Hey, Im Feeling Fucked Up Because Of The Orlando Shooting And Making Posts That Might Be Helpful To Others

Hey, I’m feeling fucked up because of the Orlando shooting and making posts that Might Be Helpful to others makes me feel better. So here’s some positive stuff. I’m mostly linking to masterposts. If you have any suggestions for additions, please message me and I’ll add things. This is a hard time for LGBT people and I hope everyone can feel well soon.

Happy LGBT Movie Recommendations 

LGBT 8track playlists 

Comfort Food Recipes 

Mind-Numbing, Distracting Activities 

LGBT Book Recommendations 

LGBTWebcomics

QueerGraffiti

I’m From Driftwood, The LGBTQ Story Archive 

I also realize that this can be a really hard time for a lot of people. Here are some LGBT friendly hotlines:

(For ages 13-24) The Trevor Project: 1-866-4-U-TREVOR or online at www.thetrevorproject.com

THE GLBT National Help Center

Hotline: 1-888-THE-GLNH

Youth Talkline:  1-800-246-PRIDE

GLCCB has a good masterpost, but some of them are not national, so pay attention to locality

Additionally, here’s a list of 146 things you can do instead of self-harming, because I know that things like this can be extremely upsetting.

Stay safe everyone!

no shit.

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.

LISTEN UP KIDS BECAUSE I AM FED UP WITH SEEING THIS BULLSHIT CROSS MY DASH (such as this post here) THIS POST IS NOT GIVING YOU IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON HOW TO PREVENT RAPE

THIS POST IS MADE UP FUCKING BULLSHIT BY SOME FUCKING GUY PEDDLING A SELF DEFENSE CLASS SPREAD BY A GODDAMN EMAIL FORWARD

YES. AN EMAIL FORWARD. THE SAME SHIT YOUR GRANDPARENTS SEND TO YOU TELLING YOU THAT CANOLA OIL IS ACTUALLY ACIDIC AND WILL GIVE YOU CANCER THAT CAN BE CURED BY DRINKING ORANGE JUICE FIVE TIMES A DAY. THAT KIND OF BULLSHIT. ARE YOU TOO LAZY TO READ THIS SNOPES LINK? LET ME COPY PASTE THAT SHIT FOR YOU This bit of codswallop began its Internet life in January 2000 as an enthusiastic e-mail penned by an employee at the St. Louis office of the public relations firm Weber Shandwick. The writer was among a group enrolled in a self-defense class taught by David Portnoy, an instructor who claims to have trained with actors Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme.  Portnoy refuses to give information about what he teaches in his classes or details of where he gained the information he passes along, preferring instead to sell it. (He demanded a $1,000 interview fee from a Denver Post reporter). If, however, this Weber Shandwick employee’s e-mail describing what he teaches is accurate, Portnoy should be characterized as a fear merchant vending false information to those anxious to feel safe.  If rapists choose their victims based on hairstyle and length of tresses, it’s news to those in law enforcement; they’ve never noticed this trend. Rape victims have short hair, long hair, and no hair. They’re also young and old, short and tall, fat and skinny, femininely dressed or looking like they just fell off the tractor, and all points in between.  Likewise, the claim that rapists go after women wearing overalls because “the straps can be easily cut” is pure hogwash, as anyone who has ever tried to cut up an old pair can attest. Overalls are made of some of the most resilient fabrics known to mankind (denim and canvas, usually), and cutting these straps is made almost impossible because the fabric is doubled over and seamed at that point in the garment. If there’s a pair of scissors that can snip through this, I’ve yet to wield 

them.  Rape is also not always about getting sex quickly. Often it’s an act of rage or punishment directed at a vulnerable person for perceived injustices done to the attacker by others. Getting a woman out of her clothes quickly isn’t a factor in these rapes; terrorizing her and inflicting bodily harm is.  If we take points one and two together, we’re to believe rapists arm themselves with scissors for cutting overall straps (instead of just easing them off the shoulders or — heaven forbid! — undoing the fasteners) yet fail to think to equip themselves with rolls of duct tape to keep their victims subdued, preferring instead to grab hold of their hair and hang on.  According to Denver Police Sgt. John Burbach, most rapes occur in the evening hours and into early morning, ending before dawn, not “between 5 and 8:30 a.m.” as claimed in the e-mail. Statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice fully support him in this claim: The DOJ says “Approximately two-thirds of rapes/sexual assaults occurred at night — 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.”  As for the tidbit “The number one place women are abducted from/attacked at is grocery store parking lots. Number two is office parking lots/garages. Number three is public restrooms,” Kathie Kramer, public relations coordinator at the Denver Rape Assistance and Awareness Program (RAAP) says, “Statistics in studies I’ve found don’t support this idea about grocery stores or parking lots being especially unsafe.” Location is important in a violent sexual assault, but there’s nothing inherently dangerous about parking lots or public restrooms; what matters is their isolation. Areas heavily frequented by foot traffic are far less likely to be chosen by a rapist. Likewise, badly-lit, less-frequented places will be favored for this type of attack.  The e-mail claims that only 2% of rapists (one out of every fifty) carries a weapon. That figure is seriously out of whack: 1995 U.S. Department of Justice statistics show that weapons were used in 30% of all rapes, meaning the chances that your rapist will be armed is just a little less than one in three. Battling an armed attacker while unarmed yourself is rarely a wise course of action to take, and misstatements such as the 2% figure could well incite an attacked woman to thrust herself into that dynamic because she figures her chances are far better than they actually are.  “If you put up any kind of a fight at all, they get discouraged because it only takes a minute or two for them to realize that going after you isn’t worth it because it will be time-consuming.” That’s great advice, provided you get the right rapist. And you’ve no way of knowing until it’s too late.  As comforting as it might be to believe there’s only one sort of baddie out there and if you understand his mind you can stay safe, that just isn’t the case. There is no one set of right answers, and e-mails of this ilk potentially put us at even greater risk by suggesting that there is.  Around 1980, Nicholas Groth, director of Forensic Mental Health Associates, established a typology of rapists. Groth arrived at his conclusions by distilling his observations of more than 3,000 sex offenders over the course of 25 years of practice. (Most of his patients, Groth points out, were not sexually deprived at the time they committed rape, thereby exploding that most common of rape myths: that men rape because they’re unable to get sex any other way.)  In a general sense, rapists fall into three motivational types: anger, power, and sadism. In anger assaults, the rapist is getting even for “some wrong he feels has been done to him, by life, by his victim at the time. He’s in a frame of rage and attacks someone sexually.” The anger rape is usually unpremeditated and impulsive, but the impulse drives the rapist into excessive force: the victim is punched, choked, and kicked into submission. Most such offenders derive little pleasure from the act, says Groth, but “they want to degrade their victims, and sex is something bad, dirty, the worst thing you could do to someone. That reflects a lot of our values in society.”  An anger rapist could be discouraged by a potential victim who yells at him or puts up a physical struggle, thanks to the unpremeditated nature of the attack. Because the aggressor may not yet have fully decided to pursue this course of action, resistance may well change his mind. Here, even a half-hearted attempt might prove to be all it takes to end the assault. On the other hand, the rage the attacker is feeling might well be further fed by active resistance — this could be taken as yet another instance of one more person trying to deny him something he wants.  Power rape, according to Groth, is a form of compensation, committed usually by men who feel unsure of their competence. Rape gives them a sense of mastery and control. Power rapists usually hunt for victims or seize opportunities that present themselves unbidden. A power rapist is unlikely to be discouraged by resistance because his whole self image is wrapped up in his attempt to prove mastery. A woman who chooses to fight one of these had better do a darned good job of it, because she could well end up fighting for her life.  Groth defines his third type, sadistic rape, as eroticized aggression perpetrated by those whom the very act of forcible sex excites in ways that consensual sex can’t. “If the anger components of aggression are eroticized,” he explains, “then you see sadistic acts, such as deliberate sexual torture, using an instrument to rape the victim.” A sadistic rapist is interested in inflicting pain and lasting harm. Any countering aggression on the part of the victim could well add to the attacker’s enjoyment of the experience, prompting him to further acts of depravity in an effort to provoke further resistance.  The question of to fight back or not is an age-old one, and there’s no one right answer. Granted, one particular rapist might be sent running bloody-nosed by a swift right hook, but try that on another one and a horrific experience could be transformed into a fatal one. Resistance advice of the type being circulated in the e-mail in question creates the false impression that escaping unscathed from the clutches of a rapist is only a matter of knowing which self-defense tricks to employ. Reality, however, is far different. Not all rapists can be overcome.  Does this then mean self-defense classes are a waste of time? Hardly. But they’re also not the surefire protection they’re too often touted to be, any more than a can of mace confers upon its wielder guaranteed safe passage through whatever mean streets and dark alleys lie in her path. Also, physical skills are only as good as recent training — someone who hasn’t practiced a move in the three months since she took a course is only a tad better prepared to fend off an attacker than someone who never had any training at all. Worst of all, such training can lead those who have aced their courses to develop a dangerous complacency about their own safety, inducing them into a state of overconfidence wherein awareness of their surroundings becomes a lost art, buried under the certainty that now bad things can’t happen to them.  Complacency kills.  As always, the best defense to an attempted rape is not to be there when it happens — either avoid potentially dangerous situations (none of this “Oh, it’s only a few blocks; I’ll just walk” at 3 a.m.) or run like hell if you find yourself in one. Escaping your attacker is a far wiser course of action to strive for than attempting to do battle with him. Forget about his needing a good beating followed by a lengthy jail term; your first priority has to be your own safety. Leave the Wonder Woman stuff for Linda Carter and make like a track star vying for a gold medal in the 100m.  The e-mail did contain one bit of valuable advice: Stay aware of your surroundings. Not only is it important to see trouble coming before it gets to you and avoid it, but an alert stance can help discourage a would-be attacker. Those looking to prey upon others — whether their aim is robbery, rape, or mayhem — generally choose as victims those who appear preoccupied or tentative in preference to those who exude a sense of purpose. Or, as I was told long ago, “Always look like you know exactly where you’re going and move like you’re expected to be there at exactly a certain time.” Mooning about aimlessly can make you a statistic.  So, to sum up, is avoiding a rape a matter of wearing your hair short and eschewing overalls? Hardly. And anyone who attempts to characterize it as such ought to be whomped over someone’s knee.  Read more at http://www.snopes.com/crime/prevent/rape.asp#6hTjPG6blGHFWmex.99

IF YOU CAN REBLOG THAT LONG ASS PIECE OF SHIT POST, THEN YOU CAN REBLOG THIS ONE CORRECTING IT. REPEAT. THIS IS INFORMATION IS NOT TRUE AND COULD GET SOMEONE KILLED.

SPREAD THIS SHIT LIKE ‘WILDFIRE’. THANK YOU.

A pediatrician shows how to calm a crying baby (Video)

In Their Words: The Swedish "Heroes" Who Caught The Stanford Attacker

The two men tackled Brock Turner and held him down until the police came. Turner's victim called them heroes.

Carl-Fredrik Arndt and Peter Jonsson, the two Swedish Ph.D. students who found Brock Turner sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster at Stanford, said they immediately knew something was wrong.

Nearly a year and a half ago Arndt and Jonsson were biking to a party on Stanford’s campus when they saw Turner, 20, on top of his victim behind a dumpster. They managed to tackle Turner as he ran away and they called the police.

The two men were key witnesses in the case against Turner. The woman was taken to police to be cared for, bandaged, and given a rape kit. Turner was eventually found guilty of three counts of sexual assault and was sentenced by Judge Aaron Persky to three months of a six month sentence in county jail with probation. He said a longer sentence in prison would have a “severe impact” on the Stanford athlete.

Since the victim’s letter was published – followed by other letters from Turner’s father and friend defending him – people all over the world, including public figures and celebrities, have come out in support of the victim and in outrage over Turner’s short sentence.

In a letter written by the victim to her assailant published by BuzzFeed News Friday, she described the two students – who she has still never met – as “heroes.”

Arndt described the night of the assault to the Swedish news outlet Expressen on Tuesday, saying that they read the letter and were very moved. (Arndt and Jonsson did not immediately return BuzzFeed News’ request for additional comment.)

As Arndt and Jonsson approached the dumpsters where Turner was attacking his victim, they said they immediately knew something was wrong.

“We saw that she was not moving, while he was moving a lot,” Arndt said in Swedish.“So we stopped and thought, ‘This is very strange.”

The two graduate students quickly decided to approach Turner to see what was going on. Jonsson approached him first, Arndt said, while he followed.

“When he got up we saw that she still wasn’t moving at all, so we walked up and asked something like, ‘What are you doing?’”

In the victim’s letter, she describes pictures she saw of herself behind that dumpster:

“Unconscious, with my hair disheveled, long necklace wrapped around my neck, bra pulled out of my dress, dress pulled off over my shoulders and pulled up above my waist, … butt naked all the way down to my boots, legs spread apart,” she wrote. She had dirt pine needles in her hair and inside her vagina.

The friends exchanged a few short words with Turner before he suddenly turned to run away from them. Jonsson chased after Turner and managed to catch up with him and tackle him a few feet away.

Arndt leaned over to make sure the unconscious victim was still alive, “She lay perfectly still,” he said.

The two men then restrained Turner and called the police. They held down the then-19-year-old swimmer until the police arrived.

In her letter, the victim said she was told one of the two men was crying, he was so upset by the state she was in. She also said she was forever grateful to Arndt and Jonsson for what they did.

“Thank you to the two men who saved me, who I have yet to meet,” the victim wrote. “I sleep with two bicycles that I drew taped above my bed to remind myself there are heroes in this story. That we are looking out for one another. To have known all of these people, to have felt their protection and love, is something I will never forget.”

Arndt was a teaching assistant at Stanford in math and engineering while getting his degree. He spent time at J.P. Morgan as research associate. Jonsson received his Master of Science degree in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford in May. Previously he attended Uppsala University in Sweden for economics.

Jonsson posted the victim’s letter on his Facebook page Tuesday, thanking friends and strangers for all the “encouragement and support” over the past few months. He said he would not publicly comment on the process or outcome of the trial, but asked everyone to read her letter.

“To me it is unique in its form” he wrote, “and comes as close as you can possibly get to putting words on an experience that words cannot describe.”

Writing a historical novel means knowing how far they can travel on a horse, This is good info right here.

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