I Think I Was Technically The One Who Brought Up The Sex Industry First When I Was Referencing A Paper

I think I was technically the one who brought up the sex industry first when I was referencing a paper I wrote in undergrad about how pornography influences attitudes of violence towards women. We ended up having a pretty in-depth discussion about society and prostitution and pornography and I would say basically kind of both agreed on all the major points. He mentioned a professor he'd had who had done a lot of research on the topic and that was how he initially came to be somewhat informed about it (but he didn't say any of it in like, an arrogant way, we were just having a respectful discussion). The next day he texted me "so last night you were talking about how society tries to frame porn as empowering for women when it's really the opposite, and I felt we had a relevant prospect at work today" and then he proceeded to tell me about how this new client at his job (something to do with digital advertising) wanted a site that functioned similar to OnlyFans where she could "protest" a certain topic by selling explicit photos of herself... protesting. Then we had a whole discussion about how the idea of nudity being empowering became more and more common over the last 20 years and how everything is sexualized etc. And it was just nice, you know? To have a man engage and listen and agree but in a way that tells you he is just as invested in the issue.

And here is how I know he really means what he says: 2 or 3 dates in, I was feeling overwhelmed and like I could not keep up with work, overtime, friends, laundry, cleaning, cooking, AND a romantic relationship at the moment. So I told him that, and explained that I was probably going to keep picking up shifts at an insane rate and trying to pay off loans and save up for at least the rest of the year. So I asked if we could just be friends instead and just see where life takes us over the next year. And you know what he said?

"Okay, that's fine." And since then, we've hung out several times, and he has completely backed off physically and romantically.

imagine… Alma Deutscher: Finding Cinderella

Musical prodigy Alma Deutscher aged 11 (seen here with younger sister Helen), is staging her first full-length opera, Cinderella.

Composer, pianist, violinist… Alma learned to read music before she could read words. She began playing the piano aged two and at four years old she was composing her own music.

YouTube

David Sedaris on coming out, all over again

The humorist has some thoughts about the term "queer" and how people today (or perhaps just humanities professors) identify themselves."CBS

David Sedaris on coming out, all over again. The humorist has some thoughts about the term "queer" and how people today (or perhaps just humanities professors) identify themselves.

I work with 15 year old girls who are so brainwashed by their pimps. They will try to run away from a safe place to get back to this man. They have stop orders on them if they run so we have to restrain them from going back to a life of abuse. They have specific lists of who they can call and I have to listen to their intimate conversations with mom, grandma.

Sometimes we fail. And she gets away. And we never see her again.

These same girls have their pimp aggressively looking for them. To him, she is no different than a 20 year old other than the fact she can make him much more money. To him, she is property. He calls the house to find her. He goes to family members houses posing as a social worker. He waits outside the facility in case she runs. We are to call the police when we see them. Cops show up, this man walks free. Despite being a known child trafficker with tattoos of his name on a 14 year olds body.

So when I hear you defend prostitution, this is what I hear you defending. These pimps are not anomalies and they do not solely prey upon children. They are the ones managing the women who you so strongly defend the right to abuse.

If you defend prostitution or purchase women’s bodies, you are defending child trafficking and unimaginable suffering.

I saw a post about his woman the other day where everyone was like "trans people have always existed", "trans history ftw" etc. And I was so fucking annoyed. Like, does anyone really think this woman woke up one day and went "I really identify with men and I think I am going to live the rest of my life as one because that’s just how I feel and haters gonna hate! It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that women aren’t allowed to live an unwed life in the service of education. And it certainly isn't motivated by a desire to study medicine which women also aren’t allowed to do at this point in time. And the fact that I want to be with women, which is also frowned upon by society since I am also a woman, is also not one of the factors influencing my decision."

Beyond Curie—a design project celebrating women in STEM

Margaret Ann Bulkley — Beyond Curie—a design project celebrating women in STEM

A woman ahead of her time, who pretended to be a man to pursue a career where she was not welcome

My grandmother is a Christian Conservative who is one of ten children, and became a live-in maid at the age of 14 so that she could keep paying the school fees to finish high school. I think about that a lot.

Not trying to go on a rant (and yet already ranting) but I’m sick of people faking that “granddaughters of the witches you couldn’t burn” isn’t an AWESOME feminist catchphrase, and branding it as white feminism because “Karen your granny is a christian conservative” like yesss it’s true my granny is a christian conservative but she also secretly had her tubes tied in an illegal clinic because my grandpa was against birth control, and my great-grandma ran away from home at 15 because her parents were against interracial marriage, and my great-great-grandma fled her country because there were no job opportunities for poor women there, and my other grandma also fled her country because her boyfriend tried to force her to have an abortion and she wanted to have her baby, and my mom never married and chose to raise a child on her own, and I am a feminist butch lesbian, and this is what this quote is about, it’s not about your granny being pagan, it’s about valuing your matrilineal lineage of subversive women, even if their subversion was minimal, because they could have been killed or maimed any time by men for not conforming to gender roles even in the slightest way, after all, the witches who indeed were burned were more often than not also just regular, mostly christian conservative, women that somehow pissed off a man