"No one is watching, and yet she feels watched in a way that induces both shame and pleasure, the two distinctly entwined. Note the closed door of the bedroom, the absence of any adults, the room an incandescent secret, a sanctuary."

Brenda Miller, Table of Figures

: I think we need to stop with this race, gender, sexuality privilege...

mishstiel:

I think we need to stop with this race, gender, sexuality privilege bullshit. Because, just like racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. it’s forcing guilt onto people for how they were born.

It’s not that guy’s fault he was born a middle class, heterosexual white male. Don’t get mad at him for the fact…

I agree with you that we should treat everyone equally, but you are missing the point of discourses about privilege. 

Discussing privilege is a way to make people aware that they have it, not to make them feel guilty for having it. The purpose of discussing privilege is to shed light on the ways in which certain people’s lives can potentially be easier because of certain uncontrollable factors. If you are white, a male, cisgender, or any combination thereof, you are more likely to have a much easier time in many situations because our whole culture is based around their interests. Privilege can also be a negative thing, as with patriarchy and how males come to conceive of themselves and their identities. Say you are a male and you want to be a stay at home dad; or you want to take up ballet; or you like to dress up in skirts: society will have a ton of criticisms for you because these activities don’t fit within the preconceived notions of what it is to be a male. 

Pointing out privileges and having open, honest, and compassionate discussions about them serves 2 purposes:1) making people with privileges realize their privilege so that they can help combat them, and 2) beginning to break down the social structures that so severely limit both the privileged and the under-privileged.

No, it is not anybody’s fault that they were born they way they were, privileged or otherwise, but denying that privilege exists, or encouraging people to stop talking about privileges does nothing to end the codified and sanctioned injustices within the system of our society and culture.

I wish I wasn’t asexual.

transientthoughts:

Sometimes I feel like crying because I feel like a machine.

I see people with passion and longing.

And I don’t know what that feels like.

And I’m not enough for my husband.

I have always had a hard time accepting that people didn’t understand other people’s experiences of sexuality, gender, identity, etc., because it was easy for me to put myself in their shoes. I could imagine feeling like I didn’t belong in any of the prescribed gender roles for female or male. I could imagine feeling sexual towards someone of the same sex as me. I could imagine being in love with more than one person at any one point in time, but I can’t put myself in the shoes of an asexual person. Not that I know what it feels like to struggle with your identity and sexuality exactly, or that I can even come close, because I identify with the way I was socialized: I am a ciswoman, and I am heterosexual. I am such a sexual being, and not having that drive, that innate part of my general state of being, is inconceivable to me. 

That being said, I really appreciate learning about asexuality because it challenges me intellectually and allows me to experience what other people feel. That others cannot conceive of being transgender, homosexual, etc. is much more conceivable to me now. I feel like I better understand how it is hard for some people to accept what has been culturally, religiously, and socially unacceptable. Not that any of that is ok, but now I know the struggles that they have in even considering the possibility of someone identifying as the sexualities and genders that are stigmatized by society.

(via brebuscus)

"Beauty and purity go hand in hand, and are tied up in a false sense of modesty. This type of attractiveness comes from being white, virginal, conventionally attractive and actively or deliberately ignorant of meeting that standard of attractiveness. It comes from needing to be seen as beautiful even “without any makeup on” but in “skin-tight jeans” if you’re Katy Perry, from Bruno Mars ‘knowing’ that “when I compliment her, she won’t believe me,” and in reminding a boy that he should be dating a girl who isn’t a shallow hussy, if you’re Taylor Swift.
All of this encourages girls to constantly strive to meet an arbitrary standard of attractiveness that fuels multiple industries (dieting and cosmetics, primarily) while reminding them that their job is to be appealing to men but never to admit that they’re trying to be good-looking for men, and never admit that they look good – especially if they’re not skinny or white. It creates a maelstrom of unhealthy attitudes about girls’ bodies and sexuality. Girls must be all things: attractive and unknowing, winking about sex and flaunting their sexuality but never expressing desire or – worse – actually having sex, and presenting their bodies as sexually available while deriding those girls whose sex lives are more active than their own. They must do all this while being straight, slender and white and preferably blonde or they’re not really even in the game to begin with."

Teen Pop and the Culture of Purity (via sparkamovement)

Speak of the devil!

(via confused90saddict)

“I want a lady in the streets but a freak in the sheets”. Yeah, I agree with all of this.

(via ghostanime)