hey do you have a tumblr
no sorry
In a piece for The New Inquiry from back in 2017, George Dust states that when queer people complain about there being a top shortage, what they really mean is “nobody is fucking me the way I want, and I have no agency in that.” Alongside co-authors Billy-Ray Belcourt and Kay Gabriel, Dust suggests that many queer people align themselves with a passive or “bottom” position because they believe that role will absolve them of the guilt of really wanting things. They present themselves as what they believe to be the sexual party with zero power; the receiver, the accepter of action rather than its cause.
This position is drawn in contrast to the bottom-identified person’s idea of a top: the one who approaches, the person with hungers and desires, the person who decides which sexual activities will happen and how intense they will get. The top, from this perspective, is the stronger, more capable, more dangerous person. They’re the only one who can ever be guilty of intruding or harming somebody else. This power is scary, but it’s also compelling.
Dust calls this fantastical version of a top a “brute” — and they are the most cartoonish stereotype of what it means in society to be a man. Because it’s a cartoonish stereotype, no human actually lives up to it — and we’d probably revile a person even if they could.
Though queer people know we are harmed by the gender binary and heteronormativity and all the social scripts those things force upon us, its biases are still embossed on our brains. Without meaning to, we reproduce tired gender stereotypes in our relationships. And so we see expressing a sexual want as masculine, and being masculine as being more capable of violence and coercive control, and thus bad. We see failing to communicate one’s desires openly as desirably feminine, as well as a sign of blamelessness and purity — because on some level we still feel it is wrong to have desires.
But this entire worldview is a complete lie. Desire is not evil. Expressing attraction is not a violation. Failing to express oneself can be just as dangerous as not listening to someone else’s limits. Women can be abusive. Bottoms can sexually assault. No matter our gender, presentation, or sexual role, we are each capable of harm. And the only way to make a safe, mutually pleasurable sexual encounter happen is by going after it, actively, and communicating from a position of inner strength.
So how do you do that, if society’s been telling you all your life that you’re meant to date by acting like a deer passively snapping twigs in the woods, waiting for some hunter to hear you, and pursue you? (That really is dating advice that Evangelical Christian counselors give to women, if you can believe it).
By not fixating so much on what you’re doing or not doing to draw other people toward you, and instead thinking in terms of what you want and what you observe beyond yourself.
This is the only thing I've done in the new update so far 😂
This is my best friend. At the moment she’s being kept alive by tubes and needles because her eating disorder is currently stronger than she is.
Does she weigh 90lbs? No, she doesn’t. Does it look like her eating disorder is “less severe” because she’s not “that thin”? Do you think her situation sounds “less severe” because she’s not “that thin”?
Tubes and needles. Constant supervision. Pain, anger, agony. Hunger, thirst, suffering. Dizziness, constipation, freezing cold. Passing out in front of other patients and staff. Painful injections of vitamins and whatnot. Nurses who’re force feeding her, who’re forcing fluids into her body because her eating disorder is currently stronger than she is.
90lbs or not, without treatment - my best friend will die.
Would you have walked past her on the street and thought she even had an eating disorder at all? Probably not, because people keep believing you can measure or estimate a persons physical and mental health state based on the silhouette of someone’s body.
You can’t.
Never underestimate someone’s eating disorder just because they don’t look “that thin” to you. Being “thin” is just one of MANY symptoms of an eating disorder and it’s far, far from the most important one. Anyone can struggle and if someone you know struggles: don’t assume they’re alright just because they don’t look “that thin”.
Eating disorders come in one size; MISERABLE.
(source)
Unsplash - photography, illustration, & art
Pixabay - same as unsplash
Pexels - stock photos and videos
Getty Images - photography & illustration
Veceezy - vectors and clipart
Gumroad - photoshop brushes (and more)
StockSnap.io - stock photos
Canva - needs login but has lots of templates
Library of Congress - historical posters and photos
NASA - you guessed it
Creative Commons - all kinds of stuff, homie
Even Adobe has some free images
There are so many ways to make moodboards, bookcovers, and icons without plagiarizing! As artists, authors, and other creatives, we need to be especially careful not to use someone else’s work and pass it off as our own.
Please add on if you know any more resources for free images <3
This is the only thing I've done in the new update so far 😂
I really need this spread around because this is becoming a serious issue:
THESE types of posts really need to stop being made or spread. I have OCD and these are a massive trigger, because I physically cannot ignore them. I thought it was just a me thing for a while but then I posted a rant on my story on Instagram and so many other people with OCD (or even without) feel the same, and on top of that they just clog peoples feeds.
And it’s not not just the ones with consequences. Even the ones with rewards trigger it, because my brain automatically fills in the consequence.
This is becoming a serious issue and it’s really been affecting mine and others mental health. I don’t know if this will get anywhere but I’m trying to spread the message in the hopes that people understand.
frogs support trans rights do u?