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There's a lot of backlash for people who don't support human rights until they meet someone whose rights are being denied and then they Realize™.

And I do get it. Because you really should realize that women deserve respect even if it's not your mom or sister, or that people of color are people even if you don't know them, or that gay people are not sexual deviants without having met one. But sometimes people take a while to learn things, and if that's what gets them on the right track, please don't demonize them for it. They're getting where they need to be. Their journey isn't perfect, but no one's is. Besides, it's not like they can retroactively learn that lesson another way. We're all just trying our best and I think we need to be nicer to people about that.

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Person: Asexual is already a word, they should have picked something else.

Me: Are you telling me that you genuinely can't figure out the difference from context.

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@realscotland I don't see the comments you are referring to, but then, I am on the mobile app, and this is Tumblr, so fuck only knows.

As a side point, buying a drink isn't predatory in and of itself, but the story is usually more along the lines of: man offers woman a drink, if she says no, he presses saying "it's only a drink." Creepy ass behaviour in ignoring that first no. Maybe she says yes, and they all have a good time, but what is the man's intentions? Maybe they are good, some are, I'm sure, but often enough that women are afraid in bars, the intention is to get them drunk enough for sex. Or maybe just a quick grope. It's a means to an end. In the extreme cases, the proffered drink is drugged, and what follows is, unquestionably, rape.

So, no, buying a drink isn't predatory, but so many predators use the same tactics, and it leads to very frightened, suspicious, and uneasy women in bars with (often unwanted) free drinks.

As to the other points I disagree with, in (not really) summary, the comparison between men and butch women. Butch women are women. They face the same challenges and inequality as other women. The same goes for the comparison between women and femme men.

Why do we differentiate? Because they are different identities that come with different challenges. But more to the point, they are different identities. Why do we differentiate between lions and tigers? They're both felines. Sure, but they're still very different animals.

That line of reasoning runs incredibly to "I'm not racist, I don't even see color." For one, as was so aptly put by someone who is not me, and I honestly have no idea where this line originated from, but "I've been dragging around this toaster on a leash thinking it's a dog because I don't see defining characteristics."

Race and gender have something in common in that they are both social constructs. In different way, surely, but the point still stands. That said, they have still been constructed, and people use them as integral parts of their identity. To then go and try to take away those things, is to deny people the right to their identity. It's already there, people are discriminated against because of it, we don't get to swoop in and just erase the whole idea so that we won't have to talk about the actual underlying issues and systemic inequality.

This was somewhat rambling, but that's my main point in a very, very large nutshell.

Society will have achieved equality when a man can walk into a bar and several women offer to buy him a drink.

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Honestly, @realscotland there is so much to reply to on your comment, but I'm going to just talk about the first point, and the most glaring thing.

What the literal, actual fuck?! Feminists should "want men and women to be treated equal in EVERYTHING, including shit like this"?? Really?

What feminists want is for predatory behaviour to be fucking eradicated. No more roofies in drinks! We're already pissed about the number of male rape victims, and we do not want them to be more vulnerable! We want men to be less vulnerable, and people of every other fucking gender to be less vulnerable too. The goal is that no one gets roofied, and that no one tries to get someone drunk in order to get into their pants.

Feminists aren't lobbying for equality at the lowest common denominator, we want equality at the highest standards. Sure, maybe we're idealists, but how else do you expect positive change?

Society will have achieved equality when a man can walk into a bar and several women offer to buy him a drink.

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PUN CROC

i’m too punk croc for this shit 

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I'm going to go ahead and make this deeper than nature ever intended, but there's a life lesson in here.

People can do all kinds of things for you, they can put their a bit together and buy you a god damn house, but if you don't try to, you're never going to get out of your garbage can.

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Honestly, I live in a state of constant bafflement as to how anti-choicers keep saying that if a woman gets pregnant, the baby is now her responsibility, but there's no mention of the man who got her pregnant.

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Hey, @frostedej Have you considered using a clear and congent argument before whaling on someone? How about, “ @anorderedworld The point of this post is that, just by looking, teachers have no way of knowing which students have crippling social anxiety and which are just shy. Encouraging participation rather than forcing it will help the shy ones out of their shell, but those with a medical condition may end up having it aggravated by being forced into things like public speaking, even if it’s just answering a question aloud in class. Also, forcing shy kids to participate is, arguably, not going to do as much towards getting them comfortable with it as a more gentle approach might.” But then again, maybe that’s no one’s opinion but mine.

dear future teachers

DO NOT

FORCE SHY KIDS

TO TALK.

DO NOT

TELL SHY KIDS

THEY NEED TO PARTICIPATE MORE.

DO NOT

MAKE PARTICIPATION

A GRADE.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA

HOW HARD IT IS

FOR SOME STUDENTS

TO JUST RAISE THEIR HANDS?

FORCING THEM INTO GROUP PROJECTS

AND MAKING THEM TALK

DOES NOT “TEACH THEM TO BE SOCIAL AND DEVELOP INTO WELL-ROUNDED INDIVIDUALS” 

IT SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF THEM.

AND MAKES THEM HATE SCHOOL.

SERIOUSLY.

COLLEGES TOO.

THERE IS NO REASON TO REQUIRE A PARTICIPATION GRADE.

IF I’M MAKING 90′S ON ALL MY TESTS/QUIZZES

IT MEANS I KNOW THE DAMN MATERIAL YOU TAUGHT

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE SHOULD YOU LOWER MY GRADE 10% JUST BECAUSE I DIDN’T TALK ENOUGH.

I SWEAR IF I GET ANOTHER “B” IN A CLASS THAT I EXCELLED IN JUST BECAUSE I DIDNT FEEL LIKE RAISING MY HAND TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS

I MIGHT ACTUALLY KILL U  

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Me: *wakes up*

Me: wheres my book

Me: *rips off blankets*

Me: *hears loud thud*

Me: There it is

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This image is patience, love, and commitment. It takes many days for a seed to sprout to life. That person would have to stand there, holding that tiny seed and that little bit of earth in their hands for a long time. Holding out that tiny kernel of hopes and dreams, waiting to be watered. And every day, the other person has to come along and water that plant- gently, not too much or it will drown. And they do this every day, toiling devotedly in the hopes to watch something beautiful blossom. The plant connects them, and both are needed to make it grow. If the person holding it drops the seed, or the person watering neglects to come, the plant will wither and die. But when they are devoted to their cause and work together, who knows what will grow. Patience. Love. Commitment.

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This image is patience, love, and commitment. It takes many days for a seed to sprout to life. That person would have to stand there, holding that tiny seed and that little bit of earth in their hands for a long time. Holding out that tiny kernel of hopes and dreams, waiting to be watered. And every day, the other person has to come along and water that plant- gently, not too much or it will drown. And they do this every day, toiling devotedly in the hopes to watch something beautiful blossom. The plant connects them, and both are needed to make it grow. If the person holding it drops the seed, or the person watering neglects to come, the plant will wither and die. But when they are devoted to their cause and work together, who knows what will grow. Patience. Love. Commitment.

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Update: The cat is alive

I just pulled Schrödinger's headphones out of the dryer.

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I just pulled Schrödinger's headphones out of the dryer.

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He makes me so incredibly happy, and that is why he can make me so terribly sad.

(via pleasurewhore)

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This post takes me by surprise every time I see it.

"When you're in your bee suit and you feel sweat running down your back, that's fine. If you feel sweat running up your back, that's a bee"

-Some beekeeping advice my mom gave me today

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You're asexual? But...

“but sex is what makes us human!”

  in 1916 a French officer in his twenties writes his

doctoral dissertation under

heavy mortar fire.

he sends it by mail, a page

at a time, to his wife.

a week before he’s to step up to the podium and

defend his work rather than his country

he is killed in action.

even as the bullets rip

through him he still wishes he could have become a professor

in French literature and

the university awards him a posthumous Ph.D.

sex is

  a woman breaks down in tears on the phone because

a week is not enough time to

get over a breakup.

her sister drives an hour across town,

comes up the front steps with

a gallon of ice cream and some beer

and together they eat moose tracks and marathon

every

single

Godzilla movie

ever made.

  sex is

she’s late for work but her car isn’t

starting and even through her coat and hat she’s cold.

she knows she can’t be late again because she’s missed

one time too many already because her

father’s nurse was sick with the flu and someone

needed to help him bathe.

the clock ticks past fifteen after and she hits

the wheel like it’s a heavy bag as though that will help

steps on the gas like the car will go

and wonders how she will pay rent

and how she will feed her father.

sex is

  it takes three people to hold the predator down because

even with the cover over his head

a bleeding eye and shattered wing

he is trying to hurt them.

none of them have seen this bird before in their lives but

they bandage his wing and head and give him a painkiller and

put him in a warm place to sleep and heal because

it is right.

at first he is paralyzed and cannot

fly but soon he is taking steps

and then fluttering, and then soaring, and

six months later he is whole and healed and hunting.

once he is gone they never see him again

which means they’ve done their jobs right.

sex is

  in 1969 a girl watches grey-and-white footage on her parents’ tiny television and

can’t quite believe that what she is seeing is not a movie set but

another planet.

the men on the screen look a little like

aliens with bulbous heads and no faces and fat

marshmallow arms

but they are still men.

her mother puffs on a cigarette behind her and declares that

this is progress

even if it was just a small step.

the girl grows up to be not an astronaut but a secretary

and her boss calls her ‘sweetheart’.

but sex is

  a boy is taught that real men don’t cry so

he doesn’t.

when his best friend dies from a self-inflicted

gunshot wound, he locks himself

in the shower every day and sobs under scalding

water until it runs cold

so nobody will see him grieving

so nobody will see that tears are just love that

has no place left to go.

he learns to dull love rather than suppress its expression and

soon the owner of the liquor store knows him by name.

three DUIs, two evictions, and twelve steps later,

he is feeding people at a homeless shelter,

and telling them it’s all right to cry.

Sex is

  the broken man tells the comedian

that he didn’t mean to step in front of the car but the rain

made it hard to see.

he seems okay but his leg

does not.

the comedian clutches a grubby receipt with the driver’s

plate number scrawled on the back

in pink pen, stands out in the rain so the broken man

can have his umbrella,

and gives him the comedy routine that ruined his career

so the man doesn’t think about the pain in his leg.

once he’s out of the hospital, the fixed man sends him a thank-you card

with kittens on it.

what makes us human

  yawning is contagious,

and there is a species of bird whose young we call “pufflings”.

melodic collections of sound, spaced by silence,

can move us to tears.

the tallest building in the world is

two-thousand seven-hundred and seventeen feet tall.

in less than eighty years we went from our first powered flight

to touching the moon,

and in one-hundred from the first phone call

to instantaneous connection between thinking machines of our own creation.

we make pies out of tree organs

and let cow’s milk ferment until it hardens and then

we put them together, because apple pie with cheddar cheese isdelicious.

what makes us human is

the earliestfossils of anatomically modern humans are

two-hundred thousand years old .

we have had pet dogs

for sixteen-thousand of those years, longer

than corn

or the wheel.

the steps we take are part of

one of the most energy-efficient gaits the

animal kingdom has ever seen.

we invented the concepts of love

and hate

and justice, and mercy

and we invented the language to convey them.

we sharpened rocks, then metal, to convince other people

who don’t hold the same idea of those things as we do

because we think

it’s right.

we are two hundred millennia of love and disappointment and

sorrow and innovation and

mercy and kindness and dreams

and failure

and recovery.

“but sex is what makes us human.”

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Touch me in the right places and I'll come at your door.

If I touch my phone in the right places a pizza will arrive at my door.