#same sex activity

[oh-dear-so-queer]

In the 1890s, Oscar Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, characterized homosexuality as "the Love that dare not speak its name", referring to the silence and stigma surrounding disclosure of homosexual interests and discussion of same-sex activities.

"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" - Bruce Bagemihl

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Among African Elephants, same-sex activity – which often takes place at or in watering holes – may be preceded by a great deal of caressing and affectionate behaviors.

A male African Elephant mounting another male

"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" - Bruce Bagemihl

[tenth-sentence]

In contrast, two species for which detailed quantitative information is available show nearly identical rates of same-sex activity in the wild versus captivity: in Bonobos, studies of wild animals have revealed that 45-46 percent of all sexual activity is homosexual, while a captive study yielded a figure of 49 percent; in Black Swans, one investigator found that 5 percent of captive pairs were homosexual, while 6 percent of wild ones were.⁹⁸

98. Bonobo, wild (Kano 1992:187 [table 24], 140; Kitamura 1989:53, 55-57, 61); Bonobo, captive (de Waal 1995:41 [table 3.1]); Black Swan (Braithwaite 1981:141-42). Five other species for which the relevant quantitative information is available are Pig-tailed, Crested Black, and Stumptail Macaques, Common Chimpanzees, and Vervets. Although the wild (or semi-wild) and captive figures in these cases are more difficult to compare (due to differences in group size and composition, observed behaviors, length of study periods, etc.), they also generally show fairly comparable rates. For Pig-tailed Macaques in the wild, 7-23 percent of mounting is same-sex, compared to about 25 percent in captivity (rates in the wild based on information in Oi 1990a:350-1 [including table IV], Oi 1996:345, and Bernstein 1967:226-27; captivity �� Tokuda et al. 1968:287, 291 [table 7]). Among captive Crested Black Macaques, about 5 percent of mounting is between males (Dixson 1977:74, 77), compared to an estimated 8 percent in the wild (C. Reed, personal communication; figures for both of these species combine "copulatory" with "noncopulatory" mounts). However, another study (Bernstein 1970:94 [table IV]) yielded a much higher rate of same-sex mountings in captivity for these species – 49 percent for Pigtails, 22 percent for Crested Blacks – demonstrating that there can be considerable differences between individual studies and/or populations (see also Bernstein [1967:228] for more on wild/captive comparisons in Pigtails). In Stumptail Macaques, 25 percent of sexual interactions (of all types) in captivity are homosexual (Chevalier-Skolnikoff 1974:100-101, 110), compared to 30-40 percent for mounting in a semi-wild troop (formerly captive animals that were transplanted and released) (Estrada et al. 1977:667 [fig. 14]; Estrada and Estrada 1978:672 [table 4]). In Common Chimpanzees, same-sex mounting actually occurs more frequently in the wild: de Waal and van Hooff (1981:182 [table 2]) found that mounting between males in captivity constitutes only 1-2 percent of the behaviors involved in reassurance, enlistment of support, and other activities during conflicts, while Nishida and Hosaka (1996:120-21 [tables 9.5-9.6]) found that mounting accounts for one-third to one-half of such behaviors in wild Chimps. Likewise, Bernstein (1970:94 [table IV]) found that 9 percent of mounting activity in captive Vervets is same-sex, while Gartlan (1969:144, 146) and Struhsaker (1967:21, 27 [tables 8, 10]) both recorded 11 percent same-sex mounting in the wild. Rowell (1967b) also conducted a detailed quantitative comparison of behavioral frequency rates in the wild and captivity among Savanna (Olive) Baboons; unfortunately, mounting (and other sexual-behavior) rates between males in the wild could not be compared to rates in captivity because males were too aggressive to be kept together in captivity. On a related point, Rasa (1979b:321) found no substantial differences in Dwarf Mongoose same-sex (and opposite-sex) mounting rates when their behavior in crowded versus noncrowded captive conditions was compared (based on controlled observational regimes). Likewise, Heg and van Treuren (1998:689-90) did not find significantly higher rates of homosexual bonding (in the form of bisexual trios) when population densities increased among wild Oystercatchers.

"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" - Bruce Bagemihl

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

main take aways from Halloween (1978) rewatch:

michael myers is canonically 21??? this bitch should be at the club

*sees tiddies* ***MURDEROUS RAMPAGE NOISES***

that's it that's the movie

outside of the fact that everyone who has sex is murdered by the narrative, this is a surprisingly chill portrayal of female sexuality? these teen girls are horny and actively enjoying Getting It On with their boytoys. no pushy boyfriends sneaking in through their bedroom windows--these ladies are taking the initiative to sneak out and GET SOME. one of them gets laid and then immediately orders her boyfriend to get her a beer. (yes she gets Slashered soon afterward, but so does the boyfriend so honestly, gender equality.) yes the Final Girl is the only one not having sex, but she's not bullied for that, nor are her friends slut shamed except possibly by being murdered by the narrative

actually the only character who is shown being morally condemned on-screen is michael myers. specifically FOR his violent overreaction to other people's sex lives. (people he is spying on). metaphorically, the villain is American Puritanism sticking its judgy nose into other people's business.

aka Michael Myers Is A Republican

but actually the real villain is the doctor. guy's a judgemental, shaming, pathologizing asshole. and he's been in charge of michael's care since he was SIX YEARS OLD? kid never had a chance. i'd go on a killing spree too

also the parents. where are the parents? it's halloween night and all the teenage girls are home babysitting their younger siblings? come to think of it, michael's first victim was his own older sister, whom he killed while she was babysitting him. teen girls are really shouldering a labour burden here. maybe parentification is the true villain

side note: mike commits his first murder wearing a clown costume...which is never referenced again? his 'iconic' costume is a generic mask and wig and jumpsuit, when we coulda had a Killer Clown Michael Myers??? travesty

i like how the Final Girl and her friend casually smoke weed in her car. yeah she's an honor student and her friend is the sheriff's daughter. yeah they smoke weed. so what it's 1978

(to reiterate, mike is 21 and should be at the club. im not saying he shouldn't be rampaging, im saying it's sad that he broke out, tasted freedom for the first time in his life, and immediately snuck back into his childhood home to go rampaging. let's have a remake where he goes to a nightclub and has a few beers. maybe some slutty dancing. then rampage)

oh no he's hot

[hanmegumi]

LMAO

edit: turning off reblogs because some of the people that are reblogging are extremely fucking moronic. holy shit

[brainrotcharacters]

for all my suspiciously-Deadpool behavior, the way that Logan is so joyful about finally finding someone to match his freak. that resonates with me actually.

[lovelessrage]

Pro-kink advocacy goes hand in hand with aspec advocacy and if you don't understand this you need to start.

[transmaverique]

amab and afab, if they were used as shorthand for the actual full phrases that they signify, with emphasis on the "assigned" part, and an understanding that they are enforcements of normative (ie, dyadic and cisgender and binary) sex, would be like. really useful. but people took the terms and started using them as shorthand FOR normative sex instead of the ENFORCEMENT OF normative sex. so when other trans people (almost always dyadic trans people) ask for your agab they are almost always asking for your Original Genital Situation. your starting point, so to say. and the reason FOR asking is also almost always bc they are trying to also enforce a certain kind of normativity within queer spaces (which is stupid bc being queer is inherently non-normative but here we are). like, you cant be a lesbian if you're ftm, bc you ARE m, so if you ARE a lesbian, then that means you're lying about some aspect of your identity. does that make sense?

it is always always always incredibly.... i do not trust dyadic trans people that use cagab terms, even moreso than i do not trust dyadic trans people that just use agab terms. agab is also coopted intersex language, but the "coercive" part of cagab SPECIFICALLY refers to medical "intervention" of intersex characteristics, such as "corrective" surgeries and hrt. i am deeply fucking suspicious of any dyadic trans person that uses those terms exactly the same as described above, even moreso if they do so bc "all gender is coercive".

like. yeah. that's true. but you use these terms to erase and overtake intersex discussions on the medical abuse of intersex infants. and i cant help but wonder why you would feel the need to do that.

[rhineposting]

hi just dropping in to say that literally everything about her design is gooner bait, down to her hairstyle which was very specific to edo period high rank prostitutes. cheers.

[sunforgrace]

you guys please understand they were going to say “CASTIEL’S PERSONAL HEAVEN” and paper the walls like a teen girls room with pictures of dean pictures of dean’s face PLASTERED onto the bodies of beefcakes all while cheek to cheek blares out. as brought to you by fucking metatron

[scarlct-vvitch]

*im using "dating" to refer to any kind of romantic relationship, it just fits neater in the boxes! interpret as u see fit

pls leave your thoughts in the tags im genuinely very curious

[oh-dear-so-queer]

And so once again we are confronted with the evolutionary "paradox" of homosexuality: Why does same-sex activity persist – reappearing in species after species, generation after generation, individual after individual – when it is not "useful"?

"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" - Bruce Bagemihl

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Genital rubbing, masturbation of one's partner, oral sex, anal stimulation other than mounting, and sexual grooming occur among same-sexed individuals in more than 70 species – yet virtually all of these forms of sexual expression fall outside the realm of clear-cut dominance relationships.⁸⁹

89. In some cases, sexual behaviors other than mounting can be correlated with dominance. For example, grooming between males in Nilgiri Langurs and Crested Black Macaques is often performed by a subordinate animal on a more dominant one. Nevertheless, it is apparent that this activity has a clearly sexual component as well: one or both of the males may become intensely aroused, developing an erection and even ejaculating during the grooming (see Poirier 1970a:334 for Nilgiri Langurs and Poirer 1964:146-47 for Crested Black Macaques). Similarly, adult (dominant) Bonobos often masturbate or massage the genitals of adolescent (subordinate) males, but again, the activity involves clear sexual stimulation (cf. de Waal 1987, 1995, 1997). Also, Squirrel Monkey genital displays are sometimes correlated with dominance, but there are also cases where the association is less than definitive, or where they occur in clearly sexual contexts between animals of the same sex (cf. Talmage-Riggs and Anschel 1973:70; Travis and Holmes 1974:55; Baldwin and Baldwin 1981:295-97; Castell and Heinrich 1971:187-88).

"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" - Bruce Bagemihl

[tenth-sentence]

And researchers who discovered same-sex matings in Adélie and Humboldt Penguins and in Kestrels stated that they did not know if any comparable phenomena in other species of penguins or birds of prey, when in fact homosexual activity in King Penguins, Gentoo Penguins, and Griffon Vultures had previously been reported in the literature.

"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" - Bruce Bagemihl

[applestorms]

i don’t think people give ciel nearly enough credit when it comes to his emotional intelligence/how self-aware he is.

like, yeah— ciel is a brat, he’s a stuck up little privileged rich kid, he’s pampered and spoiled and struggles massively when he’s forced to live without the luxuries he’s always grown up with. but he also recognizes that, in a way that is actually quite mature for someone of his age and class. he’s cynical, he’s pessimistic, he has incredible little (if any) respect or hope for humanity left— but this is something he applies to himself and the others at his same social standing just as much as anyone else, if not more. he clearly connects and empathizes with finny (and honestly all of his servants) because he sees himself within him, trusting him like a (his) brother during the emerald witch arc. he understands where joker is coming from with regards to his desperation to take care of his family and doesn’t pass judgement on him, to the point of even planning to take care of the very family he thought he’d left behind after joker dies. he even seems to have some degree of genuine respect for lizzie, assuaging her insecurities by trying to see her for who she is and not who she wants to be or feels like she must be.

honestly, i think that in most of the cases where ciel is being a full on Brat™ it all goes back to one thing— ciel trying to asset his Power, and take back control over the situation.

ciel is a character who is very very very easily underestimated at first glance by most people who have just met him, and even a few people who know him longer than that. he’s literally a sickly victorian child with asthma and CPTSD-motivated panic attacks, the kid is frail as fuck, not to mention— a kid. the fact that ciel might have something of an inferiority complex is obvious enough even if you don’t bring the whole lesser-twin thing into it, his minute stature is something literally every fucking character brings up upon first meeting him.

sometimes, ciel can use this to his advantage, so he does. he puts on the cute little boy face and flutters his eyelashes and uses other peoples’ empathy against them to achieve his own goals (see: arthur, and also like the entire public school arc, etc.).

most of the time though, ciel doesn’t really want to do this, not only because it’s somewhat demeaning but also because he Does have a reputation to uphold. ciel needs to constantly be both on guard and on the attack for his job as the queen’s watchdog, he is basically obligated to constantly stand as the biggest threat in the underworld. much of ciel’s Brat behavior to other people comes down to this— him asserting his status, not really out of any pride for the title, but because he is a Threat and other people need to fucking know it. sometimes, this means shoving his (and sebastian’s) power in their face until they get the fucking picture and/or die trying to understand it, particularly in the case of more asshole-ish characters like all the random evil businessmen with criminal agendas that ciel puts through the evil haunted demon house schtick. other times, this manifests more in the form of a kind of genuine empathy— you Should get the fuck away if you actually care about the things you claim to care about cuz i will not hold back, etc.

speaking of— in the case of sebastian specifically, the fact that this is ciel’s desire to take back agency becomes even more clear.

sebastian and ciel’s dynamic is one of, if not the most compelling aspects of this series to me, in large part because of how goddamn codependent they are while simultaneously being inherently at odds with one another. this series Will end with sebastian eating ciel’s goddamned soul— i honestly think that even if the rest of the cast eventually becomes more aware of the specifics of sebastian’s demonic nature or their contract, ciel himself will stop them from trying to save him or break the deal somehow, and sebastian himself certainly doesn’t have nearly enough of an attachment to humanity as a whole to bother actually stopping himself from chowing down, even if he may regret it somewhat more than he expected afterwards. yet at the same time, right up until we reach that exact point, they have every reason to need and want to collaborate with each other— something that they do, even if it is with full knowledge of the exact sword hanging over their heads the entire time that they’re playing nice.

i really love the analysis from this post, which points out the fact that all of the three core rules ciel establishes for their contract are perfectly designed to turn sebastian into someone that ciel can trust. highly recommend reading that essay, but to elaborate a bit more in my own words— ciel knows that sebastian is going to eat him one day. he is incredibly physically fragile and aware of this, perhaps even aware of the ways in which he has been made mentally weak due to his traumas, and especially of the fact that he is vulnerable specifically in comparison to sebastian. every single time that sebastian saves ciel, it is another reminder that This is who ciel is going to die to. he is chained to this starving, rabid monster just as much as the monster is chained to him, and one day, those roles are going to flip. he’s not going to be in power forever, and he knows it.

therefore: when ciel is a Brat™ at sebastian specifically, i read this less as ciel actually being unaware/childish/stupid/etc., and more as ciel tugging on the proverbial chain to make sure he is still the one pulling the strings. ciel has a habit of emphasizing the fact that he is Ordering sebastian when he is in a stressful situation or panicking for any given reason, focusing on the language that he Knows sebastian will respond to. and it’s a trauma response. IT’S A TRAUMA RESPONSE!!

what i think ciel Hates, above all else, maybe even more than he cares to consciously admit, is not having power. he can’t stand to not be the one in full control of a situation. he can’t stand having his agency taken from him, not after Everything that he’s been through.

if there’s one thing that watching his entire family be killed while also being viciously abused by a cult taught (not) ciel, it is the feeling of having No power. he was helpless to stop his parents’ murders, he was helpless to stop the cult from violating and abusing him, he was helpless to stop his own brother’s death. ciel connects more easily and often more deeply on an emotional level with the lower class characters in the story because he knows what it feels like to be completely powerless in the face of the absolute worst of humanity. thus, when ciel acts like a Brat, when he asserts his title as an Earl, someone Respectable, or as The Queen’s Watchdog, someone Threatening, when he demands that everyone bend over backwards to serve his will— it is ciel taking back all the power that he can and gripping it as tightly as he possibly fucking can, because he knows what can and will happen if/when he lets it all go.

and there is no character for which this is more true than sebastian. one of the most powerful entities in the series, easily the one closest to ciel, who he depends on so incredibly— but who is also Destined and Required to bring his end once all this is over. ciel kicks sebastian around, treats him like shit and shows him rare moments of kindness and care, all for the affirmation that He is still in control. absolutely nobody can ever meaningfully hurt ciel again, so long as sebastian is there— and sebastian won’t hurt him either. not yet. but, instinctively, he needs to keep testing that bond. just in case. just to be sure.

honestly, i think that’s where the real tragedy of the series comes from— ciel never really grows, never really changes, because he Can’t. he guaranteed that for himself. at his absolute lowest point, ciel lost all faith in humanity and god and Himself. he lost his childhood naïveté, and the ability to believe in goodness in any form. ciel knows that one day, he’s going to be hurt again, that someone is going to snatch him up and chew him alive— all he wants now is the control to dictate for himself when that inevitable end will happen.

[lorelune]

i've said this before and i'll say it again, the left fucked themselves over when they started using sociological frameworks and theory but not IRL discoursing (literal use of the word) with other folks about how to APPLY those frameworks. discussion is so central to the understand of sociology and how to apply larger concepts on the real world. it ALSO teaches folks the vital skill of being able to discourse in a way that doesn't like... focus on the individual and instead is ABOUT the discussion and the topics itself.