ahumancharacter

[ahumancharacter]

The Sabrina Carpenter discourse is so fucking stupid and puritan.

Like there is a very clear difference between being objectified and being a willing and active participant in your own sexuality.

Someone snapping a picture of you performing and going "I would like her to do these sex acts to me" is vastly different from willingly posing for a suggestive album cover.

"But she's setting feminism back!!!1!!"

No she isn't. Celebrities do have a level of power and influence, I'm not going to deny that, but Sabrina does not have the level of power and influence to set back an entire movement. Also, being an active participant in your sexuality isn't incompatible with feminism, in fact it's the opposite, it's very compatible to feminism.

One of the main points is that women shouldn't be viewed as inherently sexual and have a choice on when and if they are sexual. Wanting women to not be sexual at all because men will be disrespectful is literally Christian Puritan sex views repackaged under the thin veil of "feminism." This is how far right movements like trad wives get people.

I can also smell the "women who have a kink for being submissive are bad" wafting off of the people upset at the album cover.

God forbid a women likes to be dominated and isn't quiet about it.

And the album cover also doesn't have to be this big commentary on sex or how men view women, to be acceptable. It doesn't even have to be about her being an active and willing participant in her sexuality either.

It could very well just be "this photo looks good", and that's an acceptable enough reason too

[ahumancharacter]

tumblrinas will read the filthiest unsafe and insane bdsm pwp on ao3 but the second a woman makes a mildly kinky album cover they're clutching their pearls. your politics are incomprehensible 👍

[ahumancharacter]

Everyone say it with me, "just because a woman is expressing her sexuality does not mean she's setting back women's rights. It does not mean she's playing into the patriarchy. It means that she's expressing her sexuality"

[ahumancharacter]

having a great time continuing to love sabrina and enjoy her music despite people deciding she's reached her limit as Successful Woman Who Is Everywhere and it's now time for the obligatory This Woman Sucks Actually And We Don't Want To See Her Anymore follow up stage

[ahumancharacter]

getting sooooo frustrated at the people saying sabrina carpenter’s album cover is “setting back feminism” like YOU are the conservative backlash you’re scared of! censoring a woman’s ART because it’s “male-centered” (there’s no man in the photo)!

personally my feminism includes people who enjoy kink and bdsm, my feminism includes sex workers. excluding the faction of people that includes dominatrix certainly doesn’t feel like a smart move!

but above all, this shit DOESNT MATTER! it’s album art! women are losing ACTUAL RIGHTS! sabrina carpenter is NOT your enemy! patriarchy/men are your enemy!!!

[ahumancharacter]

the criticism of sabrina carpenter is really just slut shaming repackaged to sound like feminism. purity culture has y’all in a chokehold

[ahumancharacter]

not to be like both sides are wrong, and only i’m right, but i have been thinking about sabrina’s album cover controversy. to me, it’s pretty evident that she is going to be exploring her own compliance in getting into relationships where she gets treated badly or well like a dog. while manchild is a tongue-in-cheek mocking song that is all about how she just keeps stumbling into bed with these loser men, woe is me, there is an obvious irony to lines like “won’t you let an innocent woman be?” “i swear they choose me, i’m not choosing them.” sabrina is hardly an innocent doe-eyed girl. she is very sharp and experienced in relationships, and no one is forcing her to date these men. the music video further emphasizes this point by showcasing her hitchhiking into increasingly more ridiculous automobiles with increasingly more ridiculous men who all let her down in various absurd and/or violent ways. and yet the closing shot of the video is her getting out of one car and immediately running over and jumping into the next, continuing the cycle. so while the song on the surface externalizes the blame for her mistreatment to basically everyone but her, the subtext is all about how sabrina is the one doing this to herself. when i see the album cover of her smiling at the camera on her knees while a man holds her hair like a leash, i see a deep and very uncomfortable self-awareness and acknowledgement happening here. it’s obviously going to be dressed up in the shiny pop music veneer and sabrina’s signature brand of dry humor, but this is a very sensitive topic that most upcoming pop girls wouldn’t touch with a ten feet pole because it is humiliating to admit that you’re complicit in your own mistreatment and degradation. that you aren’t just posing as a dog, but you actually let men treat you like one. manchild isn’t just the first single from the album but also the opening track, setting the stage for what the album will be exploring. and again while on the surface it looks like your usual my ex is a loser classic fare, in actuality it is all about how sabrina is deluding herself about her choice of partners. “manchild, why you always come running to me?” she asks, and i’m willing to bet that she is going to be answering that question in the album, eventually coming to the conclusion that these things aren’t as one-sided as she initially presented them to be. from what i’ve seen, sabrina is very smart and very deliberate when it comes to her branding. i highly doubt she chose such a sensational image just to “appeal to the male gaze.” yes the picture is meant to play into that trope, but hardly in a glorifying way.

[ahumancharacter]

Meeting genuine adults that think legal = good, illegal = bad is so bizarre, like bro not even the law itself agrees that that is a good ethical framework

[ahumancharacter]

When you read a book regarding historical figures or events and suddenly you have massive beef with some guy who passed away like three hundred years ago

[ahumancharacter]

I hate this website because im pretty sure tumblr is the origin of people thinking “gregorian” is a type of monk. That’s not a type of monk. Its a chant they do.

[ahumancharacter]

moment of silence for everyone who's just like their dad but a girl

[ahumancharacter]

How to vent about the same problem multiple times without people wanting to beat you to death with hammers

[ahumancharacter]

it's kinda crazy what a common experience it is for like your parents to do something insanely traumatizing to you and then just not remember they did it at all while you remember forever

[ahumancharacter]

i hate driving. here are the laws! if you break them there will be consequences! except youre also expected to break the law just a little bit. people will get mad at you if you dont. you dont have right of way but the person who does is waving you forward for some reason. here's the speed limit! it's not the speed limit, the actual speed limit is that plus ~5-10. the light is green but you're in the turning lane. can you go? should you have gone just then? the person behind you is honking at you. there's a weird noise coming from your engine; if you try to do the right thing and get it checked out, will you get scammed? you are driving a 1-2 ton metal machine rocketing at speeds unknown to humankind for most of history. around a million people die in car accidents every year; that's about one person every thirty seconds. if you take that seriously and try to drive safely then people get mad at you.

[ahumancharacter]

There's something about atheism that I've repeatedly tried and failed to put into words on several posts on this blog but I think I finally got it.

Atheists are the only religious minority who, even (or sometimes even *especially*) in ostensibly progressive spaces are not allowed to ever act like they're sure of their beliefs.

[ahumancharacter]

I think that there's a very meaningful criticism to be made wrt body horror and how it often can handle disability or disfigurement in an extremely reactionary and prejudiced fashion but I feel like you've lost the plot if you can sincerely say shit like "cancer isn't body horror" like I dont know I think its pretty scary to have cancer. I dont feel like we need to defend the role of cancer as a natural process of the body. Like that's not comparable to people acting like a cleft lip or a guy in a wheelchair are spooky. Pregnancy is pretty scary too like even before the question of forced birth and other such social violence surrounding it are involved. I think you're sort of dancing around the fact that the human body does frightening things to us all the time and the question of what is "natural" should in of itself be actively questioned because sometimes "natural" things are... bad!

[ahumancharacter]

the biggest bullshit everrrrr is when people say "men and boys are punished for crying whereas women and girls are validated and comforted" it's such bullshit people will literally see a woman crying and call her an evil manipulative bitch