dirty.little.things

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Thu, 16 May 2013 17:40:36 -0500

"I was always too self-centered and irresponsible to have kids. I know that never stopped many..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:39:03 -0500

“I was always too self-centered and irresponsible to have kids. I know that never stopped many others, but I am a narcissist with a conscience.”

- Debbie Kasper, No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Parenthood (vía brainpickings)

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Thu, 16 May 2013 08:23:42 -0500

"In the current abortion debate, there is no talk of children. Those who are anti-abortion never..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 08:22:32 -0500

“In the current abortion debate, there is no talk of children. Those who are anti-abortion never mention them. They seem to be the same people who want to cut food stamps and get rid of social programs that might help children and mothers. They never talk about nineteen-year-old fetuses. They don’t talk of war or hunger or about how much it costs to buy shoes and socks and how hard it must be to have children without a washer and dryer. They never seem to take into account who the father is, or who the boyfriends might be. I never wanted to have a baby if I wasn’t positive I could give it a wonderful life and my undivided attention. I didn’t get that from my own mother. When I was little, I didn’t understand that there is no such thing as undivided attention. My feeling was I needed to become a good mother to myself before I invented a child that needed one.”

- SNL’s Nora Dunn and other women writers and comedians on the choice not to have children. (via explore-blog)

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Wed, 15 May 2013 23:52:05 -0500

"The First Amendment’s egalitarian role is not confined, however, to political speech. People’s lives..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:09:00 -0500

“

The First Amendment’s egalitarian role is not confined, however, to political speech. People’s lives are affected not just by their political environment—not just by what their presidents and legislators and other public officials do—but even more comprehensively by what we might call their moral environment. How others treat me—and my own sense of identity and self-respect—are determined in part by the mix of social conventions, opinions, tastes, convictions, prejudices, life styles, and cultures that flourish in the community in which I live. Liberals are sometimes accused of thinking that what people say or or think in private has no impact on anyone except themselves, and that is plainly wrong. Someone to whom religion is of fundamental importance, for example, will obviously lead a very different and perhaps more satisfying life in a community in which most other people share his convictions than in a dominantly secular society of atheists for whom his beliefs are laughable superstitions. A woman who believes that explicit sexual material degrades her will likely lead a very different, and no doubt more satisfying, life among people who also despise pornography than in a community where others, including other women, think it liberating and fun.

Exactly because the moral environment in which we all live is in good part created by others, however, the question of who shall have the power to help shape that environment, and how, is of fundamental importance, though it is often neglected in political theory. Only one answer is consistent with the ideals of political equality: that no one may be prevented from influencing the shared moral environment, through his own private choices, tastes, opinions, and example, just because these tastes or opinions disgust those who have the power to shut him up or lock him up. Of course, the ways in which anyone may exercise that influence must be limited in order to protect the security and interests of others. People may not try to mold the moral climate by intimidating women with sexual demands or by burning a cross on a black family’s lawn, or by refusing to hire women or blacks at all, or by making their working conditions so humiliating as to be intolerable.

But we cannot count, among the kinds of interests that may be protected in this way, a right not to be insulted or damaged just by the fact that others have hostile or uncongenial tastes, or that they are free to express or indulge them in private. Recognizing that right would mean denying that some people—those whose tastes these are—have any right to participate in forming the moral environment at all. Of course it should go without saying that no one has a right to succeed in influencing others through his own private choices and tastes. Sexists and bigots have no right to live in a community whose ideology or culture is even partially sexist or bigoted: they have no right to any proportional representation for their odious views. In a genuinely egalitarian society, however, those views cannot be locked out, in advance, by criminal or civil law: they must instead be discredited by the disgust, outrage, and ridicule of other people.

”

- Ronald Dworkin, Women and Pornography, 1993

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Wed, 15 May 2013 00:08:52 -0500

"It would plainly be a mistake to assume that women (or men) who appear in pornographic films do so..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 23:31:00 -0500

“It would plainly be a mistake to assume that women (or men) who appear in pornographic films do so unwillingly. Our economic system does, it is true, make it difficult for many women to find satisfactory, fulfilling employment, and may well encourage some of them to accept roles in pornographic films they would otherwise reject. The system, as MacKinnon grimly notes, works to the benefit of the pornographers. But it also works to the benefit of many other employers—fast-food chains, for example—who are able to employ women at low wages. There is great economic injustice in America, but that is no reason for depriving poor women of an economic opportunity some of them may prefer to the available alternatives.”

- Ronald Dworkin, Women and Pornography, 1993

homotography: What Makes Me Me? by Gregory Harris

Sun, 12 May 2013 23:34:03 -0500

homotography: What Makes Me Me? by Gregory Harris

Stoya // Sasha. MY MIND JUST EXPLODED.

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:46:00 -0500

Stoya // Sasha. MY MIND JUST EXPLODED.

De cuando te das cuenta que sólo debería existir un Happy...

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:18:36 -0500

De cuando te das cuenta que sólo debería existir un Happy Parent’s Day.

Ryan Gosling Husband Pillow. vía @mariana007

Fri, 10 May 2013 09:58:13 -0500

Ryan Gosling Husband Pillow. vía @mariana007

newyorker: A cartoon by Shannon Wheeler. For more cartoons from...

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:07:36 -0500

newyorker:

A cartoon by Shannon Wheeler. For more cartoons from the issue: http://nyr.kr/106KD9I

Maybe we should just go ahead and have a kid.

"For example, when men describe their experiences with oral sex, it is nearly always from the..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 22:40:41 -0500

“For example, when men describe their experiences with oral sex, it is nearly always from the position of power. Whether fellatio-“I feel so powerful when I see her kneeling in front of me”-or cunnilingus-“being able to get her off with my tongue makes me feel so powerful”-men experience the giving and receiving of oral sex as an expression of their power. By contrast, women perceive both giving and receiving oral sex from the position of powerlessness-not necessarily because they are forced to do so, but because “it makes him happy” for them to either do it, or let him do it. So oral sex, like intercourse, allows him to feel “like a man,” regardless of who does what to whom.”

- Michael Kimmel, The Gender Of Desire: Essays On Male Sexuality (via wretchedoftheearth)

La falta de diversidad en los objetos del deseo

Mon, 06 May 2013 19:24:09 -0500

Just how diverse is the full list of Homo sapiens’ sexual interests as expressed on the Internet? Not very diverse, it turns out. Just twenty different interests account for 80 percent of all searches. That’s rather remarkable. With less than two dozen interests, you can satisfy the desires of almost everyone who uses a search engine to find erotic content. In fact, the thirty-five top interests account for 90 percent of all searches. This doesn’t even include cheerleaders (#79), massage (#51), or virgins (#61). This means that most people’s desires are clustered together into a relatively small set of common interests. When it comes to our kinks, we all have a lot more in common than you might think.

Strictly speaking, Rule 34 may be true. If you can imagine it, there is almost certainly porn of it on the Internet. If you Google “skeleton porn” or “sexy funeral director” or “erotic stories about lumpy potatoes” you will find results. But most of us aren’t spending our time looking for this stuff. Instead, the vast majority of our desires are shared by crowds of other people.

Ogi Ogas & Sai Gaddam A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire, 2011

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Mon, 06 May 2013 19:02:17 -0500

If you say yes to lesbian porn, you say yes to gay marriage....

Mon, 06 May 2013 12:36:35 -0500

If you say yes to lesbian porn, you say yes to gay marriage. Apparently. vía @hanneengels

:O (vía @mauri8a)

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:34:20 -0500

:O (vía @mauri8a)

queermuseum: Queer African American Women and the History of...

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:33:35 -0500

queermuseum:

Queer African American Women and the History of Marriage

This photo and headline accompanied an article from the October 15, 1970 issue of Jet magazine. They reveal that long before the recent struggle for marriage equality began, African American women who love women have engaged with the institution of marriage and have fought to make it their own.

Edna Knowles, on the left, and Peaches Stevens were wed in Liz’s Mark III Lounge, a gay bar on the South Side of Chicago, “before a host of friends and well wishers.” The article ended by noting, “although the duo has a type of ‘marriage license’ in their possession, the state’s official marriage license bureau reported it had no record of their license.” This ending serves to remind Jet readers that Knowles and Stevens’ union was not legitimate in the eyes of the state, as does the use of quotes around the word “married” in the headline.

However, decades prior to this bold public display of queer affection, African American female couples in New York strategized alternative ways to obtain marriage licenses in the 1920s and 30s:

“Marriage ceremonies were held with large wedding parties which included several bridesmaids, attendants, and other wedding party members. Actual marriage licenses were obtained by either masculinizing the first name, or having a gay male surrogate obtain the license for the marrying couple. These marriage licenses were placed on file with the New York City Marriage Bureau.” - Luvenia Pinson, “The Black Lesbian: Times Past-Time Present,” Womanews, May 1980 p. 8.

Also during the 1930s, popular performer Gladys Bentley was making a living singing bawdy tunes and playing piano late into the night at various clubs all over New York, including one named after her.

Bentley married her white girlfriend in Atlantic City in a ceremony to which she invited friends in the entertainment industry:

“Columnist Louis Sobol remembered Bentley coming over to his table one night and whispering, ‘I’m getting married tomorrow and you’re invited.’ When Sobol asked who the lucky man was to be, she giggled and replied, ‘Man? Why boy you’re crazy. I’m marryin’ ——’ and she named another woman singer.” - Eric Garber, “Gladys Bentley: The Bulldagger Who Sang the Blues,” Out/Look, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 1988, pp. 52-61.

These examples show some of the various ways queer African American women have created public rituals to express their relationships and have therefore insisted on their rights to full citizenship, many decades prior to the current struggle for marriage equality.

- Cookie

Butch is handsome.

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:17:52 -0500

Butch is handsome.