I honestly think that the lack of non-sexual nudity in public spaces has done horrific damage to American society.
We deeply struggle to understand the natural diversity of bodies because we only see naked bodies in a sexual context. We are taught that seeing nudity is somehow inherently harmful, especially to children. We struggle to differentiate between sexually suggestive and sexually explicit material.
It fucks up the way people think about and talk about sex ed. It fucks up the way people think about and talk about breast feeding. It fucks up the way people think about and talk about queer folks. It feeds into fatphobia and ableism and is all rooted in this deeply harmful puritanism.
Like, I need people to understand that seeing a bare titty in public is not going to hurt a child. Seeing a man in a banana hammock isn’t inherently traumatizing. I would argue, in fact, that adults treating those things as dangerous and gross and scary is going to do way more damage to a kid’s psychology than seeing the nudity in the first place.
These type of additions are vexing. Ostensibly supportive but can’t help but make sure you know they’re also Weird about nudity by making it about consent, doubling down on the idea that there’s no such thing as nonsexual nudity, it’s an action that willing partners need to consent to first. Does the breastfeeding parent need my consent to feed their child? When you see someone wearing practically see-through yoga pants, is your thought that they should have asked your consent before going outside? this is an exact example of how it fucks up the way you think, that you could read all of op and instinctually start thinking in the language of sexual assault, as if this post was about flashers
Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.
have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.
and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.
black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.
if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you’ve ever met. it doesn’t have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don’t know much, look it up and learn about it together.
This is Juneteenth.
white people CAN interact with this post. share it, spread it.
Victor Frankenstein: I’ve created life but I refuse to put any effort into helping that life develop. I won’t teach him, love him, or defend him even though I forced him into existence with a fully operational adult brain lol. Peace, bitch.
The Monster: Am Eloquent Baby
Boomers: He’S NOt thE ViCtIM, HE’s tHe MOnsTEr
An ironic parallel considering the idea of “tough love” parenting that plenty of boomers like to use. If they buy into the idea that their kids just have to toughen up and face the real world without guidance or emotional support, I’m sure it does scare them to read a story where someone who wasn’t given any support began to resent their creator and turn on them.
it’s like that post that’s like ‘knowledge is knowing that frankenstein is the doctor; wisdom is knowing that frankenstein is the monster’. like the whole point of the post is that frankenstein’s monster is a victim of viktor frankenstein’s own monstrosity.
mary shelley did not lose her virginity on her mother’s grave just for people to misunderstand her best known work over a century later.
does ANYONE have that post where bugs bunny and daffy duck are talking about they/them pussy. because i think about it every day but i can never find it
The countries that got tea via China
through the Silk Road (land) referred to it in various forms of the word
“cha”. On the other hand, the countries that traded with China via sea -
through the Min Tan port called it in different forms of “te”.
I liked this so much I became curious… and it checks out! The explanation lies, unsurprisingly, in who was interacting with whom in early modern long-distance trade.
