#pressure to conform

[blatantescapism]

(you can also, if you so choose, be a sweaty horny pastel princess)

(or an asexual dyke)

The point here is that people have picked up some very weird and harmful ideas about sexual attraction and gender presentation,

because our oppressors have learned that they can wield control by using powerful labels like “toxic” and “predatory”.

Assholes have been trying to paint minorities as “predatory” since day fucking 1. This is Not New, but some of y’all younger generations don’t know your history and are repeating patterns we have seen before.

There is nothing inherently predatory or creepy or unnatural about experiencing sexual attraction. What matters is that you treat other people with basic dignity, and that you respect consent.

Thoughts in your head don’t hurt anyone. Feelings in your pants don’t hurt anyone. It’s your actions that matter.

It’s not inherently predatory or creepy or unnatural to express sexual attraction! This is an extremely common part of the human experience! Anything from flirting to fucking can be a safe and positive experience. You just have to gauge how appropriate and welcome your behavior will be beforehand. Make sure everyone is an adult who freely consents. When in doubt, you explicitly ask. If someone indicates that you should stop, you stop. Clear and honest communication is a key part of consent. This also holds true in nonsexual situations!

You with me so far? Okay.

It’s not inherently predatory or creepy or unnatural to express your gender. Everyone has a body, your body is your vehicle on this earth, you deserve to be as comfortable in your body as possible so that you can pilot it to Do Things. If a particular way of decorating your body makes you happy, or makes it easier for you to live your life, or just feels right, then it is good and healthy to do it.

Don’t decorate your body with hate speech, that’s an important rule. Hate speech causes actual harm. If your safety or the safety of others genuinely requires covering certain parts of your body, or wearing certain kinds of specialized gear, you should do so. If your safety or the safety of others genuinely requires temporarily removing or altering something that you normally wear, you should do so. A rule designed to address a genuine safety concern should have obvious practical reasoning behind it.

You have the right to make temporary or permanent changes to your body. If it’s a permanent change, it is good to make sure you are well-informed about options and outcomes, but others should trust that you know what is best for you and your body. After all, you’re the one who has to live in it. From hip replacement to tattoos to gender surgery to getting wisdom teeth out, it is normal and good if a person decides to improve their own quality of life by permanently altering their own body.

Are you still with me?

Within these guidelines, there are SO MANY ways you can express yourself! People can have all kinds of different clothing or body mods or makeup or assistive devices, and that’s really cool! It’s cool when different cultures develop different styles, it’s cool when individuals do completely independent self-expression, it’s cool when people just go for the minimal or practical and it’s cool when people get elaborate with it

but ultimately, the way a person chooses to decorate or alter their own body is their own personal business. And if they’re following reasonable guidelines for practical safety, it does not and cannot cause harm to anyone. It’s just their appearance. The body is the vehicle by which a person interacts with the world. It is a person’s *actions* and *choices* that matter.

YOU CANNOT JUDGE SOMEONE ELSE’S MORAL CHARACTER BASED ON THEIR APPEARANCE.

Our oppressors really, really want to pretend that you can. They invent elaborate justifications for how it totally counts this time, we swear, you can tell that *this* person is a Bad Person just by looking at them! It’s totally okay to label an entire group of people as Gross or Inferior or Predatory, just based on what they look like! Don’t judge people by their actions, judge them by the color of their skin, or how their nose is shaped, or if they choose to wear something that covers their hair!!

Don’t listen to what people tell you about their own genders, their own bodies, their own lived experiences… judge them by how much body hair they have, how thin they are, whether they “look” disabled. Tell them they don’t “count” if they don’t fit a certain narrow range of Acceptable Physical Appearances.

This is how our oppressors control us, by controlling what is Acceptable, by moving the goalposts whenever they like, by spinning a narrative about Us versus Them.

And there is an old, old tactic of saying that only certain forms of sexuality are Acceptable. Everything else is Predatory. You don’t have to ask the people involved if they’re all happy consenting participants… you can tell just by looking at them!!

If you treat other people with basic dignity, and respect consent, and check in with yourself and others to make sure you avoid causing harm, and try to learn and grow from accidents of miscommunication,

If your sexual expression falls within these guidelines, if your relationships fall within these guidelines,

you are NOT a predator.

Some of y’all are so afraid of predators, or of being labeled predatory, that you have been bamboozled into being afraid of even the *appearance* of possibly being *associated* with being predatory.

That’s how the oppressors get you, babes. You get caught in keeping up appearances, and they’re the ones telling you which appearances are Acceptable and which are Signs of the Predator.

If you genuinely want to be a sexless pastel princess holding hands in a field, if you’ve thought about it for yourself and you wholeheartedly choose that for yourself, good! Asexuality is a totally valid and healthy way to be. Pastel colors are pretty, and many people find joy in girly-girl flavors of gender expression.

But if you feel like you *have* to be a perfect pastel field princess because that’s the *only* option that isn’t tainted by evil scary associations, if you think that *looking* virginal and innocent will magically protect you from false accusations or oppression, if you are obsessed with indicating moral purity through appearance,

1.) you’re probably stifling yourself terribly

2.) you are just a step away from being manipulated into believing extremely harmful and incorrect things.

People who “look” innocent can do terrible things. (That’s actually a common tactic of a genuine predator.) People who “look” scary can do good deeds… or bad ones, or neutral ones, the point is that you cannot base your judgement on appearances!

THE ONLY ACCURATE WAY TO JUDGE SOMEONE’S MORAL CHARACTER IS TO EXAMINE THEIR ACTIONS AND CHOICES. And actually talk to them yourself, don’t just swallow what other people tell you!

Y’all we have to stop making eachother feel bad for having sexual attraction. Lesbians are allowed to be horny we don’t have to be sexless pastel princesses holding hands in a field or smth. Be horny, it’s frankly revolutionary to be a sweaty horny dyke.

[marisatomay]

I don’t believe that “iPhone face” is real per se but the sameification of faces across Hollywood in a way that wasn’t medically possible even just 25 years ago very much is

[tiredyke]

tumblr doesn’t even have baby feminism it’s all “men deserve rights too” and “feminism means letting women wear makeup and shave and date men”

[granulesofsand]

It’s getting obvious that some folks are only tolerating their own weirdness because they got locked outside the normalcy gate. We’re not reaching acceptance by trying to climb the fence back in.

[blatantescapism]

Reblogging with @chaoticbooklesbian ‘s tags, image transcription below the readmore:

[Image transcription: “#fat folks have to do gender above and beyond in order to be ‘correct’ #if i want to be feminine i must be hyperfeminine #or femininity is denied to me #if i want to be masculine i must be hypermasculine #or masculinity is denied to me #and i cannot falter in either ever #or it will be revoked #and revoking/denying either does not then grant me androgyny #it just means i am incorrectly feminine or masculine” End ID. /]

interesting how transmascs & transfems alike think losing weight is the answer to pass as our chosen gender.... almost as if fat people are never Truly afforded a passing gender regardless of trans status. as fat people we are never Truly seen as Men or Women. anyway fuck that notion & if u think u need to lose weight to pass that's the devil talking

[transmascutena]

we need to kill the idea that adolescence of utena is "more queer" than the show. i really like the movie, but it engages with the themes of queerness in a much more surface level and shallow way than the show does in my opinion. just because utena and anthy don't literally kiss on screen 5 times doesn't make their relationship or their story any less important or impactful. there is more to queerness than explicit romance, you just think all that matters is whether or not something has "representation" whatever that means. okay good bye.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

it just struck me how my queerness is essentially just me going "hmmm... nah <3"

[abirddogmoment]

Thinking about birds

[etruski]

That transformation video Imane posted made me feel so sad :(

I hope it’s just a temporary thing and she doesn’t actually feel pressured to present more feminine after all this relentless hate.

There’s also something to be said about how it looks slightly ai generated or there’s some weird filter on. People have also been spreading ai pictures of her looking more feminine to prove that she is actually “beautiful” after all and thus, now deserves basic human respect (according to them).

And before anyone says anything, you can see on her social media that she doesn’t present that way in a casual setting, I feel wary of calling it a “masculine” style but it definitely doesn’t involve dresses, long hair and makeup

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

[toytulini]

man the thing about beauty standards and being ugly and being pretty and being insecure is that ultimately you do just kinda have to Decide that youre pretty. like ultimately thats how you become pretty, or hot, or sexy. you have to just Decide that you Are. you have to recognize that its made up, its arbitrary, its subjective, and that people might disagree with you about it, and as much as you are able, you need to completely and utterly disregard their opinions on your appearance, and decide that youre pretty now. and THEN.

you need to find beauty in "ugly". you need to recognize that ugly is made up, that its arbitrary, that its subjective, and you need to be able to find the beauty in it all. and this means you cant bodyshame people. you cant body shame shitty celebs or politicians. you need to base your criticisms on the substance of their character and misdeeds and unhinged horrific opinions and not give a shit about what they look like. you cant go calling people ugly for being shitty. you cant go calling people ugly for looking A Way You Dont Like.

and then if you wanna really galaxy brain this shit you start using ugly as endearment. OBVIOUSLY do not fucking call other human beings ugly. that shit is far too loaded, its just Rude. Dont call specific features of people or even characters ugly cos thats also too loaded. as a term it has baggage. but you can see the ugly in tacky, loud, garish clothing, and it can be Good. you can see the ugly in a distinctive, horrible tiny car from the 90s, and it can be good. you can see the ugly in animals that have evolved to look the way they do, without a single thought of what humans find appealing. you can see the beauty and the freedom in "Ugliness". you can break out of this shit altogether and feel nothing but disdain for anyone who stoops to insulting your appearance if they disagree with you about shit. you can get completely out of the cave of these beauty standards. you can find it so freeing to revel.in letting yourself be ugly. in recognizing that the way you look and exist might be ugly to some people, and youre out of the cave enough to simply recognize. thats just your opinion and it doesnt matter. didnt ask.

you can look at ppl arguing about the correct amount of skincare products to use daily, the Correct Amount of makeup, and whether or not its radical to conform to beauty standards or defy them and argue about is it really conforming if visible makeup pisses men off, and you can say, well I dont care about any of that, I recognize the societal pressures of flawless skin and all that but you see,

I just want to look like a silly little clown :o3

[uncanny-tranny]

On the topic of hormones, I love trans men, transmasculine people, abinary, multigender people, or whomever else who takes estrogen and trans women, transfeminine, abinary, multigender people, or whomever else who takes testosterone.

There is no "right" way to transition. You don't have to be a perfectly binary, gender conforming trans person in order to take hormones. We all have different levels of estrogen and testosterone, and that means women and nonbinary people don't have to have estrogen-dominant systems and men and nonbinary people don't have to have testosterone-dominant systems. Do what sparks joy and if it's shit, hit the bricks!

[fantasykiri5]

Ooh, headcanon: Sklonda was straightening her hair during the freshman and junior year seasons and stopped this year/when she quit the force

[mejomonster]

I need to find someone who worded this better but. This is your friendly reminder that a woman can be as masculine as she wants. A man can be as feminine as he wants. A nonbinary person can be feminine and masculine and androgynous and whatever they want: everyone can! Your expression and appearance and hobbies etc do not have to conform within a box to be allowed to exist, do not have to match those rigid lines of societys expectation of gender roles in any way at all for you to Be the Gender you Are. You are the gender you feel you are. Your expression can be and is whatever you want, and does not have to match up to expectations.

[intrn37]

Is it a coincidence that a large amount of people who have a mental illness turn out to be queer or is it just because OF being queer that people have mental illness?

[chaoticreivingu]

So is nobody going to talk about how lesbian coded Rukia is?

Everytime she interacts with Kaien's wife during the flashback she's always either nervously stuttering(which is pretty uncommon for Rukia) or swooning over her, almost like Miyako was an awakening for her.

The way she looks at Miyako is also pretty different from the way she looked at other people, even during the flashback before the tragedy occured.

Then there's this monologue where she lovingly talks about how Miyako's her idol and how beautiful she is, only being able to gaze in the distance knowing that she's married.

Look how worried and forlorn she is when Miyako gets sent on the Hollow mission, maybe knowing this is the last time she'll ever see her alive.

The way Rukia looks at her in the episode is also the same way she looks at Orihime.

There are a lot of Very Gay™ moments between her and Orihime but it's especially apparent in the novels. The only reason she ever gave Ichigo his powers back is because seeing him depressed made Orihime sad and cry and even at her own wedding preparations she thinks more about Orihime than she does her future beard husband.

Despite proposing to him, she doesn't show much attraction to Renji in the novel or men at all in the anime/manga(she also acts in a more confrontational or dismissive way towards men than she does with women which is a queer coding trope) and even names her own child after Orihime herself.