Crunchywater17 - A Smile Would Do,

my favorite side effect warning is for antidepressants

pros: you won’t want to kill yourself

cons: you might want to kill yourself

i learned that each woman spends approximately $5,600 on her period over her lifetime (x)

"Well are you a [controversial identity] supporter???"

My friend I do not know what to tell you here. My rule is and remains "I don't care what you call yourself because your actions and who you are as a person is more valuable to me" and "as long as everyone in the situation is an adult and is giving enthusiastic consent I genuinely do not give a fuck what you do" and "words are stupid and people are complicated so it doesn't matter if The Words Are Wrong as long as it makes you happy"

I'm a longer tables not higher walls kind of guy. Have a seat. Break bread with me. Tell me a story over dinner. I think that'll be better for the both of us.

Instagram

This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.

A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.

Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic?  She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing.  But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great.  She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success.  So - what gives?

His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear.  Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles.  He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses.  You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on.  Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered.  He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit.  That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.

I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way.  I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did. 

It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this.  But no one ever told me.  I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes.  No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.

I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed.  I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to.  No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to.  I guess I just didn’t know.  I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.

I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.

I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.

So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while.  But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not.  Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.

Period

Why The Titties Cannot Come Back Until FOSTA-SESTA Goes Away

It's the reason for the porn ban across the internet, it's the reason Net Neutrality is gone, and it has, as the sex worker community tried to tell us, harmed sex workers and doesn't help trafficking go away at all--particularly because of the vague wording and broad definitions, all it really does is ban porn, harrass the queer community, and censor all talk about sexuality into silence--and silence does not make safety. There is now a study about its effects, and sex workers weren't consulted or listened to about its flaws.

If you want the internet to stop censoring queer content, FOSTA-SESTA has to go.

If you want tumblr and other websites to have porn again, FOSTA-SESTA has to go.

If you want algospeak to stop being the norm, FOSTA-SESTA HAS TO GO.

There is NOTHING that tumblr staff can do without this law being gone.

There is NOTHING that any moderator, website, or app can do without Net Neutrality being reinstated and iron-clad again.

Did you all forget what caused the porn ban in the first place? It was not a random decision every company made overnight.

It was FOSTA-SESTA.

Freedom of speech is called Net Neutrality online, and until 2018, Net Neutrality was sacrosanct.

We must have Net Neutrality back if we are to have the freedom to speak online.

If you are queer, you must fight for Net Neutrality. If you have opinions about anything, you must fight for your right to say them. FOSTA-SESTA TOOK THAT FROM YOU. TOOK IT FROM US ALL.

If you want things to change, don't whine to staff on tumblr, don't boycott Tiktok.

you must get political. you must organise to remove FOSTA-SESTA from the books. You must clamour, and holler, and write your politicians and raise up the voices of sex workers and VOTE to protect your free speech.

Pornography and sex work are inextricable from freedom of speech. The right of pornography and sex work to exist is inextricable from the rights of queer folks. If you do not fight to protect your right to 'dirty books' and uphold 'rule 34' they will come after YOU next. They already are coming after queers just like they always do when a ban on porn is involved! It will escalate until it comes after EVERYONE.

I cannot emphasise enough that all this censorship increasing since 2018 is connected to the porn ban. It is the same oppressive and harmful legislation causing it.

GET RID OF FOSTA-SESTA.

It is harming sex workers, even killing them.

It is harming trafficking victims.

It is harming all of us, queer and straight, adults and children, it is harming everybody by taking away our freedom of speech.

Get rid of it.

just wanted to remind everyone again not only of the 3,000+ resources offered through our Liberation Library but also of the study guides for beginners offered under each of our social justice topics!

resources can be organized by type (article, novel, podcast, video, etc.) as well as filtered and searched through. we’ve tried to make our system much more accessible than our former platform on google docs so this is such an exciting development to share with everyone.

please share to promote equitable access education!

McAuleyATL: Finland ended homelessness. They provide a small apartment and counselling woth no preconditions. 4/5 make their way back into a stable life and guess what - it was CHEAPER than allowing homelessness to continue…

The Original FattyAtomicMutant.: Let that sink in.

They ended. homelessness m.

They saw a problem that needed solving and just.

Poof.

Ended it.