#i was talking intensely with someone this morning about this and how they have….been unlearning this same reflex

[lepertamar]

i hate………it when my loves’s patterns look like they are mere expressions of a preexisting and underlying platonic ideal i Actually love…..there was a post i saw asking if ppl had any kinks that they only had specifically in the context of doing it at or with one specific person, the implication and responses suggested this was very strange and unusual and it made me realize……nearly .all my kinks are like this—i do not have a kink for x, and merely want someone who is able to fulfill it. i have a kink for ‘doing x with this one specific person who is not interchangeable with any other person on earth who has ever lived.’ same with broader contexts of relationships—i don’t want to be looking for someone who fits Into a preexisting slot for me, i am not into a particular 'type' of thing and looking for real things that can fill—or mimic, live up to, sort of approximate—that role. that is not me! that is so not me!

sure there are obviously some patterns but that’s different, that’s only after the fact. the encounters are what create the pattern in me in the first place. my loves — in ideas, stories, etc — are not ‘oh this is an Example of the preexisting Thing i want’. they are things that i encountered that caused some kind of reaction in my electron bonds that cause me to stick to it and become a slightly different shape, and sure some of that is only possible because of what i am, but mostly it’s that once i have encountered this thing that reshapes my electron bonds and sticks to me, then i also become capable of sticking to similar things, or completely different things i wasn't able to stick to before, sometimes due to convoluted associations, often transcending the association after a bit and connecting with the other things independently of it. i have a really really hard time not reflexively — even just in my own brain—‘justifying’ my loves and patterns by trying to make up an underlying preexisting Empty Slot in the way other people do — trying unthinkingly to explain and come up with ‘a type’ (preexisting) that this one singular particular one-of-a-kind thing or person is just a mere example of/fitting candidate for—but it’s a lie when i do this. it’s lying to myself, and lying to others. i think i have done it on this blog before. but it’s ugly, and untrue, and not me.

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Cactus, abelia, mahonia, sage, camellia, ivy, chamomile, aloe vera, papyrus, taro

Procrastinate away my dear~ (I'm a very bad influence) 💛

You are 😌

-

something you’re currently learning (about)?

About five minutes ago I was learning about labialized consonants in the Tlingit language does that count?

Apart from that I'll very soon have to start learning about methods and theory of song lyric translation for my thesis :')

Aside from that, just general random stuff I come across or need for character development for OCs

do you have a particular piece of jewelry you always wear or can’t part with?

✨The bracelets✨

I never take them off (mostly because I physically can't take them off except two)

And uh. Earrings I guess. But like I've had earrings since I was a baby so I don't even really register that I'm wearing them. I forgot I have them until I randomly touched my ear when answering this ask

what place, thing, activity inspires you most and how do you express yourself when it does?

Mostly the weather, especially views of vast open areas, clouds etc, that really make you wish you had wings. Those usually either inspire me to paint or to just say/write some random vaguely poetic words because I can't write actual poetry. And my own feelings, when they're so intense I don't know how to deal with them I just draw (most of my best art pieces stem from some kind of base emotion)

what ‘medium’ of art (poetry, music, fiction, paintings, statues etc.) is the most touching to you? why do you think that is?

All of them to some degree? If I could I'd learn all of them. But mostly art and animation, and music/singing/dancing. Idk there's just something about music, singing and dancing that feels like the core of humanity. Which, heh, kinda sucks when you can't do any of those :')

But art and animation allows me to express what I can't via music so~

what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

Apart from unlearning some shitty mindsets and learning to trust people I don't think I've changed much? I dunno. I don't have strong memories of my childhood. Well, I certainly had more motivation to do things. I dunno. Younger me is something difficult to access

what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?

My friends say that when I get comfortable around people I get very talkative and animated. Though I talk a lot all the time, well, in text. Irl when I'm tired or in a low mood I almost don't communicate at all. But apparently my exact emotions can be a tad difficult to tell since I seem to not have much control over how I express myself so I might sometimes come off as angry or aggressive when I'm really not

what kind of things do you like receiving as gifts?

Hmmm trinkets, rocks, feathers, bones, and snacks. Honestly really can't make a mistake with those. Sort of a "whatever you come across that makes you think of me"

I don't really like getting expensive gifts though cause they always make me feel guilty ;~;

what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

Literally to just exist with you, to just... be. Alas, there's an ocean between 😔

But one day

if you put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle, what’s the first song that comes up? what do you like about it / associate it with?

The Queen of Argyle by Bedlam Boys, it's just a soft, sweet little song. I mostly associate it with Justine and Elizabeth from Frankenstein. Especially the "And if you could have seen her there - Boys if you had just been there - The swan was in her movement - And the morning in her smile" is pure Justine POV and you won't change my mind (especially fitting because in our AU Elizabeth's animal motif is a black swan)

And maaaaayyyybe sometimes it makes me think of you a little, not as much the lyrics but the general vibe of the song~

if someone called you right now to catch up, what’re the things you’d tell them about?

The most likely person to call me is my grandma aaaand I'd probably just tell her about the past weeks since the last time we've seen each other - my exams, interpretation practice, thesis which I'm struggling to begin working on, the insufferable weather and the frogs in our pond. I'd love to tell her about you and how amazing it's been with you so far but... I'm still not sure. I think she'd take it alright, you know she's cool, but, I dunno

[somethingimnotembarassedbylater]

identity

this one’s tricky. i don’t know how i feel about it. you can’t categorize a person in one box, but it makes things easier when you have labels doesn’t it? is what i’m doing right now permanent enough to be a title? is what i spent my time doing 3 years ago but still keep up with enough to be a title? what counts as enough? 

i started listening to this podcast and honestly its been really interesting. it touched upon the topic of identities, as we know them today, as being a western concept. that statement itself is not hard to come to terms with because the moment you hear it, it clicks - yes. my social learning and unlearning has been done mainly through the internet, which in my case is very largely centered around western ideologies. it’s where i learned how high-schools worked in real life, where i learned sexual health, where i discovered ways of thinking i would have never been exposed to in my day to day life. i’m largely thankful for this, but at some point i realized as well, what i’m learning, i’m learning through the framework of a western mind. that is the standard and it does not budge. 

when i think about who i am i can list a couple of things: pakistani, muslim, introvert, really into picturesque things, passionate, private, shy, idealistic, adventurous, vain, insecure, proud, kinda all of it and more. maybe this will change as i grow but maybe it won’t, i don’t know and i don’t think i can ever know. is it really necessary for me to put a title on things because aren’t i fine with the way things are wouldn’t i be doing it for the convenience of others? is it wrong for me to say fuck others when i occupy the same spaces as them? is it my duty to do more? to be more? to define myself?

this may sound a little pretentious to me when i read it again later but i think i just need to start talking to myself to really get to know who i am. who you are isn’t just what you like, it’s also how you react to things, what you’re afraid of, how you interact with the world around you. lemme really think about it, what do i like? i like to watch things, tv shows, movies, foreign films, k-dramas, anime, action movies, documentaries, i don’t think there’s any form of visual media i don’t enjoy consuming and i know i have a problem with being fixated on something very intensely for a little while and then completely forgetting about it. I also love drawing. its something i spend a lot more time on recently but its good to see something real come out of my hands. i think i am a little too into the picturesque things in life. this is a term i learned recently from a book i’ve only read a chapter of and already feel like dropping, and basically the character was also into the picturesque. he was into the visual aesthetic, the beautiful things in life that he over-romanticizes. i feel like i do that too sometimes, or i guess most times because i find myself thinking and viewing my life as a movie, and thinking of the beautiful shots i’d include in the b-roll, or the tender moments as being part of a pivotal scene. maybe that’s detrimental to the actual experience of living but hey, there’s no rules on how to live my life, if this is how younger me decides is a good way to exist then who am i to say no to her? i think i live a very boring and mundane life, like the character in the book does. maybe i should stop comparing myself to him considering he literally commits a murder later on. 

i think there are things i could be doing, things i fantasize about me possibly experiencing, things i’ve hear about, things i’ve seen on tv that i could also live, but i don’t think i’ll have the balls to do. maybe it’s a good thing because almost all of them seem like things i’ve been taught against, but it’s lowkey robbing me of my agency in life and what the hell. am i stopping myself from being happy? why would i do that? why would anyone do that? is it because im too shy? to scared? of what though? the repercussions? who would really school me? my parents already have 2 children who live their lives the way they choose to, so why am i different? do i think i somehow don’t deserve that? do i think that i’m better than them? sometimes i just want sarah to shut the fuck up and go live a little, to be out there a little more, to be the person she wants to be, but i always back off, why the hell do i do that? why do i kid myself and say that i’m being a good person by not doing anything, because am i really? i’m just a 19 year old who doesn’t think she has even started living. i see myself as the one in the bleachers, kind dissatisfied with the fact that the racer on the track isn’t there yet, but i’m her, i’m the one that’s meant to be on the starting line, but i don’t see myself even going down the stairs towards the track anytime soon. honestly this sounds sad as fuck, im not even a participant in my own life but when talking to others why do i inflate myself to the point where i make myself believe i’ve actually accomplished something in my life, cause clearly i have not. 

this is making me motivated again, nothing like a good old self deprecation to make yourself feel alive again. i want to do things, i do have plans, i want to see things, and i am going to do it. i need more friends though like i know i can do this shit alone but it just feels shitty and i haven’t gotten comfortable enough with myself to do anything more. as much as i can say that i don’t need anyone, it does help when someone’s there enabling your behavior, or maybe i can even call is “supporting” :O maybe hehe. ok then make better friends, go talk to that pretty girl in class, go say hi and talk about the prof, go be the one to compliment someone, go be approachable, its not impossible, so go do it. also get better style.

this definitely spiraled into something it didn’t start out from and i can talk a billion more things about it but i think this is just how i think, so how i think is going to be how i write. 

its a warm tuesday june morning, i drank some chai and ate some noodles, i was on my phone for way too long, and i’ve been up all night. 

[honeylikewords]

pettyprocrastination replied to your post “someone ask me about my beef with ghibli!HMC vs book!HMC”

Spill thy tea

lets 👏 talk 👏 about 👏 narrative 👏 issues 👏 and 👏 vanity 👏

Okay, so, my major issue with the Ghibli adaptation of Howl’s Moving Castle is...

It entirely misses the point of the book.

In the book, Sophie and Howl both have to go on journeys about vanity, beauty, and what it means to actually be beautiful. For Sophie, her problem is that she does not see or appreciate beauty in herself. Despite being actually very beautiful, she considers herself plain, ugly, boring, and untalented. In the book, Sophie has a magical ability she doesn’t know about-- the ability to speak words into existence (so, if she says something like ‘this hat will bring you good luck’, it will bring the wearer good luck!)-- and has, for most of her life, unknowingly been using it on herself. When she tells herself she is not beautiful and will never amount to anything, she is semi-unintentionally making it happen by self-manifesting it.

Sophie has to learn to overcome her fear of not being beautiful or successful not by BECOMING beautiful (a la the tired trope of the ugly-to-pretty makeover), but by becoming self-confident. She does things on her own. She is capable. She is worthy. And she is loved not because she is beautiful-- in fact, Howl falls in love with her while she is under a spell to look old and ugly!-- but because her heart is strong and kind and good.

Howl has an inverse journey. Howl has everyone, including himself, convinced that he’s the most handsome, suave, cool, gorgeous man alive, but is LITERALLY DESCRIBED IN THE BOOK AS BEING UNATTRACTIVE. He just has “charm”, both literally and figuratively: he places charms and spells on himself to seem more attractive when he, in fact, is kinda beefy, awkward, and has “mud colored hair” and a “rather plain face”. He’s not hot, he’s not lean, he’s not sexy. He’s literally a rugby player in the book. But he’s obsessed with being liked and desired, being a Lothario of his world (despite never actually loving or seducing women, he just likes winning them over to say ‘look, I can make girls like me!’), so he convinces himself it matters.

In the book, he spends HOURS in the morning with his potions and care products making himself just perfect, and his apprentice remarks that he’ll only believe Howl is truly in love with someone the day he goes to meet that person without any of his fancy gussying-up going on. And what happens when Howl finds that Sophie’s been kidnapped in the book?

He runs to find her, frantic, sloppily-dressed, unshaven, face a mess, hair a disaster. He lets go of his image of vanity because he really, absolutely loves her and needs to be with her, image be damned.

But that’s entirely absent in the movie adaptation.

In the movie, Howl is EXACTLY the incarnation of the fake image Book!Howl tries to present. Movie!Howl IS suave and slick and sexy and gorgeous and wooable. He’s loved because he’s beautiful. He never has to unlearn his vanity or self-obsession, and neither does Sophie. All Sophie learns is how to love a beautiful man, and suddenly SHE is beautiful. And that’s not the point.

The point is that neither of them HAS to be beautiful to be loved. Neither has to be attractive. Neither has to be stunning or drop-dead gorgeous or elegant. They fight and bicker and snark at one another, but they work together and work hard for each other. They’re friends. And they legitimately love each other, beauty be damned, because they love the heart of the other person.

Now, yes, Ghibli!HMC is beautiful and sweet. But it doesn’t really... understand the point of Sophie and Howl. Sophie is allowed to be “unpretty”, and by GOD should Howl not be pretty. The point is for both of them to drop the facade and stop caring about beauty and what it either limits or grants them, respectively. But they don’t learn that in the movie.  

It’s fine, though, and a great movie, just... I have a lot of feelings about how freeing and beautiful it is that the original love story between them is about them learning to see each other as equals and not caring whether the other is “too beautiful” for them or “not beautiful enough” for them. Sophie finds Howl’s over-the-top “prettiness” disgusting and Howl learns to love Sophie even when she’s a haggard old woman. They bring out the real selves in each other and that’s amazing, and something I’m sad isn’t in the movie.

Instead, people just love “ooh hot wizard” Howl and miss that Howl Jenkins is a dumb, relatively unattractive, beefy, slightly idiotic Welsh rugby player who just loves wearing sequins and that Sophie is a beautiful but not interested in being beautiful woman who takes care of herself and others with an intense, passionate love that burns bright in her caring heart.

Calcifer slaps in the movie, tho. Love that guy.

[kamandzak]

An open letter to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, from a woman who Couldn’t Escape

Dear Dr. Ford,

It may seem a bit silly to a passerby when I say I’ve been triggered by the harrowing story of your assault. You are the one who lived it, after all. You don’t need some woman in her mid-twenties telling you that what happened to you is terrible and disconcerting and tragic.

I’m not here to tell you that what happened to me was worse because in the end, my rapist didn’t get off of me. Instead, I’m here to thank you. And I’m here to tell you how your story and your brilliant answers yesterday made me eternally grateful for your bravery, yet so anxious I nearly ripped my entire toenail off.

I was violently raped by a college friend in 2012. We ran in the same friend circles, took the same classes, hung out together with friends and cooked and played video games; we coexisted peacefully for several years until suddenly we didn’t. In a completely empty house, at 1 in the morning, while he had drank a beer and I was sober and wearing jeans and a sweater, I was pushed down and attacked at the age of twenty-one.

And ten minutes later, as I walked into my apartment and was greeted by my roommates, I had no recollection of what had just happened. I had been hanging out with him, he had begun kissing me, I had pushed him off. The end. Full stop. //

After the rape, I had classes with him. He came over to my apartment to hang out with my roommates. I hung out at his house with his roommates. We still coexisted as if nothing was the matter.

But it was. It wasn’t until years later that I realized my crippling anxiety and depression started around the time he attacked me. It wasn’t until I decided I was ready for an intimate relationship only to realize my body physically wouldn’t let anything near my vagina that I realized something was wrong

Even then, I thought biologically there was something wrong. Maybe I had a low cervix. Maybe I had vaginismus. Until December of 2015, the thought of being assaulted never entered my mind.

When my boyfriend, now my husband, rolled on top of me playfully during our Christmas break mid-first-year-teaching and I couldn’t push him off, memories flooded back, but it still wasn’t all of them. I immediately started therapy after break, which led to me being put on medication. Still, I was plagued by mental disorders, eventually quitting my job before the year ended because I was suicidal. My professional failure, compacted with the inability to perform sexually and the new knowledge that something had clearly traumatized me, led me to lie in bed for three months straight.

Still, I didn’t know what had traumatized me. Surely, he had touched me. Maybe groped. Maybe pawed at the hemline of my sweater.

The constant nagging of my experience, posing itself as brand new in my mind, tortured me day in and day out. Despite my new knowledge, my physical intimacy life got no better, even as we got engaged and married in 2015. I switched from job to job, seeking mental fulfillment. I suffered from intense panic attacks. I scratched myself. I cut myself. I saw multiple therapists. I got off the meds I had been on previously but kept the klonopin for the real emergencies.

Even worse, my confidence in myself collapsed. I hated going out to places I didn’t know. I hated drinking with people who I hadn’t known for years upon years. I stopped thinking I was smart. I stopped thinking I could do anything. I stopped believing and trusting myself. My marriage struggled to continue. We moved and then moved again and got pets and bought appliances and fixed broken cars and switched jobs and slogged through life. He drank to cope with no sex, his drinking led to money issues, which compounded my anxiety, which compounded his anxiety, which led to… well, you get the picture.

It all beginning of the end occurred in 2017, five years after the rape. I lay in bed late one night, dozing and listening to YouTube, when the auto-play kicked in and suddenly I was listening to a Buzzfeed sketch called “Casual Rape”. I flew out of bed in sheer panic, ran to the living room, and went into hysterics.

I was remembering everything. The hands, the hot breath, the pain, the heat, the fear, the captivity, the sheer panic. I didn’t understand anything, but I knew that I could feel a piercing pain in my organs that I had never felt before. It was like, lying in the secure apartment, next to my loving husband, I had been raped all over again.

I showered fourteen times over the next five days. I couldn’t leave my house. I couldn’t think of anything else.

I immediately found a therapist that specialized in sexual abuse and assault. I spent the first two appointments in complete tears as I realized that the suppressed attack had impacted my relationships with everyone around me, including — most harmfully — myself.

And then I learned.

I learned about the animal brain and the amygdala and how sometimes, our brains sacrifice the full operation of one part in order to keep us alive in certain situations.

I learned about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that remembering bits and pieces of an event is what happens to people who have experience traumas.

I learned that I didn’t have to let what happened to me consume me every living moment; that I could live to spite the man who hadn’t heard me say no.

I learned that I was going to have to relive my attack and all the painful years so I could unlearn every way he continued to haunt me.

Mid-learning, mid-therapy, and mid-the most challenging time of my life, in December of 2017, I was finally able — albeit rather painfully — to consummate my two-and-a-half-year-long marriage.

I still struggle daily, as you do, to live a normal life in the wake of trauma. I still see names or people who remind me of him and get a pit in my stomach. I see he is tagged in a mutual friend’s social media post and I immediately want to throw up. I see someone who has the same last name while I’m at work and immediately worry that he’s going to show up unannounced and ruin my perfectly good day.

And I don’t think he knows he did it. I was just a girl who didn’t want to have sex with him who eventually did because she saw no out. If I found him and told him he raped me in his college house when we were seniors, he wouldn’t believe me. To him, like you said, it wasn’t an unusual day.

Listening to you, Dr. Ford, talk about your assault on national television, in the faces of both people who believe you and people who don’t, has been the greatest affirmation of my personal experience and the greatest test to see if I can listen to such tragedies and not spiral back into my own mind.

I think that with the rise of the #metoo movement, which began right around the time I remembered the full extent of my attack, has brought great light to the subject of sexual assault and rape. During the height of coverage, though, I found myself looking for people who were like me; who had experienced something terrible and not totally remembered it after. I didn’t want to hear story after story of brave individuals who immediately went to the police or the hospital for a rape kit. I wanted to hear someone who didn’t have the timeline perfectly laid out in their brain; I wanted to hear someone who was so traumatized and so distraught that, at the time of the attack, their brains simply didn’t have enough juice to help their memories.

Now, thanks to you, and to your strength, I have that.

[miki-agrawal]

Are we really in for a summer of love? A post-vaccine dating investigation.

Dating podcasters, condom companies, bartenders, and college students weigh in on the horny months to come.

Originally Posted On vox.com By Lauren Vespoli On may 3, 2021

How much kissing will happen this summer? Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images

This story is part of a group of stories called

“I’m excited to go a bit buck wild and feel so much safer,” says Elena, a recently vaccinated college student. “Just go on a lot of dates, make out with some guys, nothing serious.”

The 20-year-old Salt Lake City resident, who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her privacy, is ready to make up for lost time in her romantic life. She did some app dating during the pandemic, but Covid-19 was a constant presence, with several of her dates later telling her they’d been exposed (though she never caught the coronavirus). During quarantine, Elena spent time rehashing missed chances in her love life. “I was just thinking, ‘When I’m out of this, I’m going to make the most of every opportunity,’” she says.

In Manhattan, Marc Hernandez, a bartender at the cocktail bar Ampersand, says that even at 50 percent capacity, the scene — “which has always been one for first dates” — is already feeling like its pre-Covid days. “That gets me thinking that the summer is going to be a little wild,” he says.

“WHEN I’M OUT OF THIS, I’M GOING TO MAKE THE MOST OF EVERY OPPORTUNITY”

“Shot girl summer.” “Vaxxed and waxed.” The “whoring 20s.” As the US becomes increasingly inoculated and the weather continues to warm, the number of Americans who are ready to date is on the rise: A Morning Consult survey for the week ending April 25 found that 53 percent of adults feel “comfortable” dating right now, up 9 percent from the last week in March (although women still feel less comfortable than men). Everyone from Andrew Yang to the bidet company Tushy — which is maintaining a herd-immunity countdown clock at CanIEatAssYet.com — are building anticipation for a hedonistic release of pent-up sexual energy.

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“Hot vax summer is coming,” Insider proclaimed in March. “NYC singles ready for ‘slutty summer’ of casual sex,” screamed the New York Post. Clearly, many are ready to throw themselves back into the social melee. “Touch starvation” is real, and it can increase stress, depression, and anxiety. But after a year of such intense isolation, fear, suffering, and grief — and as the pandemic continues to rage across many parts of the world — the answer to how people will try to make up for lost time and lost touch is more complex than the orgiastic fantasy hawked by Suitsupply.

According to psychologist Amanda Gesselman, associate director for research at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, the pandemic has motivated American singles to look for partners rather than casual sex. While “there will [certainly] be people having the time of their lives” when it’s safe to do so, Gesselman says, “we actually found that people are less interested in no-strings-attached sex than they used to be.” In a recent Kinsey Institute study on post-pandemic sex (conducted in partnership with Cosmopolitan and Esquire), which surveyed 2,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, more than half — 52 percent — of singles said they want to find a committed relationship post-pandemic, while about only one in 10 said they’re looking for no-strings-attached sex.

“That was a bit lower than we expected, considering everyone’s locked up and has been for a year,” Gesselman says. That said, as most people have spent more than a year worrying about infection and thinking about how to protect themselves from germs, she reasons the mindset “might be extending to sex with unfamiliar partners.”

“WE ACTUALLY FOUND THAT PEOPLE ARE LESS INTERESTED IN NO-STRINGS-ATTACHED SEX THAN THEY USED TO BE”

Ilana Dunn, co-host of the dating podcast Seeing Other People, says she’s been hearing similar feedback from listeners and friends. “Everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, of course, I’m going to get really drunk and go wild for like, a week. Because we need to do that. But my goal is to find someone.’” In an Instagram poll that received more than 1,000 responses, Dunn says she was surprised to see 88 percent say that as people get vaccinated and the world opens up, they feel more inclined to look for something serious, while 52 percent said they’ll be open to hookups once they’re vaccinated.

Gesselman believes the pandemic has pushed many people to be more introspective about what they want in their lives, particularly younger adults. “When you’re in your mid-20s and you have your entire future ahead of you, and then you just sat through an entire year of social isolation and halted progress, it really makes you think about the things you want in your life,” she says. “I think a lot of people are thinking more towards what would make their future the best rather than what would be good short-term gratification.”

Meanwhile, condom companies are cautiously hopeful demand for their products will continue to grow along with the vaccinated portion of the US population. Male contraceptives saw a 2.5 percent uptick in sales at the beginning of April, according to Ken DeBaene, LifeStyles’ vice president of sales in the Americas, who says he’s “optimistic this is a return to more normalized consumption levels.” (Between late March and mid-April, the sexual wellness industry overall saw a 4 percent sales bump.) LifeStyles is looking at returns to employment in the hospitality and service industries, as well as colleges’ fall opening plans, to help anticipate demand, DeBaene added.

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At LOLA, a feminine care and sexual wellness company, chief marketing officer Monica Belsito says both “self-play and partner play” have been prevalent this year, with the brand seeing a 40 percent spike in lubricant sales and a record number of preorders for its new vibrator. However, as vaccinations of younger populations increase, the company “expects STI protection to steadily increase, creating a demand spike in condoms this summer and fall.”

Many people are also searching for a historical precedent that can shed light on what awaits us in the post-Covid recovery period, from the Roaring ’20s — when the nation indulged after the ravages of World War I and the 1918 pandemic — to 1967’s Summer of Love, when tens of thousands of young people gathered in San Francisco to listen to rock ’n’ roll, experiment with sex and drugs, and protest the Vietnam War.

“If you look at the middle to late 1960s as an opening up after a period of considerable repression in the ’50s, I think the parallel is not unreasonable,” says historian Dennis McNally, who also worked as a publicist for the Grateful Dead. However, he points to the FDA’s 1960 approval of the first birth control pill as a key influence in the sexual liberation movement that climaxed that summer. Even after seeing the hordes of spring breakers that descended upon Miami in March, before vaccines were widely available to younger adults, McNally isn’t convinced the vigilant “pandemic safety” mindset will be banished with vaccines. “The message of all of this is that reality is dangerous, which is a very repressive lesson, and it’s going to take a while, I think, to unlearn that lesson and be able to go out and relax,” he says.

As for the Roaring ’20s comparison often attributed to social epidemiologist Dr. Nicholas Christakis, the timeline he’s laid out doesn’t predict a pendulum swing away from the risk aversion of the present moment until 2024, when vaccines will have been distributed around the world and there’s been more of a recovery from some of the pandemic’s economic devastation. He sees this summer as having the potential to offer “a taste of the past and a hope for the future,” Christakis recently told NPR.

“PEOPLE GO ON A DATE AND NOBODY KNOWS HOW TO TALK ABOUT ANYTHING BESIDES COVID”

Gesselman and Dunn also cite lingering pandemic-induced social anxiety as another obstacle to a bacchanal this summer. “A lot of people didn’t date last year, and I keep hearing from our listeners that people go on a date and nobody knows how to talk about anything besides Covid, and it’s not leading to good date conversations,” Dunn says. And in Gesselman’s research, one of the top fears respondents have cited is not having the ability to protect their own mental health as they reemerge from quarantine. “It seems like people’s biggest concern is when life opens back up and they’re finally able to pursue these connections, ‘What if I get rejected or things go wrong? What happens if disappointment strikes?’” Gesselman says.

Elena, the college student who’s excited to get back to more carefree dating, is also wary of the expectations she and many of her peers are putting on this post-vaccine summer. “I do think people have very, very high expectations, because you kind of need to live your entire life that’s been put on hold for the past year all in this summer, and if they’re not met it’s going to be tough,” she says. “But I think for the most part, people are really down to do anything.”

Tushy is a bidet startup which aims to replace toilet paper, Tushy was founded by Miki Agrawal.

[barrieshannon]

Reflecting on the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey

“Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?”

It’s been three years since the results of the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey were declared. 61.6% of valid votes were cast in the affirmative, and by the end of 2017, marriage equality was law. On each anniversary of the result, campaigners celebrate on social media, and we are invited to reflect on the positive impact the change in law has had on Australian LGBTIQA+ communities. This post is for me more than anyone else, because three years on, I can’t help but feel a seething resentment for ever having been put through this campaign. 

For me, and for many of my friends, every day of the campaign was a living misery. The media commentary about marriage equality was inescapable. Often, overtly homophobic narratives were given wide news coverage for the sake of “balance”. Everybody wanted to talk about it. I was frequently asked for my take on what a certain politician or lobbyist had said that day. My students, bless them, wanted to raise it in class and mention it in their assessments. I felt this intense pressure from all sides to act as if what was happening was a great thing that I should be excited about. Going about my daily life was made so much harder for those few months.

Originally, I had planned to boycott the campaign altogether, but after many conversations with myself I decided I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I sat the vote out and we lost. I remember the exact morning I went to post my vote. I was miserable. I had to drag myself out of bed. I remember dressing as ‘normal’ as possible. Everything felt out-of-focus. I felt disoriented, and disconnected from my own body, as if I was watching myself from above. I walked down my street, and pressed the button to cross the main road separating my block from the high street where my local post office is located. Right above the button was a scratched-off Yes campaign sticker that I had put there the previous week. Every single person I saw, I couldn’t help but think to myself: “Did that person vote? Did they vote No? What do they think about me, and people like me? What do they say about me, and people like me?” I spent the rest of that day in bed. One positive aspect of that morning was the rainbow love heart spray painted onto the ground in front of the post box. As far as I know, it’s still there.

Many of my friends had similar experiences to me. In 2018, I hosted a dinner party for some friends where we discussed the campaign. I cooked a paella and we all sat at my dinner table. With their permission, I recorded our comments and presented some of our thoughts at the Surveilling Minds and Bodies conference at the University of Newcastle that September. We were able to appreciate that, on the surface, marriage equality was a significant milestone for LGBTIQA+ Australians, but we all had significant reservations. A friend of mine shared their anxiety about the surveillance they felt they were under, during this time, and for a long time afterwards. Their ability to feel belonging in their social environment had been uprooted by the campaign.

“In my job I work with a lot of people, and there’s something that I’ve always had in the back of my mind, but it was much more intense during this period. They’re all very lovely, and we have great conversations. But if you scrape off that veneer, how many people in this room think I am fundamentally an abomination?”

It was relatively easy for me to avoid interpersonal violence working as an academic in my university’s sociology department, and having a fairly limited social circle. But others weren’t as lucky, and one of my friends shared this experience that their best friends were subject to:

“My two best friends had someone spit on them shopping, and they called them ‘plague bearers’. When they posted about that on Facebook, someone said “you just need to realise they’re going through a lot too, and they’re just people.” 

I believe that the blame for incidents like this lays squarely with the architects of this vote. By absolving themselves of their responsibility to legislate, the Parliament reduced our lives and our relationships to a political issue to be contested and debated by the majority. The campaign facilitated this false dichotomy where homophobic abuse and violence was a legitimate political position in opposition to queer relationships existing undisturbed in public space.

Campaigners fixate on the figure that 6 in 10 people voted in favour of marriage equality, but we couldn’t (and still can’t) get past the roughly 4 in 10 people who didn’t. We knew that there was a significant proportion of the community who were opposed to marriage equality for various reasons. But having that quantified and shown to us was immeasurably painful. I came out in high school, and I experienced intense homophobic bullying. I had to unlearn a lot of internalised homophobia before I could begin to be comfortable ‘being’ gay in public, by discussing sex and relationships with my friends, or wearing clothes that weren’t black, white or gray. It took even longer before I was able to hold a boyfriend’s hand without having to pull away when other people approached. After the campaign, I took a leap backward in this regard. To my friends, I reflected:

“I remember once going to put on my pink shorts and then thinking ‘oh, maybe not today’. I was more critical of what I was wearing or how I was walking. How gay I appeared to be. I began thinking about that stuff again.”

The reason I wanted to write and post this is to vent a little about the resentment I still feel for the marriage equality postal survey. I don’t want to reach a time where we look back on the campaign fondly, just because of the outcome is the one we wanted. A lot of pain and tears went into that outcome. Three years on, I’m still not sure how I feel about it, and I feel somewhat constrained in how I am able to express my negative feelings about the campaign, the people behind it, and the politicians that enabled it. 

Am I happy with the result? In some ways, sure. Am I relieved about the result? Absolutely. But I want to end the post with a joke offered by a friend that, at the time, was so stupid that it made me choke on my drink:

“It’s relief in the kind of way when you piss yourself. You’re relieved but you’ve lost all of your dignity.”

I hate that I understood exactly what they meant.

[thatlittledandere]

Of Course I Dare!

Pairing: Naruko Io/Zaou Ryuu

Summary: “They do say that kisses given in a game of Spin the Bottle don’t count, but I understand if he still doesn’t dare do it–“

Ryuu slammed his hands on the table and loudly exclaimed: “Of course I dare!” No way would the notorious playboy Ryuu Zaou ever let anyone imply he would chicken out of a kiss! He turned to Io with a determined expression, trying to keep up his confidence.

"Let's do it, then!"

Words: 2354

ao3

Kinugawa-senpai’s words from the training camp echoed in Ryuu’s mind (again) as he was getting ready for school. How could he have been so observant!? Okay, so maybe Ryuu did like Io a little more than as a friend. Oh, to hell with it, who was he kidding? Of course he did. Ryuu Zaou, the master of romance, knew a crush when he had one. Which was often.

But he thought he’d gotten pretty good at hiding his feelings for boys. No better teacher than past experiences. (Ryuu remembered all too well the consequences of confessing to Seito-kun in sixth grade and how they had affected his self-esteem, and was glad he was getting over it.) So how in the world had his senpai (or, judging from Yufuin-senpai’s shameless accusations, senpais) noticed? Sure, he and Io hung out a lot and Ryuu was rather open about the appreciation he had for Io and yeah, he got a little touchy every now and again, but the other members of the club didn’t even know he was bi! There should have been no way!

Ryuu shivered at the word “bi” he had used in his head. He was still getting used to this whole “maybe gays are not that gross after all” thing. Unlearning attitudes was hard, even if learning about bisexuality on the internet probably saved his life. Or his emotional well-being at least. After years of intense self-doubt, denial and even loathing he sort of accepted that side of himself now but…

Io was Io! Ryuu’s best friend! Ryuu was used to falling for people quickly, on public transport, or during group projects in school, or festivals, or whatever, but he’d been close to Io for quite some time, so why now? Why somebody he saw every day and had to act platonic with? He was an open person with his heart on his sleeve, dammit! It wasn’t fair!

… Shit. At this rate he’d soon be late again.

Despite the morning’s distracting thoughts, Ryuu’s day went by completely normally. Nobody suspected a thing. He really was good at this. No wonder, having had months of practice. After settling on a seat in their clubroom, Ryuu flipped out his phone to see a received message from his latest conquest.

Yoshiko: Had fun on our date! Let’s meet up again sometime? You COULD even get a kiss ;) maybe

But how would kissing Io feel like? Ryuu looked back to the kisses he had shared with girls before: the tender brushes of lips, the pecks and bites, the play fights with tongues and licking the insides of each other’s mouths. Hands caressing backs and shoulders, light touches on cheeks and playing with the other’s hair.

Ryuu: oh, arent you eager ;)

Awkwardness after failing to read the mood. The occasional teeth clattering, bleeding after a little too forceful biting and unwanted giggles at inappropriate times due to being too damn ticklish. Can’t have the good without the bad or not-so-good.

Yoshiko: Stop teasing. I know you’re even more impatient than I am.

Kissing, especially on the lips, was something Ryuu considered almost sacred. A way to stop them from being scared, sad or annoying, a way to confirm whether there were deeper feelings involved or not, a way to find surprising sides of people. Almost always a pleasant experience. Always different.

Ryuu: got me there :P hbu next saturday? coffee sound good?

But Io was Io. Not only was he a boy, he was also someone Ryuu had known for a long time, who he knew better than anyone else, who he could do anything – or nothing at all – with, and would always have a good time.

Yoshiko: Gotcha! You know where I live, meet me at 7!

Ryuu knew where Yoshiko lived, yes, but he didn’t know how. He didn’t know how she behaved when she first woke up in the morning and and what was the last thing she did before going to bed. He didn’t know what her parents or siblings were like. He didn’t know what type of shampoo she used, if she brushed her teeth before or after breakfast and if she preferred hot or cold water in the shower.

Ryuu didn’t know any of those things about any of the girls he had dated. He didn’t even know those things about his friends. He had never asked.

But if anyone were to ask those mundane, seemingly meaningless details about Io’s life, Ryuu could answer in his sleep. Io was different.

Breaking out of his own world, Ryuu heard his friends discuss meeting at Kurotama bath the next weekend for a slumber party. (Ryuu missed the start of the conversation, but had a strong hunch it was Yufuin-senpai’s idea.) No specific reason needed; just friends hanging out, chilling, maybe playing some games.

“I have a date on Saturday, but if it’s on Friday, I can make it!”

Ryuu: cant wait!

Friday came and Ryuu made his way to Kurotama, where Yumoto somehow managed to convince everyone to gather around the table to play Truth Or Dare. Something about a chance to learn more about each other, Ryuu thought he had said; the room they were in was kind of hot, Io had opened two top buttons on his pajama top and Ryuu was preoccupied with his collar bones and a hint of the chest he already knew was well toned but damn–

“Ryuu?” Io’s voice broke through Ryuu’s thoughts and he really hoped Io hadn’t seen him staring. Ryuu hadn’t even noticed he’d been zoning out. Damn it, this was becoming a bad habit.

“The bottle is already spinning,” Io kindly pointed out. Ryuu turned his head on the bottle, which stopped at Yumoto.

“Yay!” he squealed. “I choose dare!”

“Damn, what can you even ask someone like Yumoto do?” asked Yufuin-senpai and leaned on his arms. “There’s nothing fun in bossing around someone who doesn’t have a sense of shame to begin with.”

Kinugawa-senpai looked at Yumoto seemingly in thought, his hand cupping his chin. “En-chan has a point, Yumoto is a bit of an unexplored territory...”

“Get a passing grade on your next Japanese test,” suggested Io with a completely straight face. Even Ryuu couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not; it was a ridiculous dare but, knowing Io… He might even mean it.

Yumoto huffed in exasperation. “Aah, Io-senpai, that’s so boring!”

“And aren’t dares supposed to be acted out immediately?” asked Kinugawa-senpai. “Plus, we’ll have no way of making sure he actually does it.”

“True. Hey Yumoto, I dare you to make up a believable excuse for me to ditch this chick next Monday!” was Ryuu’s input.

Yumoto smiled cheerfully and answered without blinking: “Tell her you have a family emergency! She can’t say no to that!”

“Sweet, thanks! Let’s hope she won’t ask for details”. Ryuu didn’t like standing girls up and he liked lying even less, but he had two dates on Monday and had to prioritize. This one was kind of annoying and draining company anyway.

Ryuu didn’t see Yufuin-senpai’s face, he was typing a message, but senpai sounded taken aback. “Eh, you’d think Yumoto had done this before.”

“… I don’t think I want to know,” said Io. With the voice Ryuu knew well, the one that told he really didn’t want to know. Strange how even that sort of voice could sound so endearing coming from Io.

“Me neither,” said Kinugawa-senpai. “Let’s just spin the bottle again.”

Yumoto spun the bottle, and the whole club kept their eyes on it intently until it eventually stopped.

“It’s Io-senpai!”

“I choose truth. I don’t want to embarrass myself,” said Io. Ryuu, who knew what a private person Io was, felt a rush of pride for his best friend for finally trusting their other friends enough to be willing to reveal something – and maybe a little jealousy that he wasn’t the only one he trusted anymore. But then again, none of others could ever have such a strong bond with him, and Ryuu was happy about that. He knew it was selfish, but wasn’t liking someone a little selfish in the first place?

“Right, is there something in your life you especially regret?” asked Yufuin-senpai.

Io averted his eyes from him and – did he just shot the quickest glance at Ryuu? In any case, he suddenly looked a lot more self-conscious.

“My preteen years were… not the proudest.” He spoke, now apparently making a point of not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I tried really hard to blend in with the adults and make them take me seriously by using expressions and vocabulary uncharacteristic to someone my age and by being overly serious and assertive about everything, even when I didn't really know what I was talking about. In retrospect, I was only making a fool out of myself.”

“Is that the eighth grade syndrome…?” commented Atsushi.

“People do call it that, yes.”

Ryuu snorted, and immediately felt bad after seeing Io flinch the tiniest bit. Oh no. Now he hurt him. Io confided in them all and told something he was embarrassed about and his best friend laughed at him. When would Ryuu ever learn to control himself…

“Okay, I get why you would think that’s sort of uncool,” he started quickly, aiming to relieve the tension, “But you knew all those fancy words when you were real young! It’s just one more proof of your intelligence!” He was glad to see Io untense a little.

After that, the game continued like a game of Truth and Dare usually goes, everyone making up equally stupid dares (Kinugawa-senpai had to stuff ten marshmallows into his mouth and say all their names) and learning more truths about each other (Yufuin-senpai admitted to sometimes singing on his free time but wouldn’t give a sample).

Then the moment Ryuu had been waiting for with both fear and excitement came and the bottle stopped at him. He immediately announced he’d be choosing dare, and shot the others a wide, confident grin, daring them to bring it on. God, he had been waiting to show what he was made of!

His grin melted when he saw the way Kinugawa-senpai was looking at him like he had an evil masterplan. Yufuin-senpai shot Kinugawa-senpai a look that clearly conveyed the message “don’t”, but he pointedly ignored it. How characteristic, his “dark side” was emerging…

“Very well. I dare you to kiss Io.” The devious grin from the training camp made a reappearance, much to Ryuu’s dismay. "On the lips."

“What!” Ryuu yelped. He felt his face heat up and turned to look at Io, who looked positively scandalized. They just wouldn’t catch a break tonight, would they…

“Ki… Kinugawa-senpai, it would be too improper to force Ryuu to do something this… intimate against his free will! This is a game where he is in no position to refuse, it’s unfair!”

“Maybe,” admitted Kinugawa-senpai, sounding to Ryuu like he was trying to sound like he might have regretted it. Which he obviously didn’t. “They do say that kisses given in a game of Spin the Bottle don’t count, but I understand if he still doesn’t dare do it–“

It sounded like Kinugawa-senpai was about to continue, but he didn’t get a chance to do so. Ryuu slammed his hands on the table and loudly exclaimed: “Of course I dare!” No way would the notorious playboy Ryuu Zaou ever let anyone imply he would chicken out of a kiss! He turned to Io with a determined expression.

“Well…” Ryuu chuckled, trying to keep up his confidence, and gulped. “Let’s do it, then!”

It… Wasn’t what he was expecting. Not at all, and Ryuu wasn’t sure how to feel about it. There were no fireworks, no explosions in his heart or brain, it didn’t feel like the world around them disappeared or like they were floating through time and space. Nothing like the big getting together in a romance movie or manga.

Ryuu had just done what he usually did: approached slowly, making sure what he was doing was alright; looked at Io’s eyes and lips in turns under his own gradually closing eyelids; noted what Io seemed to be feeling about all of this (he read Io well and was quite confused about what he found; he thought Io had looked somehow… Expecting? Maybe even excited? Hopeful? Unbelieving?? Why?) and finally closed his lips around Io’s lower one, closing his eyes entirely and moving his lips. (For his great relief, Io returned the kiss.) Nothing unusual. Yet this wasn’t like the other times - not only because his partner was of the same gender and Ryuu’s very favorite person.

It was not magical or phenomenal, just natural. Like this was how things were supposed to be, like this was something they had been supposed to be doing for so long. The surrounding world or their friends didn’t disappear: Ryuu was still aware of their presence, he just found himself not caring. He didn’t feel like he was ascending to the Heavens; actually, he felt even more in touch with everything and more present in the moment. This was, on some fucked-up level, his natural habitat. He belonged there, and didn’t want to let go.

But in order to not blow his cover, he had to. Keeping this up any longer could be weird. So, trying his hardest to act natural and nonchalant and not show his reluctance, Ryuu ended the kiss. Only centimeters away from his face, Io opened his eyes slowly and stared at Ryuu blankly, his gaze hazed and unfocused. Ryuu had never seen Io this out of it, and although his own mind wasn’t at its sharpest either and his emotions flew all over the place, he felt a strange sense of pride for being responsible for it.

It was even better when Io’s face broke into a wide, content smile. And if Ryuu’s ability to read Io was still there, several of the emotions the kiss had made him feel were mutual.

Maybe he would have to do some inventory on his calendar app.

[davidaolson]

All your questions can be answered, if that is what you want. But once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them. ~Neil Gaiman, American Gods

I wish I could have seen Garden of the Gods through virgin eyes, eyes not tainted by previous experiences, not undergirded by unrealistic expectations. I wanted to feel again the initial shock giving way to ecstasy when the seal is broken and I immerse in wonder. But I could not. My bell was rung years ago, has been reverberating ever since. The original hot shot injected directly into my soul turned me into a desperate addict, a hopeless junkie, suffering the gnawing monkey since 1985. That single taste, a first taste fixing stained red claws into my psyche where they grip with the force of a terrified lizard clamped down on the soft parts of a hand threatening to do it harm. I have only been able to appease it, temporarily appease it a half dozen times. The last a brief taste bud tickler, a flick across the nubbin, four years ago. Next year, however, I’m planning a 2.5-week pilgrimage swimming solo through dust dry dust desert canyons, sleeping viscerally beneath the vast star blanket whose extent is visible only on pitch nights from isolated desert heavens. Until then….methadone, simulated experiences designed to ease my withdrawal symptoms.

The Urban Dictionary defines a junkie as a person consumed by an addiction where aspects of life suffer as they sacrifice everything, including dignity in a vain quest to satisfy their addiction. I don’t suffer daily but agonize enough that I feel the steely clamp constricting my soul’s ability to breathe. I temporarily mollified the pig with a short visit to Sedona in the Spring timed poorly to coincide with Spring Breakers. Still, there were isolated moments I was deeply satisfied such as when we found an offshoot trail at the top of Castle Rock where we moved in separate directions each to immerse in isolation bathed in breezes, the twitter of insect feasting birds, and the presence of presence.

A few months later I find myself desperate for another fix and we plan a trip to the grandiosely named Garden of the Gods. God’s garden is Southern Utah with a jumping off point in Moab. The Colorado version is not even a poor second, not a poor third, nor a poor tenth. It is more aptly categorized as metha-don’t! If you love outdoors, don’t do it. If you love red rock canyons, don’t do it. If you are a junkie like me, metha-don’t do it for it will only break your heart.

How best to metaphorize?

Imagine you have spent the last few months in ancient Varanasi, the holiest city, adjacent to the holiest river in all of India. Besides the sensory blanket enveloping everything you do, it is a place without alcohol and the only food offering is vegetarian. The vegetarian delectables are exquisitely spiced, still, do not temper your desire for some good home fixings, the solids you masticated after weaning from mama’s titty. Every day in Varanasi your craving grows for a three-inch thick filet mignon cooked medium rare marinating in red juices served with a side baked potato smothered in melted butter accompanied by a lovely bottle of pinot noir all shared with the love of your life by candlelight while Frank Sinatra croons over the sound system. The drive becomes so intense, steak sizzles in your dreams and you wake up every morning salivating.

You land back in the US and discover the love of your life maxed out the credit cards, emptied your joint bank accounts then skipped the country with a buff pool boy. The only cash you have is the leftover Rupees from the trip which, when converted at the airport at a crappy exchange rate leave enough money for a Mickey D’s hamburger and a juice box hastily consumed under glaring light in uncomfortable chairs while insidious musack competes for air space with screaming children. This is the devastation I felt visiting Garden of the Gods.

Day 1 – Rescued Animals Regaining Souls, A Broken Screen, and Heartless Reds

We headed out down to Colorado Springs, sister city to Garden of the Gods after visiting a wild animal sanctuary East and slightly North of the Denver International Airport. The sanctuary is home to rescue animals, most large beasts including black bear, grizzly bear, timber wolves, lots of lions transferred when the South American country, Ecuador I think it was, outlawed lions in circuses and attractions, a dozenish tigers including a white beauty. There were also a few foxes and coyotes. A mile and a half elevated walkway cuts one way through the complex necessitating a return trip to exit the park. The animals are viewed in large habitats from on high, a god’s eye view. The complex was impressive. Had I a solid working long lens and a tripod, I would have been able to capture some intimate animal photos.

The only drawback of the sanctuary, my camera bag fell out of the car cracking the viewing screen when it crashed into the pavement. It was still able to shoot pics but I was not able to check them for quality. Before going to Garden of the Gods, we pit-stopped at a camera store where I purchased a Canon intermediate model 80D with an f4.0 18mm to 135mm lens. I had been contemplating a new camera for a couple of years with a definite buy before Africa in 2020 trip. I moved the purchase up a year, 16 months to practice before safari time to ensure camera mastery.

We arrived in the evening. The roads weren’t crowded, they would be packed on the 2nd day, still, the less than ample parking was a challenge. After a couple of slow circles around the park stuck behind gawkers and crawlers unused to traveling anything but the flattest roads and completely lacking turnout etiquette allowing more confident drivers to pass, we found a parallel parking spot where someone just pulled out.

A short walk down the road brought us to a 2nd parking lot with a trailhead to a nice hike on an earthen trail. This would be a nice warmup for the 4 miler we planned on day 2. The trail was well marked and worn ensuring, even without a map, getting lost would have taken hard work or a complete inability to sense direction. Even the visually challenged could manage as the trail was corralled by fences. Fences in a park? Not unheard of but rare nonetheless. The trail showed a few nice views of red rock before crossing a road into a significant stand of rock monoliths. My heart beat a little faster. Was this a portent of the morrow’s hike?

Across the street, the trail was paved. We walked past a fenced off grassy area to a nearby set of vertical rocks. Their color bathed in the low angled sun tingled my innards driving me to pop off a few shots, still, though, with the old camera. The 80D was not yet unpacked nor battery charged. Some monoliths were side by side like pages in a well-read book. Others were single. The set was interconnected by dirt paths, mostly submerged rocks with a fin exposed adding a slight challenge to our walking. The layout allowed for some pseudo climbing. My wife climbed into a few gaps between the monsters and posed for pictures. Then it was my turn.

The rock, though the color of Moab, is a completely different texture, more like a 20 grit sandpaper than the 100 grit I prefer. And it was cold. Not temperature cold, soulless cold. As I lay my hands and cheek against the rocks I could tell they were completely devoid of soul. My ears, pressed against their surface, did not detect a heartbeat. Never before had I experienced such…such…sadness and loneliness in a natural formation. All beings in the outdoors are normally vibrant, buzzing with energy. These felt more like a discarded eggshell with the essential elements drained.

We did not stay too long. We were hungry and still needed to check into our hotel. I wanted to be sure we were rested for the long hike the next day hopefully kicking off early in the morning after a quick visit to the Garden of the Gods Visitor Center for a map. I still had hope for a longish, slightly taxing, mostly relaxing hike the following day. I have to admit, I was also anxious to discover the nuances of my new camera especially the automatic bracketing, a feature I’ve lusted over for years.

Day 2 – Signs, Signs, Everywhere The Signs

The Visitor Center opened at 8, we arrived by 9, way before the crowds descended. When talking to the ranger about the four miler we were hoping to take his comments were, you must be adventurous, take lots of water it’s going to be hot today, apparently upper 70s is hot for the area, and you won’t see much from the loop trail. All the rock formations are in the center of the park. The conversation convinced us our planned hike would be a mistake. Instead, we opted to park in the largest lot a quarter mile from the Visitor Center, enter from the side we had not seen the previous day and beat the crowds.

Well, the lot was already packed to overflowing. Sedona deja vu! We returned to the loop road with the growing line of cars driving until we found a parking space at the same lot we hiked from the previous evening. I squeezed the truck into a narrow, shaded slot and we began our hike. The trail is a loop. Unlike yesterday, we took the longer side of the loop this time hoping for increased solitude. The air was fresh, just the lower side of slightly chilly. Delicious for hiking. We heard a flicker singing eloquently near the top of a leafless yet green budding tree. The bird had a red mustache. A cottontail grazed silently on the dewy grass. It felt promising.

We rounded the trail cutting between tall bushes and a gently babbling brook (or was that the hum of rubber on the road?) We came to an intersection with a spur to our right heading away from the central park. We initially took the turn but upon hearing a very loud voice chose to turn back. The voice came closer. It was a cowboy-hatted trail guide leading a group of horse tourists. We pulled to the side while the guided shouted to the guided in a voice that carried far to the back of the pack the trail guide spiel of the area. Of course, the stopped horses decided it was time to both piss and shit leaving puddles and trail apples in the path we needed to take to reach the park center.

Even as the guide and horses moved out of our sight, that voice was still loud and carrying far in the crisp morning air. It wasn’t only my imagination. Someone off in the distance yelled for the loud voice to quiet down. Apparently, he was irritating more than just me, us. He did not oblige never attenuating his voice. We explored a side trail until they moved far enough out of earshot then returned to our original path.

We crossed into the central park at the same point. A group sat across the trail refusing to make way for crossers. I had to force my way through. We were back at the fence and paved trail from the day before. We looked at the posted map, quickly scanned to assess people density, and opted to go left around a meadow avoiding the densest of the crowds. Halfway around, we sat on a rock because I wanted to admire the wider view showing the monoliths. They were less red in the cooler light. Still, they were attractive.

It was here I realized we were experiencing a menagerie. The wooden, tow rail fences placed throughout the park held us at bay from connection and intimacy with the rocks and grasses. Signs told us to stay on the trail, not to climb without permits, and the many stop no hiking allowed. There were even signs flat on the ground where there were no fences warning to stop this is not a trail. The sign most tempting to draw me off the trail in defiance was the one that said notice rattlesnakes may be present stay on the trail. It has been thirty years of desert hiking and I still have not seen a rattlesnake in the wild.

We walked all the available trails in the garden with the exponentially growing crowds in relatively short time despite walking at an ambling pace. We did walk up a rocky trail to an outcropping with a nice overview. As did quite a few other people. There was a continuation we wanted to explore hoping for a similar experience to the spur we discovered on top of Castle Rock but there was a trail guard sitting in the way turning back any wanting a bit more adventurous experience.

The more I walked the more agitated my soul became, completely the opposite of my normal joy at communing with nature. I was reminded of the polar bear in Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo that repeatedly walked the same path in its small enclosure mostly moving backward. It had grown neurotic over the years of confinement and was a polar bear in form only, a white shell. The fundamental essence had been lost with its mind.

These rocks behind the fences and warning signs were the animals in the cages. They could not even look at each other without the man-made barriers separating them from their kith and kin. The reason they felt soulless and heartless is they, too, had grown neurotic from being caged in. They had decayed into lifeless shells.

The crowds were so thick it was like waking the city streets during rush hour. I was feeling more emotionally drained as the day wore on. We were out of the park by noon choosing, instead, to visit Pike’s Peak a day earlier than originally planned. It was a good choice as the weather provided great viewing and the following day’s drive to the Great Sand Dunes National Park was leisurely with ample time for side explorations including an interesting National Park famous for fossils and petrified trees.

Conclusion

Garden of the Gods wasn’t a place for us but that doesn’t mean it is not for everyone. If your haute cuisine is typical US style, flavorless gruel served at chain restaurants, Garden of the Gods may be a place for you. The only people I would suggest Garden of the Gods as a place to visit are people with small children who need to be carted around in strollers all or part of the time, the infirm needing paved walkways amenable to wheelchairs, or city folk never previously ventured outside concrete canyons who would be lost walking a dirt path and unaware the rocks have lost their heartbeats. If you are an outdoors person who likes challenging hikes to see phenomenal nature, don’t go. It will only crush your soul.

Garden of the Gods, Metha-don’t to My Junkie All your questions can be answered, if that is what you want. But once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them.

[ellenlucasonlinedatingblog]

Impurity Culture: Surviving Virginity

Hannah Boning

Maybe you grew up in purity culture. Even if you didn’t, you’ve probably encountered and have to live with its ideas about virginity. I want to unpack some of those things, and consider what’s true and what isn’t.

What is the big deal with virginity? I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately.

Evangelical purity culture centers it's whole self around virginity, but the wider culture seems pretty obsessed with virginity -- or the lack thereof -- too. The new Netflix show Sex Education has a few plotlines centering around teens who are either eager or anxious about losing their virginity. This season of The Bachelor is fixated on Colton, dubbed The First Virgin Bachelor. Almost any TV show or movie featuring young people and sex will mention or reference virginity.

Christianity places a strong emphasis on purity – hence, the term purity culture – a concept that revolves around remaining a virgin until (heterosexual, monogamous,) marriage, especially if you’re a woman. Church teachings about virginity manifest in a variety of ways, but the overall effect is generally to instill intense shame in those who didn't, aren’t, or might not remain, virgins.

Maybe you grew up in purity culture. Even if you didn’t, you’ve probably encountered and have to live with its ideas about virginity. I want to unpack some of those things, and consider what’s true and what isn’t.

Virginity & Ownership

Ideas about virginity are deeply linked to ownership. If you grew up Christian, you probably ran across one of the many Bible verses about virginity and ownership.

For example, if a man marries a woman and accuses her of not being a virgin, her parents are expected to provide evidence of her virginity, like with a set of bloody sheets (which were frequently faked, since most people don’t bleed with first intercourse in the first place) from her wedding night, apparently displaying that her hymen was intact until then –  something based in false information and belief about that anatomy. If a woman is raped, the Bible says her abuser has to marry her and pay her father for the price of her virginity (Deuteronomy 22:13-21). In this cultural economy where maintaining the family line was of utmost importance and marriage served as a way to solidify alliances and gain power, a woman’s virginity was a commodity. A woman’s purity was controlled and passed around like property, first in the hands of her father and then her husband.

Present-day purity culture movements hold to this concept, if in a less drastic form. The book And the Bride Wore White by Dannah Gresh asks women to evaluate their sexual purity and to answer this question (for real): are you a disposable Styrofoam cup, an easily replaceable mug, or a priceless china teacup? Other books and ministries speak of virginity as the greatest treasure a wife can give to her husband and insinuate that men will not find you attractive as a spouse if you’re not a virgin, because you’ve already given away their big prize. Focus on the Family recommends that girls write letters pledging their abstinence to their future husbands and that families celebrate the anniversary of a daughter’s purity pledge with a gift or getaway – basically assigning monetary value to her virginity.

Exposed to these ideas, you start to believe that your worth as a person is absolutely linked to your status as a virgin.

If you’re a woman, purity culture teaches that your body does not belong to you, but to your spouse. You might focus on “protecting” your virginity, so that on your wedding day, you can give your husband the gift of your untouched body. Not only does this tend to cut you off from your own body, and your sense of desire and pleasure, but the idea that virginity is owed to your spouse continues to develop into the idea that sex is also owed to your spouse. Many evangelical teachers urge women to submit to their husbands - when it comes to decisions, authority, and sex, a woman is expected to be submissive and allow her husband to have the final say. What this means is that if your husband wants sex, you are always supposed to supply it. This creates an environment that enables, allows and permits abuse, and this is why some people refuse to acknowledge that marital rape is rape. If a wife’s body belongs to her husband, her consent doesn’t matter.

The Virgin & The Whore

Christianity has two primary sexual tropes for women: the virgin and the whore. The virgin, of course, is the ideal woman – pure, chaste, gentle, meek, mild, all that. The Virgin Mary is often held up as the epitome of feminine perfection, and girls need to live up to that standard. Never mind that it’s impossible to be both a virgin and pregnant – Mary somehow managed to be the mother of God and also maintain her purity. Meanwhile, the whore is used to personify sin and ignorance. The book of Proverbs contrasts two figures, Woman Wisdom and another woman, sometimes called Madame Folly or the Foolish Woman. She is described as the adulterous woman whose steps lead straight to death (Proverbs 5). So basically, purity = wisdom; sex = death. That’ll give you a bit of a skewed view of sexuality.

The Problem with “Virginity”

What even is virginity anyway? You probably already know that the most common definition of a virgin is someone who, if they have a penis, has not had their penis inside a vagina or who, if they have a vagina, has not had a penis inside their vagina. That’s a very, very narrow conception of sex. It isn’t even always about sex in the first place: sometimes those kinds of experiences aren’t sex for people, but abuse or assault.

When you start to expand your ideas about sex so that they are more reflective of everyone’s lived experience, the notion of virginity starts to fall apart fast. Are you still a virgin if you’ve given oral? What about if you’ve received it? What about hands? Toys? What about if you weren’t even given a choice about sexual activity, but were sexually assaulted? Where and how do you draw the line between being a virgin and not being a virgin?

Where does this all leave you if you grew up in — or are still in — purity culture?

Purity culture values virginity above all, and is very effective at instilling shame and guilt, so if you aren’t a virgin anymore, it’s easy to feel ashamed and guilty. Purity culture essentially teaches that sex is bad, and then when you get married you’re expected to suddenly be able to have great, mind-blowing sex. It’s not that easy to flip that switch, because the guilt and shame associated with sex is so deeply ingrained in your body and mind. I have friends who did what the church told them to do – waited until marriage – and then struggled with intimacy. People have come to Scarleteen over the years asking for help with these kinds of struggles, too.

It’s hard to create a healthy sex life if you’ve spent your entire life trying to avoid sexual activity, desires, or even just thoughts. Even if you’ve rejected the beliefs of purity culture, developed a sex-positive theology, and willingly decided to have sex – you might find yourself feeling ashamed. Even if you didn’t grow up in purity culture, it’s possible that you’ve encountered — and internalized — the idea that sex is dirty or shameful.

That shame is a tough thing to reckon with.

Even if you’ve changed your thoughts and beliefs, the thing about shame is it really lives inside your body. It takes time to intellectually, emotionally and physically unlearn the physical feelings of guilt and shame that have lodged themselves deeply in you. If you feel this way – please, know you’re not alone. And you don’t have to be alone. Talk to your partner about how you’re feeling and why. Consider talking to a therapist or counselor who has training and education in helping patients process and unlearn sexual shame.

Maybe you need to take it slow. You can spend time masturbating and getting to know your body, and may even only do that for a few years before you branch out with partners.

Remind yourself your body is not bad, it’s good. What makes you feel safe and at home in your body? Is it lazy mornings with coffee, or a long run? A hot bath? Yoga? Growing up evangelical, you’re taught to ignore your body: it takes time to learn how to trust yourself and your instincts, and to acknowledge and appreciate your body. Find some ways to feel connected and present in your body that aren’t especially sexual, and then start working on taking that presence and connectedness into sex.

I also personally prefer to speak in terms of being sexually active or not, as opposed to being a virgin. Virginity generally only focuses on penis-in-vagina intercourse, and also usually without any mention of consent; sexual activity encompasses the much wider spectrum of sexual expression and incorporates agency into the mix, too. When it comes to sexual activity, you choose what acts you participate in - or don’t participate in - at your own pace. Being sexually active is also about more than just which body parts come into contact with other body parts. Virginity usually boils sexuality down to simply physical contact, but sexuality also includes things like feelings, thoughts, societal norms and expectations, social experiences and spiritual beliefs.

If you're in a relationship where sex is expected and demanded, without regard for consent – please, do whatever you can to get out. If you’re in a relationship where your sexual choices are regulated - if your partner demands virginity from you, or tells you that you aren’t allowed to masturbate - that’s not a relationship where your needs and desires are respected. Know that you should expect and deserve a sexual relationship that is centered on mutual and shared respect and consent. Even if you’re in a healthy relationship, however, sometimes the idea you owe a partner sex is a hard one to shake. I’m in a wonderful relationship filled with care and respect. My girlfriend has never demanded or expected sex, or expressed upset if I wasn’t in the mood. But I still feel a sense of guilt if she’s trying to initiate intimacy and I’m not interested.

How do you unlearn this idea that sex is something you owe to one another?

One thing I’ve found helpful for myself is to imagine if the situation were reversed. If I wanted to hook up and my partner wasn’t feeling it, would I be upset? Would I feel she wasn’t giving me something she owed me? Of course not. I would never want my partner to have sex with me out of a sense of obligation or duty. That’s not respecting their pleasure, their desires, their body or their autonomy. If this is how I would feel and behave if my partner didn’t want to hook up, chances are my partner feels the same way when I don’t want to hook up.

So, what’s the big deal with virginity? It shouldn’t be a big deal, but society has built up all sorts of expectations and ideas around virginity. Notions of virginity usually involve misogyny, sexism and double standards - women are often shamed if they aren’t virgins, while men are shamed if they are. The language around virginity - protecting, saving, giving - speaks of virginity, sex and, usually, women, as commodities. But people’s selves, bodies and sexualities aren’t property. Instead of a sexual ethic that declares all premarital sex to be bad, and women, sex or bodies as capital, we should develop a sexual ethic that is centered around respect, consent, and pleasure for everyone.

Take the time to unlearn some of those ideas, educate yourself, and decide for yourself how you feel about virginity and what your boundaries are. Here are some places right here at Scarleteen to start learning about what sex and sexuality actually are, instead of what purity culture claims:

Sexuality: WTF Is It, Anyway?

What’s Sex?

20 Questions about Virginity

Undoing Sexual Shame

Navigating Consent

First Intercourse 101

How to Understand, Identify, and Make Choices About Desire

You shouldn’t feel pressured not to be sexual, just like you shouldn’t feel pressure to be sexual. If you’re ready  and want to engage in respectful, consensual sexual activity, you get to make that decision, and you also deserve to feel good about it and to be supported in it. If you’re not ready for sexual activity, you get to make that decision, and you deserve to feel good about, and should be supported in, that choice, too.

Growing up in a society that teaches you these ideas about virginity and sex is hard, and painful, and damaging. If you’re hurting, if you’re confused, if you’re wondering how you can recover - know you’re not alone. There are a lot of us who have been hurt, and a lot of us who have found a way to heal. I can’t tell you it’s going to be easy or fast, but we’re here with you and you can get there.

Impurity Cukture

virginity

shame

religion

body keeps the score

body

guilt

ownership

consent

control

abuse

power

IFTTT

[thesinglesjukebox]

JULIA MICHAELS FT. SELENA GOMEZ - ANXIETY

[2.82]

This doesn't work for us...

Juana Giaimo: I'm glad artists are starting to be open about their mental health, but I wish "Anxiety" didn't sound just like a campfire song. The acoustic indie pop feeling of the late '00s -- it even features claps and rustic backing vocals at the end -- sweetens a song that I'm not sure needs to be sweet. [5]

Stephen Eisermann: I always appreciate songs like this that try to destigmatize mental health, but there's something pretentious about the melody and production on this track that I can't pinpoint. Although Gomez puts that weird affect on her voice, both she and Michaels do offer honest interpretations of the track, but something still feels off. Like trying to enjoy yourself during a bout of depression, I so badly want to love this track, but all I can manage to do is like it. [6]

Thomas Inskeep: As someone who lives with depression and anxiety, I appreciate that Michaels, a dull songwriter and worse pop singer, is attempting to write/sing about mental illness. But then she brings her pal Selena Gomez, who may actually be a worse singer, to join in. And she forgot to have anyone produce "Anxiety," which sounds like a bedroom demo. Oh, and lyrically, the song is garbage. (Musically, it barely exists.) So I'd give this about a "C" for effort, but that doesn't change the fact that I hate this thoroughly and completely. [0]

Will Rivitz: There aren't many hard-and-fast rules to good songwriting, but "Don't do anything Colbie Caillat or Jason Mraz did fifteen years ago" should be one of them. (This took me ten minutes to make in Audacity.) [3]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The sparse arrangement and guitar playing is meant to recall "Uh Huh," surely. With the removal of the drop goes with it all its magnetic energy, but this contrast does allow "Anxiety" to highlight how the same person can inhabit these two disparate modes of thinking. While this is a fun kumbaya for a generation of people open about mental health, the affected vocalizing isn't particularly engaging as a musical element -- Selena's part, for example, finds her rehashing the "Bad Liar" talk-singing to diminishing returns. Oh well, it's still a good enough song you can tweet alongside the word "mood." [2]

Alfred Soto: The gritted teeth delivery is supposed to suggest suppressed anxiety, and the basic guitar strumming, jaunty almost, is supposed to create tension, but the melody and lyrics would make for an okay aspirin or a Farmers Insurance commercial. The cure is spending money on shit. [2]

Crystal Leww: I'm not so into how twee the production here sounds -- like Lily Allen in the late aughts -- but I am kind of interested in Julia Michaels attempting to carve out space for herself as a the every-girl pop-ish artist so openly grappling with mental health in her songs. Teaming up with Selena Gomez makes a lot of sense. Has there ever been a pop star that so blatantly wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear from the public eye quite like Selena G? [6]

Jonathan Bradley: Twee bullshit can be wonderful, but this mannered bourrée of wandering guitar and logorrhea only proffers mental health trouble as shareable content. Tethering together rehearsed asides and faux-cutesy metaphors ("holding hands with my depression"), its candor is descriptive not evocative. Selena Gomez has the more irritating lyric, but she's the better actor of the two, and at least wrings a half-believable character out of her false starts and faltering tones. The song, however, is a public service announcement in search of a personality. Retweet if you agree. [2]

Iris Xie: If you take Twitter hot takes, Instagram self-love image shares, and Facebook self-disclosures, all about mental health, it could lead to a good empowering song. However, "Anxiety" rips that apart and builds a suffocating container. It is a slow, excruciating take on the deep immersion of self-loathing and self-isolation. Michaels's mumbling delivery, paired with her plodding guitar and boxed-in instrumentals, expresses the interiority of being trapped in isolated cognitive distortions. Unfortunately, Gomez is even worse, and has an awkward delivery that sounds more like a sketch comedy skit instead of a heartfelt testimony, that reveals a lack of ease with herself that would've been far more interesting to explore topically. However, lines such as "my friends don't know what it's like/they don't understand why" and "I wish I could take something to fix it/I wish it were that simple," are destructive, because there are no solutions here for its vulnerable fanbase. Nothing about going to therapy, unlearning unhealthy coping behaviors and survival mechanisms, or talking to friends for support. There are other songs that explore intense, isolated anxiety, or discuss anxiety in much more connected ways that can allow a listener to process and understand their experiences. But this is less of a song, and more of a cry for help. [3]

Will Adams: Maybe the chirpy backing and odious attempt at relatability in the final "I love this song!" exclamation (this song's analog to "WHO CAN RELATE") are intentional and meant to evoke the same alienation felt when scrolling through feeds on a Sunday morning, watching everyone else be connected and valued and adored while you lay, inert, on your bed, as you acknowledge that you have nothing to show since you stayed in this weekend, again, and it's just another weight to plunge you further into your ever-present fear that you've wasted everything that's been given to you until now, and you aren't worthy of any further investment or love or even life. Or maybe it's just a cynical garbage fire. [1]

Katherine St Asaph: A novelty of a credit -- think "Bonnie McKee ft. Katy Perry" -- and some endearing vocal delivery wasted on a campfire strum and the cuddliest-bunny depiction of anxiety and depression. I don't know either artist's inner life, only what's on record; and I do get why so many depictions of mental health are this anodyne: to show that it can affect even people with seemingly great lives. But it's hard not to suspect the commercial intent was to excise anything genuinely scary, alienating, or unrelatable by the "good" ones, resulting in a fantasy of anxiety without consequences. Anxiety means people disappear from your life, or you disappear them. Your friends don't ask you to the movies but silently block you on Facebook so you won't contaminate their happy hours or rooftop barbecue invites: one more lifelong, irreversible regret. Your exes don't say you're "hard to deal with" but use stronger, nastier language; or perhaps are confused and heartbroken about being silently withdrawn from by a partner who only presented a painstakingly curated, secretly dissociated 10 per cent; or perhaps are abusers, because those people feed upon anxiety.You don't overthink about FOMO but getting fired for ghosting work; or all the people you've alienated, running around out there like viruses spreading word of you; or perhaps how you can't even motivate yourself to play Fortnite, let alone do useful things; or perhaps thousands of dollars sunk into therapy, prescriptions, or for some even hospitalizations. These are ugly, unmarketable (or are they) consequences of anxiety, and few people will relate to all of them; but for those who do, their absence from songs like this is the opposite of comforting. Even Logic, who just turned "1-800-273-8255" into an "I banged your mom" joke, was more forthright than this. He may have sung "I don't want to be alive" like a jingle, a counterproductive earworm, but at least it acknowledged the fundamental fact that depression makes you want to die. It's telling that the last words here are a giggly "I love this song!" When depression and anxiety get really bad, you don't love songs. You don't love anything. [1]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[vdbstore-blog]

New Post has been published on Vintage Designer Handbags Online | Vintage Preowned Chanel Luxury Designer Brands Bags & Accessories

New Post has been published on http://vintagedesignerhandbagsonline.com/munroe-bergdorf-on-the-loreal-racism-row-it-puzzles-me-that-my-views-are-considered-extreme-global/

Munroe Bergdorf on the L’Oréal racism row: ‘It puzzles me that my views are considered extreme’ | Global

By 8.12pm on Sunday, Munroe Bergdorf is done in. It is a week since she was announced by L’Oréal as the face of True Match, a campaign that marries makeup to social justice, and three days since she was sacked unceremoniously. A BBC 2 producer is on the phone, talking to her about an interview with Victoria Derbyshire the next morning. “It has been the worst week of my life,” she tells him, trying to deflate the tension with a laugh. Prompted to explain why it has been so bad, she reels off “the death threats, threats of rape, threats of assault, people telling me to kill myself, the general bombardment and fear that something else will happen”. She pauses, then sighs. She hasn’t left her flat in days. “The most ridiculous thing is that you call out racism and they respond with more racism. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Bergdorf, a 30-year-old, black, queer, trans woman who models and DJs, is no stranger to abuse and ridicule. Her very existence is subversive and threatening enough to the mainstream that a trickle of racist, homophobic and transphobic bile has become par for the course in her daily life on and offline – but now it has become a torrent.

As the Daily Mail reported it on Friday, “with a dizzying fanfare, she was brought in as the ‘face of modern diversity’. But days after she was announced as L’Oréal’s first transgender model, Munroe Bergdorf launched an extraordinary rant declaring all white people racist”. The story went viral, reported everywhere from Al-Jazeera to the New York Times.

“I’m trying to think of the best ways to get across what I actually said,” she tells me, over a picnic of French fries and apple Tango at her kitchen table.

Bergdof (left) DJing with Lina Bradford (centre) and Yasmine Petty in New York last November. Photograph: Drummond/BFA/Rex/Shutterstock

She explains that, the morning after the rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where an anti-racist protester was killed by a white supremacist, she wrote a Facebook post in response to that event. “It was an epic three-parter about how racism is a social structure and how, if this is the case, what can you do to combat racism?” She says the post was deleted by Facebook for breaching its terms on hate speech; the racist, transphobic comments made about Bergdorf, however, were left up. (A Facebook representative said: “We haven’t yet got to the bottom of what happened to Munroe’s post”, but “we are looking into it.”) The post was then filleted for its most incendiary lines: “Most of ya’ll don’t even realise or refuse to acknowledge that your existence, privilege and success as a race is built on the backs, blood and death of people of colour,” she wrote. “Your entire existence is drenched in racism. From micro-aggressions to terrorism, you built the blueprint for this shit. Come see me when you realise racism isn’t learned, it’s inherited and consciously or unconsciously passed down through privilege. Once white people begin to admit their race is the most violent and oppressive force of nature on Earth … then we can talk.”

Unsurprisingly, Bergdorf made some people uncomfortable, made some people cheer and pissed off many others, including her mother, who is white and reads the Daily Mail. “That was an awful conversation. I’m half-white. My mum thought I was lumping her in with everyone, but this isn’t about individuals. To understand my point, you have to take yourself out of the conversation – it’s not about you – and truly think about society, structurally, economically, as a whole.”

But isn’t that the trouble? Lots of people won’t and don’t understand. Not everyone reads Frantz Fanon and Patricia Hill Collins for kicks – academic theory will only go so far in convincing the average person on an average street that institutionalised, systemic racism is just as damaging as a violent, racist attack.

“I don’t regret what I said,” she says, calmly. “I’m an activist. Being an activist means calling people out, not just saying what everyone else is saying and what everyone else wants to think and upholding the common consensus. L’Oréal knew that when they hired me.”

Bergdorf on ITV’s Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid. Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Rex/Shutterstock

This isn’t provocation for provocation’s sake; Bergdorf knows there is no time to pussyfoot until everyone else catches up.

“I can wholeheartedly say that the dictionary definition of racism was written a very long time ago and not by a person of colour. It doesn’t allow us to have a conversation about modern-day racism. If you’re not aware of it, then make yourself aware of it. Racism isn’t just calling someone something, it’s a whole system. If you think we live in an equal society, you’re living in a daydream. You need to recognise that there is such a thing as white privilege and you can be homeless and still have white privilege, because you can still have a better chance of getting out of homelessness than a person of colour in the same position.”

Isn’t the problem that the language is outmoded? It’s hard to get people on board when “racist” is a loaded catch-all umbrella to describe everything from unconscious biases in the workplace to US neo-Nazis.

“We do have the language,” she says, “but it needs to be out there: unlearning, microaggressions, being complicit, unconscious bias, privilege – these need to be taught, we need to address why syllabuses only teach white history, we need to speak about slavery and the brutality of colonialism.”

Bergdorf’s speaking voice is an even-handed murmur; she pauses occasionally, apologising for what feel like rocks in her throat. Someone she knew from university, she says, sold the story to the Daily Mail and bragged about it.

She deliberately hasn’t seen friends or family since the story broke because “I need to deal with it without being told constantly ‘It’s going to be OK’, when who knows if it will be.” Her flatmate has been around and friends have rallied, but, for the most part, she has been managing alone, without an agent or a PR. She has four upcoming campaigns this year; three of her clients have yet to call her to confirm that is still the case. It is irrelevant, she says, because her principles will always come first.

“My body has always been political – the way people respond to my body has always been political, whether or not it was about gender or race,” she says. “I grew up in a white-majority area on the borders of Hertfordshire and Essex … but I’m mindful of my parents and giving too much away; they’re really worried.” She had a solidly middle-class upbringing, with one younger brother who is “straight and super woke and the first person I called”. Her dad is Jamaican and her mum is white English. “Dad was tough on me growing up as a very effeminate boy, but we’re very close now. Mum is feisty and super successful, heading up PR for a financial company.”

‘Dad was tough on me growing up as a very effeminate boy, but we’re very close now’ … Munroe Bergdorf. Photograph: Teri Pengilley for the Guardian

Bergdorf was horribly bullied at her all-boys school and beaten up. She says the loneliness she felt through her teenage years was intense. “I lived in my own head and in make-believe. I was obsessed with Cyndi Lauper – I still am. She gave me a lot of strength: that quote ‘On my darkest days I wear my brightest clothes’ is still true for me.” We laugh – today she is wearing sombre, black tights and a grey marl top; understandably, she is not ready for dressing up. “The mornings have been the worst, as my anxiety has been super high and it’s difficult to get up.” She shows me pages of abusive social media screenshots. “I didn’t get out of bed till 1pm today.” Isn’t it a form of self-harm, to put herself through it? “No, I need to know what’s going on so I can feel in control. And I’m resilient: I worked hard at it.”

Bergdorf studied English at the University of Brighton. “I guess I was genderqueer, but there weren’t really the words to express my identity – I just started wearing makeup and heels.” A three-year career in fashion PR followed university before she “crashed and burned”. When she decided to transition at 24, she also learned how to DJ so “I could be myself, self-care and make money. Needing that time and space to yourself is why a lot of trans girls fall into sex work, because the process is expensive and the money is reliable”. She sighs. “Trans women of colour are being killed at an alarming rate.” When she was transitioning, she says the average life expectancy for a trans woman like her was 30. “At the time, I thought: ‘That’s only a few years. I should be speaking about this.’”

Bergdorf was raped during the period she was transitioning; she reported it to the police, but the attacker was never found. She took even more strongly to activism. “It wasn’t just standing up for rights that were my own,” she explains. “Islamophobia, antisemitism, anything I saw that I didn’t think was right, I would protest or post. I think that’s the stance everyone should take: if white people protested and worked to dismantle racism … I would have loved to have seen the reaction around Brexit from liberals with racism. If people rallied around issues that don’t affect them as well ones that do, we’d be getting shit done.”

Bergdorf built an audience – and influence – within the LGBT community, partially through DJing. “It was the best investment. I was 25, got loads of gigs and it felt like it was what I was always meant to do. I had a lot of fun. I was a complete wild child and went off the rails and did all that rock star shit.”

Despite cabin fever, and stressful breaks to deal with her buzzing phone, Bergdorf is warm, smart and charming; on meeting her, you can understand how she has made the connections that have built her career. A shoot for a couture Lebanese Muslim collection was her first modelling gig; campaigns with Illamasqua and Boy London followed.

She was shopping on Thursday afternoon when L’Oréal called her about the story the Daily Mail said it was going to publish. “I kept explaining the context and the full post and they wouldn’t listen. They said not to go out and not to talk to anyone.” In a statement, L’Oréal said, without irony, that it “supports diversity and tolerance towards all people irrespective of their race, background, gender and religion … we are proud of the diversity of the ambassadors who represent this campaign. We believe that the recent comments by … Munroe Bergdorf are at odds with those values and as such we have taken the decision to end the partnership with her.”

L’Oréal’s key ambassador, Cheryl Cole, was found guilty of assault for beating up a black nightclub toilet attendant, but evidently that doesn’t conflict with the company’s policies. (Cole was cleared of racially aggravated assault.) Clara Amfo, a Radio 1 DJ and a L’Oréal True Match ambassador, quit the campaign in solidarity with Bergdorf, partially in protest at the hypocrisy of the situation.

“It puzzles me that my views are considered out of touch and extreme,” says Bergdorf. But it is an argument from which she can’t run. “I said no three times to Good Morning Britain,” she says. “But then I thought: ‘This is what you’re meant to be doing and this is a conversation that needs to be had. A lot of people are relying on you.” On Monday morning, her conversation with Piers Morgan goes as we discussed it would the evening before: Morgan asks if he is racist, says he is offended at being considered racist or sexist and shuts down Bergdorf. “The split between support and hatred has been about 50/50,” she says later that day. “On the one hand, it’s amazing, but it is horrible and awful to think that people hate me.”

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