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justgottafinishthischapter · 2 years ago

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Writing Worlds: Homosexuality in Historical Settings

As someone who loves period romances and craves romantic relationships between queer men, it’s very alluring to write queer romances set against the backdrop of historical settings and time periods. But, due to the treatment of homosexuality for a lot of our world’s history, it can make it tricky to know the best way to handle this topic. Consider this to be a sister post to go along with my Writing Romance: Courting post. The two go hand-in-hand.

ESCAPISM VS REALISM

The first hurdle is to decide whether your story is an escapist fantasy or favors realism. In an escapist historical queer romance, the queerness is simply not an issue. The prince can flat out tell his parents to arrange his marriage to male suitors, and the only real reaction is his mother immediately listing off good matches for him. The conflict has nothing to do with the fact that the relationship is between two same-sex characters, and would work just as well for a heterosexual romance story. With an escapist fantasy, you can show the Count of Yorkshire navigating the hardships of courting by having multiple young men vying for his hand, or the whirlwind romance as he catches the eye of the Duke of Orleans. And this romance can be just as open and public as any straight relationship. This option would fall under Historical Romanticism, the term used for when historical settings are made to be more idyllic and favorable than they likely were in real life. The only media where this approach tends to show up often is Fantasy, in worlds where homophobia simply never really existed. The Elder Scrolls is one such setting where male gods are married to one another, other gods change genders and pronouns as they like, and your player character is free to romance anyone of any gender as well as adopt without anyone making biggotted remarks.

On the other hand, Realism in a Historical Queer Romance is going to come prepackaged with a lot of tension and angst, as it’s automatically a forbidden romance. Because homophobia is a real issue that real queer people deal with, having queer characters deal with these issues can help your queer audience feel seen as these fictional characters can relate to their own life experiences. It’s also just more historically accurate to have queer lovers needing to tiptoe around behind people’s backs and hoping they don’t get caught. However, due to this prejudice, it’s also very easy for such settings and stories to come off as depressing, and can perpetuate unpleasant tropes in queer media, such as Bury Your Gays, Unhappily Ever After, and downer Nomance endings. Because their relationship isn’t “appropriate” for public eyes, it makes it hard for the couple to have a truly happy ending. For someone who’s tired of dealing with homophobia in their own life, or it just being present in almost all queer media, it can be tedious for those who want an escape to enjoy two guys smooching while looking dapper in period costumes.

Homosexuality and Religion

As a medieval historian, I actually did a full research paper on homosexuality in the middle ages as a part of my final for one of my medieval history classes. I still have the paper saved, so let me share an abridged version. Pagan cultures might have had some issues with homosexuality, such as the Norse favoring the “tops” over the “bottoms”, a sentiment shared by both the Greeks and Romans. However compared to later eras of history, these Pre-Christian cultures had little problems with same-sex relationships. Every Greek God but Ares, Hephaestus, and Hades had at least 1 male lover, Emperor Hadrian had his boy-toy Antinous deified after he drowned in the Nile, and the Sacred Band of Thebes was made up entirely of same-sex lovers. The idea that homosexuality was wrong only emerged with Christianity. Just... not as soon as you’d think. Christianity became a wide-spread faith across Europe around about 300 AD, mostly spread by Constantine’s deathbed conversion to Christianity. However, it would not be until the 12th century that homosexuality as a sin would emerge. This shift first started during what is known as the Medieval Renaissance when Christian theologians like St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome altered the theological discourse on sin and virtue. Prior to the Medieval Renaissance, the mindset was that simply being Christian and accepting Christ as one’s savior was all it took to get into Heaven. After the Medieval Renaissance, the focus shifted to individual sin and the worthiness of the individual soul. They came to view Earth as sort of a testing grounds or waiting room, and any temporary Earthly pleasure was a wicked temptation sent by Satan to lead men astray. How you did on the test impacted whether you passed or failed. One thing that was declared a sin was fornication without the prospect of procreation. And this went for everyone. Any sexual act that would not result in childbirth was a sin, because you were doing it for the pleasure, not for the purposes of making a baby. Furthermore, any position except Missionary was also sinful, again in an attempt to limit pleasure. Since cis-gendered homosexuals cannot procreate, any homosexual acts were universally labeled as a sin by happenstance. Later in 1179, Peter Comestor proposed to the Third Lateran Council a link between the biblical condemnation of sodomy with explicitly condemning homosexuals, and not just anal fornication as a whole, even stating that clerks found guilty of this act should be removed from office, and laymen should be excommunicated from the church. It is Peter Comestor and his stance on homosexuality that truly caused homosexuality to be labeled as a sin on principal, and is why so many modern Christians still believe homosexual relationships are sinful by nature. However, it’s worth pointing out that the time from when Christianity was a widespread faith in Europe (approx. 300 AD) to the Third Lateran Council (1179) is a span of 879 years. As of this point in 2023, the time between Comestor’s condemnation of homosexuality and the present is only 844 years. Meaning that Christianity has a longer history of tolerating homosexuality than it has condemning it. I say all of this because in any setting where Christianity is not a part of the worldbuilding, there is no reason to have homophobia, unless you replace Christianity with a similarly homophobic fictional religion, as George RR Martin does with the Faith of the Seven in A Song of Ice and Fire. As for Judaism and Islam, I’m at a loss there. My studies didn’t really lead me to those topics, and I can’t offer much insight there.

Handwaving Escapist Diversity

Let’s be real, we can’t even cast People of Color in fantasy stories without racists crapping their pants, so unfortunately, we’re going to face similar problems having queer couples openly courting each other in a historical setting. But, there are a few ways around this where we can have our cake and eat it too without the homophobes being able to hide behind “historic accuracy” as a reason to have a problem with queer romances in historical periods. It’s all about the genre. Let’s look at some of the genres we can use.

Historical Fiction: This is the base form. Any period piece is going to be historical fiction. However, Historical Fiction comes in a wide array. Historical Romanticism is the lighter approach, simply putting make-up on the era to make it more palatable and appealing. Think of Bridgerton where the dresses are shaped historically and the characters behave historically, but the Queen is a woman of color, and the dress materials are far more colorful and bright than they would have been at the time. It’s still the Regency era, just with a bit of rouge. On the other hand, there’s Alternate History. Historical settings where a major deviation has occurred in the timeline. Whether the Roman Empire never fell, the British crushed the American Revolution and took over the entire world, Christianity never caught on and the Roman Pantheon is the most widespread belief system, or the industrial revolution exploded even harder, resulting in a more Steampunk vibe. A major upheaval has altered the face of history, and your queer romance is set in an utterly changed world with a different timeline.

Steampunk: As I just touched on, your world can be more technologically advanced, however, Steampunk can also be a genre for completely fictional worlds, giving you a great way to have a story set in an era with an 1880s - 1910s aesthetic, but easily exist as it own world with its own history and values where homosexual relationships aren’t a problem. Steampunk is also the most optimistic and aesthetically oriented of the science-fiction -Punk genres, compared to the much bleaker and more cynical outlooks of Cyberpunk, Diesel Punk, and Gothic Punk.

Gaslamp Fantasy: Basically, Steampunk but with fantastical elements. It keeps that late Victorian - Edwardian aesthetic, but adds magic, faeries, dragons, vampires, etc. Now, Steampunk leans more Sci-fi, while Gaslamp Fantasy is more well.... Fantasy, so Gaslamp Fantasy does tend to lose some of the technological aspects of Steampunk, but it can also overlap with Magitech, a subgenre where machinery is powered and propelled by magical energy. So, you can very well have a Steampunk Gaslamp Fantasy where all of the steam and gears and machinery is powered by magic. It’ still Steampunk, so long as that train is powered by shoveling magic energy crystals into the furnace, instead of coal. Howl’s Moving Castle is a good example of how the two can coexist. There are normal trains as we see in Sophie’s town, but we also see Howl’s castle which can move because of Calcipher, a fire demon that needs to constantly eat a fuel source of one kind or another. The world is full of witches, magic, and curses, but there’s also muskets, trains, airplanes, zeppelins, and a castle that spews steam and smoke as it wanders the countryside.

Paranormal Romance: Especially common with Vampires, but the fallout of Twilight and Alpha/Beta/Omegas in pop culture has also led to a rising interest in Werewolf stories, and a recent trend has also swept Faeries into the pop culture spotlight as well. All three offer stories where one or both of your characters is an immortal (or very long-lived) individual. Perhaps their world is homophobic now, but when they met and fell in love, it was perfectly acceptable. Perhaps being alive for 800 years piqued the main character’s curiosity and they decided to give it a try. The long history of homosexuals being demonized has led to a large percentage of queer people identifying with the monsters and villains of media, causing them to see themselves in the hated monsters, demons, and vampires that threaten the heterosexual heroes of old.

Historical Fantasy: For everything else that’s not within that Victorian-Edwardian window, Historical Fantasy has you covered. From Cyclopes and Sirens in Ancient Greece to Dragons and Goblins in Medieval France, or a mermaid ending up in an Americana freak show, this pretty much covers ever kind of fantasy romance in a historical setting that’s not covered by Paranormal Romance or Gaslamp Fantasy.

Renaissance Punk: It’s like Steampunk, but the world’s technology resembles the contraptions of Leonardo Da Vinci, as opposed to the clockwork, gears, and steam aesthetic plastered onto the turn of the 20th century that Steampunk offers. Also called Da Vinci Punk.

Space Punk: If you’re wanting to lean more Sci-fi, you can do Space Punk. Think Treasure Planet, though I could also call that Sail Punk. It has a very Victorian clothing and technological aesthetic, but then space is full of a breathable Ethereum, and even Doctor Doppler’s “space suit” looks closer to an old-timey diver’s suit. But the ship has solar sails, the mast charges up with a power source that propels the ship into space, lockets project holograms of still photographs, cybernetic prosthetics are technologically advanced, and aliens are a common sight, even for the poorest commoner.

Same-Sex Courting for Escapist Romance

I touched on this in my Writing Romance: Courting post, but I’ll cover it again because it’s especially applicable here. The rules of courting in the 1800s relied heavily on gender roles. So, how does one make sense of courting rules when the couple are the same sex? The basic rule of thumb is that whoever is higher in status is the one to be chased, while the one of lower class does the chasing. If a Duke is looking for a husband, does the Duke chase Viscounts or do Viscounts chase the Duke? Always, the Viscounts chase the Duke. A Duke is a valuable husband, a prize catch those Viscounts would want to have. What if the romance is between two men of equal class? Two Dukes falling in love? The one who would take the more passive role is likely to be whichever is higher in the line of succession. During the courting phase, an elligible queer bachelor is likely to recieve many gentlemen callers. They would come to the bachelor’s house where his family could keep an eye on him, and judge his prospects. They would bring gifts and trinkets, and sit in the tea room, sewing room, drawing room, or whatever room is used to entertain guests. Gentlemen callers would then talk with the bachelor, recite poetry, play the piano, or whatever else they could to impress the bachelor and his family. Again, as I said before, the one being visited by gentlemen callers is whoever is higher up in the chain of nobility. The Duke’s family is going to scrutinize every gentleman who calls on their son, while the Baron’s family is going to urge him to call on every queer man who outranks him. The other thing to keep in mind is inheritance. The first-born son inherits everything, so a second-born son or third-born son will get nothing from his father, or best case scenario, he will get a small fraction of the family fortune from his father or older brother. In order for these younger sons to stay in the lifestyle they were raised in, they will have to marry someone who is coming into his fortune. In a setting where women can inherit her father’s entire estate, a lesbian would function the exact same as a gay man. Ergo, any queer romantic lead who is not inheriting his father’s full estate must seek a first-born son who will inherit his father’s estate. Meanwhile, if your protagonist is a first-born son, he is far more likely to be chased by the younger sons of distinguished families. Finally, when it comes to the social season and courting at dances, queer nobles would likely wear something to distinguish themselves from the heterosexual nobles at the party. Something to let the other guests know their preference in dance partner. That way, gentlemen know not to ask the Baroness of Agincourt to dance, but that the Duke of Orleans is all too eager to receive male attention.

Lavender Marriages in Realist Romances

A lavender marriage is when a queer person marries someone of the opposite sex to disguise their homosexual dalliances, such as Renly Baratheon marrying Margaery Tyrell, or Laenor Valyrian marrying Rhaenyra Targaryen. In these instances, the woman knew her husband was queer and was willing to work with him to keep the secret. However, sometimes the wife wouldn’t know, and the husband was keeping his sexuality a secret from everybody. However, it was usually hard for a noble to keep his dalliances completely hidden from the court, as in both of these cases, both Renly and Laenor were well-known around court to be fanciful of male attention. Everyone typically knows the wedding is a sham, but tend to turn a blind eye to it regardless. I know I’ve been using male examples this whole post, but this does also work with lesbian romances. I believe the term is still lavender marriage with a lesbian, but I could be mistaken.

Actual Homosexuality in Historical Time Periods

Scholars debate the exact nature of their relationship, but in Arthurian Myth, King Galehaut is conquering his way across Arthur’s Kingdom when he challenges Arthur to a duel for the throne of Camelot. However, upon seeing Sir Lancelot, Galehaut offers to concede to Arthur if he’ll introduce him to Lancelot. From then on, Galehaut and Lancelot became Very Close Special Guy Friends, and it’s suspected that the pair might be lovers, or at least that Galehaut is in love with Lancelot.

Leonardo Da Vinci was involved with one of his male models, Pietri Bandielli, who Da Vinci used as a model for Jesus. Which also means, If you pray to the white version of Jesus with the little beard and long brown hair, congratulations! You’re worshiping a gay Italian male model that used to have sex with Leonardo Da Vinci.

Hans Christian Andersen fell in love with the son of his financier, Edvard Collins. But, when Collins became engaged and later married to Henriette Tybjerg, a heartbroken Andersen wrote the story of The Little Mermaid as an allegory for his unrequited love. Collins was the handsome prince who didn’t return the mermaid’s feelings, Henriette was the Temple Girl who stole the mermaid’s love, and Andersen himself was the mermaid, unable to verbalize her true feelings, and suffering great pain just to be near the one she loves.

It’s mostly speculation, but it’s believed that Richard I of England had a clandestine homosexual relationship with Phillip II of France. The majority of evidence comes from one particular courtier’s writings who described them as eating from the same dish and not being separated by their beds at night. However, it’s hard to say if this is evidence of a homosexual relationship, or just the flowery prose writing of the time describing a very close bromance.

Edward II of England had little interest in war. Hoping to toughen up his son, Edward’s father assigned a squire to Edward that excelled in tournaments, Piers Gaveston. However, this backfired spectacularly, as Edward fell in love with Piers. Gaveston flaunted his sway over the king, being so bold as to wear royal purple and the queen’s jewelry during Edward’s coronation. Gaveston was hunted down and beheaded by a group of barons, and Edward himself was killed with a red-hot poker shoved up his backside.

King James I of England was a well-known bisexual, even having a secret passageway linking his bedchambers with that of George Villiers. James’ male lovers experienced royal favoritism and protection, as James absolved one male lover for poisoning a political rival, and twice protecting Villiers from impeachment for incompetency. Following James’ death, Villiers was struck through by a sword.

Anne Lister was a noblewoman who often dressed in masculine clothing and kept a coded diary which recounted her many and varied lesbian affairs over her lifetime. Lister even earned the nickname Gentleman Jack, and is often regarded as the First Modern Lesbian.

Pirate ships were one of the few places where gay marriage was legitimate. Pirate captains could perform marriage ceremonies, and marriages between male crewmates was not uncommon, even having rules about sharing property and distrubution of goods among crew members with a married couple on-board. As well as the distribution of property following the death of a same-sex spouse.

While we know that brothels and prostitution has existed since Ancient Greece, in the 1700s, it was possible to find a Molly House. A house which featured male prostitutes who catered to male clients.

Women were not believed to have sex drives, so when two women loved each other, they were often called “bosom buddies”, and two women living together without a man in the house was called a Boston Marriage.

In the medieval era, it was believed that a woman’s womb was naturally cold and had to be kept warm with regular activity. If the woman was unmarried, the womb was to be kept warm by hand. But since using her own hands would be sinful, it often fell to the woman’s female servants to do the deed.

Men and women often existed in entirely disconnected social spheres. For a man, he would go to work where he would only work with men, after work he would go to a local bar or club that was exclusively for gentlemen, and following dinner, he would often retire to a private room in his home or another man’s home to sit, smoke, and talk with his male colleagues. Even within a single house, men would retire to the gentlemen’s lounge to smoke, while women would depart to the sewing room, tea room, or drawing room to have afternoon tea with the other ladies. As men would spend their entire days solely in the company of men, and the same for women, many men and women only spent time together in public spaces, during meals, and when going to bed. Even then, it was not uncommon to see households where the man and woman had separate bedchambers, and the woman would only sleep in the man’s bedroom when he desired sexual congress. Even the Palace of Versailles had separate chambers for the king and queen. This gave queer couples plenty of time to sneak around without anyone being the wiser.

This to Keep in Mind

One of the biggest issues behind the AIDS epidemic was the promiscuous nature of gay lovers in the 1970s. Because gay men had to be discreet, they would often have anonymous relations in public spaces like bathhouses and bars. This combination of unsafe sex practices and anonymous lovers caused STDs to run rampant through the community, and allowed the AIDS epidemic to have a devastating impact on the queer community.

In Victorian great houses, the footmen were effectively the “face” of the manor’s servants, so height and attractiveness was favored when hiring them. As such, footmen make for excellent romantic interests in a historical time period, since they’re required to be attractive to be hired.

The mafia has a long history of working with and supporting the LGBT community. In the 1920s, nightclubs in the black districts of Harlem would host drag balls, these events being known as Harlem Nights. The mafia helped these groups to meet without police interference for a kickback fee. Even the Stonewall Inn had Mafia protection. In a world where homosexuality is still seen as a sin, think about what groups are willing to turn a blind eye in the interest of profit.

Homosexuals were among those rounded up the Nazi Party during the Holocaust. Just as Jews were forced to wear the Star of David on their clothes, so too were homosexuals marked with a pink triangle. The Nazi Party also destroyed research on gender and sexuality, which destroyed a lot of evidence that had been gathered of queer existence up to that point in time. Today, the Pink Triangle is among the reclaimed symbols used by the queer community.

Queer people found ways to signal to one another. At different points in time, the visual cues have included wearing green ties, having a red carnation in their lapels, and in the 1970s, a bandana in the back pocket was a common way of indicating someone was a homosexual, and the color would even further indicate what they were looking for. Many modern slang words even started out as gay code words so that gay people could talk in public without drawing attention to themselves. Codes like “buns” for butt are still in use today, but got their start as codewords to keep gay conversations undercover.

While we often remember the Red Scare of the 1950s, we often don’t mention that there was also a Lavender Scare at the same time, which hunted down homosexuals just as the Red Scare hunted for communists. It was the belief that homosexuals would be more likely to undermine American policies or spread information to enemy nations, and thus had to be kept down.

Rich men often kept “actresses”, paying for apartments for them, paying for their food, drink, fun, costumes, and whatever else. If they really were an actress or otherwise a struggling entertainer, it was not unheard of for the wealthy benefactor to pay to get the actress roles, pay for tutors and lessons, or even buying them an entire theater. It’s not so hard to believe that a wealthy gentleman could keep a male model, actor, or artist in good stead, especially because artists in particular flourished in periods where rich people would sponsor and commission artists to paint for them. And this can work for either type of story, as a husband or wife would be equally annoyed to learn that the Duke of Orleans is keeping a young actor on the south side.

Gif Sourcing:

1. Bridgerton (2020 - present) 2. Game of Thrones (2011-2019) 3. Mary, Queen of Scots (2018) 4. Downton Abbey (2010-2015) 5. Victoria (2016) 6. Cloud Atlas (2012) 7. A Place to Call Home (2013-2018) 8. Mary Shelley (2017) 9. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

#historical fiction #writing romance #gay romance #historical romance #period piece #period drama #courting #courtship #gay history #gay historical fiction #gay victorian #gay period piece #gay period drama #queer romance #queer history #gay love story

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aeelaw10 · 9 months ago

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gloriousfatpoc · 5 years ago

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Tag the tattoos its against my religion

You are aware that this is Indigenous, First Nations, Native day right? Tattoos are a HUGE part of many Indigenous cultures. We can tag them but don’t come here spouting blatant antinative crap. You asking a Native person to tag tattoos which is part of my culture and religion on a Native day is not okay.

Also how do navigate the word you can’t ask everyone with ink to cover up. I can’t tell if you are a troll or just a white person who I suspect is a Christian.

-M

#you asked we answered #Anonymous

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arnoldjaime13 · 4 years ago

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Blog Tour- SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD LOVE & SEX ADDICT by @TheBrianneDavis With An Excerpt & #Giveaway! @Secret_Life_Pod, & @RockstarBkTours

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD LOVE & SEX ADDICT by Brianne Davis Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

About The Book:

Title: SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD LOVE & SEX ADDICT

Author: Brianne Davis

Pub. Date: February 12, 2021

Publisher: Just B Productions

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Pages: 312

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, B&N, TBD, Bookshop.org

Read for FREE with a Kindle Unlimited membership!

"A powerful, raw and vulnerable read.”—Olivia Munn, actress, The Newsroom

"Unflinchingly candid. Unspeakably sexy. And oh, so curiously entertaining."—Steve Antin, Golden Globe winner, Burlesque

Imagine if Sex and the City's Samantha discovered she was an addict and her drug of choice was MEN. Go on a hilarious, inspiring, and at times, shocking journey as Roxanne conquers her fears, changes her ways, gets closer to healthy relationships and begins loving herself a little more each day.

After years of working as an image-obsessed actress in Hollywood, Roxanne finds herself at rock bottom from a disease that is anything but glamorous. In her first year of recovery, Roxanne has to take accountability for her past. From tales of being mistaken for a prostitute at the Hotel Bel-Air to botching a threesome attempt with an A-list celebrity, she must face the truth about herself and stop playing the victim. Roxanne's odyssey of using sex and love—as destructive and beguiling as an alcoholic reaching for a bottle—is a veritable rollercoaster of ups and downs, laughter and tears, and a true testament to facing your absolute truth and conquering your fears. Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex & Love Addict has the vibrant, relatable vibe of chick lit, the soul-baring honesty of a memoir and the wisdom of a self-help book. So take a front-row seat into this complex world and the 10 RULES Roxanne learns along the way. “Actress Brianne Davis takes us behind the glitz and glamour for a brutally candid, no-holds-barred look at Tinseltown’s forever-favorite addiction: sex. You’ll cry... and laugh... as you join her harrowing and hilarious ride to sex-addiction sobriety.” —Spencer Beck, former editor-in-chief of LA Confidential, editor-in-chief Los Angeles and contributing editor at Vanity Fair “Brianne tells the story of navigating a world where sex and beauty are commodities to be used and abused by those who have the power. Like Sex and the City, this is a tale of finding one’s self and reasserting a true feminist ideal: that your destiny is yours to create.” —Lucy Danziger, New York Times best-selling author of The Nine Rooms of Happiness and former editor-in-chief of SELF “It takes a lot of courage to do what Brianne is doing in this book. To mirror her life into Roxanne is not only fearless, but wildly entertaining. It’s a world with so much darkness, yet Brianne has not only found the humor but the story to bring it to life because lets face it, we all want to know more.” —Jana Kramer, singer, actress on One Tree Hill, and New York Times best-selling author of The Good Fight

Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex & Love Addict—by Brianne Davis

Excerpt - Chapter Three Rule 2: Believe in your own form of GOD, not anyone else’s.

I courageously walked through the set of double doors and into the fluorescent-lit unknown. The meeting was in the basement with hard plastic blue chairs in a wide circle. It was a sad sight. Thirty random men and women who were all older than me, sat in the seats talking to one another. It was truly bizarre for me to comprehend.

An older, pink-haired lady announced very loudly in her husky voice, “The meeting is starting.” I felt entirely out of place and located the closest seat near the exit door. I was vulnerable, exposed and wanting to melt into the plastic of my uncomfortable chair.

Pinkie was the leader of the meeting and she shared The Twelve Characteristics of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.

The characteristics were like looking in a mirror—One was about feeling emotionally/sexually deprived, being a serial dater, and even having multiple partners. (Hell yeah!)

We feel insufficient when alone, afraid of intimacy and the C-word (commitment), and always seeking sex and romance. (Of course, come on.)

We use sex to deal with worry, anxiety, loneliness, shame, and jealousy. (Doesn’t everyone?)

And my favorite characteristic was being disappointed when others didn’t live up to our expectations or fantasies. (FUCK YES, IT’S NOT MY FAULT YOU DIDN’T LIVE UP TO MY EXPECTATIONS.)

I snuck a look around and saw most of the other attendees were nodding as they too connected to the characteristics being read. I was processing the one about blaming others when I heard the word—POWERLESS.

It felt like a bulldozer rammed me back into focus.

And then I heard the G-word—GOD. It kept coming up. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. It was unbearable. I wanted to run out of that room as fast as I could. I started to plan my exit strategy.

I picked up my purse, uncrossed my legs, and shifted in my seat.

My inner dialogue was rampant—These people are nothing like me. What if someone recognizes me? How am I going to explain why I’m here? I should have worn my hat.

Look, I know I’m not famous by any means, but sometimes I have been asked for an autograph. Okay, I once got confused for a famous pop star at an amusement park by a bunch of Japanese tourists. But I have been on television a lot.

Then an even more ridiculous thought popped into my head—Maybe there’s a crazy fan in this room, who knows?

I told myself—ROXANNE, get a hold of yourself! Your ego is flaring. No one here cares about you, just like you don’t care about them. Relax!

Someone started reading the Twelve Steps of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. As they spoke, all I could hear was that sound from the old Charlie Brown cartoons “bwahbwahbwahbwah bwah bwah bwah.” I made out the words powerless, unmanageable, sanity and God—Who would want to admit being powerless? I’m not insane? What God? This is why I never went to church.

I felt my head begin to spin. I was getting overwhelmed. My mind shut down after God was mentioned too many times. I closed my eyes and took a huge deep breath and sighed.

And then, something happened—my body gave in and I really started to listen.

About Brianne Davis:

Brianne Davis is a Hollywood actress, writer, producer and director. She can be seen as an actress in Lucifer, Casual, True Blood, the History Channel’s series Six, and the film Jarhead, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Brianne has produced three films with her production company, Give & Take Productions. She has directed two films, The Night Visitor 2: Heather’s Story and Deadly Signal.

Brianne has over a decade of recovery as a sex and love addict. Inspired by her life experience, she is the host of the popular personal journals podcast Secret Life. Her article “I’m a Sex and Love Addict. Here’s How I Realized I Had a Problem.” was published in Huff Post Personal’s March 2020 issue and received over a million views. Brianne lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Mark Gantt and son, Davis. Subscribe to Brianne’s Mail List to Receive: * New release dates and news * Giveaways and Author Book Recommendations * Book Tours and Appearance info * And so much more!

Giveaway Details:

2 winners will win a finished copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD LOVE & SEX ADDICT, US Only.

2 winners will win an ebook of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD LOVE & SEX ADDICT, International.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

3/1/2021

Rockstar Book Tours

Kickoff Post/Excerpt

3/1/2021

Jaime's World

Excerpt

3/2/2021

Two Chicks on Books

Excerpt

3/2/2021

Jaimerockstarbooktours

Instagram Post

3/3/2021

BookHounds

Playlist

3/3/2021

@bookhounds

Instagram Post

3/4/2021

Living in a Bookworld

Playlist

3/4/2021

A Dream Within A Dream

Dream Cast

3/5/2021

Drunk On Pop

The Top 5 No-Go movies for Sex and Love Addicts

3/5/2021

Drunk On Pop

Instagram Post

3/5/2021

Books A-Brewin'

Excerpt

3/5/2021

booksabrewin

Instagram Post

Week Two:

3/8/2021

Lady Hawkeye

Excerpt

3/8/2021

@kellyatx

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sciencespies · 4 years ago

Text

Archaeologists Discover Ruins of Emperor Hadrian's Ornate Breakfast Chamber

https://sciencespies.com/history/archaeologists-discover-ruins-of-emperor-hadrians-ornate-breakfast-chamber/

Archaeologists Discover Ruins of Emperor Hadrian's Ornate Breakfast Chamber

Talk about dining in style: In the second century A.D., Roman emperor Hadrian and his empress, Vibia Sabina, may have eaten their breakfast on an opulent marble platform surrounded by flowing water as an entourage of servants, separated from the imperial couple by retractable bridges, stood at attention nearby.

Now, reports Ángel Gómez Fuentes for Spanish newspaper ABC, archaeologists from the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville have unearthed traces of this unique dining arrangement.

Speaking with ABC, lead researcher Rafael Hidalgo Prieto calls the discovery a “unique” and “bombshell” find.

Hadrian, who ruled from 117 to 138 A.D. and is perhaps best known for his eponymous wall in northern Britain, commissioned the room as part of his Villa Adriana (Hadrian’s Villa), an expansive 200-acre complex of more than 30 buildings near Tivoli, Italy.

Inspired by Greek, Roman and Egyptian architecture, Hadrian designed the villa as an “ideal city,” per the site’s Unesco World Heritage website. Notable features included a copy of the Temple of Aphrodite in Corinth, theaters, libraries, gardens, baths, man-made pools, galleries and a “palace” consisting of many rooms that opened onto a grand central courtyard.

Prieto describes the newly discovered structure as a water triclinium, or Roman dining room. According to the Getty Foundation’s Shelby Brown, Roman elites and their dinner guests convened in these spaces to recline on elegant U-shaped couches and enjoy expensive food and drink.

In the Villa Adriana dining room, private guests would have dined with the emperor in an exclusive, luxurious environment. As Prieto explains to ABC, per Google Translate, the archaeologists theorize that the emperor and other royals gathered on a marble platform “on top of a pool, with the water fountains behind, with the murmur of the water always present in the banquet, with the vision in front of the garden.”

Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of an imperial dining room surrounded by water.

(Rafael Hidalgo Prieto / Pablo de Olavide University)

Light would have flooded into the semi-circular space through large windows. The main eating platform connected to four nearby bedchambers and latrines adorned with precious stones, reports Caroline Goldstein for Artnet News.

“In all the Roman world there is nothing like it,” Prieto tells ABC. “The emperor wanted to show things that would overwhelm the visitor, something that had not been seen anywhere else in the world and that exists only in Villa Adriana.”

As Artnet News notes, Hadrian’s Villa also featured a man-made waterway meant to represent the Nile River. Hadrian created the fountain in honor of his young lover Antinous, who drowned in Egypt in 130 A.D.

In addition to the flooded triclinium, the Spanish researchers discovered a separate dining room that Prieto thinks may have served as the model for the well-known Canopo e Serapeo (Canopus and Serapeum). An elaborate outdoor banquet space built by Hadrian, the venue boasted a fountain in the shape of a crocodile, among other imposing features. This smaller dining area was built earlier than the Canopo and featured a garden and a large pond.

As Philip Willan reports for the Times, Hadrian’s taste for grandeur also served to reinforce his status as divine ruler of Rome in the eyes of his subjects.

“The villa was a machine that served to represent the emperor’s divinity,” Andrea Bruciati, director of Villa Adriana, tells the Times.

A meal with Hadrian, he adds, would have been a “quasi-theatrical spectacle.”

#History

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rocket-69 · 3 years ago

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Body horror: Ghouls, centaurs, many animals- mutations with extra horns or hooves, tentacles coming out of centaur mouths, ghouls have peeling necrotizing flesh and have lost their noses.

Bugs- In general there are many large insects, scorpions, wasps, and other arthropods.

The Fallout setting deals with many dark themes, relating to war, american politics, and desperation. It is not an "escape" from these things, and there are many echoes of this dark timeline.

The Legion faction is an exploration in cultural* genocide, fascism, and slavery.

Dead Money:

Dean Domino in backstory exploiting Vera Keyes' drug addiction and role as a young starlet (misogyny)

Dog/God is a character with an... Inaccurate portrayal of DID

Honest Hearts:

Antinative racism- fictional* tribes created which tap into very stereotypical portrayals

Mormonism/evangelical christianity and missionaries portrayed as sympathetic

Child death- Miniature skeletons of long dead boy scouts in a bus

A small side mission adds a "drug induced" visual filter that can make it hard to navigate

Old World Blues:

A prison camp with captive Chinese American feral ghouls (and a few always-hostile non-feral ghouls) who have been trapped there and used in human experimentation

Very NSFW/sexual (humorous) introduction

Another addict character (Mobius)

Lonesome Road:

Nukes play a major factor in this DLC.

A scripted jumpscare with a deathclaw on the highway going into a specific camper (it spawns as you enter/turn to leave, initiating close quarters fighting)

Police brutality in the prewar through terminal entries and environmental storytelling in certain areas where a hippie protest was violently suppressed.

Do you have a content warning list for FNV? I wanna recommend it to a friend but i wanna warn them about any potentially triggering aspects.

Just off the top of my head;

Anti-indigenous racism, particularly heavy use of the word 'tribal'

All the blood and gore, but that's a bit obvious I think

Some characters have been sexually assaulted, but none of them ever really go into detail and none are part of the main quest. I think the word r/pe is only mentioned a couple times by some of them.

Cannibalism, mostly in the Ultra-Luxe but there are probably other places/characters involved with it

Misogyny is pretty scattered throughout the game, but especially at The Fort

There's some homophobia, never directed at the player, usually just discussed (like how some factions feel about gay people)

Awful portrayal of addicts and how addiction works, especially regarding the Fiends and some Freeside quests

I honestly can't think of anything else specifically, but anyone is free to add on to this list.

#this is off the top of my head... hm #mormonism tw

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artistiade · 8 years ago

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"They want more!"croaked Napoleon frowning. “Let them have it!” Even before he gave that order the thing he did not desire, and for which he gave the order only because he thought it was expected of him, was being done. And he fell back into that artificial realm of imaginary greatness, and again—as a horse walking a treadmill thinks it is doing something for itself—he submissively fulfilled the cruel, sad, gloomy, and inhuman role predestined for him. And not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience darkened of this man on whom the responsibility for what was happening lay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to the end of his life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the significance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to grasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, belauded as they were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness, and all humanity. Not only on that day, as he rode over the battlefield strewn with men killed and maimed (by his will as he believed), did he reckon as he looked at them how many Russians there were for each Frenchman and, deceiving himself, find reason for rejoicing in the calculation that there were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone did he write in a letter to Paris that “the battle field was superb,” because fifty thousand corpses lay there, but even on the island of St. Helena in the peaceful solitude where he said he intended to devote his leisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote: The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times: it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity and security of all; it was purely pacific and conservative. It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the beginning of security. A new horizon and new labors were opening out, full of well-being and prosperity for all. The European system was already founded; all that remained was to organize it. Satisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I too should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were stolen from me. In that reunion of great sovereigns we should have discussed our interests like one family, and have rendered account to the peoples as clerk to master. Europe would in this way soon have been, in fact, but one people, and anyone who traveled anywhere would have found himself always in the common fatherland. I should have demanded the freedom of all navigable rivers for everybody, that the seas should be common to all, and that the great standing armies should be reduced henceforth to mere guards for the sovereigns. On returning to France, to the bosom of the great, strong, magnificent, peaceful, and glorious fatherland, I should have proclaimed her frontiers immutable; all future wars purely defensive, all aggrandizement antinational. I should have associated my son in the Empire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and his constitutional reign would have begun. Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy of the nations! My leisure then, and my old age, would have been devoted, in company with the Empress and during the royal apprenticeship of my son, to leisurely visiting, with our own horses and like a true country couple, every corner of the Empire, receiving complaints, redressing wrongs, and scattering public buildings and benefactions on all sides and everywhere. Napoleon, predestined by Providence for the gloomy role of executioner of the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions had been the peoples’ welfare and that he could control the fate of millions and by the employment of power confer benefactions. “Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula,” he wrote further of the Russian war, “half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Wurttembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and Neapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third composed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the Thirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it included scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke French. The Russian expedition actually cost France less than fifty thousand men; the Russian army in its retreat from Vilna to Moscow lost in the various battles four times more men than the French army; the burning of Moscow cost the lives of a hundred thousand Russians who died of cold and want in the woods; finally, in its march from Moscow to the Oder the Russian army also suffered from the severity of the season; so that by the the time it reached Vilna it numbered only fifty thousand, and at Kalisch less than eighteen thousand.” He imagined that the war with Russia came about by his will, and the horrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the whole responsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found justification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who perished there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians.

War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy

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hierophantpdx · 8 years ago

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Greetings, fellow devotees. We pray that the wintertides have been treating you well, though we know that for many here in the States, as well as for our fellows abroad, today was something of a somber day, to say the least. Inauguration Day. From the Latin root meaning “augur” and “augury”, in ancient Rome this referred to the practice of consecrating or installing something or someone when the omens were favorable from the gods. In practice this meant taking omens from flights of birds, or perhaps the Etruscan practice of haruspicy, inspecting the entrails of a sacrificial animal for messages from the gods. In these less civilized times, it is up to each of us to seek omens as we will from our various gods, guides, and spirits, though one does wonder what the omens are saying today in Washington, D.C.

All that we can say at this point is that last night the sun set on this country’s first Black president, and now the sun shines upon the presidency of a racist demagogue. And many of our friends and family are angry and frightened: frightened that their healthcare will be taken away; frightened that their marriages will be annulled, their families broken up; frightened that their famlies, friends, and community members may face deportation because they are Latino or Muslim; frightened that hate crimes against our trans* and nonbinary friend and family, against those who are people of color, and those who are of Jewish ancestry will continue to rise from the fascists that our now-president has inspired and emboldened; frightened of the looming prospect of continued warfare, this time of a particularly nuclear variety. And, of course, let us not forget the damage our planet continues to face under the threat of climate change, which our current president denies to be a real problem.

If there’s one thing that is for certain, though, it is that these are uncertain times. If even half of what this president has promised comes to pass, it won’t bode well for our various peoples. But, these things have not yet come to pass, and in uncertainty there is possiblity. That’s why it is more important than ever in these times to be clear in our intentions, to work our magic, and to say our prayers – and then do what we can to ensure these things comes to pass. In that spirit, we’d like to present this offering of a spiritual tool, a rosary for Antinous:

A rosary is an ancient and traditional practice found in Christian and Buddhist communities alike that involves the use of beads to count prayers. You can create a string made of knots or semi-precious stones, or perhaps a simple bowl filled with river or sea stones, one for each prayer. Whatever best fits your means and circumstances. With this Antinoan rosary practice, we recommend three sets of 28 stones, plus four larger stones to stand as ‘spacers’ between each set of prayers as well as an introductory/closing prayer. The 28 beads make up the bulk of the practice, and in number represent the days that make up the lunar cycle, the Moon being particularly associated with Antinous among the heavenly spheres. If one has the means, we might recommend that they be made of lapis lazuli, a stone precious to the land of Antinous’ birth and as blue as the Nile waters. Each of the three spacer beads represents one of the three faces or aspects of Antinous – the Liberator, the Navigator, and the Lover – and the color should reflect that as best as possible. In modern Antinoan cultus, red has represented the Liberator, white the Navigator, and black the Lover, though do feel free to use colors that seem appropriate. A number of us in Naos Antinoou, for instance, have found blue to work quite well for the Lover, making for an unintentionally patriotic look. And then there’s the introductory bead, which begins and closes the full set of prayers – this can be of any color suitable for your rosary.

Once you have your beads assembled into a rosary, you are ready to begin. This practice can be integrated into your regular daily, weekly, or monthly devotionals, or whenever you deem appropriate as circumstances demand. To begin, set your intention: what do you need? What does your family need? Your community? What are you praying for? Once this is clear in your mind and clearly stated before Antinous – he hears the prayers of those who call upon him! – hold that in your prayer and channel it into this rosary.

Intro & Closing

Behold, the Beautiful Boy rises in the East

Ave Ave Antinoe

Haec est unde, haec est unde,

Haec est unde vita venit

[Repeat Latin text 3x]

Chant (28 beads between each spacer)

Beautiful, Just, Benevolent one

Guide and liberate us through your love

Liberator (1st spacer – red stone)

Antinous Liberator

At whose name the gates of the underworld tremble