life goes on

audrey . 20 . coast to coast . Living quite an enticing life .

[silk101]

[ethreal-deactivated20260214]

i feel like we all need to remind ourselves of this at some point…

[secretlesbians]

Gustave Courbet, Le Sommeil,1866.

Le Sommeil [The Sleepers], which depicts two women entwined in a post-coital embrace, caused a stir when it was first shown in the 1870s. The police were called in, and the painting was not shown again until the 1980s. But its brief showing had an influence on a number of contemporary artists, and helped challenge the taboos associated with lesbian relationships. For modern audiences it’s a good reminder that people in the 19th century were not ignorant of lesbian relationships, as we tend to believe. And it’s pretty damn sexy, don’t you think?

[daggers-drawn]

They called the police on this lesbian painting.

[toastoat]

[theclockworkzombie]

The best part is, the lesbian embrace isn’t even the biggest thing that made the painting so controversial, it was the art style. People in the artistic community at the time were wholly familiar with sapphic relationships being portrayed in art, but were used to these scenes being portrayed in the ‘academic art’ style, which consisted of smooth, simplistic, idealised versions of the nude female form. This often went hand in hand with the depiction of Roman & Greek allegories to illustrate certain ideals (think Cabanel’s Birth of Venus). Courbet’s journey into realism was met by heavy critique from the academic movement, as the women he painted were, well, more realistic. Leaving in details such as the rolls of fat around the ribs acted as a blunt reminder to the audience that these were not euphoric goddesses caressing in ecstasy, but ordinary women having a nap together after making love. Other realist paintings suffered the same controversy, Manet’s Olympia is a perfect example, where the problem was not that the painting depicted a nude woman in an erotic pose, but the fact that she was just an ordinary courtesan, given an identity & portrayed in a place of power & control. Realism humanized the female form in art, & removed it from its previous role as a representation of the ideal.

So what disgusted people about the painting wasn’t so much that Le Sommeil depicted two women, but rather that it depicted two ‘real’ women.

[hazeldomain]

Artist: So I painted a couple of lesbians in bed. 

Men: Niiiiiiiiiice

Artist: They have cellulite

Men: I AM CALLING THE POLICE

[theoldestchorusgirlintheworld]

Having sex with someone actually is a big deal and involves a ton of vulnerability and I think it’s extremely troubling and gross and unhealthy and actually exceptionally dangerous that we pretend otherwise and encourage people to “be mature” by compartmentalizing/completely eliminating their deeper human emotions from their sexuality and that any other view is dismissed as prudish and invalid and unenlightened and childish and restrictive. I can’t think about this too much because it makes me rage but I hate how much porn and capitalism have destroyed how we understand and experience sexuality and intimate connections with one another so much.

[lsd-kitty]

[flowerais-deactivated20211031]

sometimes you need to do the hard thing. study for your test even if it’s boring and you want to avoid it. get up an hour early to exercise even if you feel like death. go out of your way to help someone else even if it’s inconvenient. do something alone even though you’re afraid of being judged. go somewhere new even if it’s scary and disorientating at first. confess to the person who makes u blush even if it means risking rejection. let go of your old habits even though it feels like you can’t live without them. it’s supposed to be hard. life isn’t going to have amazing rewards if you’re always feeling comfortable.

[diaryofkisses-blog]

3 Lessons For A Softer Heart

1. “Keep flowers around, always. They may eventually fade and wither, but their beauty remains intact, and their faltered presence may always be replaced with the bloom of another season.

2. Tune in to your senses. There are five of them, five blessed gifts; just as there are elements. Breathe deeper. Touch more. Watch, taste and listen… Closer.

3. Embrace endings. They are inevitable, but within the sadness of knowing this, there exists beauty. Hold on to the best moments before they are gone. Feel each twinkle of emotion as deeply as you can. Reminisce with fondness. And give thanks for both the successes and the mistakes, for they all end up teaching us in the end.”

[thejokerslife]

“My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you’ve been mean to someone, they won’t believe the nice anymore. So be nice, be nice, until it’s time to stop being nice, then destroy them.”

— Laurell K. Hamilton, A Stroke of Midnight (via wnq-writers)

[vhspositive]

[enteringhysteria]

“Seduction is the art form of psychology.”

— Me After watching Basic Instinct for the first time.

[lohver]

do you ever wonder how many strangers hate you because of how someone else described you to them

[lohver]

you need to understand the difference between someone who speaks to you in their free time and someone who frees their time to speak to you.

[lohver]

do you ever wonder how many strangers hate you because of how someone else described you to them

[lohver]

you need to understand the difference between someone who speaks to you in their free time and someone who frees their time to speak to you.

[whosthemoss]

[p-eripheralvision]

Me as a DJ for a party: alright we’re about to get turnt this is New Order’s entire discography

[tepitome]

So, I was looking online for houses in Italy, and I came across this place surrounded by sunflower fields and I think I fell in love.

[hplyrikz]

“I need a life that isn’t just about needing to escape my life.”

— Robert Polito (via hplyrikz)

Clear your mind here

(via hplyrikz)