#and I don’t mean just about roe v wade

[badolmen]

“I don’t know why the op said this happened yesterday when this news is four months old”

This may shock you but it’s an election year in the US and even “the lesser evil” utilizes propaganda.

[decolonize-the-everything]

It’s my understanding that the reason we don’t advocate for voting (democratic or at all) is because it takes focus away from more important things that actually will make a difference. That being said, do you believe it is a bad thing to choose the lesser evil while still working to eliminate both evils? I know that harm reduction is not a long-term solution but does it cost us anything in the short term? If the net value is even one more person alive than the other choice is it inherently bad? Keeping in mind that the hypothetical person choosing to vote would also be organizing and donating and all the things that I know are so much more important. This is a genuine question and I’m still trying to work out my biases so if I’m missing something obvious then I would probably agree with the message you’re sending across.

Questions like this ignore realities such as: we did not only have 2 choices when this election started, that Biden was worse than any of our candidates except Trump. Besides that, the time for harm reduction has long since passed, in reality there are NO candidates who would reduce harm and framing it as if there are can't be anything but propaganda. Likewise, there is a genocide happening under Biden that was not happening under Trump so even the people who thought their votes were "harm reduction" votes in 2020 were wrong.

I don't know if Trump would've done the same, but I know it doesn't matter because Biden was elected and Biden did it anyway.

Short term, voting for democrats didn't save any lives at all. Short term Biden has quadrupled the amount of disabled and dying people in the world between his handling of COVID-19 and multiple genocides. Short term he's left queer, Black, disabled, and other marginalized communities alone to fight for our own rights against fascist attacks as white men in power have always done.

And he will continue to do so as long as he allowed to stay in power.

Can you really think one life that would be lost under Trump that isn't already at risk under Biden?

The only demographic of people that I see fitting that description would be people who face much fewer intersections of oppression than the rest of us. It's the kind of people who already live relatively safe and comfortable lives that I see being shaken to their core over mere the possibility of becoming actual targets of state oppression.

Gonna go off track a bit here, but stay with me.

....If we look back at history we can see that the majority of Americans have never catered to the safety or well being of the people they marginalized, especially not of their own free will. Example, Americans could have human rights on the ballot tomorrow but we don't. Why?

Our issues are systemic.

Everyone is too worried about "me" and learned to use identity politics to justify it. "Well I'm queer so I deserve to live"

And that may be true, but if you've accepted that belief doesn't that mean you've also made the mistake of believing in it's opposite; that someone else deserves to die?

Yeah. It does.

Which is why we don't have human rights on the ballot. Or roe v Wade for that matter. Our country is still systemically bigoted, patriarchal, racist, and colonial. If our country wanted us to have rights, we'd have them. If the people in power thought we deserved them, we wouldn't have to fight for them. If people in the 50's wanted Black people to have rights they'd have them! Instead newly freed people were met with Jim Crow laws.

And we can look back and say confidently now "well they weren't scared of anything. They were just racist and didn't want Black people around!"

So if there are this many people saying "but what about me, wouldn't you vote blue for queer people?" then it stops being a personal decision "to protect my own well being" and starts to become evidence of a systematically elected choice from Americans to blow up another country to protect American privileges.

So while I'm glad people care about marginalized people enough to use us as virtue signaling police batons during elections, this rhetoric is still just perpetuating the cycle of white supremacist beliefs that we want dismantled.

Americans don't deserve to live more than anyone else does, even if they're gay (or Black or native). When we choose a "lesser evil" based on this idea, this translates into agreeing with white supremacists when they say some lives are worth less than others, namely you're agreeing that American lives are worth more.

And what a lot of "listening and learning" people don't seem to realize when they say "this is the lesser evil" or "think of (marginalized community being weaponized for votes) at the voting booth!" "Vote blue for just one more election!" is the ideas that they are perpetuating long term for a short term win (that isn't even going to effectively help anyone) are much more harmful than anything Trump could've done, especially if Biden is commiting genocide already anyway

•••

So yeah it is inherently bad. Americans have our whole lives to prepare for elections, years to learn about candidates & to do research, 4 years between every election to help get 3rd parties ballot access. Leftists scream about 3rd parties and changes we need to make every year (let alone every election) if we wanna make progress. so how is it that it's only ever 4 months before elections that voting age american adults wanna ask how we could make things better or ask if what we're doing is the best idea?

We are in this position because we brought ourselves here by being apathetic and scared and selfish.

Those values won't save us no matter how many times we lie to ourselves about it.

How many elections in a row exactly do we need to pick the "short term solution" because we're apathetic and scared and selfish before we realize that nobody is going to save us but us?

I'm someone who organized and planned and protested and it was infuriating that there were more people advocating for voting blue than protesting.

I now understand that to mean that there are more people advocating for the problem to continue at it's current rate, than there are trying to solve it.

And no, I genuinely no longer believe that this is a helpful or meaningful political action to take.

[spacelazarwolf]

“Sex based oppression” is terf rhetoric. There is nothing about having a vagina that makes you magically more oppressed. What you’re talking about is misogyny, which transfems experience too, probably worse than you

i had to get parts of my body surgically removed so i could stop worrying about having an accidental pregnancy either through failed birth control or rape that my government has legally required that i would have to carry to term and give birth to whether i wanted to or not regardless of the medical consequences. so yeah actually there is something about having a vagina that makes me a target for a specific kind of oppression. and i genuinely do not know how we got to the point in the Discourse where we’re legitimately trying to argue it doesn’t. just because it’s something trans people who don’t have uteruses don’t have to deal with doesn’t mean they don’t also face a fuck ton of other misogyny and oppression. some of my fiercest supporters when roe v wade was struck down were trans women, and when our state government started going after all trans healthcare we were all there to support each other. bc, and i know this may be a foreign concept to u, we give a shit abt each other as human beings with diverse experiences. we talk about our similarities and differences and ways we can support each other even if we don’t personally know what it’s like to face a particular kind of bigotry. we’re all in the same sinking ship. stop making it sink quicker and help us with the fucking life rafts.

[polyamorouspunk]

The first time I ever heard the phrase “pick your battles” was when I was about 12 years old in eight grade. The grade above us was filled with kids who drank and smoked and did drugs and the grade below us was filled with kids having sex in public bathrooms and somehow we were stuck in the middle, reaping the restrictions put on us for crimes we didn’t commit. One of these being that we were not allowed any personal bags in our wing.

Now, if you’re like me, you carry a *lot* of shit. I mean, there’s textbooks, reading books, food, water, phone, pens and pencils, an eraser that actually works, FeMiNiNe hYgIeNe pRoDuCtS, and idk? Random other shit? Too much to reasonably carry from class to class in your arms and pockets.

So my friends and I wore bags. Purses, if you will, though I hated that term because it was a bit too girly for me, and my “purses” came from the military surplus store. In fact, I still have the last one I got from there. Regardless, my point being that we wore personal bags to carry our shit in.

Except that wasn’t allowed because kids *before* us would sneak their alcohol and shit with them in bags.

Now, nowhere in the handbook did it say we weren’t allowed to have bags- trust me, we checked. Our parents helped us take up the cause- us being me and my 2 friends. But our teachers collectively decided we were not allowed to have them in our wing, they had to stay in our lockers. And so we asked: how them are we to transport them outside of our wing if our lockers are in said wing. If we can’t have them in the hallway how can we have them outside the hallway if we have to store them in the lockers in this hallway.

One day my teacher who had a soft spot for us pulled me aside. He told me he knew that I was on a campaign against this, but that sometimes we need to pick our battles. I had never heard of this phrase, so I sat on it for about .5 seconds before saying “then I’m going to pick this battle and continue fighting it.”

I understand now what he means though. We can’t change everything that we want to. There are so many causes out there, so many things that we should be aware of. But we’ll burn ourselves out trying to take them all on ourselves. It’s been said before to pick a few causes you really feel passionate about and focus on those because you can do more for change when you aren’t stretched out thin.

Beyond that, though, I think we need to pick and choose our battles because realistically there are not just things we can win, and at the end of the day some things *are* more important than others.

We live in a surveillance state. That’s clear in a lot of countries, including the US, but that’s clear on a global level. While this sucks, at least here in the US, it really seems like not enough people care to fight it. Hell, people are actively bringing surveillance devices into their homes in the name of convenience. Realistically, overturning our surveillance state doesn’t seem likely. While it’s a battle that’s noble to fight, it’s probably in vain.

But think about when Roe v Wade was overturned. How much outrage it caused. How much outrage it’s still causing. Enough people are fighting that there is hope to rectify it, I think. And when it comes down to it, if you have to pick a battle to “not be surveilled” or to “legalize life-saving medical treatment (again)” one of those seems a lot more pressing and important than the other.

It’s okay to personally put causes on the back burner. It’s okay to not reblog every single “awareness” or “woke” post you see. You’re not obligated to fight every fight. Even just reblogged activism post after activism post can be draining. It’s okay to take a step back, take a break. Don’t forget about these struggles. Keep them in the back of your mind. Maybe go back and reblog them later. But don’t burn yourself out fighting too many battles, especially if they’re losing one. Focus on a few, solid, tangible changes you can make: being kind to strangers; donating goods, services, and money; volunteering; teaching children; etc. and if you have the energy go above and beyond that. You can make a difference just by being kind. You don’t have to fix every single problem. But together we can fix a few at a time.

[bumblebeerror]

Don’t get me wrong man, Kamala Harris being an actual politician who knows what the fuck is going on is my preferred president to the Cheeto who wants to make it legal for him to be king, but CHRIST if every news site doesn’t sound like a tiktok audio of the most annoying resident of San Francisco, California.

Like my guy she is not girlbossing. Her running mate was EIGHTY YEARS OLD and decided probably people would like someone else because the dem docket is hemorrhaging votes because everybody’s retired grandpa is showing up to the polls and fuckijg nobody else because they all believe in the glorious revolution and fuck them poor / disabled folks am I right.

She’s not joining the gays, she is an ex cop. She’s not girlbossing, she was literally just handed the presidential candidacy by Joe. Like I love a good shattered glass ceiling too but are you fucking kidding me. She is 59 years old my guy she does not give a FUCK about gay Twitter.

Would it actually kill journalists to write like they don’t have a checklist of new memes to reference every article they write. My guy please just objectively report the news I don’t want to hear about brat summer.

This feels so bah humbug but every article I’ve read looks like a fucking satire piece I would read on this godforsaken webbed site but damn at least it would be satire! They actually mean it on news sites! Her being a woman doesn’t magically make her better at being president - it’s the fact that she isn’t Donald Trump, the guy currently trying to solidify that crime doesn’t count if you’re america’s specialist little boy at the time.

Like yea! She’ll be better than him! That’s not a high fucking bar my guy. We are like 3 inches off the ground with her while trump is subterranean.

Unironically, im glad Biden dropped out. I think it helps to set a precedent that this country doesn’t need yet more tired old men running it. But also don’t get fucking starry-eyed over her being a woman - she ran with Biden for a reason. You still have to stay on her ass about Palestine and reinstating Roe V Wade and protecting gay marriage and trans healthcare. She is not automatically on our side just because she’s a woman.

[amarguerite]

What’s the Darcy myth book?

Oh God. Um. Basically, it’s a book called The Darcy Myth, which has the meanest, most asinine, most bewildering misreading of Pride and Prejudice with the thesis that characters like Darcy have made generations of silly female novel readers stupidly love mean, moody, distant men and long for emotionally abusive relationships. I’ve only read reviews of it because the reviews have made me foaming at the mouth angry about the whole flawed premise— Espeically the fact that in the WaPo review of the book the author said that the Darcy myth props up a Gothic and patriarchal universe that trains women from childhood to invest in men who treat them poorly.

MAAM

DID YOU EVEN READ THE BOOK

THE WHOLE GODDAMN DRIVE OF ELIZABETH BENNET’S CHARACTER IS THAT SHE DOES NOT WANT TO END UP IN AN UNEQUAL AND SHITTY MARRIAGE WITH A PARTNER SHE DOESNT RESPECT

SHE TURNS DOWN DARCY’S FIRST PROPOSAL LITERALLY BECAUSE HE TREATS HER POORLY WHILE PROPOSING

ELIZABETH DOESNT CHANGE HIM DARCY CHANGES HIS OWN BEHAVIOR BECAUSE HES ASHAMED OF WHAT SHE THINKS OF HIM

It’s also insultingly victim-Blamey and very 18th century in its puritanical idea of the corrupting force of novels on the weak and silly female brain, because OBVIOUSLY women are incapable of critical thinking. You can only shield yourself from abuse and evil by consuming the RIGHT kind of media. Sorry, I didn’t realize that if I just fucking jettison the inventor and refiner of free indirect discourse and one of the most brilliant users of dramatic irony my life will be completely free from the shackles of patriarchy!! WOW WHO KNEW THAT IF I STOPPED READING JANE AUSTEN ROE V WADE WOULD BECOME PART OF THE FUCKING CONSTITUION

The author also flat out ignores the text by insisting that Darcy forced Lydia to marry Wickham when

a) Lydia WANTED to marry Wickham

B) Darcy is LITERALLY THE ONLY CHARACTER who told Lydia, “I know you ran off with this guy but I’ll help you leave him and go back to your family. You don’t have to marry him even if you slept with him.”

It also posits the Dumbfuck ideas that P&P is all about a heroine’s ability to fix a broken man (WRONG WRONG WRONG JANE AUSTEN’S ENTIRE OUEVRE EXAMINES THE INTERSECTION OF SOCIETAL FORCES AND PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND POINTS OUT THAT CHANGE CAN ONLY COME FROM WITHIN) and is the classic enemies to lovers (HUGELY FUCKING WRONG ELIZABETH IS INDIFFERENT TO DARCY UNTIL WICKHAM AND DARCY’S IN LOVE OR FALLING IN LOVE WITH ELIZABETH MOST OF THE BOOK. AT NO POINT DOES HE CONSIDER HER AN ENEMY NOR DOES ELIZABETH CONSIDER HIM ONE.)

[odinsblog]

Look closely enough and you’ll find that Eric Johnson was always a Republican, or at least very susceptible to becoming one. Conservative “Democrats” are one bribe or one hurt feeling away from switching parties.

This highlights the significance of how much more important primaries are, because after the primaries are over, then it becomes an endless chorus of, “vote for the lesser evil” and “vote blue no matter who,” and we have more than enough bad examples of where that can lead to, right??

Honestly, always vote for the most leftist, progressive candidate you can in the primary elections, before it comes down to voting for a Republican vs. Republican-lite in the general election.

I don’t think there are primary elections for mayoral races, but I still love the idea that if a candidate switches political parties (any time after the primaries, I’d suggest), then they should A) not be allowed to hold the office they ran for until they run + win as a member of their new party, B) pay heavy fines from their personal funds, C) they should be forced to resign, and D) the election should be re-done.

The Democratic Party needs to tighten up and make some rules regarding who can and cannot run as a Democrat.

Literally months before SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade, Nancy Pelosi was backing a homophobic, anti-abortion, “Democratic” 🙄 candidate named Henry Cuellar, saying that a candidate’s stance on abortion wasn’t important. And Cuellar’s opponent was a young pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ immigration attorney named Jessica Cisneros! And it was a relatively safe blue district, meaning that whichever Democrat the DNC backed, they were likely to win and a Republican hadn’t won that district in forever. AND before that, Pelosi and the DCCC threw their weight behind another openly homophobic “Democrat” named Dan Lipinski.

Could you even imagine Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy openly throwing their support behind a pro-abortion candidate who wanted gun control? No? So why tf does Democratic leadership constantly foist GOP-lite candidates onto the Democratic Party when other viable options exist?

Just a guess on my part, but if you want fewer anti-abortion laws getting passed, then you should probably back fewer anti-abortion candidates. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“Vote blue no matter who” has bitten Democrats in the ass wayyy more than any converse slogan has bitten Republicans. Because Republicans actually vet their candidates and make sure that those candidates want the same deplorable things that their deplorable base wants.

And just for clarity, because I know how the internet works and how sycophants love twisting words: I am NOT saying don’t vote for Biden in 2024. I’m not even saying to support a third party candidate. I want Trump and all Republicans gone in the next few election cycles. What I am saying is, once the election is over and hopefully Trump/DeSantis have been vanquished, we need to seriously rework how the Democratic Party has been run. Losing Roe v. Wade is indicative of how poorly it’s been mismanaged.

Anyway, new laws can be made, so especially after the Supreme Court has ignored and undone so many standing legal precedents, I don’t wanna hear jack shit about “pie-in-the-sky” or “be realistic.”

This centrism bullshit ain’t working, yo.

[folklore-girl]

‧₊˚✩ — clearing the controversy around the barbie movie and the modern expressions of feminism

note. this isn’t blind criticism and neither is it me just gushing about the movie—it’s my take on how & why the barbie movie affected its audiences the way it did + what we need to learn from the movie’s message. a bit long and descriptive though, so read at your own risk!

i watched the barbie movie in the theatres for the first time, and enjoyed it too—in fact, i loved how it handled sensitive topics such as feminism, depicting the cons of patriarchy masterfully. recently, i watched the breakfast mv by dove cameron, and was thinking along the lines of art and the modern expressions of feminism when realized the deeper meanings of the barbie movie, which most of the audience missed in the first glance.. don’t get me wrong, it’s just my opinion about the movie and everyone’s interpretation of art can be different. so, shall we?

first and foremost, barbie focused on themes of feminism and women empowerment, but what it actually depicted on-screen was matriarchy with an element of humor, not feminism.

now, what is matriarchy? in simple words, it’s the exact opposite of a patriarchy. a world where women have all the power instead of the men, and in all aspects—social, political and economic.

what the barbie movie did (initially, at least) was showcase a world where women had all the say, economically, socially and politically—since the barbies held all the positions in the government and had high-paying jobs, while the kens didn’t even own a house! and while barbieland fits the textbook definition of matriarchy, it wasn’t completely a matriarchy in the sense that it still appealed to the female viewers, and didn’t feel wrong at all.

what i mean by that is, that they did not challenge the viewer’s morals and make them really think about why this society wouldn’t be favorable to the men who watched the movie. instead, they focused on making it somewhat of a comedy for women, especially with the scene where all the male employees and the ceo of mattel were chasing barbie and america ferrera (if you know what i’m talking about). and by doing this, the movie again transformed barbie as a beloved character, even if only in the minds of the female viewers.

a good example of matriarchy, would be dove cameron’s breakfast music video, which reverses gender roles perfectly, showing us the cons of any gender being in complete control whilst spreading the message to the male viewers as well. while the main themes of the music video revolve around the roe v. wade overturn back in 2022, it also handles such sensitive topics with care.

back to the movie, while they appealed to the female audience with the humor, the male viewers definitely did not find it funny. hence, it’s obvious that the movie was made keeping female audience in mind, which is somewhat wrong, but the only way they could have catered to all the viewers is by showcasing a pure matriarchy. but doing that would, in a way, villainize barbie and put her across in a negative light. since that does not fit well with the general idea of barbie and her sweet girl next door image, and doesn’t undo the harm that pop culture inflicted on her (by bimbofying her, etc)... i’m guessing they scrapped the idea completely.

anyways, barbie has always been perceived as a popular icon of girlhood and feminity, so i guess it was never meant to be a movie for the guys.

in the movie, when the kendom came into existence, viewers were left frustrated (me included) with the scenario on-screen, what with our beloved character, stereotypical barbie having a mental breakdown when she realises nothing can be done fix the mess, giving up at last.

this scene (and america ferrera’s monologue!) highlighted why patriarchy was harmful to women, and the particular scene where ken said to barbie that they have a boys‘ night, every night, was the scene that made me realise the opening scenario of barbieland wasn’t favoured by men at all.

so i believe what our society needs is balance—where both the genders have equal control, again, in all aspects of life. and that, my friend, is what feminism is all about. it’s not about propagating a culture of man-hating and neither does it promote women to restrict men’s fundamental rights, in any way.

sadly, we haven’t achieved that dream yet, but hey! we’re halfway there already. women do hold important positions in our political systems, and get paid the same salary as men. and in some places, women are afforded the same respect as men too. isn’t that what you call positive change?

[kevin-the-bruyne]

I don’t think people realize that THE ONLY leverage that people who care about Palestine have right now is to cow Joe Biden down from fear of losing the election. THE ONLY LEVERAGE. If you think ‘it will be worse’ under Trump you are a sick fuck but also you reveal that you are so naive that you think that there’s any amount of actual goodwill that is staying the current governments hand instead of practical logistical things like literally being at the limits of arsenal and manpower because Israel is fighting a war at two fronts simultaneously.

Clearly neither Yemen nor Lebanon are real countries to you. You don’t even have the humility to realize that Hamas and Hezbollah are running rings around the Israeli army whose only strategy is brute strength. Trump turning up brute strength (which I doubt he even can) will make no difference. NEITHER party are committed to ending the war. BOTH are committed to establishing a Middle Eastern stronghold and are determined to do so by any means necessary. ONLY democrats understand that pushing past Saudi’s red line is going to end very very poorly for them. Giving China any reason to intervene is going to end very very very badly for America.

If anything democrats in power are giving Isr*** more opportunities to keep at this war because they’re running respectability rings around international law and most countries are happy to buy it if that means they don’t have to rock the boat and impose sanctions which they will have to if the US President suddenly stops saying ‘we care about the safety of innocent Is***** 🥺🥺🥺’ and says ‘we’re going to flatten Gaza because we hate Palestinians!!!!!’

If you are humble enough to admit that you don’t understand how war works but still want democrats to win focus on domestic policies. Roe v Wade was upturned due to Trump appointed judges. The end of affirmative action is only the surface of a slew policies aimed at removing protections that will turn education opportunities even lower for black and underrepresented minorities. Democrats have just started reforms on re-classifying medical debt so that it doesn’t affect credit scores. Disabled people are no longer being punished for getting married. Increasing accessibility to education that’s non-four year colleges (like community college and state schools). And as far as I can tell Democrats seem to at least be willing to come to the table in discussing racist tech and facial recognition software.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in what could end up being its most consequential abortion decision since Dobbs. In a case pitting Idaho’s extreme abortion ban against a federal law known as EMTALA—that since 1986 has required hospitals to provide emergency care—conservative justices seemed to embrace the idea that states can deny crisis medical treatment to pregnant patients, even if doing so means those patients suffer catastrophic, life-altering injuries. “My reaction can be summed up as ‘appalled,’” says Sara Rosenbaum, emerita professor at George Washington University who is one of the country’s foremost experts in health policy issues affecting women and families. “Will [the court] really say it is fine [to enforce] a law that costs women their organs as long as they don’t die?”

It’s hard to think of a piece of progressive American health care policy since the late 1970s in which Rosenbaum hasn’t played a pivotal role conceptualizing, enacting, or improving. That includes the federal statute that guarantees the right of every American to go to a hospital emergency room and receive medical treatment before being sent somewhere else. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires hospitals to screen and stabilize anyone who arrives at the emergency room, including women in active labor. Narrow in scope yet vast in impact, the law has been a “force field around hospital emergency departments,” Rosenbaum says, protecting pregnant patients for four decades. Now, with the Dobbs decision, SCOTUS has “blown up medical care for childbearing people,” she says—and EMTALA could be the next major health care protection that the court decides to explode.

To more fully understand the implications of the case before the Supreme Court, we reached out to Rosenbaum to discuss the history of this unique statute and why it has become even more vital since the end of Roe v Wade.

You’ve called EMTALA “revolutionary” and “the most important American health care law that we have.” Why? What makes this law so special? 

It’s the only American law we have that guarantees access to care. For everybody. It doesn’t matter who you are—whether you have insurance or don’t have insurance, what color you are, how much money you have, whether or not you’re disabled. If you come to a hospital emergency department and you believe you have an emergency, they have to screen you. If it is an emergency, they have to stabilize you. The definition of an emergency isn’t that you’re in danger of dying; it includes situations that could lead to severe, long-lasting physical harm. And the decision about what is required to stabilize you—it’s up to the doctor’s medical judgment.

I would say EMTALA is really our only universal health care law.

This law is from 1986. What was happening in the ’70s and ’80s that made EMTALA seem so necessary?

A few things were going on. Back in the early ’80s, a decision was made that the United States was spending too much on hospital care. So Congress changed the payment structure for Medicare [the single largest payer for health care services in the US] to incentivize shorter stays. Pretty soon there were stories emanating from the press about a phenomenon they called “sicker and quicker,” where patients who actually had been admitted to the hospital were getting discharged too soon, when they were still unstable.

Another major problem was that indigent people were not able to get emergency care at all. There were a lot of stories of women being sent away in labor—not just pregnant patients, although that was the story that got the most play. In those days, many fewer women were eligible for Medicaid than are today and it wasn’t as generous. Only very, very indigent women could get Medicaid coverage.

Later in the 1980s, you also helped persuade Congress to vastly expand Medicaid for pregnant women, making it a federal requirement.

There’s no question that poor people bore the brunt, but they were not the only ones. For example, one of the most famous EMTALA cases from that period involved a patient with HIV—nobody would touch him. There have been many cases of fully insured people who, for whatever reason, hospitals just chose not to treat. People who were in a drunk driving accident and were out of control, for example, or mental health patients who were disruptive. Even if the patient was well insured, if they were a handful they would get sent over to the public hospital.

Hospitals are very good at getting rid of people they don’t want. And so, while indigent people were the immediate focus, there’s nothing in EMTALA that limits it to uninsured people. That’s the important thing.

Tell me about one of your pregnancy cases from this era.

One of the cases I worked on in the mid-’70s involved a Black woman named Hattie Mae Campbell who went into premature labor at her home near Holly Springs, Mississippi. She had Medicaid, but the local hospital refused to treat Medicaid patients. The baby was coming out. And the nurse stood at the door of the hospital with her arms spread wide, blocking the entrance, refusing to let her set one foot inside, because once a patient crossed over the line, there were legal arguments to be made that the hospital had begun the admission process. So she gave birth in the parking lot.

And we know that after the birth, the staff still refused admission. They provided a sheet to wrap the baby, then they transferred Campbell and her newborn to another hospital 30 miles away. How much of a factor was racism in these situations?

Race is always a factor—a combination of racism and the fact that people of color were even more poorly insured than white people.

Were there regional differences in how patients were being treated?

There were hospitals all along the Texas-Mexico border that would dress up [security] guards as immigration officials. They would station personnel at the door so you couldn’t come in. But this was going on everywhere. Rich states, poor states, affluent communities, not-so-affluent communities, racist communities, not-such-racist communities. It was happening everywhere because [private] hospitals felt that public hospitals or community hospitals should take care of patients they didn’t want.

You should understand that hospitals were set up to accept only the patients they want. That has been tempered a bit. In the case of emergency care, they can’t do that anymore. But it hasn’t changed that much. A hospital might want me for elective surgery but not my neighbor down the street who’s a Latina who has Medicaid coverage. I mean, they have all kinds of ways to avoid patients they don’t want, right? The type of insurance they take, the doctors they give admitting privileges to, deciding what networks to be part of.

That’s why EMTALA was enacted using Medicare, which is a national program, as the stick. If you as a hospital want to participate in Medicare, and you run an emergency department, then you must do these things as a condition of participation.

Even despite all these horror stories, I still have a hard time imagining how you and other public health advocates managed to get EMTALA passed.

There was no resistance in Congress. None. A Republican Senate, a Democratic House, virtually identical language in both bills. Signed by Ronald Reagan. It really was a different era in the life of the United States.

And then what happened?

Oh, then there was huge hospital resistance. Even though hospitals were very involved in designing EMTALA, it’s a pretty heavy-duty regulation. Over the years, there’s been a lot of resistance both to the requirement that hospitals have to do an initial screening and to the requirement that they have to stabilize the patient before discharging or transferring. There have been thousands of EMTALA cases. The federal government has brought them, private individuals have brought them.

There was a lot of resistance from attending doctors as well. The very first enforcement action was a birth case out of Texas. An OB-GYN who was supposed to be on-call went duck hunting, and when the hospital got a call that a woman had presented in labor, he said, basically, “I’m not coming in for her.”

In 1989, the language of the statute was tweaked to clarify that EMTALA didn’t just apply to the pregnant person, but also to the “unborn child.” Nowadays that goes right to the “personhood” argument of abortion opponents—indeed Justice Alito invoked it during oral arguments. Why was that language necessary then and how is it different from how it is being deployed today?

Because women were still giving birth in parking lots. Women in labor were still being spurned. That language is in there because women who literally had babies coming out of them were being sent away. Everybody understood that you had two medical crises going on here, the crisis of the mother and the crisis of the baby. Everyone, apparently, except the noncompliant hospitals. The concern was not just the pregnant woman, the way it is with some of the emergencies we’re hearing about post-Dobbs, where the fetus is utterly non-viable and the focus is rightly on the pregnant woman.

So the language was clarified: The baby was also a patient. Here on Planet Earth, there are two concerns in labor and delivery, the mother and the baby.

Was there any worry that at some point in the future, anti-abortion people might point to that language and say, as Idaho and Texas are arguing now, “See, EMTALA actually means we can’t do abortions because we have to care for the unborn child”?

That really was not ever the intent. No, no, no, no. We didn’t put that language in there because we were suddenly creating embryonic fetal rights. It’s just a complete misunderstanding of EMTALA.

The pro-choice world crabbed about the language but didn’t fight it tooth and nail because everyone understood the context was labor and delivery. And they were going to lose that [battle]—no member of Congress was willing to listen to nonsense at that point about “clean up your language.” I’ve litigated abortion cases since the Hyde Amendment [the 1976 law banning the use of federal funds for abortion under most circumstances], and I was completely not troubled by that language.

Was it always understood that in some situations, EMTALA might require doctors to do emergency abortions?

This issue of abortion as an emergency procedure has been grounded in EMTALA for a long, long time. There were already cases in the early ’90s of women coming to the hospital with a terrible pregnancy emergency where an abortion had to happen. Or they’d had an abortion that failed, or an incomplete miscarriage that needed an abortion procedure. So this issue [of whether EMTALA requires hospitals to perform emergency abortions] is not new. What’s new is Dobbs. What’s new is what the Supreme Court unleashed when it overturned Roe v Wade.

Pregnancy-related complications that might lead to emergency abortions—for example, when the embryo implants in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus, or when a woman’s water breaks too early for the fetus to survive—are a lot more common than many people realize. But pregnant people end up in the emergency room for all kinds of other reasons, too.

Pregnant people are frequent users of emergency departments. About one in 500 pregnancies goes to an emergency department at some point. Most of the attention has rightly been placed on emergencies where something terrible has happened to the pregnancy itself. But there’s a whole other group of emergencies that aren’t pregnancy-related—it could be appendicitis, it could be a car accident, it could be domestic abuse, it could be COVID.

The tendency when somebody is pregnant is to send them to the emergency department right away because you don’t want to take any chances. And sometimes in these situations, you need anesthesia, you need surgery. Sometimes, unfortunately, as a consequence of treatment you may have a demise. What Idaho has done is to make every pregnant person coming to an emergency department radioactive.

As someone who has spent your whole career steeped in health policy and health law, did you see this moment coming? When hospitals turn away pregnant patients with life-threatening emergencies? When a law as important as EMTALA seems on the verge of being gutted?

It was very evident, from the moment that the Dobbs decision was leaked, that there was just a total, fundamental clash between what states like Idaho with these terrible abortion bans thought they had the license to do and what EMTALA required.

When the Dobbs decision finally came down, my daughter called, incredibly upset. All of her friends were incredibly upset. I said, “Here’s my one piece of advice. You have friends all over the country. The ones who live in any one of the states that are going to impose a complete ban, tell them that they must not get pregnant. And if they do want to be pregnant, they must move away. Because a lot of things can go wrong in a pregnancy, and if anything goes wrong, they’re not going to be able to get emergency care.”

The other thing that I realized right away is that it would be impossible for doctors to practice in these places, and there would be a huge exodus of providers. And in Idaho that has happened. So people like me, who are steeped in health policy, understood immediately what was coming. But where we are now is worse than I could have even imagined it was going to be.

[stackthedeck]

Hey, we've been mutuals for a while, and I think of you in a good light. I'm disappointed to see you post infographics that are clearly designed to persuade left leaning youth to not vote in the upcoming election. If you actually think Trump and Biden are equivalent, you've been badly mislead. Anything that convinces people their vote doesn't matter is dangerous and unethical to post.

Literally just google a list of things they did during their presidencies. Here's a list for each, from the same website: trump, biden. It's different. This doesn't even include the price cap on insulin Biden just mandated, since his list was made before that. He also reversed a policy, that trump put in place, permitting medical professionals to discriminate based on religious values (aka turn away gay and trans patients.)

If not that, look at who Trump appointed to the supreme court, and then look what happened to Roe v. Wade. The justices a conservative appoint are going to vote differently than the ones a liberal will appoint.

Like, I'm sorry if this is coming off as rude, but please think a little more critically and actually look at what they each have done and will continue to do. You are discouraging people from voting and you are responsible for the impact this has. You're spreading misinformation.

Frankly this does come off as rude. That post did not say don’t vote for Biden and it made incredibly valid criticism of Biden. Has the Biden administration put in place good policy? Yes of course. Are citizens right to also criticize that the administration hasn’t and isn’t doing enough? Also yes.

Listen I’m a political science student this doesn’t make me and expert by any means but I have done work in government so idk. I’m registered to vote in a red state I’ve voted third party for president in every election and I vote for candidates I agree with and know are effective in local and congressional elections. I’m not saying don’t vote. Even people saying don’t vote Biden aren’t saying don’t vote at all but encouraging voting at all the other levels

I don’t want trump to win but public pressure from key groups of voters such as Arab Americans of all ages (because framing this as a lazy ungrateful younger generational issue is incredibly ignorant) and yeah younger voters could encourage the Biden administration to actually change its policies especially about the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Biden does not get my vote or anyone’s vote because he’s not trump, that’s not democracy it is a hostage situation. Biden must be responsive to the people not just on election day and on the campaign trail but every day. I donated money to his campaign and grassroots organizations that empowered people to vote in 2020. I will not do so again until the Biden administration ceases all aid and weapons to Israel.

I don’t live in a swing state Biden doesn’t care about me. I’ve been harassed in the schools I’m employed at by teachers and parents alike because I’m visibly queer and because I live in a red state I have no legal recourse. Why doesn’t the Biden administration do anything to stop the hundreds of anti trans and anti queer bills in the states? Why don’t I have federal anti discrimination laws protecting me? My trans health care was denied under a blue president what difference does it make.

Vote blue no matter who is just as damaging to democratic values and thinking as make America great again. Either way the parties are complacent because they just have to be not the other guy instead of being responsive to the will of the people. We have to demand better.

Hopefully by 2024 I will be registered to vote in a swing state and Biden will have made the changes to earn my vote. But I know that I will be voting for state and local candidates and it will be coordinated with other truly civically engaged voters who want to see real change in their communities

[22plus15]

yey about the draft thing! (I never understood it anyway and I don’t watch nwsl but it looks like fans are happy about it 👍😅)

very yay!!! i've been reading about the cba all day so i'll explain a bit if anyone's curious ⬇️

the draft is a very american sports thing -- when players decide to go pro out of high school or college (which are very established here rather than academies and reserve teams), they make themselves available for the draft and the worst performing teams in the pro league each season will get the first draft picks so they essentially get the best new players, which is supposed to maintain parity btwn teams and avoid the teams with the most money or pull hoarding all the best rookies

it was integrated into the nwsl pretty much by default -- but as it turns out doesn't work as smoothly for how global of a sport soccer is (clubs have a way bigger pool of overseas players to buy from than other american sports so they don't rely on the draft for new talent) and also takes a lot of agency away from young players. lots of reasons and lots of debate on both sides of it. that's the college draft but what's also been eliminated is the expansion draft, which was when a new team was created they got their free pick of available players (not limited to just rookies) to give them a fair shot, but at the expense of the players who suddenly got traded and had to uproot their lives (among other potential dangers in a post-roe v wade world and with the history of bad actors in women's sports). it sounds good for new teams in theory but in practice it never really works out anyway (just look at utah royals' place on the table lol)

anyway the elimination of the draft is just one part of the cba that was announced today and i really recommend looking into it if this kind of thing interests you! the nwslpa (players' union) secured lots of player protections, much higher salary caps and minimums, guaranteed contracts (i.e. if you get injured or smth, which we know happens a lot in woso these days, you'll still get paid your full salary no matter what), extra bonuses for end of season awards, charter flights (the usa is huge you gotta fly), players' consent is FINALLY required for trades, free agency for all, parental leave and childcare, mental health services, etc etc

and a lot of the same workplace protections will also apply to front office staff and everyone who works behind the scenes at clubs and within the league so it's genuinely a huge step in the right direction for making women's sports leagues truly professional and safe working environments, and also not being afraid to diverge from the model of major men's leagues 👌

of course there's always progress to be made and the elimination of the draft will def come with a learning curve, but this has all been a long time coming and a lot of past nwsl players suffered and were put in a lot of precarious positions that future players will hopefully never even dream of happening to them now 👍

and last thing i promise: i remember answering an ask about kc current having lucy's discovery rights, meaning if she wanted to go to the nwsl she'd have to sign with them or they'd make bank if another team wanted her. that's been eliminated as well so i believe she's a free bird if she ever comes here!

[winryofresembool]

Jily one-shot: Sex Education

A Jily Valentine Gift Exchange fic for @athenasparrow!

@jilymicrofics

Summary: A trainee ob/gyn Lily Evans isn't very impressed when she's invited to teach sex ed at a local sixth form college and she finds out that the students' knowledge of the topic is rather lacking. Enter James Potter, a fellow doctor, who manages to make teaching sex ed more interesting.

A/N: This fic is very different from the stuff I usually write but I ended up having a lot of fun writing it! I am by no means an expert on sex education nor UK school system in general so please be kind if some term isn't 100% correct.

A lot of inspiration for this fic were taken from Grey's Anatomy S19E03 aka the episode Athena mentioned in her wish list, and from Mama Doctor Jones' youtube vids. Also, shout out to @wearingaberetinparis​ from whom I borrowed the kitty name Merlin.

If you have read this far, you are probably aware there will be smut in this fic, but if you want to avoid that and read the rest of the fic, the smut part is in the last quarter. Also, while this Jily is English, there is a brief reference to the Roe v. Wade overturn in one part of this fic, just to warn you in case that’s something that may trigger you. The James and Lily of this fic are very much pro choice and if you don't agree with that, this fic is not for you.

All that being said, I hope you enjoy!! And don't forget to let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I do not agree with any of the author-who-shall-not-be-named's views.

Words: 10667

Rated: E

AO3

...

Lily Evans sighed as she threw herself down on a sofa, lifting her feet up in the air. As a part of her training to become an ob/gyn, she had been invited to teach sex ed to Year 13:s at a school located a few hours from her workplace, but she was already regretting agreeing to do it with only half of the lectures behind her so far. It was unbelievable to her how little even those who were about to apply for universities knew about basic human anatomy; many had confused terms like vagina, uterus and ovaries with each other and someone had even claimed that the human egg cells were the size of a chicken egg. She hadn’t been sure whether to cry or laugh at that comment. Biting her lip, she had tried to explain the facts but she wasn’t sure how effective her lecture had really been.

Now she had an hour-long break, which she was planning to embrace fully. 15-30 minutes of resting in the empty staff room (most of the teachers were already at the school cafeteria or still teaching), after which she’d head back down for lunch. As she leaned her head against the backrest, her mind went back to a specific moment during her latest lecture. While she had been talking, she had noticed a – rather attractive, she had to admit – man of presumably her age, also wearing a doctor’s coat, watching and listening to her intently. There had been something familiar about him but she wasn’t sure what. However, she hadn’t had a chance to ask before he had already left.

Secretly hoping that she would eventually find out who the man was, she finally snapped out of her daydreams when she realized she’d have to rush if she still wanted to get her lunch. She got up, straightened her doctor’s coat, and also fixed her ponytail quickly before leaving the room.

Her lunch plans came to a halt when she walked past the classroom where she was supposed to lecture next, overhearing a student asking his teacher:

“So, basically, you’re saying don’t have sex or you’ll die, like those videos our parents were shown when they were kids?”

The teacher sounded really awkward when he tried to respond: “Uh, that’s not… I just… You gotta be careful! STI:s are no joke!”

Lily sort of felt pity for the man who clearly wasn’t made to teach about sex, and she decided to step in, even if it meant she would probably miss her lunch altogether. At least she had some snacks in her bag she could resort to if need be.

“You’re right in one thing,” she said loudly enough that everyone could hear her. “It never hurts to be careful when it comes to sex. However…” She addressed the students now. “Don’t be afraid of it. There’s such stigma around STI:s even though they are way more common than you’d think. Medicine develops and we learn more about treatments and the way certain viruses are transmitted all the time; for example HIV is very much manageable these days and with only a few simple precautions you can avoid it and other infections altogether.”

“I’m sorry, but who are you? And why are you interrupting my class?” the teacher stopped her rambling.

“I’m Lily Evans, a trainee ob/gyn and here to lecture about these exact things. As a matter of fact,” she checked her schedule from her phone, “does this happen to be the class 13 B?””

“Yes, that’s us,” the teacher confirmed, still a bit flabbergasted.

“In that case, I’m supposed to teach this group in a bit anyway, so I can take over if you’d like.”

The man didn’t protest but his mouth still hung open as if he would have liked to say something. Lily decided to ignore it and asked: “So, what are those precautions you can take, one might ask. I’ll tell you. You may consider some of these obvious but I don’t think repeating them can hurt: 1) use condoms. It doesn’t only prevent pregnancy - when you’re having sex with someone who can get you pregnant - with a fairly high accuracy but it also protects you from so many infections. Boys, don’t come complaining to me ‘they are so uncomfortable!’ Trust me, it’s a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. 2) talk with your partner, or partners. A good relationship is one where you can talk about these things openly. Really, it never hurts to ask. And 3) have regular checkups at a doctor, especially if you are unsure about whether you or someone you have sex with might have an STI. Don’t be ashamed of it. Trust me, we’ve seen it all, and we don’t shame anyone. It’s life, sometimes things happen and that’s fine. Now, these are just some basics; there’s more you can do but that’s a lecture for another time.”

At this point everyone was staring at her with rather similar expressions on their faces as their teacher had had a moment earlier. She realized that her open way to talk about this topic surprised many; it really was a shame how little pupils were taught about sex at school.

To break the silence, she reached for her backpack and said: “Alright then. Who wants some free condoms?” She started throwing the small foil packages at the students, some of whom caught them rather eagerly, some a bit bashfully.

“So, are there any questions?” she asked once all the packages had disappeared. A silence filled the room again. “Alright, since there are no questions… unless your teacher has something to add… “ she glanced at the teacher who just shook his head, “feel free to go and have a 10 minute break while I get prepared for the next lesson; we’ll continue with other topics after the break.”

The group left, and after exchanging a couple of words with the teacher, Lily was left alone to check if she had everything she needed in her bag. Only, there was still someone watching her.

“That was quite an impressive way you just shut that teacher’s mouth,” a man with messy, black hair, glasses, and a long, white coat told her. It didn’t take her long to register it was the same man she had already seen earlier that day. He was leaning against the wall casually and the grin on his face made her feel like he was up to no good, but maybe it was just the way he smiled. “Really, though, that’s exactly why they should let the professionals do the sex ed part; those poor kids won’t learn anything otherwise.”

“And who are you?”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Potter, James Potter.”

Lily rolled her eyes but took his extended hand and shook it. The grip was firm and warm. “What is it with blokes called James and wanting to introduce yourself that way?”

“Just admit it, Mr. Bond is the coolest guy in the UK.”

“If you say so, Potter. I’m Evans, Lily Evans, by the way. And I’m curious about why I’ve caught you watching my lectures not once but twice today.”

“Who doesn’t want to listen to a beautiful woman talk about sex?” Lily couldn’t help herself, she blushed at the compliment. “From a scientific point of view, of course. I’m a trainee surgeon and I’m here to help my colleague record some of his lectures so they can be used at later dates when needed. I just happened to walk past this classroom when I was heading to the staff room and got curious when I saw you lecturing. My friends always say one day my curiosity will get me in trouble.”

“Alright. I suppose your explanation makes sense,” Lily nodded. “I mean, the same sort of happened to me.”

“Guess we’re both curious natures then,” James stated. “So, um, we literally just started talking and this is probably going to sound like a crazy or weird suggestion to you, but… since I’m having the next hour free, can I join your lecture? My colleague is off to who knows where so it’s not like I have better things to do. I could even help you if you wanted to.”

“And why would you do that?” Lily questioned, narrowing her eyes. “Didn’t you just say you were impressed by how I handled that class?”

“I really was, and I would never underestimate your skills to teach those kids everything they need to know about sex. But it can never hurt to bring some male perspective with you, right?” He gave her a lopsided smile that somehow managed to make her heart beat a bit faster.

“Err…” she mumbled, “I suppose you have a point there.”

“I promise I won’t step on your toes.” He made what Lily could only describe as ‘deer eyes’ and she couldn’t help but smile back.

“Good.”

Lily took a moment to inspect the other doctor more closely, and the feeling that she somehow knew him got stronger.

“Excuse me, but I can’t shake the feeling that we might have met before.”

“That’s because we have,” James noted. “Truth to be told, that was the real reason why I stopped to listen to you.”

“We have?”

“Yeah. Hogwarts university med school. We were there at the same time, even though for whatever reason our paths never crossed properly. But I would never forget that red hair on the other side of the hall.” He stepped closer and seemed like he wanted to touch her hair, but finally decided against it. A part of her definitely wanted to tell him it was OK for him to touch it, but she stopped herself, instead thinking back to her Hogwarts university days.

“Potter… Potter… Hey! Were you a part of that group that called themselves the Marauders? You sometimes sabotaged the lectures on purpose… and I also heard some rumors about some pretty interesting campus parties... There was also that Black guy… and two others…”

“So you remembered Sirius’ name but not mine,” James huffed. “Typical. And for your information, we only sabotaged lectures when it was necessary; some professors were just straight out nasty or gave us misinformation on purpose.”

“That’s what you say but now I’m starting to suspect you’re here to ruin my lecture.” Lily accused, but not seriously.

“I would never. Marauders’ honor.” James put a hand over his heart. “Besides, that was literally like 8 years ago; I’d like to think that I’ve grown out of those habits by now.”

“Well, I’ll give you a chance. But if you try to pull off something weird, I will find out who your supervisor is and ask them to reconsider making you a surgeon.” Her index finger poked his chest playfully. A pretty solid chest, she realized.

James raised his hands in mock surrender. “Geeze, Evans, playing with the big guns already? As I said, I would never overstep my boundaries; you’re the one who gets paid to do that lecture. I’ll just add some things if I see an opportunity.”

“Alright.” Lily accepted. “Sorry, I simply remembered that one time we got living rats in our lab class – which I now suspect was your doing – and I don’t want a repeat of that today.”

“Yeah, we may have gotten a bit overboard with that prank,” James smiled sheepishly. “You’re free to check my bag for rats if you feel the need for that.”

“No need for that, I trust your word – this time. Anyway, if you’re going to do this, maybe we should quickly go through the topics I was planning to cover during this lecture so you’ll have an idea what we’re supposed to talk about.”

As they did that, Lily started to feel like maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to bring James along. He had surprisingly good ideas to add into her ‘script’ and he also seemed to be a natural performer; at least he wasn’t a single bit ashamed to talk about sex in front of strangers. … “Alright,” Lily clapped her hands to get the class’s attention. “I know you’ve already covered STI:s and various contraceptives earlier today with other people, but now we get to the truly exciting part: what you should know about sex itself. Laugh ahead; I bet you will learn something during this lecture. First, I’d like to ask you a question: how big a percentage of women or people with internal reproductive organs do you think can get an orgasm simply from penetration, no foreplay involved?”

The students yelled their guesses:

“90 per cent?”

“85?”

“80?”

“That’s not right.” Lily shook her head. “I’ve seen some articles claim that it’s roughly 60%. However, as a woman and someone with plenty of female friends, I would say it’s actually even lower than that. This is a topic that is difficult to research so the sample is small.”

“You can laugh now, boys.” James was glaring at a couple of boys who had been chuckling at Lily’s commentary, as if they didn’t believe her. “But I bet your partners aren’t laughing if you just completely choose to ignore the foreplay. They might make you think that they enjoy what you’re doing but in reality a lot of the moans and other reactions are fake. Just repeating what you see in porn movies and stuff like that does not make you adept in sex, am I right, Evans?”

“Yep, you’re correct. Saying that real sex is like porn is like saying books and their movie adaptations are the same. Some people may believe in that, but…” Lily left the rest for the listeners’ imagination. James continued: “I’m not ashamed to admit that as a teenager I may have had that kind of mind set too, but thank – apologies, I just can’t not use the next word in this context - fuck I went to the med school and learned a thing or two about the secrets of human anatomy. I mean, I may have known some basics earlier than that but my exes would probably tell you that there was some room for development.”

That made the group of students laugh out loud.

“Oh, I’m curious now, Potter,” Lily told him, unable to stop her mouth from twitching. “What exactly did you learn at med school?”

“I learned that real men - cis, trans, whatever label you yourself want to use - give their partners orgasms. Real orgasms. So, if you want to be a real man… you better learn how to please your partner. And doctor Evans, I believe you are the better person to answer questions on how to achieve that.”

“Hmmm, thanks Potter. For one, it’s extremely important to remember that different things work for different people. Sometimes a bit of experimentation is needed to find what works for you, both in regards to how you personally like to be touched, and who you want to be intimate with. Maybe you’re still on your journey to discover your sexuality, maybe you only want to have sex with a very specific person, maybe with several people, or maybe you don’t want to have sex at all. All of those are completely normal, valid situations. If sex is not something you want, there’s absolutely no need to rush it, nor do you need to feel ashamed if you enjoy it a lot. That is everyone’s personal choice and no one else’s business.”

Lily took a quick swig from her water bottle and glanced at James from the corner of her eye; he gave her an encouraging nod.

“Anyway, you guys are around 18 now, right? That means some of you have already had sex and some of you haven’t. The media often makes it seem like the first time is such a huge deal, but my personal view is that it should be treated similarly to any other experience you have during your life. You gained something. Great. Now let’s move onto the next experience. ‘Losing virginity’ is a horrible phrase that you will not hear me use in other contexts except this. I mean, too many people still think that sex is all about penetration and 'virginity' is something you 'lose' when a cock breaks the hymen. But here's the thing: not only are there many ways to have sex that do not involve penetration, but there's a lot of misinformation regarding hymens too. It’s a small piece of tissue surrounding the opening of the vagina that can come in many shapes and sizes and can break for a large variety of reasons. It does not tell you whether someone has had sex or not. So, if someone tries to tell you otherwise… Please know they’re wrong.”

She waited for a moment to see if someone wanted to comment or ask something before continuing.

“What else should you know about first times? Well, it’s often messy and awkward and nothing like books or movies make it sound, but the good news is: it gets better. And the best part is that you can practice on your own and learn to know your own body.”

James took over: “By masturbating. Which, by the way, is also totally normal and shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of. What happens in your bedroom, stays in your bedroom.”

“That’s right.” Lily agreed. “And when it comes to mutual pleasure, as I already said, there are other ways to reach it besides penetration. It’s good to learn what other erogenous zones you personally find enjoyable besides the obvious ones, and let me tell you, there are many, and some of them might be rather surprising. Some of the better known ones are for example ears and neck and inner thighs… But, how many of you knew that for example the backs of the knees or armpits are erogenous zones? Or hands? Or feet? Yep, you heard that right. Having your partner rub your feet can really help you get off.”

“Ah, yes. My personal favorite, armpits,” James joked.

“Don’t make fun of armpits, Potter. This is serious business.”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t. Well, does anyone have questions at this point?”

Surprisingly many students had (Lily had a feeling that James had a big role in breaking the ice between them and the students), and once those questions had been answered and the students had been given pamphlets about the previous topics, she took 3D models of internal reproductive organs and external genitals from her bag and wanted to know if the students could name the various parts. Turned out, their knowledge was quite lacking; many didn’t for example know where the clitoris was located and a couple were even surprised to find out that urine and period blood come from different holes.

A bit later Lily stopped the discussion: “So, now that you know the names and locations of the spots that can give you pleasure, it’s time to move on. What else is important in good sex aside from knowing where to touch?”

“May I answer this question, Doctor Evans?” James winked at her.

“Aha, I see what you did there, Doctor Potter. What he just demonstrated here was asking for my consent. And indeed that is something that should never, ever be ignored when discussing sex.”

Lily cleared her throat and continued: “So, you all should at least in theory know what consent means. But how does it show in practice during a sexual encounter? Well, here’s one red flag you should pay attention to: if you, or your partner, need verbal persuasion or convincing it is not consent. You are not supposed to feel uncomfortable in that situation. Tell your partner how you feel, and ask them how they feel.”

“Trust me, everyone. Spoken consent is hot,” James chimed in. “A simple question like ‘what do you want to do?’ or ‘is this OK?’ can make a big difference.”

Lily’s mind went to an entirely wrong place for a moment as she pictured him saying exactly those things at her, in private. It took her a moment to collect herself and continue talking.

“Ahem. Anyway. Some people have higher tolerance than others, but regardless, sex is something that should be enjoyable to all involved, so you have every right to stop your partner if you’re not feeling comfortable.”

“And if your partner doesn’t respect your boundaries, it’s a sexual assault. Your partner is committing a crime against you and it should be immediately reported and you should also get medical treatment if needed. The sad fact is that many victims of sexual assault are too afraid to do that because sometimes it can be hard to prove it happened and they might feel guilty, ashamed or humiliated. But, if it does happen to you, please seek help. You’re not alone in that situation and there are people out there who want to help and protect you.”

At this point Lily absolutely hated herself for finding James so attractive when he was talking about something so serious. Withdrawing her eyes from him, she added:

“Exactly. That's what we healthcare workers are for. Also, something that I as a future gynecologist want you to know is that sometimes our body and mind don’t cooperate during a sexual encounter. Sometimes your body might be turned on even though your mind knows what’s happening is wrong and doesn’t know how to stop it. A rapist can claim the other party was willing simply because their body reacted in a way a body usually does when being touched. That doesn’t give them a right to do what they do.”

“Any questions? Our pamphlets have some useful phone numbers and websites that you can use if you’re ever in a questionable sexual situation.”

Once the pamphlets had been shared, they kept discussing consent with the students till the lesson was about to end.

“Let’s finish this with a happier note: done right, sex is a wonderful thing, and we hope that you got something out of this lecture,” Lily addressed the class once the discussion died down.

Apparently James couldn’t resist an opportunity to crack a joke: “Yep, even if it was simply that armpits can give you sexual pleasure.”

This made the students laugh again, and Lily glanced at her ‘partner in crime’ to see how he was doing. He seemed so at ease in front of the curious students and she couldn’t help but admire James a bit for handling a topic that too many people liked to avoid so calmly, with a glint of humor in his eye.

“Well, that went pretty well, don’t you think?” she asked when the students had left the room and she had started collecting her papers from the desk in front of her.

“Yep, I think so. Although I believe their teacher would have been scandalized had he been listening to our lecture.”

Lily couldn’t help but snort. “I probably shouldn’t say this but I was happy he chose to let us handle it on our own. I think the students were more at ease too.”

“Well, you’re not wrong there. It was honestly great to see this group so active.”

“Yeah, I rarely get this many questions when it’s just me lecturing,” Lily noted.

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” James bumped her arm with his elbow. “You did most of the work there and I think they really enjoyed the way you presented things. I was just the goofy comic relief person.”

“No, I think they loved you,” Lily protested. “I swear to God that those two girls that were constantly whispering in the back of the room had a crush on you, they kept staring and giggling at your jokes…”

“You seem to have paid a lot of attention to what the others thought of me,” James pointed out and Lily felt her face heat.

“Yeah, well… Of course I needed to see how they’d react so I’d know if you’re worth having as my assistant in the future.”

She turned to close her bag, mainly to hide her blushing, but before she managed to move far from the desk, she felt his fingers catch her wrist.

“Well? Was I?” he asked with an earnest expression on his face.

“Were you what?”

“Worth keeping as your assistant?”

“Hmmm… I might need a bit more convincing,” she grinned at him, hoping he'd get the hint.

“Oh.”

James froze for a moment, and Lily was almost out of the door when he practically exclaimed:

“Hey, Lily?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I try to do more convincing over dinner tonight?”

Lily could feel her smile widening.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

…

“… And then my cat managed to climb on top of the fridge and didn’t know how to get down from there so my roommate Mary and her date spent like an hour trying to help him while he sang the song of his people. He’s not very trusting of other people besides me. You can probably imagine that Mary wasn’t very happy with me or Merlin the next day,” Lily finished the story of how her cat had once escaped her room and climbed on the top of the fridge while her poor friend Mary had been trying to have a nice date in the kitchen of their old flat.

“Your cat’s name is Merlin?” James asked once he managed to suppress his laughter. “Like the wizard. I like that.”

“Yep, he was named after him,” Lily confirmed.

“Do you have photos of him? I’d like to see what this culprit looks like,” James inquired.

“Cat person, are you?” Lily asked, happy that she had immediately found something to bond over with James.

He shrugged. “Alright, I am, but don’t tell that to my roommate. I’d love to have a cat but unfortunately Sirius has a dog – and he claims he’s allergic to cats – so no can do. Maybe I should kick him out of my place; the guy definitely earns enough these days to be able to live on his own if he wanted to.”

“Maybe he’s just living with you to piss you off,” Lily suggested.

“You know, I wouldn’t be surprised. Anyway, here’s Padfoot.” James showed a picture of a big, black dog from his phone. “I tried to make him respond to the name ‘Elvendork’ when he was still a puppy but sadly that attempt failed.”

“Elvendork?” Lily repeated, unsure if she had heard the name right. “Why would you want to call a puppy that?”

“Why does everyone keep asking that? It’s a nice, unisex name!” James exclaimed with fake annoyance.

Lily put a hand on his arm as a peace offering of sorts. She wondered briefly how touches like this already felt so natural with this man. “Hey, you do you. But please don’t name your future child that, if you’re ever planning to have any.”

“Watch me try,” James declared, something about his mischievous grin only making him more endearing in Lily’s eyes.

“Poor future spouse of yours…” Lily tutted, shaking her head. James only chuckled at her. “Anyway, Padfoot looks adorable! “

“The looks can be deceiving,” James assured her. “I swear he’s capable of just as much mischief as Sirius when he’s feeling like it. Sometimes I’m not entirely sure they’re not one and the same…” Lily laughed. “I’d love to meet this Padfoot one day.”

“Maybe you will,” James noted, and Lily’s mind went to picture him playing with the black dog during a future date of theirs. She found herself wishing that it would happen. “Here, this is Merlin”, she showed James a photo of a handsome ginger cat lounging in front of a fireplace lazily.

“Seems pretty harmless to me,” James observed, referring to Lily’s earlier story. “But I guess it’s the same as with Padfoot. You never know what they are up to. I have to admit, I have a soft spot for gingers.”

He looked up from the photo, his eyes messaging her that he may not be talking about cats anymore.

“Oh,” she said, biting her lower lip shyly. “Yeah, they are pretty great, ginger cats.”

“Not just cats,” James confirmed her suspicion, taking a strand of her hair between his fingers and twirling it there. She hated how he somehow managed to make her feel like she was back in secondary school. She definitely hadn’t been prepared for the butterflies that were currently flying restlessly in her stomach.

When Lily’s brain started functioning enough for her to realize he was probably expecting some kind of response, she eventually asked: “Are you always such a flirt, Potter?”

“No,” he said firmly, looking into her eyes. “Only when I genuinely think the other person is interesting.”

She wasn’t sure what would have happened next if the bartender hadn’t picked that moment to come to ask them if they wanted something more to eat or drink. James lifted the hand he had momentarily set on her knee and ordered simply a glass of water (they had already had a couple of glasses of wine), saying he wasn’t fancying having to work the next day with a hangover. Lily decided to follow suit. “So,” James continued their conversation while he was chewing a nacho he had ordered earlier. “This isn’t exactly the most original question out there, but was there some specific reason why you chose to become an ob/gyn?”

“I think I’ve always considered this branch of medicine as really important. Periods, pregnancy, labor, those are things that about half of the people in the world have to deal with at some point in their life yet somehow I feel they are still horribly overlooked when we are talking about the bigger picture. I mean, you only need to look at what’s happening in the States; politicians make horrible decisions that restrict women’s rights to control their own body, and I personally believe that the lack of information is a huge factor on why that’s happening. There are too many examples where those politicians fail to answer even the simplest questions about for example how periods work. It is fucking maddening and I want to do my part that the people here, like the students we just taught, DO have some information. Well," her tone softened a bit, "obviously as an obstetrician I also get to help babies arrive into this world and that’s something that never ceases to amaze me… But I do consider the info spreading almost equally important because if we don’t do it, who will?!”

“My mother would probably have jumped onto that bar counter over there and yelled ‘you listen to that girl!’ if she had just heard your talk,” James said with amusement. “Her name is Euphemia Potter, she used to be a women’s rights activist when she was younger. Of course she’s still passionate about women’s rights still, just a bit old to participate in the marches and stuff anymore. Anyway, you’re of course right in everything you just said, and to be honest, I feel like I should be the one to jump onto that bar counter right now.”

Lily guessed her expression must have been horrified because James was quick to add: “Don’t worry, I won’t! But I just wanted to let you know my mother didn’t raise me to be a so-called ‘pro life’. My view is: you’re allowed to have your own personal beliefs but what someone else chooses to do with their body should be their and their choice only.”

“Yeah, it’s… there are no words for it,” Lily sighed. Even though she was getting upset thinking about the women’s situation on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, James’ speech had convinced her that she had made the right decision when she had agreed to join him for that dinner. “I’m sorry, this got a bit heavy. I don’t want to ruin this date so maybe we should move on to something lighter. So, why did you choose to be a surgeon?”

“Do you really want to know?” James asked, frowning for some reason.

“Of course I do.” Lily felt a bit confused about James’ reluctance to talk about it.

“Alright, then, but I have to warn you that this isn’t going to be the uplifting story you’re looking for. Nor something heroic like ‘I’ve always wanted to save people’s lives’. I mean, I do, but it started from more selfish reasons.”

“That’s fine. You can still tell me if you want to,” she encouraged.

James exhaled deeply and his hand went to muss his already rather messy hair. “Okay, so. My dad, who was my big idol growing up, died in a surgery when I was 18. It was just before I was supposed to start applying for unis. He had a cancerous tumor in his brain and when they tried to remove it… well, there were complications, and he didn’t make it. I got so mad. Back then I still had a child’s faith; I thought that once the operation was done, everything would be fine and dandy. I knew the doctors had talked to my parents about the possible risks, but I refused to accept such a possibility. So, afterwards, I desperately wanted to understand how something like that could happen. I kept reading book after book, article after article, about surgeries, and cancer, and somehow I wound up in Hogwarts med school. Yep, it was my pettiness and bitterness that got me there.”

“I’m sorry, James.” Lily covered his wrist with her hand. “I shouldn’t have made…”

“No, it’s fine.” He shook his head. “I mean, I’ve had time to come to terms with all this. Maybe… as horrible as it may sound, it may have been the push I needed. Up till then, I had always gotten everything I ever wanted, and just breezed through my life while many around me were struggling. I’m not going to deny that I could even be downright nasty when I felt like it. But that incident was a big wake up call to me, and these days I obviously have nothing but huge respect for the people in my field. It’s tough… really, really tough at times, but when you succeed… it’s worth it.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s the same in my field." Not feeling like dwelling on her personal work issues, she chose to change the topic: "If you don't want to talk about this, I understand, but seeing as you said that your father was your idol, I'd like to know more about him. What did he do for a living?”

“He was a chemist. He loved inventing new things.”

“Really?” Lily got excited. “I used to think that if I hadn’t decided to become a doctor I may have become a chemist instead. What sort of things did he invent?”

At this point James scratched his neck, as if he was a little embarrassed to admit something.

“You may or may not be familiar with Sleekeazy’s hair products….”

“No way! I love their conditioner!” Lily exclaimed. “You have no idea how difficult it would be to get the knots out of this mane without it.” She pointed at her hair needlessly.

“I honestly doubt your hair could look anything but nice, Evans.”

“Thanks, Potter, even though you’re wrong there.” She smiled at him shyly.

“Am not. My hair, on the other hand, can’t be tamed with any amount of Sleekeazy’s. Trust me, my mum has tried.” He combed his hair with his fingers and it stuck in all the possible directions.

Lily snorted. “Hey. I like it the way it is.”

James’ eyes widened slightly. “Really?”

“Believe it or not, yes. I do.” She leaned in to ruffle the dark locks, and was happy to find out they felt surprisingly soft. James closed his eyes at the touch, and Lily wondered if his cheeks had just gotten some extra color.

“Well… I’m glad you like it?”

Once Lily sat back down on her chair, she felt the need to say: “Thanks, James. For telling me all those things. I feel a bit silly now, to be honest, because I may have expected you to have a pretty different kind of answer to my original question.”

Even though she hadn’t elaborated on what kind of answer she was talking about, James seemed to understand: “Such as: ‘the money is good’? At some point I might have said ‘well, it’s a nice bonus’, but years have taught me that money doesn’t bring you happiness. Lame, I know, but it’s true. My dad wasn’t happy because he had money, he was happy despite it. He worked hard, and loved a lot and I suppose he’d want the same for me.”

The guy was attractive, smart, good with his hands, he spoke lovingly about his parents, and so on. Lily couldn’t help but wonder if she was dreaming this whole scenario in her head. “Um, this can be a horribly intrusive question, but how does a guy like you not have a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend?”

James chuckled awkwardly. “I suppose I could ask you the same question.”

That was yet another response Lily hadn’t quite anticipated. “What? Why?”

“Have you seen yourself?” he gestured at her. “Obviously I consider you really pretty, but that's simply the surface. Based on what I’ve heard today I’d say you’re…” he rested his chin on top of his fingers, pretending to thinking hard, “caring, very passionate about things that matter to you, sharp-witted – I only needed to listen to you lecturing today and I can say that – the type who doesn’t give up easily… or have I gotten that all wrong?”

“Oh… I guess I don’t really think of myself that way,” Lily muttered. “I’ve had a few people in my life tell me I’m a freak and way too ‘liberal’… presumably for advocating basic human rights. The worst part is that they were people I cared about deeply.” She thought about her sister and her childhood friend whom she had thought she could trust, but who had shown his true colors when she had started talking about her world views and found out that his were almost the exact opposite. “Maybe on some level I’ve started believing them… I tend to withdraw easily when I sense a potential relationship, because I don’t think I’m worthy enough.”

James covered her hand with his. “I do think you’re worthy enough. Those people were bloody idiots who don’t understand what’s good. As for your question, I'm single because work is keeping me busy and because I’ve had some… bizarre relationship experiences in the past. One only saw me as some magazine cover boy, one cared about my money a bit too much, one was seeing someone else behind my back, one told me we were better off as friends just when I thought it was getting serious… That was when I decided, ‘fuck it, better be single than whatever the hell that was’. Sirius has tried to get me out every once in a while but that’s usually been a waste of time.”

“That’s… too bad,” Lily said sympathetically. “Maybe the right person just hasn’t showed up yet.”

James brushed some strands of hair off his face, his eyes on his glass as he said quietly: “Or maybe the right person shows up when you don’t expect it… Like, at a random school?” Lily’s face was positively burning now.

“Are you saying…?”

“You look adorable when you’re flustered.” James’ face lit up when his eyes met hers again. “Hey, would you like to dance?” he asked before Lily could react to his statement. “This song is great.”

“Oh, sure,” she managed to stammer before he already took her hand and dragged her onto the dance floor.

The song was a fast one and Lily couldn’t help but giggle as James kept twirling her around. He wasn’t the best dancer she had ever met, but she found she didn’t mind one bit; the laughing was worth the risk of getting her toes stomped on in the process.

When the song changed, James pulled her closer and muttered into her ear: “I have a confession to make.”

“What kind of confession?” Lily asked curiously, not quite sure why her heart kept beating that hard only after one dance.

“When we were at med school… I may have wanted to ask you out.”

Lily’s eyes widened at that piece of information. “Why didn’t you, then?”

“Hell, you were way too good for an idiot like me. Top grades, the professors' favorite, always a lot of people around you… I didn’t want to know how I’d feel if you had said no to me. Besides, I was quite sure you must be seeing someone anyway.”

“You seem to have paid more attention to me than I did to you,” Lily observed, her voice apologetic.

“It was honestly quite hard to not to notice you,” James responded, his eyes finding hers. Again Lily felt her heart skip a beat. How was this guy so smooth? “I also don’t blame you for ignoring me; I was obnoxious as hell and I’m not even gonna deny that. Um. That is not to say that I’m some perfect prince these days because that’s far from the truth but you know. I try to learn. Keyword: try.”

“I think you are doing better than you think you do,” she gave him a smile that she hoped was reassuring.

“You know, when you look at me like that…” James started, but didn’t seem to know how to finish his thought.

“Yeah? Go on, you can tell me,” she encouraged.

“Well, I think it will make having to listen to Sirius whine about me ditching him for another doctor tonight worth it,” he settled on even though Lily had a feeling he had probably wanted to say more.

“So Sirius Black dragged you to film his lectures,” Lily chuckled. “I feel like I should have guessed that.”

“Er, yeah. I was supposed to have a couple of days off this week but I may have owed him this for ruining our chances at winning the pub quiz the other week,” he grinned sheepishly.

“Do I want to know how exactly you ruined that?” Lily raised her eyebrow, but her mouth was twitching.

“I’m not so sure you do,” James laughed, shaking his head.

Lily bit her lip to keep herself from laughing as well. She couldn’t help but notice that James noticed the gesture… and her eyes involuntarily went to his lips as well.

“Anyway…” he continued more quietly. “If he somehow knew that I’m thinking about kissing this lovely girl I met thanks to him… he would say that I owe him even more.”

“Yeah?” Lily said expectantly.

“… But I would argue it’s a risk worth taking,” he finished. His eyes were definitely on her lips now and Lily had absolutely no plans to stop him. “Since I may have told a whole class today that spoken consent is hot, I’m going to ask: may I?”

“You most definitely may,” she answered and before she had even properly finished her sentence, his hands had already found her cheeks and she was tiptoeing to give him easier access to her lips. Finally, their lips met. It started almost tentatively, but soon Lily felt her entire body tingling when he sucked and gently nipped her lower lip, a small sigh escaping her mouth. He took advantage of that and slipped his tongue in, and she happily followed suit.

Lily barely even registered them leaving the dance floor. The next thing she knew, they were making out in an empty hallway of the hotel where she was staying, their hands and mouths exploring all the available skin, and Lily could feel the heat build up inside her as he propped her against the wall, the increasing hardness in his pants telling her that he wanted this just as much as she did.

Somehow, they managed to stumble to the entrance of Lily’s hotel room. They both were panting when they stopped the snogging for a moment, and James leaned his forehead against hers.

“I want to let you know that I don’t usually drag the first doctor who happens to stop to watch my lecture into my hotel room during one of these events… But… I may be willing to make an exception this time,” Lily whispered. “That is, if you want to.”

James had an almost mischievous twinkle in his eye when he said: “Hmm… I really need to consider this for a moment…” Lily rolled her eyes. “This lovely woman whom I happened to have a crush on years ago asks me to come into her hotel room…”

“Oh, shut up…” Lily said but her eyes and mouth probably betrayed her.

“Good luck shutting me up. I’ll have you know that I can be rather talkative in the bedroom… or hotel room…” he whispered into her ear, hot air from his mouth tickling it.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she muttered and claimed his mouth with hers again while one of her hands was fumbling in her pockets, trying to find the card key to the room.

“Yes, it’s definitely a yes.” He smiled against her mouth. She managed to find the card and pulled him into her room. …

Some minutes later, they were laying on the hotel bed with notably less clothes on, facing each other as their hands wandered on each other’s bodies.

“I know we already did our fair share of warming up but… what would you say if we took that to the next level?” James asked, pushing a strand of her hair that was threatening to fall on her face behind her ear.

“What do you mean?” Lily raised her eyebrow. One side of her might have been happy just lying there staring into his hazel eyes, which she could see more clearly now that he had taken his glasses off. The other side of her, however, was burning and demanding his touches, and it became harder to ignore it.

He seemed almost bashful when he said: “I would be interested in seeing if those erogenous zones you kept talking about today are worth the hype.”

“Oh, were you one of those guys who just go straight below the belly after all? I must say, I’m disappointed,” Lily teased.

“Oh, no, no. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just like you said, different things work for different people, and I must admit I’m kind of keen on finding out what works for you.”

Lily felt like fanning her face with her hand like one of those girls she had seen in the Regency era films. When had she last slept with someone who had actually cared about what she liked? She didn’t remember.

“Mmmh. Go ahead, show me what you got, then,” she encouraged, instead of saying her thoughts aloud. … And did he ever do what he had promised.

He planted a couple of kisses on her temple – a gesture which Lily found surprisingly and adorably soft – before he moved his focus to her ears. She could feel him puffing a bit of hot air into one of them before he gently nipped her earlobe. Then he tentatively nudged the back of her ear with his nose and after finding a spot that made Lily bend her head to give him better access he kissed her there. She had to stop herself from moaning immediately.

Even though Lily had enjoyed the kisses behind her ear, James made sure that he didn’t focus on one spot too long. The nape of her neck had always been one of Lily’s favorite places to receive kisses on and when she felt James’ soft lips there she couldn’t stop herself anymore. Her fingers dug into his hair and her hips thrust against him on their own accord.

“Oh,” James smirked against her neck. “I think I’m starting to get a hang of it. But this is just the beginning.”

His words made something hot pool straight to her core and she had to close her eyes to keep herself together.

“Big promises, mister,” she muttered as her hands slowly moved from his hair to his nicely shaped shoulders.

“Well, I never do things by halves, that’s for sure.” He was now hovering above her, carrying his weight with his arms, and she got a chance to admire him from close. Lily made a mental note to ask him about what kind of working out he did whenever she had a chance, because the guy was /fit/. She herself did also try to make sure she was in pretty good shape because working the long hospital shifts was no joke and exercising did help her keep her mind clear, but James looked like he was a professional athlete. She had to resist the urge to squeeze his biceps and run her hand on his abs right then and there, although given the situation they were in, he probably wouldn’t have minded.

Her ogling did not go unnoticed by James whose grin bordered on cocky, but somehow he managed to make even that look attractive.

“Like what you see?” he asked while his lips brushed her collarbone.

“Hmm. The evaluation is still underway.” She let her fingers lightly trace those exact places she had thought about a moment earlier, and felt his breath hitch on his throat.

“I can make your evaluation a bit easier… or harder, depending on how you see it,” he murmured and bowed down to give one of her breasts a teasing kiss over the fabric that was still covering them.

“Just take it off, will you?” Her frustrated tone made James laugh.

“You are impatient, Evans,” he teased but reached for her back when she arched it slightly so he could untie the clasp more easily. His fingers found it fast and once he had stripped her free from the bra, it was his turn to stop to admire her. The way he lightly bit his lip while his eyes traveled up and down on her body was quite adorable, she had to admit.

“Like what you see?” Lily mocked his voice, but in reality she was trying to hide how flustered she was feeling. It had been a moment since someone had last watched her that way, and something about those hazel eyes that looked almost golden when the light hit them made her even more conscious about herself than she usually was.

“I’m not even going to try to deny that yes, I do,” he said firmly, his cheeks also gathering some color. “You are bloody beautiful, Evans. I’m gonna have to buy Sirius chocolate or something as a thank you for dragging me to that school.”

“Wow,” was all Lily could respond because when James lowered his lip onto her breast, she nearly forgot how to form words.

“I’ve heard that it’s possible for a woman to get an orgasm from touching breasts,” James mumbled as his hands and mouth were working to rile her up even further. Lily buried her head into a pillow to muffle the sounds she was making; he was way too good at what he was doing. “However…” he lifted his head and his hand stopped kneading her other breast, his eyes glinting mischievously when she dared to take a quick look, “tempted as I may be to try, I think we are gonna want to get further than that.”

“Mmm-h” Lily hummed against the pillow, not having anything against his plans.

James took her hand into his and lifted it to meet his lips. Lily hadn’t known before that feeling someone suck her fingers that way could send such sensations down her spine; maybe the researchers who had written those articles about erogenous zones were onto something. And it wasn’t just with the fingers, but also the palms of her hands and that sensitive spot on her wrist…

From there James moved to press open mouthed kisses down her belly and over her knickers, but just when Lily thought he might finally be ready to finish the slow (but wonderful) torture he was doing, he sat up on the bed and Lily shot him a disappointed look.

“Why did you stop?” she asked.

He cocked his eyebrow. “Patience. I believe I said I want to explore as many different erogenous zones as possible and I’m a man of my word.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“One second. I’m going to pick up a couple of things that should be useful in a bit.”

He got up from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom of her hotel room. Soon he reappeared with a damp looking small towel in his hands, stopping to search for a condom from Lily’s work bag, where he knew she still had a few left from her lectures. Lily watched him with mild confusion when he threw those things to the bedside table.

“Umm… I can understand why you see the condom as useful – I appreciate you listening to that part of my lecture, by the way – but what do you plan to do with a wet towel?”

“You’ll see in a moment,” James said. Then he looked at her with a soft expression. “Now, I know I’ve made my intentions pretty clear, but I still want to emphasize that if at any point you want to stop, please just tell me. I want you to feel comfortable.”

“Thanks, James.” She nodded at him. “That’s… good to hear.” She briefly wondered if she should confess a thing that had been in her mind quite a bit that day and finally decided to go for it. “I’ve been in a couple of situations in the past where my ex didn’t…“ She noticed James’ worried expression and rushed to continue: “he didn’t really care about what I wanted or how I felt… That did leave a mark on me. But you’ve already proved today that you do care about how you make me feel…So know that I do want this.”

He pecked her cheek reassuringly.

“I’m really sorry about that bloke. Guess some of us can be bloody idiots. I feel like a hypocrite when I say this but to me sex is something that both parties involved should enjoy and I intend to stick to that mind set.”

“But… we’ve been focusing on me so far…” Lily frowned.

James just grinned. “Trust me, I get a huge kick out of getting off someone as gorgeous as you. And, if that’s what you want, you’ll get your turn with me soon enough.”

“Looking forward to it,” she chuckled before resting her head on the pillow again.

James sat back down on the bed again, near her feet. When he put her feet on his lap, Lily looked up at him with mild confusion.

“You’re really going to stick to your word, huh?”

“Yep,” James popped the ‘p’ with his mouth. Without further exchange of words, he took one of her feet into his hands and began slowly massaging it. Lily was almost going to protest, wishing he’d massage a different part of her body already, but then he found a spot in her foot that felt really damn good and an involuntary moan escaped her mouth.

“That good, huh?”

“I… really wasn’t expecting that. But keep on doing what you’re doing.”

“I will.”

By the time James switched to her other foot, Lily was imagining what else he could do with that magic touch. At that point she couldn’t even make herself care that she was probably making ridiculous sounds. After a rather loud whimper James seemed to decide it was time to move forward and he laid down on his stomach between her legs while his fingers and lips kept traveling up her thighs, eventually stopping to squeeze them. Lily’s hips kept trying to go upwards to find some friction, which James noticed, because he rose and climbed back on top of her. Only the thin underwear was separating them when their hips met over and over again while James was snogging her, her hands clinging to his back like her life depended on it.

“Lily, fuck… we need to slow down a bit or I’ll…”

She, able to feel the hardness against her thigh, understood. James attempted to calm himself down for a moment before he returned back to the space between her thighs. He sucked the skin of her inner thighs, his nose almost nudging the spot where Lily wanted his mouth the most, but again he stopped just when she thought he’d go for it.

“James!” Lily groaned impatiently and she could basically feel him smirk against her thigh. He pressed one final kiss there and got up.

“You’re a real pain, I hope you know that,” Lily muttered, disappointed by the lack of his skin on hers.

“And you’re still impatient. I was just planning to show you what the towel is for.”

“Oh.”

James picked up the towel from the bedside table and returned to her, sitting between her legs again before leaning down to kiss her on the mouth. She hummed happily into it, but soon James’s mouth left hers as he continued his path down her body. The towel was following his mouth, the wetness feeling nice on her heated skin.

At very last James returned to the spot where he had been earlier, looking up once more to ask her permission to remove the knickers, and she nodded greedily. Once James had removed the last piece of clothing she was wearing, he set the towel over her lower abdomen and Lily started to understand what it was good for. That part of her had always been sensitive to touch, and the warm water made the sensation even stronger.

Before fully going for it, James snuck his index finger inside her and tested what kind of movement elicited the strongest reaction from her. Lily thought she shouldn’t be surprised he found it so fast when she started riding his hand before she could stop herself.

“Looks like the lesson didn’t go to waste,” he muttered, his finger glistening with her wetness when he removed it from inside her, only to replace it with his mouth. Kissing, licking, sucking and helping with his hand, he drove her positively crazy, and she wished it would never end.

“Is that good?” He asked against her.

“Fuck, James, what do you think… please don’t stop!”

James responded by deepening his movements.

It didn’t take long to get her over the edge after that. When she could feel the waves of orgasm coming, she opened her eyes just a bit to see the raven mop of hair between her legs, her fingers reaching to comb it, and for a moment she thought she had never seen anything hotter. But soon even that thought vanished from her mind because he reached a particularly good spot and she finally let go, her whole body trembling in pleasure as she came against his mouth.

“Fuck,” she finally managed to say when her breathing slowed down and a satisfied bliss took over. James had crawled next to her and covered them both with the sheets. “I will always ask for a foot rub from now on. And that towel thing? Where did you learn that from?”

“It was mentioned in an article I saw on the internet… I may or may not have gotten curious and looked up more info on erogenous zones after you talked about them during the lecture… Turns out even I still have some things to learn.” He had a mischievous glint in his eye as he said that.

“Well, I’m glad you did your research,” Lily chuckled. “And if you learned something else you want to share… You know I’m always up for some new ideas.”

“Does that mean you want to do it again?” James asked, a mixture of awe and amusement.

“Don’t sound so surprised.” She pulled him closer. “After what you just did… You’re not gonna get rid of me so easily.”

“Oh, I’m scared now,” he teased.

“Besides… I think we need to do something about this…” Her hand wandered down to his boxers, “… situation here.”

For once he went speechless, and Lily took advantage of that and kissed him on the mouth before sneaking her hand inside his boxers.

…

“Good morning, beautiful.” Lily woke up to the feeling of someone brushing some strands of hair from her face. It took her a moment to remember where she was and with whom she was and what exactly had happened. Her first reaction was: ‘Did I really do that? 3 times? With someone I met yesterday?’ Lily usually preferred to know the person she was dating well enough before jumping into bed with them, but she found that in this particular case she couldn’t really care less about that now. She also wasn’t one to believe in love at first sight but she had a weird feeling that this may be the beginning of something much more than just a work acquaintance.

“Good morning, you. What’s the time?”

“Just 6:45. You don’t have to be teaching before 9, do you?”

Lily sighed; the reality of her having to work in only a couple of hours setting in. But she would definitely try to get the best of the time she had before that.

“You’re right, I don’t. Although a shower and a breakfast before that would be quite lovely… Someone had me up doing some exercising till like midnight so I’m feeling a little sweaty… and hungry…”

“Someone had, eh?” James grinned. “Sounds like a lucky bloke.”

“Hmmm… I suppose he did get kinda lucky.” She let her hand wander on his bare chest before resting it on his shoulder. He rose partially on top of her so he’d have an easier access to her lips.

“Real talk, though, Lily.” Something about the way he said her name so softly made her heart melt. “I had a really, really good time with you last night. And I do consider myself very lucky that I happened to run into you here.”

Lily had been hoping she was already past the blushing phase with him, but turned out that wasn’t the case.

“I… feel the same way,” she replied bashfully. Her hand was stroking his neck and jaw now. “Can you imagine? We could have learned to know each other better back in med school… But looks like some force decided that no, now is the time.”

“And I still curse that med school me for not being braver and approaching you. Back when I was a kid everyone always used to say I was brave… Lies. But… you know, I would like to make up for the lost time.” “Oh? How would you do that?”

“I would start by kissing you…” He kissed her. “... and taking a shower with you… and having breakfast with you, preferably here in the bed… after that I’m afraid I’ll have to go find Sirius because otherwise he’ll murder me… I only sent him a really quick text last night saying that I'll see him tomorrow… But before anything else, there’s something I’d like to ask you…”

“Yeah? What is it?” Lily asked, hoping she knew what was coming.

“I’d like to know if you’d like to meet up again next weekend?”

“I already promised Mary we’d hang out on Saturday…”

Disappointment flashed on James’ face for a moment.

“... But… on Sunday I should have time.”

His smile couldn’t have been wider when he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

“It’s a date then.”

[spacelazarwolf]

To respond to something I didn't see brought up in RBs about that Twitter thread... does that person really think that TRANS MEN have our voices heard about abortion? Because I hear "no uterus no opinion" all the time in real life, when it really means "if I look at you and decide that you can't possibly having the sexual organs I assume you do, you have no stakes in this topic and should shut up actually".

Also... when Roe v Wade was in the news most recently, I only ever heard people saying we should support our trans sisters, support trans women who are left out of this conversation, etc., and this sounds horrible, but... I need access to abortion. Because I might need to ACTUALLY GET ONE MYSELF SOMEDAY.

People are telling trans men to take a seat, sit this one out, stay in our lane. This is our lane and we're dying on the pavement while getting told to drag ourselves onto the sides of the highway.

Hearing "no uterus, no opinion" must suck as a trans woman. I genuinely cannot even imagine. But no one seems to consider that it hurts trans men too, just in a different way, closer to home than anyone wants to acknowledge.

honest to god this shit drives me nuts bc sometimes it is just not about trans women!!!! i am sorry!!!!!! and i don’t just mean this as like a “this particular issue is not about you, trans women” i mean it especially as a “hey cis people stop fucking erasing trans people with uteruses and punishing trans women for trans issues that don’t even fucking apply to them what is wrong with u.”

like honestly yeah i get the logic of “all trans issues apply to trans women” bc historically even the shit that doesn’t apply to them somehow ends up getting weaponized against them. but the problem is then we forget what the actual issue was. “hey trans people with uteruses need access to abortion and gynecological care” becomes “can y’all stop harassing trans women about abortion and gynecological care no trans woman is out here scheduling obgyn appointments for shits and giggles” and the trans people who need access to abortion and gynecological care just………..stop mattering. to everyone. bc trans women and femmes are busy dealing with harassment and cis people are busy harassing trans women and femmes for no fucking reason.

it’s. fucking. EXHAUSTING.

[jennyboom21]

Dianna Agron is running late — she’s stuck on the subway. I have no problem believing this because I am on the exact same train a few cars away, as we learn when she sends me a heads-up text. My phone slowly receives a selfie of Agron waving through a grainy train window, face curtained by long light-brown hair, along with another message about how tickled she is that we’re sharing a classic New York experience. And it’s one we continue when we finally make it to The Odeon, the iconic Tribeca bistro. “It's been a staple since the 1980s, which is what I love about this place,” she says in her lilting voice as we mull over the menu. “This is a place that was happening when I was born and didn't even know that it would be waiting for me when I moved to New York City.” We get two dirty martinis and a plate of fries before gleefully cheering to being in our 30s. “I love this time, though,” she adds.

Agron has been thinking a lot about her 30s, and not just because we’re meeting up two weeks before her 37th birthday. Her new movie, Clock, out now on Hulu, is a sci-fi horror film that explores the immense societal pressures women, in particular those without children, face in that decade of their lives. But the film’s messages about making your own choices also resonate within the arc of her career. Agron spent six seasons on the pop culture juggernaut that was Glee — and enduring the intense public scrutiny that came with it — before more recently finding acclaim with a string of indie movies like Shiva Baby and Novitiate. With Clock, Agron pushed herself again. There are big action scenes (hanging from cliffs, elbow-deep gore), as well as dark emotional depths (involving painful family secrets coming to life). “Collected experience really does add up,” she says. “And I think that the life I've lived the last 10 years in some ways has been more magnificent and more challenging than my more formative years.”

Lanvin coat, SKIMS bra, Talent’s own trousers, Pamela Love earrings

Agron never thought she’d try her hand at horror, but the Clock script hit too close to home to resist. She plays Ella, a 30-something who doesn’t want kids but eventually gives into the pressure of prying family and friends and enrolls in an experimental clinical trial, under the leadership of Dr. Simmons (Melora Hardin), that promises to help women who don’t experience having a biological clock. “The moment I turned 30,” Agron says, “the amount of questions that I felt were far too personal — and from truly everyone — just intensified year by year.”

Even for an actor who came up in the Perez Hilton era of celebrity blogging and is used to skirting prying questions, Agron still finds herself surprised sometimes. Just last year, she was on a red carpet at the Tribeca Film Festival promoting the sci-fi drama Acidman when a journalist asked her out of the blue if her mother’s name, Mary, would be “top of the list” for her. “I truly had no idea what she was talking about, so I asked for clarification and she said, ‘The top of your baby list,’” Agron says. “I said, with all of the kindness, ‘You have no idea what my personal journey is. And I'm quite surprised that you asked me that at my workplace when I'm here to discuss a film that I'm in.’” The message didn’t land. “She had no remorse. She just bopped along to the next question.”

Michael Kors Collection clothing and belt, Agmes earrings

Clock only took on more meaning throughout production. Agron was in Texas shooting the last day of principal photography when the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked. “It did not feel good, that's for sure,” she says. “But then felt in some ways good that we were making [a movie that speaks] to some of the perils of being a woman and making choices that are more aligned with your own sense of self, as opposed to making choices for other people.” She dips a fry into one of the many condiments we’ve ordered. “All it takes is a film or a piece of journalism [for people] to open their eyes to different experiences that they could never imagine for themselves and have no personal touch points for. As a woman and one who very much loves women and loves the immense and enormous abilities that we have to carry so much, I wish that we had to carry less.”

When writer-director Alexis Jacknow was looking to cast Ella, she knew what she wanted: “It was very important to me that that character just already have a natural, grounded nature, a gravitas to her.” And she knew right away after meeting her that Agron could deliver. “There was absolutely nothing she wouldn’t do,” Jacknow says. “She pushed me, and there was just no hesitation on her part. She showed up every single day, 110%, and gave us everything.”

That is not an exaggeration. During one scene, Ella cracks open eggs into a frying pan and begins to eat them raw with a spoon. Jacknow didn’t want anyone to flaunt food safety guidelines, but Agron thought the only way to sell the scene was to actually do it. “Beef tartare, a whiskey sour,” Agron says, listing all the indulgences with raw ingredients she already enjoys. (There are reasons those are safer than raw eggs, but just go with it.) Jacknow proposed a compromise: Agron could put the raw eggs in her mouth as long as she spat them instead of swallowing. Agron agreed — or at least pretended to. “I winked at our [director of photography] and motioned at him like, ‘Don’t cut,’” she says, laughing. “I go to pick up the egg, I swallow it and go to take another bite. And I just hear, ‘Dianna, what the f*ck?!’”

Dries Van Noten clothing, Khiry earrings

Agron hasn’t always felt such autonomy in her career. When she was in her early twenties, she booked a role in a “big studio film” that, though ultimately a positive experience, involved an eye-opening screen test. “It was like, ‘We don’t like her hair like that, we need her to be more girly. We don’t like those clothes,’” she recalls. “I kept getting moved off set, changed, put back on stage, taken off again. I didn’t feel that I had any say in the matter, even if I had suggested something nicely. I was just a product at that point.”

Glee did not exactly help things. Agron says she was the last person cast for the show and describes getting the job as nothing short of fate. She grew up watching musicals with her mother in hotels on account of her father’s job as a manager at Hyatt. “Look, I moved to Los Angeles and I set out to find a musical. They were my absolute bread and butter. I told anybody that would listen to me, ‘I really want to do a musical,’” she says. “And [agents] were like, ‘No, try to be on Broadway.’ I just had this staunch faith that I was meant to be in Los Angeles and I would find a musical. And then it happened.”

But while she credits the show with changing her life, the show’s explosive popularity tested her boundaries. “There was a moment in time where there was not only a lack of acknowledgement in respect to personal space, there have been times where I've been put in a headlock and kissed on a plane. There have been times where mothers were grabbing you by the arm to meet and take a photo with their child,” Agron says. “There were so many personal attacks in a way that are just truly not what you do to a human. That feels specific to that time and that intensity of the feelings that people were feeling watching the show.”

So she moved to New York in 2016, eager to escape Los Angeles and its “predatory nature of people with lenses down there that just doesn’t exist in the same way in other places.” For a few years, she split her time between London — from 2016 to 2020, Agron was married to Winston Marshall of British folk-rock group Mumford & Sons — but now calls New York “my only home.” “Following my personal life is really not going to yield anything that interesting,” Agron says of public attention. And it’s true, the few times I tactfully (I hope) bring up topics that might lead Agron to open up about other aspects of her personal life, she gently deflects them. It’s clear she’s figured out a way to maintain her privacy while still being incredibly personal in the context of her work.

In New York, she’s able to follow her muse more freely. She’s reconnected with music through a string of residencies at the famed Café Carlyle, where she’s performed jazz standards and ‘60s covers. She served as a producer on Acidman and would like to do more behind-the-scenes work. And she’s relishing the chance to be a “waving the Jewish flag” kind of actor, choosing projects like Shiva Baby and As They Made Us that let her honor and explore her heritage. “I went to Jewish weekend school and Wednesday school for my entire upbringing up until my Bat Mitzvah and spent a lot of time with Holocaust survivors,” she says. “So it was a weird experience to then have many people say [in Hollywood], ‘You don’t look Jewish.’ It is weird to have somebody deny you your own personal experience.”

Next, she’ll make her return to television with The Chosen One, a multilingual adaptation of Mark Millar’s American Jesus comic book that follows a 12-year-old boy who gains the biblical powers of Jesus after a freak accident. She’s bonded with the younger actors on the show who have asked her for career advice — a full-circle moment for the now bonafide industry veteran. They’ve even watched Glee and marveled to Agron about how young she looks and seems. Her response? “I am!” she says, laughing.

By this point, our martini glasses have long been empty. Neither of us want to brave the train again, so Agron walks me up the street and, like a true New Yorker, gives me directions with a McNally Jackson tote slung over her shoulder. She gives me a hug, then turns to head deeper into Tribeca, forging a path all of her own.

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

I feel stuck in my head and I need to ask someone: what's gonna happen to us when biden's reelected? What can we do to stop the genocide? What can we do to get roe v wade back? How to we make things okay?

Answering the last question first — how do we make things okay? We get informed, and we get involved.

If you want to change how things work, first you have to understand why they work the way they do. I’m not saying you have to become an overnight expert, but you gotta know the basics. You have to know who *really* makes the decisions about the stuff you care about. And I’m not being snarky here, but there’s a very very very good chance that that person is not Biden.

(long-ish more in depth USA-specific thoughts under the cut)

Let’s look at the two specifics that you mention. Yes, the president may be commander in chief of the armed forces but that “just” (air quotes bc obviously that is hugely consequential power, but it’s not the only power at play) means he’s the guy who says yes or no, stay or go. A more effective tool to address the United State’s relationship to Israel? Money. You know who controls the federal money? Congress. You know which political body has elections twice as frequently as the president? Congress. Look into who your Senators and Representatives are, look into their voting records, look into their hiring choices, look into their public statements and appearances, look into the company the keep.

If you like what you find, let them know, and if you have the resources, donate money and/or volunteer your time to make sure they win reelection. If you do not like what you find, and you think they might be responsive to public pressure, let them know you didn’t like what you found. If you found it abhorrent or do not trust that they will adjust to their constituents expectations, figure out if they have a competitor, and if they don’t, make sure that someone steps up to the plate. That someone doesn’t have to be you, but while we live in an ostensible democracy, these people can lose their jobs if and when we vote them out.

Regarding Roe v Wade, this might be upsetting to hear but you need to get used to the idea that it’s not coming back, and if anything, things might get worse. If voting and the legal system is your jam, I can recommend researching the circuit and district judges that preside over your region. If organizing and direct action are more your thing, there’s probably a Nurse’s Union in your area that can point you in the right direction. If your school district has an elected body where you can run for a seat to make sure that kids in your area are getting appropriately scientific sexual health education, do that. If you feel brave enough to start actively having conversations about sexual health and reproductive rights among your daily/weekly social groups, and maybe even start a book club style study group to learn about the legal and medical aspects most relevant where you live, do that. Even on the most individual scale, if you can make it clearly known that you are a safe person for people to talk to about this stuff, that’s a great step in the right direction.

To wrap this up, I think I’ll just say that I think big picture, if Biden wins a second term, things will be fine. If anything, maybe his administration will be able to bolster the environmental wins in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) but at a basic level he will probably maintain the status quo and then after the four years are up, he’ll leave office.

Let’s please not pretend the same can be said about Trump.

But in the spirit of ending on a more hopeful note, if you do not want Kamala Harris to be the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in 2028 (and/or if you want a third party other than the Democrats and the Republicans to stand a snowball’s chance in hell) the time to start organizing is now. We deserve better than the status quo, we can do this, let’s fuckin go 💪

mod dyr