everything I am is expressing who I am

gay/they/the moon

[pearl-likes-pi]

“Who broke it”

inspired by that one voltron video

May or may not finish this \o/

[transparent-senpai]

[dragon-in-a-fez]

we cannot ever resolve the problem of violence against children in our society unless we give up the idea that the worst thing a child can be is disobedient.

this is what so many people are failing to understand when they whine about how youth rights advocates should stop concerning ourselves with silly little things and just worry when there’s “real abuse” happening. the two causes are one and the same. perpetuating the idea that children are morally obligated to be submissive primes them for abuse. perpetuating the idea that parents must be dominant in order to be fulfilling their responsibilities encourages them to be abusive.

stop praising kids for submissiveness. stop remarking on how “good” they are when they don’t argue or complain. stop equating “respect” with obedience. stop calling a child “well-behaved” when what you really mean is that they’re being silent and taking up as little space as possible.

instead, praise kids for goodness and moral strength that come from within. recognize them for acts of kindness and selflessness. show pride in them for helping others. encourage them when they take responsibility. support them when they stand up for themselves.

stop praising parents for dominance. stop expressing wonder at their ability to keep their children on a short leash, to silence them with a word, or to strike fear into their hearts with a look. stop looking impressed when parents gleefully expound on all the ways they’ve been “tough” on their kids.

instead, praise parents for cultivating good human relationships with their kids. tell them how great it is to see them make their kids smile. recognize them for respecting their kids, for talking to them like people. encourage them to spend time just hanging out with their kids, in moments that aren’t about teaching or correcting or giving orders. recognize the courage it takes for them to admit when they’re wrong. support them when other adults cast judgmental eyes because they’re not being disciplinarians.

making things better starts with how we talk to each other.

[awwww-cute]

Those ears though (Source: http://ift.tt/2gHXAqS)

[witchplanting]

This cat is part totoro i s2g

[elizabitchtaylor-deactivated202]

what I really love about Fran Fine as a character is that in any other show she would be the comic relief, a two-dimensional bit character who makes occasional appearances and has zero character growth or plot relevance (kinda like Janice from Friends tbh).

But in The Nanny, she is the heroine! A brassy, bold, Jewish girl with a loud voice, working-class accent, and “tacky” clothes. And she always stays true to her roots, never abandoning her family or toning down her look to be more accepted with the uppercrust. Maxwell is the one who lets her into his life and changes his staid, buttoned-up traditional ways after falling in love with the nanny. She is not an MPDG either, the show focuses on her journey and her growth. 

That is really beautiful to me.

[zedohe]

[thereal1990s]

Homeward Bound (1993)

[witchplanting]

Crying

[inkskinned]

me looking at the person i like: i am enamored even with the way your fingers move, with the way the light plays on your skin, with your freckles and your smile and your laughter, with your voice, with how you get around the things you love, with your humor,  me aloud: what’s up asshole

[guardians-of-the-food]

Black Velvet Nebula Cake

[hawthorn56-deactivated20230602]

Must be nice to be a man and feel absolutely zero guilt or concern while you sit on your arse in front of the tv as your wife frantically runs herself into the ground with the never ending grind of holiday cooking/cleaning/gifting/wrapping/decorating/tidying/arranging/crafts/familial politics

[mautlyn-deactivated20170727]

it always bewilders and offends me that at family gatherings all of the women are up cleaning, cooking, clearing the table after dinner, bringing snacks out, etc., and all of the men are just relaxing and sitting around. I’m also up cleaning, clearing peoples’ plates, etc., because I’m expected to do that as a female, while my male cousins get to sit around and chill. Even the male relatives that I like just sit around and chat and don’t seem to notice that my sister and I are constantly being called into the kitchen and they’re not.

so anyway yeah if you’re a male you should seriously try to pay attention to who’s doing all the work and who’s allowed to sit and chill (probably you) and maybe like, get up and insist on helping…

[assume]

I’m just sharing this cute little pumpkin because it made me smile 🙏🏻

[tepuitrouble]

Hoh rainforest, Washington State.

[attndotcom]

Temporary jobs or not, you should still be able to house yourself on a minimum wage salary.

[stick-and-move]

You can house yourself on full time minimum wage, it’s called having roommates. 

[heykittygirlxx]

^^^^ this is called derailing

[swisstianbale-deactivated201609]

In the fifties a single working man at federal minimum wage could support a family of him his wife and two children. Housing, food, transportation, and education. Quit this roommate shit and let’s be better.

[scribbly-dee]

#RIGHT?, #LIKE THE WHOLE ROOMMATE WAY INTO YOUR 20S THING IS A RECENT PHENOMENON, #NO ADULT IS TRYING TO LIVE WITH ROOMMATES FOREVER

[blackdollnerd-deactivated201706]

Yes let’s starve to be able to afford a small ass apartment while working three jobs going to school and pile up student debt. Yeah go team.😒

[newwavefeminism]

This Protestant work ethic racist ideology will always be a driving force in justifying the fact that wages keep diminishing with this “just work harder, you should be grateful you’re allowed to even have a job”

Also, look at the difference between who minimum wage workers are then and now. When you envision people of color, working mothers and recent graduates who don’t have privilege and connections (and any combination of the three) seeking for just and fair wages is always going to be coded as a handout.

[nanzse]

#d6cdef ◇ #d0bde1 ◇ #e0eaf9 ◇ #fbcbe4 ◇ #e7ddf8

[muddingseason]

[farmer-v]

One of my new favorite quotes comes from Bill Mollison, the co-founder of Permaculture. It draws on an idea I have long pondered and tried to explain to people: that one cannot revolt against a system that they wholly depend on. 

My best example of what I mean by this comes from my own experience in the traveling underworld of modern hobos, squatters, gutter punks, hitchhikers, train riders and the like… While there is a massive diversity of backgrounds and upbringings amongst my traveling friends, I think I can reasonably conclude that most of us felt somehow abandoned by a society that we didn’t want to be a part of in the first place. This is what led us (or in some cases, forced us) to hit the road and seek an unconventional lifestyle of freedom, revolt, anarchy, recklessness, spontaneity, or what ever you would like to call it. Aside from the complex social, psychological, physical, or economic issues that determine one’s entry into this “subculture”, most folks share a generally anti-establishment viewpoint. In hindsight, I have realized that none of us, myself included, were anywhere close to attaining true freedom while living this way. We were “revolting” (through our lifestyle decisions) against the very system that provided us all of our food, drink, clothing, transportation, money, and other necessities/desires. You cannot claim to be against massive corporations if you give them your money every day when buying their products. You cannot claim to be against the corruption in government if you live off their aid or don’t vote in elections. The list goes on. You cannot claim to be making a difference if you aren’t doing anything.  

Needless to say, at that point in my life I felt more dependent on “the establishment” than ever before. Thus I began my quest toward self-sufficiency. I have found that true freedom is growing your own food, building your own home, producing your own energy, brewing your own beer, collecting your own rainwater, utilizing and respecting free ecosystem services, cultivating the land, making your own living, and working toward independency while mimicking natural ecosystems as much as possible. As we would always say on the road, “don’t just talk about, BE about it”, so here we are actually executing our plans (finally). Anyhow, the whole point of this post is that Mollison puts this idea into words much more eloquently and concisely than I have been able to…

“The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.” -Bill Mollison 

[ratfarm]

This is hitting home for a lot of reasons.

[konguloarkonan-deactivated20171]

Oh man is it time for another round of “Erika Moen sucks and gives bad sex advice” because BOY HOWDY does erika moen suck and give bad sex advice!!!!

I haven’t read OJST in a while and I somehow stumbled upon the menstrual sponge guest comic and ohhhhhh my god

The person writing the comic advises you to use natural sea sponges because they have “no chemicals” and are “reusable” and “cheap.” They do have a few cons to point out, though: natural sea sponges are “not vegan” and “washing it can be very awkward in public restrooms.”

Those are - those are all of your objections? Not the fact that you are sticking A SEA CREATURE inside yourself?

Menstrual cups are made of medical-grade silicone and Wikipedia says they’ve been studied since the sixties and determined safe pretty much since they appeared on the market. So have tampons and pads. Natural menstrual sponges have not been heavily tested, and the studies that have been done have found shit like sand, grit, bacteria, yeast, mold, Staphylococcus aureus, and “various other materials.” Wow, I definitely want to put that in my vagina. Sponges can also break WHILE INSIDE YOU, which means there can be tiny pieces of dead sea animal inside you collecting bacteria and menstrual blood and possibly causing complications. You actually CAN’T sell sea sponges as menstrual products in America anymore because the FDA won’t let you, and one of the big menstrual sponge companies, jade and pearl (that still sells menstrual sponges as “just a sponge”) had to stop selling sponges AND a bunch of other shit because they basically just pulled some woowoo herbs out of a the garden and stuck it in a bottle. Oh my god they were selling BLACK COHOSH for asthma. Black cohosh can cause miscarriages!!!! Aaaaaagh that’s incredibly horrifying

Also - wikipedia indicates that sea sponge harvesting isn’t exactly the most environmentally friendly thing. There are only a few sustainable sea sponge farms in the entire world, and they take like two years to grow to harvestable size.

So, once again, Erika Moen disseminating advice that is not only bad but DANGEROUS. DON’T PUT SEA SPONGES IN YOUR VAGINA EVEN IF THE LADY WITH THE SEX TOY COMIC SAID YOU COULD. Goddd

[workingitinportland-deactivated]

For sex workers, there are no legal protections against discrimination, should we become associated with our current or former occupations. Current and former sex workers risk losing their housing or being refused service by landlords, property owners, and co-op boards. Sex workers are also often unable to transition to other work. I worked as an exotic dancer and then a Craigslist call girl on and off until 2007, and when my boss at my new job as a public school teacher became aware of my career history, I was eventually fired, and I couldn’t get another job in elementary school education in spite of my education and teaching credentials.

Current and former sex workers can also lose custody of their children. Finley Fawn is a cam model—a taxed, legal profession—who has been fighting for custody of her six-year-old son since April of this year. According to Uproxx, Fawn was served with an emergency order to remove her son from her home after her ex-husband told authorities that Fawn was an unfit mother because she had let their child learn too much about her work; he alleged their son had “shared details with him about his mom’s job.” In 2008, a tantra provider lost custody of her children to a man with an extensive documented history of domestic violence. According to the parenting blog Mommyish, in 2013, former sex worker Tanaha Koontz lost custody of her three children to the abusive husband who Koontz claims sex trafficked her during the course of their relationship.

Then there’s the devastating case of Petite Jasmine, a Swedish sex worker whose children were taken away from her due to her involvement in the sex trade. Jasmine was an outspoken sex worker’s rights advocate, arguing against a system called the “Swedish model,” which criminalizes the clients of sex workers but not the sex workers themselves. In spite of a documented history of abuse, Jasmine’s ex-husband was granted full custody of their two children, leaving Jasmine with supervised visits. During one such visit in 2013, he killed her in the social work office.

Those who view sex work as incompatible with motherhood often cite a concern for the children’s safety. They conflate issues related to poverty with sex work—unstable housing, food insecurity, and erratic incomes, for example—even though sex work can often be the very solution to these economic woes. People also assume a relationship between sex work and addiction, but the idea that all sex workers use drugs is a myth. Perhaps the only legitimate concern having to do with explicit relationship between sex work and a child’s safety is the fact that individuals working in prostitution are still being criminalized, so these women tend to be incarcerated or face arrest, which can mean having their children sent to a relative or taken under the dysfunctional care of the state.

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/sex-worker-mother