#victorian reproduction

[fashionsfromhistory]

Settee

Designed by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (British)

c.1875

The MET (Accession Number: 1975.219a)

[boselliart]

[viscericorde]

gonna be delusional real quick (try to find a gunne sax dress in my price range)

[femmesweetheart]

[wordswithkittywitch]

Anyone want to give me a thousand-dollar gift card to American Duchess? Anyone? Ah. You want to but you can't. I understand. I feel the exact same way.

[coochiequeens]

Australia…. Where the government knew which members of the disabled community to subject to forced sterilization yet believes a sex offender with a penis is a woman.

An Australian man convicted of sexually abusing a child in a public restroom has begun identifying as a woman and is being referred to as female by the court, with multiple references to “her penis” appearing in hearing records. Khadir Kamoun, 33, plead guilty to charges of intentionally inciting a 14 year-old boy to sexually touch him, an offense that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years but for which he was handed a 2 year sentence.

According to court records, on the evening of February 18, 2021, the victim was at Bankstown Centro Shopping Centre in Sydney with a friend and members of the friend’s family. The boy indicated that he needed to use the restroom, and reportedly saw Kamoun walking nearby. He was carrying a bag on his shoulder.

When the boy located and entered the facilities, he saw Kamoun exiting a cubical, and noticed that Kamoun had left his bag inside the cubicle. Kamoun retrieved the bag and then ushered the boy inside, saying: “It’s okay go, go, go.” The victim entered the cubicle, closed and locked the door.

After exiting the cubicle, the boy made his way to the sinks and, through the mirror, he saw Kamoun standing inside the cubicle behind him. Kamoun was looking directly at the boy, with his pants partially down and his penis exposed.

The boy saw Kamoun masturbating himself, at which point he urged the victim to come closer, whispering for the boy to be quiet and waving him over with one hand. Frightened, the boy ignored Kamoun and began using the automatic hand dryer located next to the sink in the restroom.

Kamoun then approached the victim and grabbed his hand, which he attempted to place on his exposed genitals. The child pulled his hand away and ran out the restroom. Kamoun began to follow him, prompting the child to run faster until he was able to meet up with his friend’s family. In tears, the boy called his own family and relayed details of the incident to them.

The legal representative defending Kamoun, barrister Ronald Driels, attempted to portray the incident as a one-off occurrence of public exhibitionism “with a bit more.” However, Magistrate Glen Walsh argued that the claim “substantially understates the seriousness of the offending” and highlighted Kamoun’s history of sexual crimes.

In December of 2012, Kamoun was accused of sending indecent materials to groom a child under the age of 16 for sex. He was also charged with sexual assault and indecent assault. The details of the case are limited. According to court records, Magistrate Walsh stated that “this is not a record that entitles [him] to leniency.”

While he was detained in a men’s prison awaiting trial, forensic psychologist Dr. Kris North diagnosed Kamoun as having ‘gender dysphoria’ in addition to depression and PTSD. 

In light of what the court determined was a “a dysfunctional upbringing” that involved “difficulties at school and an erratic employment history,” as well as “violence perpetrated against the offender by [his] father arising from or relating to [his] gender or sexual orientation,” Kamoun was granted a lenient sentence despite his “serious offenses” that involved sexually abusing children.

The court also noted the “inconvenience” faced by Kamoun at having been placed in a men’s correctional facility which resulted in “unwanted sexual advances in custody and inability to obtain hormone replacement treatment.”

Despite the leniency of the sentence, Kamoun attempted to file a severity appeal, arguing the sentence was “crushing” when considering the fact he has been in custody since April of 2021. But the appeal was rejected by the district court, which affirmed the 2-year jail sentence that had been handed down by the local magistrate in December of 2022.

While each state in Australia has different policies with respect to housing transgender inmates, according to Women’s Forum, New South Wales, where Kamoun was sentenced, has a “self-identification policy,” meaning that prisoners are meant to be placed in a facility based on how they identify. Exceptions are made in cases where there are safety “concerns or doubts around the authenticity of the prisoner’s gender identification.”

As Kamoun has now been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, it is likely he will apply for transfer to the female estate.

By Genevieve Gluck

Genevieve is the Co-Founder of Reduxx, and the outlet's Chief Investigative Journalist with a focused interest in pornography, sexual predators, and fetish subcultures. She is the creator of the podcast Women's Voices, which features news commentary and interviews regarding women's rights.

Australian women with disabilities face “reproductive violence”, including forced sterilisations, abortions and contraception, an inquiry will hear.

Organisations set to give evidence to the Senate inquiry into universal access to reproductive healthcare on Friday have said in their submissions that carers and a discriminatory healthcare system are violating women’s rights.

Forced sterilisation is not prohibited in Australia, while women with disabilities are vulnerable to family violence including being forced to have abortions or use contraception.

The Victorian Women’s Health Services Network said women with disabilities were “refused the right to consent to medical treatment including abortion, and are more likely to experience reproductive coercion than women without disabilities”.

Victorian organisation Women’s Health in the South East said forced sterilisation was often performed to prevent pregnancy, that it breached “every international human rights treaty to which Australia is a party” and “constitutes torture”.

The Family Planning Alliance said parents, guardians and doctors are making decisions on behalf of women with disability, with “no strategies in place to improve their understanding of their reproductive choices and rights”.

The Public Health Association of Australia said people with disabilities should be given disability-specific information about contraception use and managing menstruation, and should have their right to be pregnant and parent protected.

Women With Disabilities Australia told the inquiry in February that widespread discrimination and ableist attitudes resulted in “multiple and extreme” violations of rights.

Carolyn Frohmader, WWDA’s executive director, said the right “for everybody to make their own choices about their body, to have full control over their body, their sexuality, their health, relationships, if and when to get married or not, if and when to have children or not, without any form of discrimination, coercion or violence” was a fundamental human right.

“[Everyone should have the right to] be free from anyone else making personal decisions about sexuality and reproductive matters, and to access sexual and reproductive health information, education, services and support,” she said.

“These egregious forms of reproductive violence have no place in a civilised world, and yet remain lawful in this country.”

She said Australia was “a wealthy country that still allows practices such as forced sterilisation, forced abortion, forced contraception and menstrual suppression”.

“This is nothing short of shameful,” she said.

The latest statistics on forced sterilisation from the Australian Guardianship and Administration Council show there were nine forced sterilisations in 2020-21.

Frohmader said women with disabilities were put on long-acting reversible contraceptives (Larc) for years or decades longer than they should be, which can lead to osteoporosis.

“One woman, 47 years old, complaining constantly of lower back pain, is given Panadol. She had been on a Larc for 25 years and, of course, had never had a bone density test,” she said.

“After agitation, advocacy and intervention from our organisation, of course we got her a bone density test, and she was absolutely riddled with osteoporosis.”

The Australian Lawyers for Human Rights women and girls’ rights co-chair, Tania Penovic, said there was anecdotal evidence that women who were assaulted or raped, or deemed incapable of looking after a child, were forced to have abortions.

Decisions on behalf of women with cognitive disabilities could be made by a “substitute decision-maker” or through a guardianship arrangement.

In January, the royal commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability published a report on supported decision-making, where the person with a disability has trusted advisers to help them make choices.

It proposed a framework around universal principles including dignity and risk, co-leadership and equal rights to make decisions, support and safeguards.

ALHR highlighted the “urgent need” to prevent forced sterilisation and contraception.

It called on Australia to “introduce national uniform legislation to ensure that the use of sterilisation, abortion and the administration of contraception can only be carried out with prior, free and fully informed consent”, and to “take immediate steps to replace substitute decision-making with supported decision-making and repeal all legislation that authorises medical intervention without the free and informed consent of the persons concerned”.

The committee will report in May.

[addictedbespoken]

Men Black Velvet 3Pc Fersen Court Suit Historical Period Reenactment Clothing 18th Century Metallic Embroidered Free Lace Jabot And Cuffs

This 18th Century vintage costume for men is inspired from the magical Venical Carnival & Late Baroque fashion. The costume can become the zest of any carnival or themed festival and can also be a perfect costume for wedding groom.

This 3Pc court suit include: •Black velvet justaucorps embellished with floral embroidery & metal button detailing •Black velvet Vest embellished with floral embroidery & have button closure •Black cotton pant •Laced jabots & cuffs

Features: •Intricate embroidered •Lightweight •Soft & Breathable •Comfortable wearing in all seasons

Material & Caring: •Premium Velvet & Eco friendly material •Dry Clean •Dry on low heat or hang to dry for best result

[hometoursandotherstuff]

I can see why. What a wonderful idea to bring them back. I hate when people put contemporary baths in Victorians when they have reproductions of the original fixtures. This is great, I'd want to live there, too.

[english-history-trip]

Arthur Bourchier played the role in Shakespeare's Henry VIII opposite his real-life wife Violet Vanbrugh as Katherine of Aragon; it was not a promising omen for their marriage. Here's her gown, likely based on engravings now identified as Louise of Savoy:

Her necklace is a replica of one from a real portrait of Catherine:

The couple also appeared in a silent movie version of the play, one of the earliest screen depictions of Henry VIII and his queens:

I must take a moment to appreciate this incredibly detailed costume from 1911

[captainuranium543]

Fairy tail headcanons nobody asked for part 3

For a place men aren't allowed, fairy hills seems to really hate enforcing that rule. Evergreen can regularly be found having movie night with the thunder legion, natsu and gray come over to train with erza once a week, bisca has had alzack over almost every night, nobody gaf tbh.

Cana straight up cannot play most card games, she's been cheating so long she doesn't even know the rules anymore just goes with what her magic tells her.

Erza is a real pain in the ass when she's sick. She can take such a ridiculous amount of damage and keep fighting but one cold and it's so over. She flip flops between insisting she's completely fine and being a pathetic Victorian child dying of the scarlet fever asking to be taken out to the garden to see the sun one last time.

Unironically they've had to get freed to put up jujitsu shiki to stop her from getting up so she could actually get some sleep

Natsu and lisanna used to play wolves I don't take criticism

Wendy is exceptionally good at pick pocketing and nobody knows where she got that skill. She can take things off while you're looking right at her and it's rly unnerving

Laki is the one always fixing the guild after fights and because of this she's actually one of the strongest maker wizards there are from the sheer practice.

Lucy has the most random knowledge. Growing up she spent a lot of time reading and would sometimes just pick a book and go without caring what it was about. She could tell you sooo much about the reproductive cycle of earth worms guys

Levy is extremely interested in magic just in general, as a science. Part of the reason she started using script magic was that it was rooted in almost all magic types.

[pastorfutureletthembe]

"The show is about to start."

One more mention of being a spectator, an observer. The idea of the Manipulator implies that he doesn't get his hands dirty, he sends people in and watches how things unfold. He doesn't even look that involved, emotionally.

The settings on this screenshot makes it look like a guy watching the world through cameras, but the couch isn't facing the TVs, it's facing us. I think there is a recurrent theme in this fandom we easily overlook: the 4th wall. But let's put that aside for now and focus on his role as an active spectator, making his headcanons come true from the darkness of his basement.

On this countdown picture, he's watching the show, LIVE. The bouquet 💐 puts us on his trail: he's not watching a silver screen but an actual representation. If this is a theater, it also implies there is no do over for each scene, the comedians have to do it all in one go and this night will be like no other before and after, each show tragically unique for people only there to witness it.

And tonight, with a flower bouquet in his arms, he intends to meet his favorite performer (Lu Guang)!

Spiderworts symbolize enduring love, just like myosotis, but also immortality and moral authority. Its other names are Widow’s Tears and False Dayflower.

Interesting.

The former, reminds us of the black widow of course. This name is related to the female's bad habit of eating the male after mating. Cannibalism, you say? x) Why does it do it? Nutrition, of course. It enhances reproductive success. So it's only natural behavior, survival instincts. With the spider imagery comes the spiderweb metaphor, which is always efficient to express manipulation and hunter/prey relationship.

The later forces us to ask, what do you mean false? Dayflower is an actual flower, by the way, meaning reliability and trustworthiness. 👀 Coincidence that Liu Xiao's flower basically implies that he isn't reliable and trustworthy? I don't think so 😂 It also is a call back to the Devil tarot card meta I did last week saying he represents the antichrist, the one you choose to put your trust into for salvation but who's actually bringing you closer to your demise.

Apparently, in victorian floriography language, a man gifts spiderworts to another man to express esteem (X). Liu Xiao wants to make his feelings known, finally, and he's using flowers to do it. I feel like he has a very parasocial relationship with Lu Guang, though. He's pining hard, but Lu Guang never appears to be aware of him. Even in "The Eye", he's looking at the window while Liu Xiao is reading the same poem over and over again. This Shakespeare poem which, as mentioned in a previous meta, is about two lovers who must be separated for survival reasons. Waiting patiently for the end of the representation to make his presence/existence known hints on his penchant for theatrics as well.

All of this info is cool and all but what does it mean?

I truly believe that Liu Xiao is in awe of Lu Guang, might it be because of his abilities (and the creative way he might use them to save Cheng Xiaoshi), his achievements (that we barely know about) or his objective/motivation. Think of him as a scientist who bases his own research on his peer's work. Liu Xiao could very much be the mad scientist type, though lmao.

The fact Lu Guang's chess piece is a white Knight but Liu Xiao is kissing the black Knight in his PV? He's either delusional, thinking Lu Guang and he are the same, or he knows all of Lu Guang's dark secrets. As a stalker does, you know.

[cannibalcaprine]

@septicake i need you to understand how fucking much i adore the image of a Maid Exhibit at the zoo

a reproduction of their Natural Habitat, a victorian-era mansion, but with some of the walls replaced with glass so visitors can look into the exhibit

the zookeepers will occasionally come in to mess things up, unmake beds, shatter pots, so the Maids can have their enrichment for the day

the glass has little signs telling visitors not to Awawa at the maids, since it stresses them out like wolves

[thethirdromana]

Christmas gift ideas for Dracula Daily readers/ Re: Dracula listeners

The book itself

For obvious reasons.

Re: Dracula merch

Ditto.

European railway atlas

For when you want to recreate the Crew of Light's epic journeys across Europe.

Reproduction of Bradshaw's Handbook

To look 100% like an authentic living Transylvanian nobleman who is definitely not pretending to be his own servants.

Kukri paper knife

For opening envelopes Jonathan Harker style.

Whitby wall calendar

To imagine yourself on holiday in the style of a Victorian schoolteacher.

Romanian cookbook

To get that recipe for Mina.

And of course prints and similar things of all of the amazing fanart that people have made!

[ckret2]

How married are you to shapes carrying pregnancies at all? As opposed to other methods of making babies, such as spores or eggs or more outlandish sci fi options like parts assembly

Bare minimum, we know that shape reproduction needs a mother and a father.

I'm going to take it as a given that for Euclideans "mother" and "father" refers to "two individuals performing two different but necessary parts of a reproductive act to produce offspring," and not something like "they're totally not necessary at all but the government requires two people to sign up to co-parent before they'll hand out a baby" or whatever.

I'm taking it as a given because if I didn't, the contrary alien worldbuilder in me would go "well if mother and father are made up social roles rather than social roles derived from pre-existing biological roles, then why did they have to make up social roles that just so happened to be so similar to humanity's? I'm calling bull, bad worldbuilding, how dare you foist mom/dad pairs on a species that had no reason to develop mom/dad pairs as if we're supposed to just accept that that's the only NATURAL and NECESSARY way to rear offspring—" so I'm not giving my inner worldbuilder that option.

So, with "reproduction requires two different roles" as our starting point: at the moment, my own personal purpose in worldbuilding how Bill's species works is for use in the post-canon fic I'm working on that explores Bill's home dimension in flashbacks. That's what I'm keeping in mind when I worldbuild.

And I say that to give context to this: for my own personal purpose, my motivation is to worldbuild the way Euclideans' reproduction works in a way that ISN'T so interesting that mentioning it in fic will cause the readers' imaginations to immediately veer off the plot and focus on that detail. I'd rather how they do the do to be unremarkable as hell.

Anything mentioned about Bill's homeworld in the fic is put in either to explain who and what he is and why he's that way, or to sprinkle in a jazzy little bit of flavor. I'm trying to avoid turning his species into a deep exercise in alien speculative biology, since that doesn't mesh with the vibes of the story I'm telling. (As I say this i'm covering that "which shape sexes are reproductively compatible" chart with my body so you can't see it. I said I'm trying to avoid getting deep into the biology, not that i'm succeeding lmao. I'm too interested in how Bill sees his gender.)

Every aspect of Flatland was worldbuilt specifically to comment on the horrors of contemporary Victorian society, even the stuff that surprises readers that don't know much about the Victorian era like "well surely the stuff about irregulars being euthanized or poor babies being stolen and given to middle-class families is a dystopian invention," and anything that DOESN'T serve the social satire is handwaved away with "we have a very interesting way of propelling our bodies but unfortunately I don't have time to talk about it." Bill is written into Gravity Falls to be a foil to every member of the Pines family and to show what they could be like without love, trust, support, and family. That's the same role I want Euclydia to serve in my fic. Anything that diverges from rather than reflects Gravity Falls' contemporary society is out of place.

Putting in something like "eggs" or "spores" opens up cans of worms. How would laying eggs make their society different—are they less attached to their own kids, is trading eggs around and pre-hatching adoption more common, do people steal a neighbor's egg and leave their own? If it's spores, is it even possible to identify your own kid, does anyone care to, do kids ever just spawn out of a rotten log in the forest that spores settled on, are babies self-sufficient since they might be born without an adult nearby? These are fascinating avenues for some great alien worldbuilding! However I'm currently motivated to keep alien worldbuilding to a minimum lol.

In truth, I'll probably never need to know or explain HOW the shapes reproduce—pregnancy, eggs, spores, ritualistic magical waltz, collaborative geometry homework, whatever. Taking time to explain it means talking about details that aren't relevant to the fic, and the ghost of Edwin Abbott Abbott would sadly shake his head at me. However: if I don't explain reproduction, and if it requires two roles, most people are gonna default to assuming pregnancy. I can live with that.

All I need to figure out is how the two roles in the Two Roles Needed For Reproduction are assigned—like, can every member of the species automatically perform both roles at any time? (I don't wanna do that.) Are they born performing one of the two functions? (I don't wanna do that either, because now we've just invented a new male/female sexual dichotomy.) Does which you perform depend on your sides, the one with less sides does X and more does Y? Does it switch seasonally? Does it switch based on your age? Does it switch based on the number of each shape in the local population? Etc. (I'm not attached to any of these ideas, they're just examples.)

And the only reason that's something I need to figure out is that that could affect how Bill thinks about himself and his identity. Like, if which role you perform switches based on the amount of similar shapes in the local population, then it would have some kinda impact on him knowing that his body's been locked into the Lmao There Are NO Other Triangles Nearby role for the past trillion years. If it switches based on your age, then the fact that he never got old enough to switch would be one of many examples of the way his biological age has been in stasis since his dimension was destroyed. Etc.

[gatheringbones]

[“Women have outnumbered men as psychiatric patients since the mid-nineteenth century and, as Ussher (2011: 1) states, they have been, “more likely to receive psychiatric ‘treatment,’ ranging from hospitalisation in asylum, accompanied by restraint, electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and psychosurgery, to psychological therapy and psychotropic drug treatments today.” The history of the psy-professions’ pathologisation and abuse of women for being women is deeply disturbing and should shame even the most ardent supporters of the mental health experts. In the name of science and progress, the mental health system has sought to control almost all aspects of women’s experiences, emotions, and behaviour through physical and moral interventions. Chesler (2005: 218) notes, for example, that many women were incarcerated in asylums for making claims of sexual abuse against their family, mothering “illegitimate” children, or for “suspected lesbianism.” Further, Masson (1986) compiled a collection of highly authoritative psychiatric articles on women from the nineteenth century to vividly demonstrate that acts of physical constraint, rape, torture, and female castration by the profession were all justified as appropriate (if not mandatory) treatment for women who questioned or defied their place in Victorian society. The discussion in this chapter, however, is concerned specifically with explaining the central reasons for previous female oppression by the psy-professions as well as the continuation and expansion in neoliberal society of what Ehrenreich and English (2011) have called the “sexist ideology” of medical professionals. As none of the mental disorders in the DSM with which women have been labelled have validity (Chap. 1), psychiatric interventions cannot be argued to be concerned with the care and treatment of any real distress that women may experience. Instead, we need to understand such institutional interventions within the broader context of structural gender inequalities in capitalist society. As Penfold and Walker (1983: vi) have summated, “[p]sychiatry is an institution in a society in which women are oppressed [and it] plays a specific role in that oppression.” A critical understanding of psychiatry’s focus on women, gender roles, and deviance can only be fully understood through a thorough assessment of the structural determinants of the division of labour in capitalist society which has devalued female roles and confined women to the status of second-class citizens. This analysis necessitates an investigation of patriarchal forms of domination and the intersectionality with the relations of production—something that has concerned a host of critical feminist scholars since the advent of second wave feminism in the late 1960s.

My argument here is that while an examination of the psychiatric profession clearly demonstrates that it continues to be an institution of patriarchal power, the distinctive form that structures this oppression is determined by the needs of capital (such as the requirement for paid and unpaid labour, the reproduction of the labour force, the necessity to suppress working-class resistance, and the normalisation of gender roles in industrial society as “natural,” equitable, and common sense). Thus, the critical analysis outlined here follows in the spirit of Donna Haraway (1978: 25) who has succinctly argued that “[t]he biosocial sciences have not simply been sexist mirrors of our own social world. They have also been tools in the reproduction of that world, both in supplying legitimating ideologies and in enhancing material power.”]

bruce m.z. cohen, from psychiatric hegemony: a marxist theory of mental illness, 2016

[uwmspeccoll]

A Pigeon-fluencer Feathursday

This week’s post was inspired by a recent Guardian article on the rise of Pigeon-influencers on TikTok and their role in reviving the popularity of the oft-derided and underestimated birds.  

Throughout history, pigeons have provided sustenance (“squab”), labor (in the form of the “pigeon post”), and companionship to human populations. Though these days we may typically associate the Rock Pigeon (Columba livia, otherwise known as the common pigeon) with other animals classified as “pests” in urban landscapes, they are in fact understood to be the world's oldest domesticated bird. Historical documentation of pigeons can be found in hieroglyphic texts and art dating back as far as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. According to Colin Jerolmack, professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at NYU and author of The Global Pigeon, pigeons “have been in cities as long as we’ve had cities” and, prior to the technological innovation of the telegram, were “the most reliable messaging system in the world”. While “fancy” pigeons (like Frillbacks, English Magpies, Jacobin, and Archangel pigeons) were bred and kept as prized pets in the Victorian era, the North American Passenger Pigeon (or “wild pigeon”) was hunted to the point of extinction in the early 20th century.

To illustrate the complexity of our love-hate relationship with the birds we've selected a variety of illustrations and text from our collection and featured them alongside some images from outside sources.

The engravings in images #2 & #8 from The Illustrated Natural History: Birds (London: George Routledge & Sons) were created by the Brothers Dalziel, a wood engraving shop in Victorian London founded in 1839 and operated by George and Edward Dalziel. Image #1 from Birds of America; Fifty Selections (with commentaries by Roger Tory Peterson) (New York: Macmillan) is a reproduction of a hand-colored lithograph produced by the shop of J. T. Bowen of Philadelphia from a painting by naturalist and artist John James Audubon in the early 19th century.

--Ana, Special Collections Graduate Intern

Other image sources:

#3: Western Crowned Pigeon (Goura cristata) in TMII Birdpark - Western crowned pigeon - Wikipedia

#4: Keyla Rose with Tony, her pigeon, on a walk in New York. Photograph: Alaina Demopoulos/The Guardian. August 23, 2024.

#5-6: from City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness Pigeons (poem) by Chicago-based Puerto Rican poet and community activist David Hernandez, DH+BH (image of tattoo) by Camilo Cumpian.

#7: Ceiling Fragment Depicting Pigeons in Flight | New Kingdom | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org) (ca. 1390–1352 B.C.)

#9: a Memorial to the extinct Passenger Pigeon at Wyalusing State Park in Wisconsin (1947)

#10: from Nikola Tesla's Obsession with Pigeons, Electricity, and a Plan to Wirelessly Connect the World (nautil.us)