leahcat

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The arguments against using queer are wrong.

“’Gay’ and ‘Lesbian’ are words we chose ourselves”

Gay was used to mean promiscuous and morally destitute. A “Gay woman” was a prostitute. A “Gay man” was a philanderer. A “Gay house” was a brothel. Later the term meant uninhibited, sexually active, and hedonistic. By the mid-20th century it came to mean all those things AND engaged in sexual relations with people of the same gender. It largely supplanted “homophile” as a descriptor of LGBTQ people in the 70s but has been used as a slur since, especially during the 90s and 00s.

“Queer is a slur”

Queer gained a pejorative meaning in the early 20th century, meaning sexually deviant. It was reclaimed in the 80s, and quickly rose to prominence. “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it,” became a rallying cry at pride marches. It was especially used by those who worried that the policies of some LGBTQ rights groups were verging toward conservatism and assimilation which was leaving people of color, trans people, immigrants, etc. out of the loop. Queer became an identity that stoop opposed to the cry to keep your head down and be presentable and quiet and private to garner the tolerance of straight society. The Queer identity was seized on by trans rights activists, people who did not neatly fit the labels of “gay” and “lesbian,” and people passionate about political causes (especially AIDS).

Like “gay” and “lesbian,” queer has continued to be used as a slur by straight people. The only difference between the reclamation of “gay” and the reclamation of “queer” is a couple years.

“Reclaiming slurs is individual, you can’t apply it to everyone.”

Queer has been used as an umbrella term longer than most of the people who call it a slur have been alive. Having lived through the 90s and 00s I remember when “gay” meant bad, when everything bad was “gay.” People sneered “gay” at me when they tried to beat me up as a kid and teenager. Gay and Lesbian are every bit the slur today that queer is, yet anyone who said that “gay” shouldn’t be used because of its history as a slur would be laughed at.

“It excludes people who don’t want to be called ‘queer’.”

Refusing to allow queer to be used in public discourse and robbing it of its history and use excludes queer people.

“LGBT is better because it’s been an umbrella longer and no one takes offense to it.”

LGBT has been used since the 1990s.

Loads of people take offense to it and its adoption was and is a fight in activist circles. There are dozens of different variation, addition of + and *, both of which are celebrated and decried in equal measure. There is endless argument over whether the “T” belongs there, whether the “B” belongs (traditionally you see most of the anti-queer rhetoric in-community coming from people who want to pare down to “LG”). People have pitched MOGAI and MOGII and GSM and GSRM. MLM/MSM and WLW/WSW get tossed around. “LGBT” has been fraught with discourse.

“Academia appropriated ‘queer’ without asking, had they talked to actual (LGBT/Queer/MOGAI/MOGII/GSM/GSRM) people they’d have know it was a slur.”

When Queer Studies began in the 1970s who do you think was teaching it? Who was taking it?

So sure, Queer is a slur, Gay is a slur, Lesbian is a slur, newsflash, to the straight world WE are slurs. All our words are taken from the slurs they called us, our identities themselves are reclaimed.

So kids, go learn your own history.Don’t listen to people on the internet making arguments in bad faith. Don’t make assumptions about what is and isn’t ancient history, or what is or isn’t settled fact.

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Cinderella “plot holes” I am tired of hearing about

“Why didn’t her step family recognize her?” Because royal balls were basically the candle lit equivalent of clubbing in terms of both lighting and sheer numbers. Even if they were right next to her, they probably wouldn’t get a good look, especially since it would have started after sundown. Also, she was the help; they probably hadn’t looked at her in years.

“Looking for someone based on their shoe size is stupid!” See above.

“Was he going to have every size seven in the kingdom try the slipper on?” Prior to industrialization most garments were made by hand to fit the buyer’s measurements, including shoes. It’s why poor people only had one pair. It’s a lot smarter when you consider that they would’ve fit her like a glove.

“You can’t run down stairs in heels!” I know this is a misconception resulting from historical revisionism and disneyfication, but high heels were not originally women’s shoes. They were worn by men. Women wore slippers, which were basically ballet flats. So it’s debatable.

“Glass shoes don’t make any sense!” Okay first of all, it’s called the suspension of disbelief, and secondly, they’re gold in every other version but Perrault decided to change them to something else expensive.

“She just went to the ball to find a man!” I know this isn’t a plot hole but listen. As the daughter of a widower Cinderella would’ve been running the household finances and acting as hostess if he hadn’t remarried. By demoting Cinderella to a servant, her step-mother essentially guaranteed that she would never escape the house, because the only way for her to escape and maintain her status was to marry well, and no one was going to marry a servant. It was essentially the historical equivalent of your mom stealing your college acceptance letters out of the mailbox.

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A single male ejaculate weighs roughly 2.5 grams. Assuming the average male has sex once per week, that’s roughly 175 thousand people ejaculating every minute. Every minute the world ejaculates a polar bear.

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The Blepping Labrapotamus: A Field Guide. The Blepping Labrapotamus (scientific name: Canis Moochus Gianormous) is a rare and fascinating species that roams the fields and back roads outside of Newberg, Oregon.

Although DNA tests are inconclusive, scientists theorize that the Blepping Labrapotamus is the descendant of an ancient Yellow Labrador/Hippopotamus hybrid, hence its name.

A gregarious and totally non-aggressive creature possessing long legs and a warm, wet tongue as big as a carwash sponge, the Blepping Labrapotamus uses its 6’ reach to place its saucer-sized paws upon the shoulders of the UPS drivers from whom it extracts biscuits. The target of its affections, although completely unharmed, will typically be left with a mud-encrusted uniform, a face coated with slobber the consistency of clear Jello, and a coat pocket completely emptied of Milk Bones.

The Blepping Labrapotamus possesses speed and endurance that belies its enormous size, waddling gait and rotund girth. It will not hesitate to swim rivers, cross vineyards, and cover great distances in its pursuit of UPS trucks and their cargo of biscuits. It also possesses a unique survival instinct known as the “begging face” that, combined with a heart-rending whimper, will elicit sympathy from even the most cynical of prey by fooling them into thinking that it is neglected and malnourished when in fact the exact opposite is true!

By Scott Hodges in Newberg, Oregon

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Here’s what politics looks like if you take out the men 

Out of the 22 people running for president in 2016, only two of them are women. Elle U.K. is confronting this imbalance directly through the magazine’s #MoreWomen campaign, launched on Oct. 1 to celebrate women’s global power. Their eye-opening launch video shows how easy it is to make full rooms seemingly sparse.

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Watch: Nike features badass trans duathlete Chris Mosier in its new ad

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Vehicle size as an indicator of dick size is stupid BUT if you have:

a lifted truck

a lowered truck

those slanted wheels

there is a 100% chance that “micropenis” is too generous an appellation for you

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Wow it’s almost like most of human history has been about controlling women… or something…

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via instagram

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unless one character in the equation is a heinous asshole or something, i am entirely impervious to love triangles. 

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The Big Lebowski (1998; The Coen Brothers)

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The tea is that when George RR Martin includes the rape of a 13 year old girl and Pat Rothfuss writes 100+ pages of boring fairy sex it’s “just sex” and they still get considered part of the serious fantasy canon, but when a female fantasy author does it suddenly it’s “gratuitous smut” and their books can never be considered Serious Fantasy Literature™️ because they wrote about female orgasms and powerful women finding love, and their readers are derided for enjoying the sex scenes and wanting the romance because only Stupid Silly Women™️ care about these things and besides, haven’t you heard that the only accepted literary sex is unhealthy sex that is Painful But Somehow Still Hot™️ because the only valid, serious type of relationship involves a man abusing a woman for the delectation of a male audience!!