heyitsmarylou-blog

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if this body weren’t mine would i still hate it?

And So It Goes // 3:58am (via massiv3)

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What I Mean When I Say I’m Sex-Positive

I think freedom of sexuality is something that we all need and very few of us have

I think sexual pleasure is a legitimate thing to want and ethically pursue

I do not judge people for the (consensual) sex that they have or want

I will not tolerate slut-shaming

I will not tolerate hatred of people based on gender or orientation (including asexual)

I will not tolerate hatred of sex workers

I believe comprehensive, honest, non-judgmental sex education is necessary for public health and happiness

I think understanding of sexual consent—what it is, why it matters—is sorely lacking in society and crucially important

I reject preconceptions of what kind of sexuality a person should have, whether these preconceptions are based on gender, age, culture, disability, survivor status, or basically anything else

I value people’s individual freedom of choice in determining their sex lives (including the choices not to have sex)

What I Don’t Mean

Everyone should have sex

Everyone should have kinky, non-monogamous, exhibitionistic, pansexual sex

Accepting someone’s sexuality means you have to participate in it, watch them engage in it, or hear about it in detail

Nothing related to sex is ever hurtful for anyone

Feminism should be all about sex

Sex fixes everything

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Broad City S02E10

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Teachers be like “I’m more than happy to accommodate students with mental illnesses or disabilities. I just don’t excuse any absences, offer extra credit, or accept late homework. Also my only office hours are off campus on the last full moon of every other month”

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some women. 

(still ain’t ever seen anything that looks like equality for women of color, trans/queer women, lgb women, women with disabilities… the list goes on )

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things girls do that I love:

offer their friends sips of their coffee drinks without being asked

scratch each others back

say things like “smell this lotion I bought this weekend”

compliment each other’s eyebrows 

that thing when they agree with you and their eyes get really wide and they nod their head solemnly 

throw out each others gum wrappers or chip bags when they get up 

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I feel like Bernie Sanders might be too good to be true

Doesn’t take super PAC money? Wants to raise minimum wage? Realistic plans to end college debt and ensure our Educational system is on par with Europe’s? Taxing the rich to fund his plans? 

I feel like he’s going to be elected to office but then surprise twist:

He rips off his skin during his inaugural speech and reveals himself to be a lizard person.

But then double twist:

He keeps his promises and is still a better president than all the others combined.

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@chesterlockhart is a flawless gem of a human. So honored to be the recipient of so many hugs 💕 #toddlerzball (at Agnes Scott College)

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#toddlerzball @toddyrockstar is the Quing of my heart and your hugs feel like home. #queerfamily sticks together #itgetsbetter #yourenotinvisible

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It’s time to end the right-wing myths about the so-called “dangers” of accommodating transgender students. They’ve never been true, and they only make it harder to create safe and welcoming school environments for ALL kids.

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Family photos for Trans Day of Visibility.

My biological family decided they wanted nothing more to do with me when I came out, but these amazingly wonderful, kind people took over and brought me into their family and they are doing a far better job than my bio parents ever did.

I am Jay, and this is Sarah Fisher and Tony (Anthony) Head and whenever they introduce me as their son my heart grows an inch in size. (it’s huge now - almost planet sized)

I love them so much. And they make no secret of the fact that they love me.

I am a very lucky man.

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#mcm my man crush everyday with 2/3 of my angel nieces 👼👼

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Someone told me to post it on tumblr x

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the “lolita” covers

here’s a question: if vladimir nabokov’s “lolita” is truly the psychological portrait of a messed up dude and not the girl — let alone a sexualized little girl, as all of the sexualization happens inside humbert humbert’s head — then why do all the covers focus on a girl, and usually a sexy aspect of a girl, usually quite young, and none of them feature a portrait of humbert humbert?

here are nabokov’s original instructions for the book cover:

I want pure colors, melting clouds, accurately drawn details, a sunburst above a receding road with the light reflected in furrows and ruts, after rain. And no girls. … Who would be capable of creating a romantic, delicately drawn, non-Freudian and non-juvenile, picture for LOLITA (a dissolving remoteness, a soft American landscape, a nostalgic highway—that sort of thing)? There is one subject which I am emphatically opposed to: any kind of representation of a little girl.

and yet, the representations of the sexy little girl abound.

i became driven by curiousity. why did this happen? why is this happening?

i am not alone — there’s a book about this, with several essays and artists’ conceptions about the politics and problems of representation surrounding the covers of “lolita.” this new yorker article gives a summary of the book and its ideas, and interviews one of the editors:

Many of the covers guilty of misrepresenting Lolita as a teen seductress feature images from Hollywood movie adaptations of the book— Kubrick’s 1962 version, starring Sue Lyon, and Adrian Lyne’s 1997 one. Are those films primarily to blame for the sexualization of Lolita? As is argued in several of the book’s essays, the promotional image of Sue Lyon in the heart-shaped sunglasses, taken by photographer Bert Stern, is easily the most significant culprit in this regard, much more so than the Kubrick film itself (significantly, neither the sunglasses nor the lollipop ever appears in the film), or the later film by Adrian Lyne. Once this image became associated with “Lolita”—and it’s important to remember that, in the film, Lolita is sixteen years old, not twelve—it really didn’t matter that it was a terribly inaccurate portrait. It became the image of Lolita, and it was ubiquitous. There are other factors that have contributed to the incorrect reading, from the book’s initial publication in Olympia Press’s Traveller’s Series (essentially, a collection of dirty books), to Kubrick’s startlingly unfaithful adaptation. At the heart of all of this seems to be the desire to make the sexual aspect of the novel more palatable.

here’s a couple of kubrick inspired covers:

which very well could have, after tremendous sales, have influenced the following covers:

…straying so far from the intention of nabokov that the phenomenon begins to look more like the symptom of something larger, something sicker.

after a lot of researching covers, it was here, in this sampling of concept covers for the book about the lolita covers, that i found an image that best represents the story to me:

[art by linn olofsdotter]

but why aren’t all the covers like that? even the ones published by “legitimate” publishing companies, with full academic credentials, with no intended connection to the film; surely they must have read nabokov’s instructions for the cover. and yet, look at the top row of lolita covers: all legitimate publishing companies, not prone to smut. and yet.

my conclusion is that the lolita complex existed before “lolita” (and of course it did) — a patriarchal society is essentially operating with the same delusions of humbert humbert. nabokov did not produce the sexy girl covers of lolita, and kubrick had only the smallest hand in it. it was what people desired, requested and bought. the image of the sexy girl sells; intrigues; gets the hands on the books.

as elizabeth janeway said in her review in the new york review of books: “Humbert is every man who is driven by desire, wanting his Lolita so badly that it never occurs to him to consider her as a human being, or as anything but a dream-figment made flesh.”

isn’t that our media as a whole? our culture as a whole?

the whole lot of them/us — seeing the world through humbert-tinted glasses, seeing all others as Other and Object, as solipsistic dream-reality. as i scroll through the “lolita” covers i wonder: where’s the humanity in our humanity?