus “paraphilic,” or the anti-pornography feminists who do the same with “egalitarian” versus “hierarchical” sex, or the many religious institutions that sanction “reproductive” sex while denouncing “non-reproductive” forms.

Sexualization is steeped in the notion that certain sexual bodies and behaviors are inherently “bad,” and thus deserving of condemnation and public shaming. Moving away from judging sex and sexuality in terms of good versus bad will not only reduce sexualization but will hopefully allow us to better embrace ambivalence: understanding that a sexual experience that is positive to one person may be negative for another and may evoke mixed feelings in a third.

This brings us to the third guideline: If we wish to live in a world where our solitary and consensual sexual expressions are not routinely policed by others, then it becomes incumbent upon us to self-examine desire.”]

julia serano, from sexed up: how society sexualizes us, and how we can fight back, 2022

[neshamama]

salman toor, "barbie bakri," 2011, oil on canvas

[arsvitaest-deactivated20260111]

Adrian Ghenie, The Collector I, 2008. Oil on canvas.

[shitiunderline]

“I love you, more, I think, than I know, but our kind of love isn’t a sword. It’s a light. Not a fire. A small light, just bright enough… In time it will go out. So do all fires, if it’s any comfort. Love me, and look at me, and remember me, as I’ll remember you. There’s nothing more.”

— Peter S. Beagle, A Fine & Private Place

[thunderstruck9]

Gunter Damisch (Austrian, 1958-2016), Rotfeldhorizont, 1998. Oil on canvas, 160 x 160 cm.

[thunderstruck9]

Seth Birchall (Australian/American, 1979), Relax and Rolex, 2016. Oil on linen, 59 4/5 × 72 in.

[catwort]

[gatheringbones]

[“The affect of straight culture is marked not only by repressed anger and sadness but by a kind of emotional flatness, an antiflamboyance. Here, straight culture and WASP culture overlap, highlighting the ways that straight people of color, Jews, Muslims, people with disabilities, sluts, fat people, and white queers—to name a few—depart from the norms associated with straightness and/or whiteness. For example, a common straight critique of gay affect in the mid- and late twentieth century was that it was too flamboyant—too spectacular, too loud, too sexual, too confident, too animated, too exposed, and overall just too much. If we reverse the gaze, focusing on queer people’s assessment of the look and feel of straight life, we can see how straight people—especially straight white people—might seem to queers too passive, boring, unimaginative, and generally uninspired. If queerness is too much, then straightness is too little, the relational manifestation of lack.”]

Jane Ward, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

[thunderstruck9]

César Manrique (Spanish, 1920-1992), Tapon, 1988. Mixed media on paper, 110 x 90 cm.

[endless-unfolding]

“Know this: I live beast days. I am a water hour. At night my eyelids droop like forest and sky. My love knows few words: I like it in your blood.”

— Gottfried Benn, “Threat,” trans. Michael Hofmann, Poetry (March 2011)