cool beans.

it honestly really sucks to have people blowing up my inbox wanting validation for their autistic or queer identity all the time. you have no idea how many questions i get like that. like multiple per day. why are you treating me like i am an authority on your life. i don't know you, you don't know me. why are you giving someone else that responsibility? you get to decide. that's it. that's the freedom, that is the responsibility. you decide. it's on you.

what people are really asking is for me to make them feel better about who they are and to give them a sense of community belonging. i'm sorry, i cannot actually do that. i can say nice reassuring things that you deserve to hear but it is no replacement for you actively claiming who you are for yourself and participating in building community with other people so that your identity can be expressed and seen. there is no shortcut for that. nobody else can give it to you. you have to claim it. with your actions.

whenever people say shit like “i couldn’t be polyamorous, i’m so jealous and possessive. if my partner even LOOKS at another girl/guy i’m gonna kick them out of a window” i’m like well you should probably be working on that. like even if you don’t end up doing polyamory it’s probably good to not be like that

Puritanism is getting worse around the globe and conservatives and fascists will absolutely be first going harder against porn, then use that against queer people. You HAVE to realise this and oppose anti porn measures and laws, be in solidarity with sex workers, and listen to them when they call this shit out. It's going to be vitally important.

Reminder that keeping porn legal means that pornstars have legal protections that they will lose if porn is made illegal. Reminder that keeping porn legal means there are legal standards that can be put in place and enforced which results in better safety for all who are involved in porn's creation.

Reminder that porn will never stop being a thing. It just won't. If it's made illegal, then it will continue to be created and distributed - its just that it will now be done under the table, and with no safety regulations or protections for anyone.

Yes, the hard-right's ultimate plan is to use porn as a gateway from which to attack queer people, but even if that wasn't their plan, you should want to protect the legality of porn anyway.

Keeping porn legal means that the chances of sexual assault on those who work in the industry are reduced, and means that victims of assault are able to pursue legal action against their attackers. Keeping porn legal means that human trafficking is decreased, and it gives victims of human trafficking a legally supported escape route that would be lost if porn were made illegal.

Keeping porn legal means that anyone who is involved in making it - regardless of whether theyre making it simply because they want to, or because they're financially desperate -- is granted a measure of protection that they otherwise would not be. People love to raise the "but porn is made by desperate people who sell their body to survive," but a) some people make porn because they like it, and b) someone who is desperate enough to sell their body will do so regardless of whether it's legal or not. But when it's legal, that desperate person has far more protections and is less likely to be taken advantage of than when it's illegal.

Keeping porn legal protects people. Making it illegal will harm people. It's that simple.

"But it's demeaning!"

That's a you problem. No, really - it's your opinion is that sex work is demeaning, but I've had some really demeaning jobs that were legal and "proper". Just because a job involves sex doesn't mean it has less value than being a salesperson, or an accountant.

To quote the great John Waters.

Sorry to add on to an already long post, but regarding this impacting all queer people: The way this happens is that they will quickly expand what the definition of “porn” is. Historically it has been a very difficult subject to pinpoint and define exactly, with obscenity laws kind of being all over the place. A Supreme Court justice once famously stated “I know it when I see it” when trying to define what porn is.

But this is not true. Everyone’s idea of what is “obscene” is different. Many believe dildos and vibrators are too obscene to exist and shouldn’t be seen in public or sold in stores. A book with a gay character? A transgender teacher? Porn. They are relying on people fundamentally believing that everyone understands what “porn” means in order to sneak in banning all sorts of things (including people).

The fact of the matter is that there are people in charge who truly believe that a queer person’s mere existence is as offensive and obscene as the most hardcore pornography out there, and they want those two things to be defined as the exact same type of “obscene” so they are both illegal. They will call us “porn” because they know that the average person will associate that with something specific (i.e.: classic video pornography, porno mags, etc.) and accept that this is a fine and normal thing to ban for being generally obscene to the public.

tldr: porn is hard to define and conservatives will always use that as an excuse to expand the definition to include anyone they don’t view as appropriate. Stop banning “obscenity” from the public. It will only hurt people.

actually being sluttier kinkier and gayer to protest the government

Bought these funky looking guys for like $1 a while back, and I finally made them into earrings today 🍄

Has the introduction of a new beneficial resource in a neighborhood (homeless shelter, syringe access program, etc.) actually increased crime in that area, or has it just increased the number of calls to 911? There’s a difference.

Just to expand on this a little bit, what I mean is that media outlets will sometimes report “increased criminal activity” or “increased crime rates” in areas where these resources are being added, especially resources that serve marginalized and homeless populations, and I really encourage people to look into the actual facts more. Often this actually means there was an increase in calls to police.

So what’s actually happening? People are seeing more individuals that they are not accustomed to seeing, and calling police on them. And a lot of times the “crimes” being committed are things like loitering, trespassing, etc. Essentially, existing. And many more times than that there is no crime reported at all. Just something to be mindful of, please support resources and programs that are being targeted like that. They are extremely helpful, despite the media’s insistence that they lead to dangerous environments.

my friend mo is one of the 11 american doctors stuck in gaza right now, please sign this to try to bring him home

I love buying used books with notes in the margins but it is heartbreaking when the last person to own the book was an idiot with terrible opinions and a pen that seemingly never runs out of ink.

Like what do you mean “how?” hello?????? I hate you, unknown reader.

"With the onset of the AIDS epidemic bisexual men were (and still are) stigmatized as AIDS bridges, or vectors. There were widespread fears that bisexual men were catching AIDS in the kinky homosexual world and bringing it to the respectable heterosexual world. Bi men were seen as a threatening connection between the dirty and the clean, the bad and the good, the queer and the straight. As such, bi men were seen as a threat to heterosexuals everywhere. For many men, including even more severely for many Black bisexual men, AIDS compounded existing discrimination and stigma and led to an abandonment by both heterosexual and homosexual communities. For others, the moral panic of AIDS combined with the continued fight for equal rights created, or better yet necessitated, a stronger bond with the queer community than before."

-Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw

It really says something that a lot of monogamous people consider polyamorous and aromantic to be "opposites" but every polyam person I know took one look at aromantics and said "they're just like me for real"

Poly folks x aro folks in the sense that "alloromantic heterosexual monogamous people view love and sex as an entirely different entity than me, and that makes life kinda strange"