musty carpet muncher

28. butch lesbian. separatist.

[holymagdalene-deactivated202202]

It annoys me when I see the word “eugenics” misused in arguments about abortion and disability. Eugenics is when the government forcibly sterilizes people or forces women to have abortions.

Individual women deciding what’s best for themselves and their families is not eugenics.

[radmenace]

the ACLU be like

[redactedmatopoeia-deactivated20]

The Cultural Revisionism Industry

The hottest trend in media is critiquing the former hottest trend in culture

But how did these terms, each with their own extensive history and context in the feminist movement, become so mainstream over the course of the past 18 years? The media vilification of Hilton, Spears, and other prominent women of the aughts is a real and undeniable part of the context from which what is now called fourth-wave feminism emerged in the early 2010s, but rather than connect those dots, the historical impact of these events is treated as an afterthought. Multiply this omission across an entire genre, and you’re left with a rather Whiggish theory of history, wherein the past of each incident and the comparatively enlightened present exist as points A and B on an arc of inevitable progress. This isn’t just wrong — progress, however you want to define it, is neither inevitable nor irreversible — it also lazily bypasses the real meat of thinking about the past that should be central to content premised on, well, thinking about the past.

this gawker article is good. new gawker is pretty good. i know real kms hours

[hauntedearth]

[feralseraph]

girls school version of dead poets society where they read emily dickinson, sylvia plath, etc. the favorite teacher is a lesbian. two of the girls fall in love with each other and nothing bad happens to either of them. the school is a little bit haunted. 

[thefutureislesbians]

radical feminism is the theory. separatism is the praxis.

what separatism is: the radical, political choice to separate ourselves as womyn from men, any time and anywhere possible. what separatism is not: killing your father, refusing medical care from a male in an urgent situation, not owning a male dog. this is a joke. I am joking. we’re having fun here. but really! separatism is not about imposing on womyn, or making their lives harder. it is about freeing ourselves from males. it is about a freedom you can’t fathom until you’ve begun to experience it. whether you believe male violence is nature (biological, unchangeable), or nuture (conditioned into them by society) or even somewhere in between, the conclusion is the same: males are dangerous to females. and the solution to that conclusion is to remove ourselves as best we can from these violent males. separatism is the solution to male violence, and the culmination of radical feminist theory. of course, We Live In A Society. full separatism is not always possible - and I’ll speak more on that later, don’t worry! 

if you believe men are biologically violent, and predisposed to doing harm against womyn, then it’s simple. they cannot change (or cannot change much), so we remove ourselves. we will not fix men, so we will save ourselves. there are many arguments for the biological nature of male violence: it starts very young, increasing with rising testosterone levels, and is exhibited simiarly in comparable mammals. many large mammals live in female groups due to the violent nature of their males.

if you believe men are conditioned into violence, the solution stays the same. a man will not change his behavior, even if he can, without an incentive. womyn have organized and removed themselves before in protest. in 1974 in Iceland, 90% of the country’s womyn went on strike. they did not care for children, cook, clean, or go to work. the country SHUT DOWN. businesses, schools, banks, all closed. men realized for the first time how VITAL womyn are. and this was one day.  if anything were going to change men, it would be this. men cannot function without womyn. womyn mother them and marry them, wiping their asses so to speak from cradle to grave. we increase their pay and their lifespan by marrying them. they decrease both of ours.

now back to full separatism (ie, womynsland). it’s not always attainable: we know this. there might be any number of reasons: financial hardship, disability, obligations to family/children, or even just a genuine lack of womynsland you can get to! (and, of course, outside of the west, there are a myriad of legal obstacles as well.) does this mean you can’t practice separatism? NO! you can & should still separate when and where you are able! any womyn can: not partner and/or live with a man, not have or prioritize male friends, not do favors for men, not see male doctors, therapists, professors, etc, when able, hire womyn for handiwork, support womyns art, literature, music, academics, careers, etc, prioritize female friends & family members, find, create, and engage in female only spaces, clubs, societies, teams, etc, mentor younger womyn, help other womyn connect & separate, too! create resource trees, share contact information, etc. as always, I’ll end with some questions: what ways, big or small, do you practice separatism? what has separatism & prioritizing females brought to your life? if applicable, what is holding you back from separatism/separating more?

[ccuntdracula]

GOD what a legend

[laurierrose]

personally i see separatism as akin to the right to hold a job, get a divorce, open a bank account, or own property. not all women do these things, but having the ability to do so is necessary because it means you have an alternative to relying on men, who have proven that they cannot be trusted to protect or provide for us. it’s just another form of female self-reliance. i don’t understand this apparent need to argue about it or pit lesbians and straight women against each other whatsoever

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

So many anti-separatism posts I’ve seen recently become absurd the second you swap ‘have to’ with ‘be able to’.

“You think women should have to be able to live without men?”

“You think women should have to be able to be celibate?”

“You think women should have to be able to be self-reliant?”

“You think women should have to be able to live in women-only groups and communities?

Like… yeah I want that option please!

[missouriangothic]

It's crazy how sanitized the history surrounding women's suffrage is now. Your average person's knowledge of it is generally something like "a lot of women in the 1910s decided to stand in places with signs, and then (a vague, unspecified) 'men' decided to give them what they wanted out of the goodness of their hearts." You know suffragettes were beaten on the streets by police and tortured in jail, right? And that the first attempt to organize the women's suffrage movement on a national level took place in the 1840s? There were suffragettes who died decades before votes for women was a reality.

[moonpriestes]

You can't just say that and not talk about how badass UK suffragettes were!

If women knew just how far suffragettes had to go to get the vote, would stop believing in men's generosity. Suffragettes protested peacefully for decades and got nowhere.

So they changed tactics. They decided to stop trying to appeal to men... obviously men weren't going to give them jack. So instead they made the men in power fear for their lives.

They assaulted politicians, destroyed public property. They invented the letter bomb.

They targeted sports stadiums, racetracks, churches, trains, dockyards. Politicians and their relatives had their houses set on fire. Suffragettes started getting gun licenses.

They would have continued if it hadn't been for WW1 starting in 1914.

But of course men will say that the campaign wasn't effective. They'll claim that it didn't influence their decision to give some women the vote in 1918... as soon as the war ended.

[purpleradfeminista]

Grooming…. let’s talk about it:

Let’s start back in 1919. Charlie Chaplin, who would become one of the most famous and celebrated movie stars of all time, was 29 when he married 16 year old aspiring actress Mildred Harris. Their marriage only lasted 2 years.  In 1924, Chaplin repeated the pattern with another 16 year old, Lita Gray.  He met Lita when she was just 6 and began taking her on dates around the age of 12.  

1954 – Sam Cooke meets a 12-year old Aretha Franklin and brings her to his hotel room.  Before her father interrupted, Aretha said the conversation “took another turn.”

In 1957, 23 year old Jerry Lee Lewis married his cousin, 13 year old Myra Brown.  She still believed in Santa.

Also in 1957, 16 year old Anna Mae Bullock met 24 year old Ike Turner. He quickly took her into his band, helped make her a star, and began to treat the newly christened “Tina” as if he owned her.  They married 6 years later.  Tina once wrote that she was afraid not to accept his proposal.

In 1959, Elvis Presley met his future wife.  He was 25 and she was 14. They stayed in touch via phone and letters for the next 2 ½ years.  At that time, Elvis took her on a drug romp to Vegas, followed by moving her into his Graceland mansion. They didn’t marry until 1967. While both parties claimed that Priscilla was a virgin on her wedding night, biographer Susan Finstad makes a strong case that this could not be true.  Priscilla herself has admitted that she & Elvis slept in the same bed and that Elvis “taught (her) other ways to please him.”  Elvis reportedly had a predeliction for 14 year old girls, both before and after his marriage to Priscilla.

Chuck Berry  was arrested and found guilty of transporting an underage girl across state lines for immoral purposes, spending two years in jail in 1960.

In 1969, Sable Starr, queen of the so-called “baby groupies”, had a brief relationship with Iggy Pop.  She was 13. He later wrote a song about it. Starr had sexual relationships with many other band members, including encouters with David Bowie, Mick Jagger, and Rod Stewart.

It’s 1972 and Rock stars are still having sex with little girls and everyone knows it, but no one does anything about it. Lori Mattix tells of losing her virginity at age 14 to David Bowie.  She went on to start “dating” Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page that same year, a relationship that began when Page’s manager kidnapped her and brought her to Jimmy’s hotel room.  Page kept Lori essentially locked up in his house for most of their 18 months together.  The “baby groupie” also reports a sexual relationship with Mick Jagger when she was just 17.

In 1973, married singer Marvin Gaye met and pursued 17 year old Janis Hunter.  He wrote “Let’s Get it On” as a tribute to his lust for her. Marvin took his teen date to dinner shortly after they met, where he bribed the waiter to bring her alcohol, then had sex with her later that night. They had a baby by the time she was 18, and married in 1977. The marriage lasted just 3 years.

In 1975, Steven Tyler purchased the guardianship of a 16 year old girl (Julia Holcomb) from her mother when he was 27 so that he could legally take her with him across state lines while he was on tour.

In 1978, Ted Nugent also purchases the guardianship of a teenager from her parents.  He was 30, Pele Massa was 17. Years later, Ted reportedly received oral sex from a 12 year old Courtney Love.

March 10, 1977. One of the most well-known cases. Director Roman Polanski drugs and rapes 13 year old Samantha Gailey. Allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge, Polanski nevertheless fled to France before sentencing and remains exiled from the United States. He has not been exiled, however, from Hollywood and continues to make movies and win awards to this day. 

Eagles drummer and vocalist Don Henley was arrested in 1980 in Los Angeles after paramedics were called to his home to save a naked 16-year-old girl who was overdosing on cocaine and Quaaludes.

Colored over as a a “grand romance” and a “decades long relationship”, Celine Dion was 12 years old when 38 year old Rene Angelil became her manager.  They went public with their relationship when she was 19.

In 1984, Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman started dating Mandy Smith. She was 13.  Although they did not marry until she was 18, Mandy says she was 14 when they first had sex.  Mr. Wyman has never been investigated, much less prosecuted.

Red Hot Chili Peppers’ lead Anthony Kiedis readily admits to having sex with a 14 year old girl when he was 23.  According to him, once he confirmed her age he “had sex with her again.”  In 1986, the 24-year old musician began dating 16 year old Ione Skye.

 In 1990, 16 year old Mayte Garcia’s mother sent a video of her belly-dancing to Prince. He arranged to meet her, confirmed she was 16 and a year later moved her into his house.  When she was 19, he initiated a sexual relationshi by informing her it was time to go on birth control.  They married when she was 22 and he was 37.  Before Mayte, Prince met “Anna Fantastic” when she was 15.  At 17, she moved into his compound where they had a two year long relationship.

In 1991, 32 year old director Luc Besson met and eventually married model Maïwenn Le Besco when she was 15.  Their relationship inspired his movie Léon: The Professional (1994), which followed an emotional relationship between an adult man and a young girl.

In 1993, Jerry Seinfeld picked up a  high school student in a public park.  He was 39 and she was 17.  He and Shoshanna Lonstein dated for four years – through her college years.

Also in 1993, MC Ren of N.W.A. was accused of raping and impregnating a 16 year old girl in the group’s tour bus. The case never went to trial, however a paternity test showed that he was the father of the girl’s baby.

Noted pedophile R Kelley secretly married R&B singer Aaliyah in 1994 when she was 15 and he was 27.  They met when she was 12 and he later helped write and produce her first album – “Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number.“ 

In 1995, teen star Brandy (age 16) started dating 21-year-old Boyz II Men member Wanya Morris. Keeping their relationship under wraps due to her age proved too stressful for the couple and they broke up soon after.

In 1997, Woody Allen should have become notorious when he married his de facto step-daughter.  Though she was 21 at the time of the wedding, the two met when she 8.  No matter the spin, the facts are stark. This wasn’t the only time Allen dated a much younger woman. Actress Babi Christina Engelhardt  began a years-long love affair with Allen when she was 16 and he was 41. When Allen was 42, he romanced 17-year-old actress and high school senior Stacey Nelkin.

It’s the early-mid 2000s and “That 70s Show” actor, Wilmer Valderrama, continues to date teenage girls in an effort to deny that he is now over 30.  He dated 16-year-old Mandy Moore despite being four years her senior.  At age 24, Valderrama dated 17-year-old Lindsay Lohan though they kept the relationship a secret until her 18th birthday in 2004. In 2010, the 30-year-old began dating 17-year-old Demi Lovato.

In 2001, Fast & Furious star Paul Walker (28 at the time) was dating 16-year old Aubrianna Atwell.  This was not Paul’s last time to date a teenager.  His girlfriend at the time of his death, Jasmine Pilchard-Gosnell, was 23 to his 40.  They met when she was 16.

Back in 2004, 26 year old Joel Madden and Hilary Duff did the familiar dance of being “just friends” until her 18th birthday in 2006. When asked about whether she was intimate with Madden or not in a 2015 interview with Cosmopolitan, Duff stated, “I had a 26-year-old boyfriend. So everyone can make their own assumptions about what I was doing.”

In 2005, clean cut TV heartthrob Chad Michael Murray begins dating a girl in high school.  They get engaged when she turns 18 and Murray calls her a “little sweetheart” and says they have been together “for awhile.”

Similarly, in 2006, co-stars Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia began dating. She was 17.  He was 12 years her senior.

Actor Doug Hutchison married 16-year-old Courtney Stodden in 2011, when he was 51 years old. The dysfunctional pair became famous as reality stars, with Courtney undergoing extensive plastic surgery to maintain their image.

Rapper Tyga and Kylie Jenner began “hanging out” an awful lot beginning in 2014 when she was 16 and he was 24. They dated on and off after that, though they became a lot more openly “on” after her 18th birthday in 2016. 

In late 2018, 44 year old Leonardo DiCaprio publicly reveals that he is dating 21 year old model Camilla Morrone. It’s not the age gap that puts Leo on our list, it’s the fact that he’s known Camilla since she was 11. 

2018 – 14 year old Millie Bobby Brown innocently revealed that rapper, Drake, age 31, has been close friends with her, for the last year giving her advice about boys.  He texts her, “I miss you.”  This is the same Drake who has, more than once, skated around that “just friends until she turns 18” line – most recently with 18 year old model Bella Harris.

Guys, this isn’t a friendship. This is GROOMING.  No one will stop it.  They’ll “date.”  He’ll have sex with her, probably in a couple of years.  No one will care because he’s a man and a star.  NO ONE WILL CARE UNLESS WE START MAKING PEOPLE CARE.

Make them care. No free passes.  No 2nd chances. A ruined career is the least they deserve.  It’s not cute. THIS IS NOT OK.~ Verity Violet

[supladiez-deactivated20171202]

spitballing here but i see a fair amount of tumblr trans masc kids fixated on the idea of being a pretty boy (instead of a pretty girl). this is interesting to me because i think it often shows the socialized want of females to be desired - “what girls learn is not desire for the other but the desire to be desired” as naomi wolf put it in the beauty myth- clashing with the subconscious knowledge that being desired as a girl usually means objectification and degradation. being a pretty boy is the perfect mix- you still fulfill that socialized yearning to be beautiful and desired while avoiding the misogyny that would be leveled your way if you were a pretty girl instead of a Pretty Boy

[queen-mayhem]

Hope you don’t mind if I piggyback here but I’m still working on this theory and it is related. Thesis: The trans trend (as it affects girls specifically) has a lot of parallels with, and overlaps a lot with, the pro-ana trend that preceded it.

My introduction to tumblr was through thinspo/pro-ana/eating disorder blogs, and I ran one back in 2010/2011. Back then, it was 99% “cis” girls. I remember precisely one prominent trans man in the community - and he was stealth. His “coming out” on the blog as a TM was a big deal, and I remember it vividly. His identification changed somewhat after that… the last I remember, he was going by genderqueer, I think? But I digress.

I occasionally dive back into these circles when my eating disorder acts up. This happened recently, and I noticed a LOT more “male thinspo,” images of super-thin men that used to be kind of uncommon in these circles. Three guesses why, and the first two don’t count.

The tumblr thinspo/pro ana community is now full to the brim with trans masc kids. Go search though the tags right now and I guarantee you’ll see widely reblogged posts like “once I hit my GW, I won’t need to bind/won’t have wide feminine hips/won’t look like a girl.”

My first thought: One of the most common etiologies of eating disorders is a fear or rejection of female puberty. This goes hand in hand with dysphoria - it might even cause it, or be incorrectly interpreted as dysphoria. Kids who, even as little as 5 years ago, would have just become anorexics, instead become “transgender”….. and also anorexic. This has really fucked up implications for treatment. Because the treatment for anorexia is “make peace with the body,” but the treatment for dysphoria is “change the body.”

My second thought: the trans trend is just as predatory as the pro-ana trend/uses the same tactics/might just be the same trend repackaged? This might surprise people who weren’t engaged in pro-ana/online ED culture back when thinspo LJs and “Ana coaches” were a thing. But as someone who has been immersed in this culture on and off for… god, most of a decade now, I see some really uncomfortable similarities. And these similarities are hard to describe to people who are unfamiliar with the culture. But I can try to sum it up. These communities appeal to girls who have really common, otherwise non-pathological insecurities. Pro-ana encouraged girls to deal with these insecurities in a way that developed a disorder. Transgenderism encourages girls to treat them as a disorder from the start.

The communities are predatory, often without meaning to be. But people who “perform the disorder” best, or make progress with the disorder are praised and considered role models. In pro-ana communities, that’s weight loss, being thin, and maintaining a low weight. In transgender communities, it’s transition, especially transition into an attractive male. The individuals themselves aren’t necessarily doing this on purpose - they’re sick, too, after all - but it encourages unhealthy behavior and discourages healthy behavior, because getting healthy means you lose this community. And I can’t help but remember that the one pro-ana trans man I described earlier was definitely a “pretty boy,” and he was incredibly popular.

And some people ARE predatory about it. This didn’t last long in pro-ana, but there used to be a whole industry around “Ana coaches,” people who literally charged money to teach you how to develop anorexia. There isn’t a direct correlation in the trans community, but I think it’s worth noting that an AWFUL lot of trans identified males who claim to be “queer elders” and offer advice get busted for creepy behavior with young trans identified girls. (I suspect the difference has something to do with the fact that pro-ana never really had a large male presence. Though there were a few male “Ana coaches,” with exactly the creepy results you expect.)

A few other parallels I can’t help but note is that early pro-ana was all about how anorexia wasn’t a mental illness, it was a lifestyle choice. Not a disorder, a diet. In hindsight, this is patently absurd. And that dogma didn’t last long, as the people who bought into it developed anorexia and realized that no, this is definitely a disorder, and it sucks. I can’t help but see a parallel to “tucute” philosophy - that being transgender is a choice, and you don’t have to have dysphoria to be trans.

“Tucutes” are a minority in trans communities these days. I suspect it is for similar reasons. But then you have to consider the way these communities changed. Pro-ana communities ostensibly became “support groups” for people have eating disorders but don’t want to recover, and no longer encourage developing eating disorders. While that is certainly the prevailing philosophy in these communities, they are still just as predatory as they always were, for the reasons described above. The same can be said for trans communities.

I know a lot of women, myself included, who developed eating disorders as a direct result of (though not exclusively caused by) the “pro ana” trend. We often lament, “Why did I have to be a teenager when starving yourself was the cool thing to do?” I suspect that, 10 years from now, many women will say the same thing about transition.

[gendercritics]

wokies: you are not immune to propaganda

also wokies: porn is ACTING, women love to be violently fucked on camera by men they met 30 minutes prior, nothing bad ever happens in the porn industry and if bad things do happen it’s an isolated incident. they even say at the end of the video that they consented! i am very smart

[floatingbook]

Habit shift #2 - Switch to the woman-made alternative

- practical actions that can be taken to fight internalized misogyny

Why : Men are everywhere. Support the women who do things, who create things. They are probably creating things with you in mind. They talk about your subjects. They are trying. They make quality content. But they are all those men who go around disparaging what women create, saying that they are bad actors, that they are shrill, that they are boring, that they don’t deserve awards. And you may have internalized that vision. When a woman come up you instantly feel that she’s a fraud. That she’s shrill. That she’s exaggerating. That she’s doing to much. So woman-made media are often overlooked.

How : Do your research. If you love a music style, look into the women who sing that style. If you like a type of films, look into directors, look into production companies, listen to word of mouth among women, not to the “great” official critics. Look for women authors, women artists, women painters, women photographer, women journalists, women poets, women directors, women youtubers, women bloggers, women bakers, women artisans, …

[theoldlesbianwithcats]

You can also look up if there are websites/groups/books that already list women in that field you’re interested in!

I have a few examples for French people : 

The book Cheffes by Vérane Frédiani and Estérelle Payany, which lists 500 restaurants in France with a female chef.

Les Internettes, a database of female YouTubers about all kinds of topics. They also made a documentary and organized awards.

Les Expertes. Type a topic you’re interested in and it will give you the name of a woman who’s a expert on that. (This database is normally for journalists so they have no excuse to only invite men)

[calebwittebane]

"mens section"... more like where the hot women shop

[rf-times]

Millennials and Gen Z inherited a wealth of information and ideas about how structures in societies work and how nobody exists in a vacuum (and more means to learn about it than anyone prior to them). But they also inherited a bunch of postmodernism which made them be like “Cool, my very act of being vaguely aware of these ideas is a subversive rebellion and therefore I’m now immune to these structures.” Like I’ve met so many young people who genuinely think they’re too smart for ads to work on them, for example. So many people will do media studies or psychology or anything like that and see how deeply so much shit is entrenched in our society but their takeaway is “Cool now that I know the basic principle I’m immune from all of that forever and need to do no more critical thinking.”

[nukachemistry]

imagine going to college for four years and spending thousands of dollars in tuition to do surface level thematic analysis of a children's book series and then saying you pioneered a field of study

[stonerpunk]