#here some vent art because i had A MOMENT recently and it was devastating but very inspiring

[phier]

Unending Grief

[gaiatheorist]

“50% Feminine.”

I’m going mad again, I’m listing probable reasons, but going mad isn’t reasonable, it’s something that just happens to me from time to time. This is one of the slow, creepy-uppy episodes, not one of the sudden, explosive ones, possibly less dangerous, but incredibly draining. It’ll pass, it always does, it had better do, it’s bloody horrible.

Standard disclaimer, I am at increased risk of harm, but I have no intent or ideation of deliberately harming myself, apart from drinking too much cheap-and-nasty wine, which is my standard maladaptive coping mechanism.

I woke up at 1.30am, and, after a brief discussion with my wonky brain, acknowledged that I was Awake-awake, and there was no chance of going back to sleep. This will have a knock-on effect for a few days, there’s a fair chance I’ll fall asleep in my dinner, but it’s mostly containable. (The madness, as well as the dinner.) Scrolling through Twitter, to see if I’d ‘missed anything’, I found a link to ‘My Gender Coordinates’, and decided to take the quiz, no better or worse use of my time than a Fakebook quiz to tell me what sort of sandwich, or shoe I am.

There are 35 questions, I can’t remember exactly how they’re worded, but it’s along the lines of “I am...” or “I consider myself...” about various character traits, or behaviours, you ‘answer’ on a sliding scale from double-thumbs-up to double-thumbs-down. There’s a ‘middle’ option, which, when I’m going mad, is always a bit tempting, I’m indifferent, I don’t care much about much when I’m in this state.(Until I do, and get all emotionally peaky, HATING an empty shampoo bottle on the bathroom floor, but refusing to move it, because it’s not mine, or finding myself close to tears because I think I’ve offended someone, and not quite knowing how to check.) 

The ‘results’ come out on a quadrant-graph thingy, Masculine/Androgynous/Undifferentiated/Feminine, I deliberately didn’t look at that first, because I would have skewed my answers, aiming for ‘undifferentiated’, I’m awkward like that. My results were that I ‘fall between quadrants’, no big surprise there, my dot was bang on the line between ‘masculine’ and ‘androgynous’, all in the top half of the square, ‘68.3% Masculine, 50% Feminine’, I don’t know how that works, it’s numbers, and maths and stuff, and my brain doesn’t work like that. (Haha, because I’m a girl, and girls are better at biology than physics. Bullshit.) 

What does it mean? In all likelihood, nothing, it does look kind-of scientific, which is why I answered all of the questions, instead of giving up at the first hint of a cartoon dinosaur, or a ‘pick which colour-scheme appeals to you’. (Cartoon dinosaurs are my new pet hate, I’ve recently had to wade back through the clip-art infested worksheets from the last mental health course, and I’m fairly certain I’ve imagined a cartoon dinosaur, but that’s a tangent I’ll try to avoid.) I have strong opinions on the concept of gender, for however-many years I’ve been writing on here, I’ve identified as ‘meat no-one eats’, my biological sex is female, and my uterus is certainly reminding me of that fact this week. My gender? Human. Probably. 

“Identified as”, how very modern, it’s not ‘really’ a new thing, to me, or the world, what I’m trying to do here is type out a safe-release, to vent, I suppose it all boils down to my resentment of being ‘told’. There are vague childhood memories of being told “Ladies do/don’t do...”, and I have a ridiculous rage-bubble of “Yes, and sloths poo once a week, what’s your point?”, too late one thinks of what one might have said. I’m no more a lady than I am a sloth, I’m probably leaning more towards sloth at the moment, I’m overdue a bath.

Working through the statement-ratings, I noticed I was pulling a face at some of them. All of them, to be honest, which surprised me, because, with a diagnosis of autism, there’s the preconception that my response would be binary-linear, black-or-white, always/never. It wasn’t, my response was invariably “That’s a stupid question.”, and they weren’t questions, for every single statement, I decided “Unable to answer without context.”, and had to imagine a scenario to contextualise “I am generous” or “I am decisive”, or whatever. ( I *am* decisive, given sufficient context.) I need to watch that I don’t fall into a psychopath/sociopath rabbit-hole here, my sometimes-linear approach could be viewed as psychopathic, and my bending/masking could fit a sociopathic profile. Too many personality quizzes in my teen-girl magazines, and an on-going desire to name and categorize things.

I was pulling a face at the statements that are usually associated with the concept of femininity, there really isn’t a male-brain/female-brain. (All brains smell horrible, I have smelled my own brain, wasn’t pleasant.) There are some biological differences, most notably the reproductive bits, but not really a great deal else, the ex used to say that humans were evolving to be more androgynous, but I see now that he was trying to justify the societally-imposed feelings of inadequacy that I was as tall as him, with more body-hair. He ascribed to the concept of androgyny when it suited him, lauding Bowie in public, and insisting I was ‘better’ at housework in private. A product of his upbringing, but deeply coercive-toxic. He enjoyed my androgynous-atypical nature up to a point, I was a trophy in more ways than just my long legs and pretty mouth, I confused the hell out of his ‘traditional’ family, though. 

The statements that made me screw up my face could have been coloured pink, they were the ones that ‘ladies do’, some, I consciously, deliberately-don’t, and some are just a natural hard-no, nature vs nurture in evidence. I have learned behaviours, and innate, natural tendencies, there was a bit of a domestic issue the other day when I noted my son being manipulative, and destroyed-devastated myself wondering if he’d learned-observed that from me.  I don’t think so, my avoidance-behaviours are quite different. I was pulling faces at the stereotypical ‘female’ traits, initially an “Ew, no, I don’t do that!” response, but, as I realised I was doing it, I wondered WHY I was repulsed. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with being kind/sensitive/compassionate, they’re human responses, not ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’, but even the quiz itself refers to them as  “Traits commonly found in people of the ... gender.” (Androgynous is referred to as high in male- and female-typical traits, undifferentiated as low in both.) Commonly, not exclusively.

Part of the issue is that I associate femininity with vulnerability and weakness. I choose not to ‘present as’ female most of the time, my sex usually isn’t obvious until people get close, and I don’t let many people get that close. (Even before the virus-distancing.) There are ‘historical and complicating factors’ behind some of that, but there’s also the gender-conditioning I grew up with, girls-should, and boys-should, I didn’t have particularly positive experiences or role-models, but, even aside from that, the general concensus was that male was stronger, better, more important, female was secondary and subservient. To do something ‘like a girl’ was an insult, but, by the same token, I was often criticised for not being ‘girly’, ever the outlier. I’m wondering how much of the non-femininity is reactive-protective, how much could be part of the autism, and how much is just ‘how I am’? 

Girly-females irritate me, vacuous conversations, hair-and-make-up, dependence on others, incessant diets and fads, I don’t ‘get’ any of it, and I don’t buy into it, I don’t see why I should, just because my genitals are in the more difficult-to-kick arrangement. (True to form, my son has more make-up and hair-stuff than I do, I can’t remember how he referred to my presentation a few weeks ago, but it might have involved goblins, and a bin.) Occasionally, people tell me I could be attractive if I made an effort, my go-to response is “What for?”, I do generally look as if I live in a tree, it doesn’t bother me. That’s not wholly a girl-thing or a boy-thing, I do know some very well-presented people of both flavours, but I’ve genuinely never overheard a group of men discussing razor-blades or underpants the way I’ve heard gaggles of women banging on about make-up and such. 

Women who talk in baby-voices, women who giggle and simper around men, women who don’t even try to pick things up themselves, I think what I’m saying is that I don’t like women who ‘act as’ women, and it is an act, my mother’s phone-laugh used to make me want to scream. 

Before I became annoyed at myself for placing more value on the traits more commonly associated with masculinity than femininity, I’d had a mini-argument with myself that it was impossible to rate any of the statements objectively. Am I kind? It depends on the situation, last week I helped a little old lady sort out a mis-delivered parcel, but the week before that, I’d sped up my walking pace, so I could get into the corner shop before the person behind me, it might have been the same little old lady, I wasn’t paying attention. I’d viewed the thumbs-rating as a never-always continuum, so, technically, all of the responses ‘should’ have been middle-option, for ‘sometimes’. (There might have been an explanation in the site somewhere, it was daft o’clock in the morning.) For each behaviour, I was thinking of a situation, which was wrong, I think I should have been rating least-likely to most-likely. The situation has an influence on the behaviour, if I had friends, I’d behave differently with them to the way I’d behave with a doctor, or a manager, or my son, and even that behaviour would depend on multiple external factors, it wouldn’t be static-consistent, it would be dynamic. We all do it, we’re socially conditioned to behave according to audience and environment.

I didn’t go to finishing school, I didn’t even go to university, there were no elocution or deportment classes at my rough-as-arseholes comprehensive school, and most of my childhood meals at home were eaten from a plate on my knee, on the sofa, in front of the TV. There were still expectations, though. Standing up if a teacher came into the classroom, not interrupting an adult speaking, letting elderly or otherwise infirm people on the bus first. I don’t remember my brother being given as many instructions as I was, though, and I think that was more to do with me being a girl than being two and a half years older, he did pretty much as he pleased, and was a ‘rascal’, or a ‘scamp’, whereas I was told to sit down (nicely), be quiet, smile, be helpful etc long before the wear a bra, brush your hair, show a bit of leg nonsense started. 

I’m fairly certain that the gender-specific conditioning is part of the reason my autism wasn’t diagnosed until I was 42. I’d had expectations drummed, and sometimes beaten into me all my life, everything was already an act, a performance, so I just assumed everyone else was ‘faking it’ all the time, over-riding gut-instinct on everything, and acting according to these confusing social scripts. The “What for?” streak in me is problematic for other people, I’m viewed as difficult, challenging, sometimes plain rude, and overly bold ‘for a woman’. I don’t speak much, but, when I do, I make it count, I’m tenacious and determined, and, most of the time, completely exhausted trying to remember and correctly apply rules and boundaries, scripts I don’t understand the reasoning behind, and constantly-consistently assess environments and audiences, to avoid ‘getting it wrong’. 

I am blunt at times. I can be articulate and eloquent, but sometimes a situation demands just-enough information to convey the salient point. I don’t tend to ‘waste words’, and am frustrated when people fanny about with “Does that make sense?” and “This might sound silly, but...” Anecdotally, I hear that from women more than men, we’re discouraged from being too much to-the-point, to go the long way around things, instead of straight at them, and to check for reassurance. I speak ‘like a man’, it’s more efficient. (”Does everyone understand what they are to do?” was my preferred meeting-closing-statement, I’m brutal.) 

I sometimes see the reverse-of-me in my son, he isn’t the least bit blunt or brutal most of the time. (He did shout “Stop it!” at me quite forcefully one day last week when I was having a meltdown after getting bin-juice on my face. He saves his command-voice for emergencies.) He ties himself in knots about communicating with people, and avoids most conversation, although he’ll babble incessantly to himself to process thoughts and ideas. (I have sores inside my ears that won’t heal, because I keep putting my earphones in to drown out his waffling about D&D plots and such.) He’s nervous-anxious where I’m bold, he’s scared of a million things that I’m not in the least bit concerned by, but then, I am an idiot. Biological sex is not gender, but neither of us are really binary-gendered. (I’m not going to suggest he does the quiz, he’s so incredibly indecisive it would melt his brain.) I never conditioned him ‘male’, he’s always just been another human to me, but he has had conflicting messages from his Dad’s side of the family, boys-don’t-cry, come-and-kick-this-ball, look-at-the-tits-on-that, and the girly-girl aunts and cousins. Confusing times, but he has referred to himself as a pan-sexual trans-humanist, and I don’t really know what that is. (He hasn’t asked me to use different pronouns, or a different name, so he’s still ‘him’.) 

I’m rambling. I’ve been pecking away at this for hours, but I do feel a little more settled for doing it. I didn’t go off on as many ranty tangents as I thought I might, which is reassuring, this episode of going mad has been mostly-irritable, and I don’t like it. Catch-22, there, as a female, I’m ‘supposed to’ be all pink and fluffy, and nice, but the lazy stereotype of a woman can also be a nagging old harridan, I’m straddling that line as well as the line between quadrants on the quiz. I bet you 10p that if I did the quiz again, I’d be able to skew the answers to place the dot dead-centre in the grid, but I might blow up the internet if I did that, and imagine the mess that would make.          

[rutilation]

This chapter mostly serves to transition into whatever’s coming next, which is lucky because I’m up to my eyeballs in finals this month.  As such, my thoughts on this chapter are a bit on the short side.

As others have pointed out, the leaf emerging from Phos’s neck is that of the bodhi tree.  Like the lotus, it is a plant of great symbolic importance in Buddhism, representing enlightenment.  Needless to say, it’s a bit of an odd symbol to use when Phos is currently the exact opposite of enlightened.  But, the thing that I find truly curious about its use isn’t the irony being deployed—that’s par for the course in this series, but rather the timing.  Take the use of the lotus as it applies to Phos, for example.  While it was also used somewhat ironically in that Phos’s change didn’t herald any sort of wisdom or serenity, it did clearly delineate a phase in Phos’s life, one where they sought that which the lotus symbolized.  But, Phos hasn’t changed at all from the last time their alloy decided to be symbolic a mere two chapters ago.  Why not just keep using the empty seedpod?  What is the impetus behind bringing up this new symbol?

One possibility that comes to my mind is that in the legend associated the bodhi tree, the Buddha had to sit under it for 49 days before he came to his revelation.  Perhaps then, the appearance of the bodhi leaf is foreshadowing a change to come, rather than embodying a change that has just happened.  Furthermore, if this illustration is indeed supposed to conjure the image of an umbilical cord, then that would also support the idea that Phos is in a state of limbo.

Cairn is being a total dick, but they are picking up on something here: Phos is repeating their actions from chapter 66, right down to forcing an unwilling party to come along on a hastily considered attack on earth—although I guess this time it’s Alex doing the forcing, but Phos would probably just heckle them about Nepti until they agreed to go along if Alex hadn’t done so first.  It’s like the story is stuck in a timeless hell wherein these tragedies repeat themselves, becoming more terrible with each consecutive revolution—no doubt a sentiment that Ichikawa is deliberately trying to evoke.

Of course, what Cairn either doesn’t realize or refuses to acknowledge is that Phos did make a sincere attempt follow their advice, and was harshly punished for it.  In addition, there’s also the fact that Cairngorm has also failed to change—it just hasn’t come crashing down on them quite yet.  It seems to me that the moment where Cairn almost blows Aechmea’s cover serves as a reminder that their own turn through the meat grinder is coming soon.

I don’t have much to say about Alex’s musings this chapter; I think it mostly exists in service of making the subtext of this past arc into explicit text.  Though it does also jive with an observation I had earlier, about how the gems don’t handle grief or nuanced emotions well.  It seemingly doesn’t occur to Alex that they can in any way honor Chrysoberyl’s memory while at the same time revising their opinion on the Lunarians.  In their eyes, either the Lunarians are evil, inhuman monsters and Chrysoberyl is a dear partner whose loss was a devastating tragedy, or the Lunarians are just normal people with understandable motivations and Chrysoberyl never mattered and their grief was a waste of time.  

I’m also not surprised that Dia is being a bit vicious.  They’ve been stewing in their bitterness without truly overcoming it since chapter 3, they were the first one to use that reoccurring phrase “If only (they) were never here,” and as I said in my essay for the last chapter, mere escapism was never going to solve their problems.  I’m eager to see how this pans out, as I’ve been waiting to see how Dia’s arc culminates for quite some time.

For all that I’m unsurprised by the details of this chapter, it’s disheartening that no one present can be bothered to try and derail the obvious and incoming tragedy train.  No one is trying to snap Phos out of it, and no one seems to care about what happens to the gems on earth.  84 is put off when Phos says they shouldn’t bother reviving the dusted gems, and Alex feels a little guilty about sitting on their thumbs while Phos suffered, but that’s about it.

I’m going to vent a little here: I have to wonder, what is the point of the story becoming so mean-spirited?  Why spend years painstakingly endearing the audience to this cast of characters, only to spend around twenty chapters destroying every ounce of that good will, to such an extent that (from what I’ve observed) a huge chunk of the remaining audience is cheering Phos on in their quest to kill everyone?

Is the cast ever going to reckon their complacency and casual cruelty, or are they only here to be punished for it with misery and death?  Have any of my thoughts on Cairngorm been accurate, or have I been spinning elaborate fanfiction to create space for sympathy that simply does not exist within the text?  And at the end of all this, will I find something meaningful in the unrelenting dirge the series has become?  I genuinely don’t know.  

To be clear, I don’t dislike tragedy.  In fact, I’d say I’m drawn to it more often than not.  But, if there’s one thing that consistently causes me to disengage emotionally with a work, it’s those times when I get the impression that the author holds their characters in contempt.  There’s plenty of good, important art that falls under that purview, but even when I find such works interesting or insightful, I don’t come to cherish them, and I don’t relish in spending time with them.  

So, what to do when encountering a work that spends sixty chapters as an exercise in quiet moments, in clumsy yet earnest attempts at empathy, and in dealing with grief, only to spend the most recent twenty as misery porn?  It’s a baffling experience, to say the least, but I guess my answer right now is to power through it, and hope to walk away from the ending with something valuable enough to be worth the trouble.  Certainly, none of Ichikawa’s other works wallowed in cruelty, even those that leaned towards horror or tragedy.  So, I’d like to have faith that the current tone of the story isn’t the note it will end on.

Thus, I’m still invested in seeing this through to the end.  This story is a complex and challenging beast that I want to understand, and god knows I don’t want to be the sort of philistine who pitches a fit every time they encounter a work of art that isn’t feel-good and life-affirming.  But it still grates on me a bit.

My little crisis of faith aside, I’m curious as to how this anti-mercury coating is going to work?  While it might protect the other three just fine, it doesn’t seem like a protective coating would be much use for Phos’s alloy, which is precisely the part of them that would be most vulnerable to Cinnabar’s mercury.  Can’t wait to see how that hashes out.  And by “can’t wait” I mean I’m dreading it.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

...So, I’m going to try tackling Inktober this year.

But I want to do an Art Review thing from the past... three, four. maybe even five years, because that was about the time I moved and didn’t have a scanner. And then had a ob and no time to draw. And them the family gave me the scanner but the cord was sparking. So I had to buy a new one (Which didn’t work), then had to borrow the roommate’s (who was a dick about it), and it just...

...ugh.

I have to go to the library to scan some bus passes anyways, so I wanted to go and scan my art while I was there. (I’ve..... gotten to the point of self-security in my art that I realized, I’m okay with taking the risk of someone glimpsing my pictures. As long as it’s the ones I’m okay with showing.) ...at least, on a good day;; And at a library? Who’s going to be looking, anyways?

But, here’s he catch. ;; i’ve..... kinda............ lost the 17, 20, 25 most.... recent, images...... ;;;; 

I’m fairly (questionably?) certain I put them in a folder somewhere. But, I don’t remember which folder, and I really don’t remember where I put it. And my room is currently... freaking paper purgatory.

So to entertain myself until I can finally fall asleep, I’m making a list of all the ones I can remember drawing that I don’t have right now.

~ Initial Justice League vs. Teen Titans fanart~ The things I drew of Raven when only the trailer was out and redesigned a concept for Dove’s hero outfit in the ‘verse, and the way I redesigned Dove’s casual wear soon after the movie was released.

~ Dove in meditation after DDD, working to rebuild her inner being, rediscover the Peace which is such an integral and necessary part of her, and building what she remembers of Azarath into her mindscape....

~ Lapis pictures? Just, all of them? The standing first-ever, the flying free, the feather-hair, the random lapidot moment, the ideas for crossovers with Dove.

~ Tiny Malachite tank design!

~ vents with Leyla suffering, x2. (And broken-heart vents, but I’m not so sure those count.)

~ Lapis laz’i? ?? ??? (but that one’s a little... personal, and i’m not sure if i should..... share her............)

~ “When It Rains” - Self-indulgent crossover between my OCs and Lapidot, because I just imagined Peridot being freaked out by Thunder, and Dove is too, so I drew Srentha comforting Dove and Leyla being uneasy and curious about These New People (who I’ve rp-cros’ed over already), and Lapis is writing “It’s okay eridot” in rainwater on the window.....

~ All the planned-but-not-quite-finished Pokemon team shots? (Really nicely composed tbh! but ADD = didn’t finish them;; )

~ Actually, that’s all I want to list because I want to give the search one last attempt before bed.

(I currently have found, in my art box where they’re supposed to be: the Evangeline picture I recently drew, my bus-stop doodles of Sucy /Blue Diamond /murkrow /Happy Eclipse, my experiment with Prisma markers for testing color placement, I never shared the earliest RWT creature with the wings so I thought I’d scan that if there’s a scanner bed big enough, half-finished layout doodles of Dove in a church pre-Titans, and the basic composition concept for a picture detailing The Vision (the really long, terrible, vivid decimating devastating vision of what it would be like to stay and see and feel and experience the destruction of Azrath and her mother and her home... and feel Trigon’s presence the entire time until it inevitably sought her out and claimed her and there would be absolutely nothing her mother could do to stop him........)

So, there are a FEW I still have. But for some reason, the ones that are MOST important to me, that I Was most eager to share, are currently MIA......

[hoshvilim]

The IsraelandYou Blog is usually centered on our only Jewish State (unless you consider the Igbo Jews of Biafra, Nigeria as the second Jewish state). Having just returned from a lovely vacation in Sorrento, Italy, I must share with you, dear readers, the existence of Jewish graffiti in reaction to the erotic frescos in the ruins of ancient Pompeii. [Please note that photos of the erotic frescos of Pompeii have not been posted, however if you are curious there is a YouTube link.]

Where is Pompeii?

Pompeii was an ancient Roman city near modern Naples in the Campania region of Italy – home to approximately 11,500 people . The city began to serve as a safe port as early as Greek and Phoenician sailors arrived. In time, the town became an important passage for goods that arrived by sea and had to be sent toward Rome or southern Italy along the nearby Appian Way.

Pompeii – a city of tragedies

On 5 February 62 CE a severe earthquake severely damaged the bay of Sorrento and particularly to Pompeii. That the earthquake would have registered between about 5 and 6 on the Richter magnitude scale.

A wall painting in the House of the Centenary features the earliest known representation of Vesuvius

Only 17 years later, Pompeii, along with Herculaneum (Ercolano), was buried under 4 to 6 m (in an area of 688,000 square meters) of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. Pompeii is about 8 km  from Mount Vesuvius. There were 250 °C hot surges (pyroclastic flows) at a distance of 10 kilometres from the vent which were sufficient to cause instant death, even if people were sheltered within buildings. Many structures were being restored at the time of the eruption (presumably damaged during the earthquake of 62). The site was eventually lost until its rediscovery by Spanish engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre in 1748. The city has been largely preserved because of lack of air and moisture.

Plaster Casts of Pompeii

Many of the inhabitants were also buried before they could escape. During excavations liquid plaster was used to fill the voids in the ash that once held human and animal bodies, giving often gruesome images of their last moments.

Prostitution in Pompeii

Didn’t I mention that Pompeii was a sea port? What do sailors look for after a long voyage? You guessed it. A modern visitor to Pompeii doesn’t have to look very hard to see evidence of the moral climate of the city. Up to several dozen buildings have been identified as likely houses of prostitution. Some, due to the explicit wall paintings and graffiti found in them, leave no doubt as to their purpose. Voyeurism has help fuel the tourist industry here for hundreds of years.

Erotic Frescos from Pompeii:https://youtu.be/eWgvlvg-NKU

Even in private homes, wall paintings (frescos/murals) and mosaics depict all kinds of sexual activity, and many common household objects such as lamps, dishes, vases and fountains have been found with sexual motifs. Recent excavations at one of Pompeii’s public baths indicate that one floor of the structure may have been a brothel.

Secluded rooms were decorated with explicit scenes of female-male intercourse, functioned as a private “sex club.” Guests would have entered the smaller, more private atrium, then passed down a corridor and through a triclinium and antechamber to reach it. A few similar rooms in Pompeiian houses suggest that the intention was to create the ambience of a brothel in a home, for parties at which participants played the roles of prostitute or client, or for which actual prostitutes were hired to entertain guests. A small opening oddly positioned in the wall may have been an aperture for voyeurism.

There was an early discovery of erotic art in a brothel at Pompeii. In the late nineteenth century a fresco depicting Priapus, the Greek god of fertility, complete with enlarged phallus was unearthed in the foyer of a villa belonging to two freedmen.

Oversized representations of sex organs can be found built into the walls facing some streets, and in at least one case carved right in the street itself.

Sodom and Gomorrah in Pompeii – Jewish Graffiti

One Jewish visitor or citizen of ancient Pompeii scribbled “Sodom and Gomorrah” on one of the city’s buried walls in a house in an area of Pompeii designated today as Region 9, Insula 1, House 26. On the wall of House 26, an ancient observer, viewing the aftermath of the eruption (or describing local prostitution before the eruption), scratched the words “Sodom and Gomor[rah]”—a poignant Biblical reference to God’s vengeance on the two sinful cities of Genesis 19. The barely visible inscription, which is now in the Naples Archaeological Museum, is also evidence the it is almost certain there were some Jewish individuals, perhaps a fully fledged Jewish community in Pompeii, that perished along with the city’s gentiles. A vase with what some believe is an ancient kashrut stamp has been found in the famous ruins.

For Jews, it is easy to imagine how news of the catastrophe at Pompeii would have been greeted with joy in light of the devastating defeat they had suffered only a few years earlier. Jews have been labelling the disaster divine justice for nearly two millennia. Only nine years before the eruption of Vesuvius, the Romans had sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. For some Jews, Vesuvius was divine justice.

Where there Christians in Pompeii?

There is some evidence for Christians in Pompeii, including some rather lewd bathroom graffiti about a woman named Mary, but nothing conclusive. The presence of Christians would be a remarkable discovery because it would provide material the existence of Christianity as a religion distinct from Judaism in the late 70s. But so far the idea is just artistic invention, such as Bulwer-Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii, which casts Christians as a small moral minority that survived the disaster precisely because they were so pious.

Pompeii Erotic Art in the Naples Archaeological Museum

The inscription “Sodom and Gomorrah”wall engraving itself is in the stores of the Naples Archaeological Museum. Unfortunately, it is nearly illegible at this time.

However a large number of erotic artefacts from the buried cities are preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. It is almost humorous to learn that in 1819, King Francis visited the Pompeii exhibition with his wife and daughter. He was so embarrassed by the erotic artwork that he decided to have it locked away in a so-called “secret cabinet” (gabinetto segreto), accessible only to “people of mature age and respected morals”. The secret cabinet was re-opened, closed, re-opened again and then closed again for nearly 100 years, the Naples “Secret Museum”. It was briefly made accessible again at the time of the sexual revolution toward the end of the 1960s.  The secret cabinet was finally re-opened for viewing in 2000. Minors are still allowed entry only in the presence of a guardian or with written permission.

Explicit Graffiti from Pompeii

To view ״Explicit Graffiti from Pompeii״https://youtu.be/ANdKAwpOFX8

  Bibliography

https://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/the-day-the-world-ended-lessons-from-pompeii

The Destruction of Pompeii – G-D’s Revenge

Jewish Graffiti in Pompeii The IsraelandYou Blog is usually centered on our only Jewish State (unless you consider the Igbo Jews of Biafra…

[adventureswithblues]

Unexpected love and heartbreak: My story as the sideguy

****This is a first for me. I've never really written a rant like this or what have you. And I don't even know if this is a rant so much as it's a unfiltered vent and recollection of my recent experiences. It's been really hard to talk to my friends about any of this, and only a hand full of them know the unadulterated truth of it all. But with that being said I just know deep down that I have to get this all out. Also, Names have been changed as to avoid any issues**** So where do I properly begin? Well for the sake of the story let's start with and introduction. Let's start by saying were going to call myself Ian. I'm 31 years old, and for almost 4 years I was living in Buffalo. I moved out there all on my own, not really knowing many people other then a hand full of people I knew from back home from Rochester who had moved there before me. Life there was alright, slow starting when it came to having a social life, but I started meeting people, going out, dating here or there. I really enjoyed myself. But I think everything changed my last 8 months there. I was on a bit of a high note in life close to my 30th birthday. I had a Job I liked, an awesome house of roommates, I was working on my art, I had been dating a lot more, things were good. The week of my 30th birthday was amazing and fun and every night was a different celebration or activity. The final night we had a party at my house. A bunch of people came out and I was all over thee place trying to socialize with everyone. My one friend Ahmed brought a couple of girls with him and one of them was Gina. Gina was kind of quite, very cute, glasses and a very friendly face. We made eye contact a bit but we never really talked too much. I ended up pretty drunk so I don't really remember how the night ended, but the next morning Gina was on my mind. For the life of me I can't remember if it was her or me, but one of us friended the other on Facebook along with her friend Stacy. Now Stacy had friend reaching out to me a bit, but she used to date a friend of mine and I heard horror stories so I kept a little distance. One night a few weeks after my party it was Stacys birthday and she was trying to get me to come out to the bar. I was playing with the idea cause all my roommates were out and I was just at the house bored. I was just about to say forget it and stay in when Gina messaged me telling me to come out. So I got myself together and headed out to meet up with them. When I got to the bar the only people I knew were Stacy and Gina. I was pretty shy, which I usually am at first. Stacy was flirting a little, but Gina took to latching on to me for most of the night. Buying me drinks and taking pictures with me. By the end of the night I thought maybe we could go back to my place, but Stacy got too drunk and we had to carry her home. The next day me and Gina started talking a bunch. She came over to my house to hangout a few times when we had a bunch of people over. We flirted a bunch but that was it. Then Ginas birthday came. She naturally invited me out. So I got myself all nice and dressed up, head to the bar and when I get there Gina introduces me to everyone. Including her boyfriend of 3 years. I was upset. And a little hurt. She had failed to mention that to me and I felt like a fool. I tried to leave out of awkwardness but Stacey and Ginas other friend Jen kept trying to get me to stay. Finally I made the excuse that I needed food so I could leave, but Jen grabbed Gina and told me they wanted food too. Gina said goodbye to her boyfriend and they joined me. While we were waiting for food, Gina in her drunkenness started to feel on me and grab me crotch. She started kissing on my neck. She finally put her hand down my pants and I had to pull away. I made an excuse to leave to smoke a cig. The food was ready, I got mine and went home. I was frustrated. I wanted let myself do more with her but I couldn't do that when she was in a relationship. I had been cheated on before twice and I couldn't put someone else in that spot that had hurt me in the past. A few days went by, and I talked to Gina assuming she didn't remember anything, which she claimed. I kind of explained it a little, and told her that I didn't want to start any issues. She told me she gets that way when she's drunk but that she appreciated that I didn't try to take advantage. As the weeks went on we continued to hang out, trying out hardest to be just friends. Which we actually made really good friends. We started to trust each other a lot. But the flirting didn't stop. One night we were play fighting, she tried tackling me and we fell over my couch. We had a moment of silence, then we kissed. She looked me in the eyes and said, "I was wondering how long it would take you to kiss me." The next few times we hung out we would make out. Things quickly escalated and we ended up hooking up. I felt horrible about it. It went against my morals. Against who I was. So I tried to talk about it with her but I never got a clear answer to things. First it was she doesn't fully believe in monogamy. Then it was her boyfriend knows some things that we've done. Then she started acting like she was trying to hid it all. I was foolish to let it go on, but I couldn't stop. Gina had a hold on me. And it was nice. We had established that we were just friends with benefits. Gina even went on to say she wasn't planning on leaving her boyfriend. And for a time I was ok with that for some reason. It didn't matter cause I enjoyed everything we had. But things grew more intense and deep with us. And it really wasn't a secret to anyone other then Ginas boyfriend. To all our friends me and Gina were basically dating. One night during pillow talk, I slipped up and told her I loved her. I did explain that I didn't know exactly what that love meant but that I did love her. A few nights later she told me she loved me. It rocked my world. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with that info. It only grew more complicated when in another round of pillow talk she told me that if she left her boyfriend for me then she'd probably would have to come live with me. I was so cloudy minded about it all it started to effect my every moment. During this time I ended up getting screwed over and lost my job. I was having trouble finding work anywhere and it got to the point that I couldn't afford my room anymore at my house. This had me to the point where I was about to move back to Rochester. But if I wanted to stay I was gonna have to buy time. I wasn't ready to give up so I did the one most degrading thing I could. I stayed with Gina and her boyfriend on their couch. I was at the lowest place in my life and in the most awkward situation. I felt degraded. Maybe it was my punishment for taking part in this affair. Maybe I deserved to reach that low depression. But was I so wrong for loving someone? A month went by and I couldn't find work. I had to make the call and I moved back to Rochester. The last night I was in Buffalo, me and Gina went out. We had an amazing night and passionately made love one final time. She drove me to Rochester the next day and we had our tearful goodbye. The next month was hard. I missed her everyday. We would text and snapchat back and forth. Every now and then sexting and sharing how much we missed each other. Finally she came out to visit for a weekend. We went out with a bunch of my friends and had an ok night but I noticed something was off. I pulled her aside and she started to tell me how hard it is for her to not talk about her boyfriend. I knew at that moment I had to end it. So I told her we should end it. We put on an act with everyone else like everything was ok, but inside I was broken. The next day we argued. She ended up leaving without even really talking about it. I was devastated because I was going to ask her that weekend to move to Rochester to be with me. It was stupid. I don't know how or why I believed that was a good idea and would work. But I did. I tried to keep in touch with her since I told her I'd always be a friend for her, but that was self punishment. She would talk about her boyfriend, about how they were gonna buy a house together and they were talking about kids names. It was torture. I had to cut her out completely at that point, which she went to great lengths to make me feel horrible about. It's been months since it happened but it still hurts. Not all the time, but anytime I see a show we used to watch together, or hear a song I know she loved, everything keeps rushing back to me. I remember that even though she hurt me, she was also the person who came to know me more then any other person has or will. She made me feel love and hope after losing that a long time ago. So my question is, where do I go from here now that I've lost that again. I don't know that anyone has an answer, but I can't let go of that question. I guess to sum this up, I really don't have a purpose in sharing this, other then finally saying my piece. If there is one thing I know though..... I don't regret the relationship, cause maybe in another world, in some alternate reality we could of been together. I just regret that I went against who I was to have momentary happiness. So if you find yourself in a similar situation, just really ask if it's worth it, and if it is, just be prepared for whatever outcome occurs.