The Miami News, Florida, September 27, 1939

You know I'm getting really tired of the overwhelmingly popular notion that sex offenders "have it too easy".

The Sex Offender Registry is public, anyone on it has every aspect of their personal information online, allowing vigilantes to track you down and kill you and when they do, the cops aren't going to investigate your murder. Furthermore, being put on the SOR commonly disqualifies you from any form of rent, home ownership, or employment and thus most sex offenders become homeless.

If a Sex Offender does go to prison, chances are they will be killed purely for being a sex offender as every inmate will assume they are a child molester. I remember reading a story of a 20 year old man who was mutilated beyond recognition in prison after being put on the SOR for having sex with his 17 yo girlfriend.

Contrary to popular belief, you can be put onto the Sex Offender Registry for a vast variety of reasons, not just raping a child so assuming that all Sex Offenders are child rapists is illogical. Any form of indecent exposure can land you on the SOR. Back in the 2010s, there was a Texas teen who streaked at a football game and was put on the SOR as a result. He committed suicide because the courts would not take his name off the registry and yes, btw, getting taken off the Registry is virtually impossible to do even if you have mountains of evidence proving your innocence.

Furthermore, the SOR never actually reveals what crime each person on it committed but the major news networks have firmly convinced the U.S Population that every sex offender is a child rapist.

In Colorado, registered sex offenders are not allowed to own photographs of family members who are minors, nor are they allowed to even speak to minors. In Wisconsin, a registered sex offender was barred from entering a hospital where his 9-year-old son was undergoing surgery on the basis that he might rape his son.

People seem to think that the legal system is too leniant on sex offenders simply because sex offenders aren't suffering the punishments people want them to suffer. Just because a sex offender isn't being executed by firing squadron, burned at the stake, pulled apart by horses, sent to the gallows or thrown in a pit with 1000 hungry rats doesn't mean they aren't being punished.

It really bothers me that so many leftists, especially Anarchists buy into this bullshit and vigilante justice.

“You’re Wrong About” did an episode on this in 2019, which reiterates this post, goes more in depth on some issues and gives more specific examples. Another good example is a man who was semi coherced into just admitting guilt to his case for owning child pornography. What had actually happened is this man downloaded a lot of porn from online, one of which featured a woman who was 17/16, which he didn’t know. Police convinced him the whole thing would be easier if he pleaded guilty and was registered, and it ruined his life. Landlords won’t rent to him, he can’t keep a job, and he can’t use a computer unless for things related to work, making living impossible.

As conservative fascism gets more intense we really do need to criticize and scrutinize our attitudes towards the SOR. What if skimpier clothing gets you hit with indecent exposure? Non-Hetero presenting PDA? And if stricter conservative laws put in place concerning public dress codes? As of 2022, 14 states still have not repealed their anti sodomy laws, even though the Supreme Court case Lawrence v Texas invalidates them. What if that ruling was repealed? Now, legally, any sex outside of procreation could mark you as a sex offender. And it’s no secret these laws are left ambiguous intentionally because they are used almost exclusively against queer sex. Meanwhile, you couldn’t criticize the SOR without being labeled as a child abuser advocate.

We have to pick about every peice of our social justice system, including sex offender laws.

Pleasantly surprised this didn’t have some kind of “gotcha!” at the end and brought up not only all the legitimate good points but also examples of exactly why this system does not work. Not only is it wrongfully punishing people who really don’t deserve it (seriously? Put on the sex offender list for streaking?), but we all know how easy it is for actual rapists to get away with even just a little bit of influence or money to wave around.

But people who panic and assume we just need harsher laws are the same people who pull out the Shirley Exception—“well surely if it was one of the above crimes, the person wouldn’t be put on the sex offender list!”

They were, tho.

Sex workers are also routinely registered or have the threat of registration used against them, especially gay men

I mentioned this recently already, but homeless people are also often registered as sex offenders for things like urinating in public (because they aren't allowed to use businesses' restrooms), having sex in tents, and even getting undressed in their cars.

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” — H. L. Mencken

— Sandra Lee Bartky, “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”

god I’m putting “X Historical Thing was intended to show off people’s wealth” and putting it on a high shelf with “gaslight” and “toxic” until people learn what it does and doesn’t mean

wrong: this idea that most people sat down and consciously thought “hm! what will make me look rich? I will do that, very logically and methodically!”

right: the idea that style trends, and ideas about what constitutes Sophistication, Taste, and Elegance, are usually set by the upper class, and other people often try to copy them because they think those things are Sophisticated, Tasteful, and Elegant, NOT because they “make you look rich.” BUT they often end up representing conspicuous consumption without conscious intent because they’re trends set by people who can afford The Best (and therefore most expensive) of everything, in large quantities

people have always had personal aesthetic taste, and the drive to surround themselves with beauty. where it became a Display of Wealth was not usually in a coldly calculated decision to show off, but in the fact that fashion was driven by the wealthy

That annoys me SO MUCH. If showing off wealth was the only purpose of fashion they’d just wear sandwich boards with bank statements on them.

Hear me out: Untitled Goose Game in Ankh-Morpork…

Think of all the mayhem you could create.

(I really really want so bad this game/DLC to exist. So much potential. @house_house_ call me (or, better, call the Pratchetts)) Next drawing: the Post!

Still remember when a homo- and transphobic acquaintance tried to bring up JKR’s views on trans people in conversation and I shut it down with «oh yeah she’s been saying a lot of dumb shit on Twitter after she finished writing Harry Potter, like when she claimed Dumbledore was gay, just to be politically correct», which made it absolutely impossible for him to admit that he agreed with anything JKR had ever said. Sometimes you just have to weaponise people’s homophobia against their transphobia.

Other ways to stop family members/acquaintances from going on bigoted rants:

The point is that I’ve used all of these in various contexts and they’ve saved a good number of dinner table conversations from derailing into pointless debating. You don’t de-radicalise friends and family members by entering into political discussions they initiate just to stir up shit. You de-radicalise them by shifting the focus away from their shitty opinions and onto the things you have in common and the practical everyday stuff that exists outside their internet echo chambers.

Biggest fucking mood.

They’re also meant for hiltops, not small rooms. Cant get the right reverb with all that echo.

they’re also meant to make you fight the english. don’t forget that part.

My fav bagpipe player was a dude who would go out to the middle of a soccer field near my college apartment on Sunday. No one was using the field and he’d just be out there playing his heart out and the sound were just spread out over the plains. I’d be working on art for class so I’d open the window and listen. I still have fond memories of the day a kid biked up to the edge of the field, ran over to the bagpiper and the music stopped for a moment and as they talked. I couldn’t hear it but I had assumed the worst, that someone had decided to tell him to stop playing. Instead after the pause the musician seemed to nod, readjusted his bagpipes and started belting out the Star Wars theme. 

Holyshit that is the most interesting thing I’ve heard in awhile

Holy shit yes

just to add that there are many kinds of bagpipes from England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Spain, and other countries that are specifically made for indoor playing and are soft and melodic, as well as all the outdoor pipes like the Scottish, Spanish, French, and many from the Balkans, Italy, Greece, central and Eastern Europe and so on - tumblr won’t let me post YouTube links here for some reason but search there for smallpipes, parlour pipes, border pipes, uilleann pipes, for some gentle examples - also for the love of the gods check out Cristina Plato, gorgeous and talented Spanish piper

i learned of “Box beds” – cabinets with beds in them and, sometimes, lockable doors – were used for privacy and safety in parts of rural medieval Europe before individual bedrooms were common. They became fashionable even in homes with bedrooms and remained in use in Scotland into the 1900s (x)

I don’t want a swimming pool, I want a box bed/nook bed

Ohhhhhhh man this unlocks Primal Instinct

Nest!!!! Cozy!!!!!

I think one of my favorite things about Howl's Moving Castle is how it portrays aging. When Sophie is cursed with old age, her first thought is how free she feels. To have a body that has been lived in, to have a mind that is no longer afraid of the world. She remarks that she has "never felt so little fear." We have a weird obsession with infinite youth in modern day culture, but there are many things about old age that never get appreciated enough. Thought it may make you frail and weak, you will learn not to give a shit about what people think. The wisdom and compassion you will gain from a long life cannot be understated. Young Sophie would have been horrified to go near Howl's Castle, however, old Sophie was not bothered. She didn't care what anyone else thought. She needed a place to stay so she broke into some random magic castle and took a nap on the couch. Growing old is not a curse, in many ways, it is a blessing.

“Our side concocted the ‘bathroom safety’ male predator argument as a way to avoid an uncomfortable battle over LGBT ideology, and still fire up people’s emotions.”

COLOUR ME FUCKING SURPRISED

I want people, in particular cis people, to read this and understand what it means.

It means that these groups, these organizations, are so Hellbent on getting trans people outlawed, hurt, and killed, that they will openly lie and admit to lying to stir up emotions. They have no qualms with actively lying and distorting reality. 

They have no qualms about misleading people. Actively lying to people. 

They don’t care how immoral their actions may be, how much their rhetoric flies in the face of reality, as long as it reaches their end goal of the destruction of “transgender ideology.” 

MassResistance and all their ilk want us dead, and should never be trusted, not even for the most trivial of matters. They should be rejected, reviled, despised, because nothing they do is in service of anything but hatred and evil. 

And in case anyone actually doubts this, and wants to cry “fake news,” here’s MR’s actual article. Should it get deleted, here’s an archived version. Some choice bits under the cut, if you want to see how vile these people really are. 

Keep reading

@asymbina @thefingerfuckingfemalefury

Also worth reminding everyone that the lie doesn’t magically become true when it’s spread by putative feminists in stead of conservatives.

They knowingly lied so more people would hate and fear us.

If you don’t understand how evil that is let me briefly explain.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_stages_of_genocide

As far as ethical materials go you can’t really get better than wool.

The sheep need the hair cut.

Nothing dies for it.

Sheep live pretty much wild for most the year.

Placed correctly they maintain a landscape and help the wildlife that live there to thrive.

Doesn’t use Vast Quantities of land for little product.

Not draining inland fresh water oceans.

Been spending thousands of years perfecting the genetics for this purpose.

Comes in many different kinds of uses.

And the animal it comes off is fully edible.

My main issue with it is it has fallen so out of fashion that it pays the farmers who make it more to transport it than they get per fleece, and people have really fucking weird hang ups about the ethics of giving a sheep a hair cut.

Sheep can get infested with wool maggots if they are not shorn.

Also an unshorn sheep can drown if it falls into water, just by the sheer weight of the water its wool can absorb, dragging it down.

A Tunis sheep can live in a large doghouse, and staked in a different place every day, will mow your lawn (buy they get lonely. Buy two).

Light shearing nicks heal fast because the sheep’s waxy lanolin coats their skin. Though most sheep farmers won’t Nick the sheep bc it gets blood on the wool.

Sheep farmers MUST treat their sheep with care, because any little thing that upsets sheep affects the quality of their wool.

Even “natural” fibers like bamboo take TONS of water to process and alkaline dyes to color them. You can dye wool with unsweetened koolaid.

say that!

not enough people talking about this

“but what did POOR Victorian women wear?”

unless they were crushingly poor, the same basic arrangement of garments as rich women, and the closest approximation of fashionable fabrics, colors, trims, etc. they could manage

let’s put it this way: don’t you generally wear the same articles of clothing celebrities wear? just from less expensive brands and sometimes- but not always, anymore -made in less luxurious fabrics? just because Kim Kardashian wears jeans by some big-name designer and your aunt wears jeans from Target doesn’t mean they aren’t both wearing jeans. 

and I think this is really important to remember and tell people about, re: history, because it acts as a reminder that the human drive for beauty and self-expression through body adornment isn’t limited to the upper classes. and never has been

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Misunderstanding Lucifer from the Sandman series and why Gwendoline Christie is the right choice (an art historian and occultist's opinion)

I am writing this post as I'm absolutely baffled by the issues people seem to have with the portrayal of the character of Lucifer in the Sandman series. For some reason people find it problematic that the fallen angel is played by Gwendoline Christie, a powerful and androgynous-looking woman, but there is seemingly no problem with Lucifer being played by a black-haired man in the nightclub business (Tom Ellis in the Netflix series 'Lucifer'). Don't get me wrong, Tom Ellis is entertaining and wonderful to watch, but that particular version of Lucifer is neither canon when it comes to the comics nor does it have anything to do with the actual angel Lucifer.

Angels are genderless beings and they have always been portrayed as androgynous in the history of art. Multiple literary sources, including grimoires (books with supposed instructions on how to summon these beings and many others), state that angelic beings as well as demons are able to change their appearance. Many of those forms they might take aren't even humanoid and they can choose not to show any physical form at all. They aren't corporeal beings, the fact that they do take on any resemblance of a physical form is just so humans can understand them better. That's why we've been painting them as human-like ever since the early times of human civilization. What we make to be similar to us is what makes it comprehensible. Portraying beings from other dimensions/realms as human-like but with androgynous features is a way to show they don't belong in the physical dimension, as gender is likely a non-existent concept in other realms of existence. Androgyny of mythical beings, therefore, emphasizes the fact they are different than physical beings such as humans.

Therefore, when portraying an angelic being in art, or in any type of media, making them androgynous is making way for their essence to come through. In a way, the same applies to the way elves are portrayed as ethereal and androgynous since they don't have to be corporeal beings at all, at least when it comes to folklore. I know this opinion might not be understandable to others or it might sound controversial, but I believe that not portraying an angelic being as androgynous and not showing any signs of their divine origin (these include mannerisms that emphasize their etheriality for example, a cadence in their voice that is different etc.) is a huge missed opportunity that might rob these interesting mythical beings of what they are. Not making angels feel like angels beats the point of having an angel character (in a movie, series or video game for example) in the first place.

This is why Gwendoline Christie is the right choice. At a height of 6′ 3″ (1.91 m), captivatingly pale. androgynous with a powerful specific sort of grace and presence - a perfect 'vessel' for the Morning Star. What's more, she understands the importance, complexity, grandeur and the mythical dimension of the figure of Lucifer, as well as the whole 'spirituality' of the Sandman universe which is rather evident from her approach to this role and the interviews she has given so far. I might go so far to say that, even though the Sandman series isn't even out yet (though there is some footage available already), the casting of Gwendoline as Lucifer feels right just as the casting of Lee Pace as Thranduil in the Hobbit felt right and I consider the character of Thranduil to be the best portrayal of a humanoid mythical being on TV. Lee felt like an elven king, moved like an elven king, spoke like an elven king and radiated an energy of the dimension the elven king might have come from (I'm talking about the folkloric 'Otherworld' where elves supposedly live). I feel the same might apply to Gwendoline and Lucifer.

As an occultist, art historian, anthropologist and someone who is rather fond of the figure of Lucifer, I am looking forward to seeing how Gwendoline interprets him. Finally, we might get something completely different from a frequently portrayed 'demonic' side/version of this important mythical character. We might just see the Light Bringer who has not forgotten his divine origin.