-making the facial expression your character’s making and trying to describe it
-writing entire scenes in your head as you shower and not remembering most of it by the time you get to your computer
-deciding you can’t do something you’ve been looking forward to until you write what you told yourself you were going to write, resulting in you laying in your bed doing nothing
-having two completely different ideas for your story to go in and both seem equally good but you can’t do both and you also can’t choose
-having docs with stories you know you’ll never finish but not deleting them anyway, even if they’re only a couple sentences long
-getting random bursts of productivity that could go towards homework or cleaning your room or writing and you know you’ll only be able to do one
-getting inspiration from the most random things
-writing at inopportune times because a perfect line or dialogue just popped into your head and you have to get it down before you forget it
-“what are you writing?” “……..a story”
– “what do you want to do when you grow up?” “uunnghnnggguughhhhh”
-reveling in the embarrassment you put your characters through
Imagine being in a relationship in which you are treated like an equal, consciously and unconsciously, sexually, emotionally, socially, romantically, without being bound by gender expectations, without risk of pregnancy (or having your reproductive rights taken away from you), without feelings of inferiority, without being mistreated or neglected because men don’t understand your body and can’t be bothered to learn how to give you pleasure (or that you even deserve pleasure). Imagine having a reciprocating relationship with someone who knows how to touch you and how to talk to you, who will never abuse you or take away your consent. Imaging feeling powerful, safe, like the default rather than the specific or second-class. Imagine not requiring special handling by awkward, inconsiderate men who were never taught any better. Imagine being allowed to touch and enjoy and indulge without apprehension. Imagine being able to trust your partner. Imagine knowledge and understanding, someone who sees your depths and treats you the way you’d treat yourself if you hadn’t been told from birth that you weren’t worth it.
Girls aren’t “making them gay.”
Girls are fantasizing about being equal.
I have wondering about this in fandom for many years and reading this just made me tear up. I figured this was a big reason, but breaking it down to this extent made me so extremely sad. I realized a long time ago that even if I met the nicest guy in the world, I still have to battle all those things mentioned above. Just being friends is hard. I don’t have a happy history in this area like a lot of women and I have major trust issues with men and I wish somehow that wall could be broken down and we could all truly be seen as equal…as people with value. If you have all of the above with someone of the opposite sex then you are really lucky. See women are expected to give all those things listed above and settle for not getting them in return. I believe it’s a rare thing if you have it returned. Like I said, if I was with the nicest guy in the world I will always doubt myself, think he see’s me as different, talk to me different… Why? Because that’s our experience. This world raises us to believe we are worth absolutely nothing. The idea of being equal is one of our greatest fantasies.
It’s sad that it has to be a fantasy.
It’s totally sad.
But on the other hand, slash writers are some of the most empathetic people I know. And they’re great educators, too, probably in ways they might not expect. A good slash fanfiction writer can help women understand their desires and overcome some of those feelings of shame and worthlessness.
Think about how many girls have learned how to masturbate thanks to slash fanfiction.
Sometimes just knowing that we’re all reading and enjoying the stories is an immense comfort. People will tell you that slash is trash, that fangirls are desperate and pathetic, but ladies telling ladies that they’re allowed is a powerful thing.
Yeah, oh man. This is. Yeah, this is a lot. I especially feel the taboo surrounding female sexuality to the point that even though I’m Pretty Gay myself, I’m uncomfortable with my own sexuality (not as in orientation) and also dealing with the sexuality of other women. Like in some ways, I am always hesitant to appreciate sexiness in women because we are almost never shown female sexuality in a safe, respectful, and equal way and it still freaks me out.
I will never forget — and I wish so *badly* I still had a copy — the essay one of my exes wrote before she gafiated, in which she talked about how the act of writing slash and being part of the slash community in general had allowed her to “write herself back into her body”.
To, essentially, take off some of the blinders and filters western culture had put on her, all the things that had convinced her that, as an “overtall, fat, awkward, anxious, and altogether unattractive” person (she did have some anxiety issues, but none of the rest was true by any measure but all the lies we’ve ALL been told), she deserved neither happiness, nor romance, nor anything resembling sexual parity or satisfaction.
We met through fandom — she later told me she’d been quietly lurking on my mailing lists and around my websites for two years before she ever actually spoke to me — and we had four good years together before our relationship started to fall apart.
And, while not all of our happiness — together and separately — can be laid at the feet of the various slash goddesses, quite a lot of it can be.
Slash wrote *me* back into my body, too — several times, in several ways. Slash connected me to genders I never could’ve imagined, or could’ve imagined being *worth* connecting to in the days before I really understood the possibilities inherent to taking the media I had been given and *transforming* it.
We are *here*, and our pleasure is worth it — our pleasures, plural, are part and parcel of our identities.
And, you know, some of us, after we’ve been writing slash for a good, long while?
Find new ways to express those pleasures when women are there, new ways to understand those aspects of our sexualities — our *identities* — which include *hetero*sexuality.
It’s a journey. A process. A continuum. A spectrum. A *multiverse*.
AAAAAH! Thank you so much @dirtydirtychai !! It’s always a joy when someone’s writing about the psychology of fanfic gets back out into public circulation. We need these essays – they are part of our history and part of our validation.
Thank you 🙂
women deserve sexual pleasure. the fact that this is a controversial statement is at the heart of why slash is so popular with women AND why there’s no shortage of crusaders ready to explain (with horrible enthusiasm) that it ‘shouldn’t’ be.
THANK YOU. I’ve thought about this before – some of my favourite fic I’ve imagined as a straight pair and it’s become, not exactly uncomfortable, but tainted by my own ingrained cultural ideas of gender, sometimes to the point where I would be entirely loathe to read it if it wasn’t gay slash. Having the characters the same gender levels the equality playing field. And isn’t that a fucking turn on.
We don’t need a ‘reason’ why we ‘turn them gay’ nor do we have to explain this preference or justify it and neither does anyone, anyone need to understand our preference in order to respect it.
How-the-fuck-ever.
These words. All of the words written by these women above. They are some of the many reasons women love slash. They’re not the only reasons but if you require ‘understanding’ before your acceptance of another person’s rights to what pleasures them, then these are as good as anything else. Now I’m going to go write some nice sweet, sweaty man-on-man fucking, if you’ll excuse me.
This shook me to my core when I took my first pole class
I DIDN’T KNOW
WHAT
I had to google it.
That makes WAY MORE SENSE. I thought that people who pole danced magically didn’t have to deal with friction.
Disclaimer: I am a (western) pole instructor and dancer. I am friends with strippers/sex workers in my city who are both trained and not trained in (western) pole dance. One of those friends sold her pole to a club.
Also, when I refer to “(western) pole dance” or “pole dance” I’m am talking about the technique that was created overtime by numerous sex workers in strip clubs. There are other techniques but I am not trained in them.
None of these are reasons for why I am rambling. That is because I am a huge nerd.
NOW HOLD UP HOLD UP!
The OP is both right AND wrong. How? There are different types of poles. Now I’m not talking about what materials they are made of, how large of a diameter, and so forth. What I mean is that there are multiple styles of pole dance based on how the pole is set up. These are the three I know of right now. (And I can dance/teach on the first two!)
1. Static Pole: The most common pole I’ve seen in person and in clubs tends to be what we call a Static Pole. The Static Pole cannot turn or move from its base in any way. Here is a video of a dancer on a static pole:
The pole does not move, but the dancer moves around it. For a spin, the momentum of the dancer’s movement into the spin combined with gravity is enough force for the dancer to “spin around the pole.” You can also think of it as the dancer is gripping hard enough to not fall to the ground, but not so hard that the spin doesn’t move her around the pole. For a lot of first time pole dancers, finding the right balance between gripping too tight and too loose is a challenge.
You can also create faux-spin two ways. The first is shown on the video, as the dancer climbs up the pole, she moves her hands around the pole creating the illusion of a spin. You also can accidentally spin slowly in most static poses involving little or no hand contact when you first try those poses. The reason why being again, the dancer is learning what grip strength they need to hold the position.
This is the most common pole you will see because it is the most intuitive/cheapest set up, because the only forces you build muscle to fight are gravity and whatever momentum you yourself put upon it, and it is the least likely to cause a layman to injure themselves on. (I’m not a huge fan of dance clubs with random poles out).
2. Spin Pole: Now spin pole is probably the type of pole the OP was thinking of in their tweet. This is a pole that you can take out your hand and make it spin in place. Pretty much everything you can do on a static pole you can do on a spin pole but it does require an increase in grip strength.
Now, besides just fighting gravity and your own momentum (which decreases to zero when you hit the floor/stop), you have to also fight the force of the pole spinning on it’s own. This doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that the spin pole never stops spinning on its own (unless it is not a great pole) and that the speed of the spin depends on how close to the pole you are. Far away and expanded = slow spin. Squeezing tight to the pole = fast spin. You can see this demonstrated in the video.
3. Flying Pole: So this pole has very little to do with what the OP is saying, but it is a great demo of how much changes from one pole style to the next. Flying or Hanging Poles are poles that hang from the ceiling:
Hi my name is Jessica me and my 3 month old son have been homeless for 2 weeks I really could use some help I do not want to have to give up my son some help with food would be a blessing. There are no homeless shelters in rural areas like where I live, I have WIC but I can’t warm up his formula. We are staying in my car. If anyone could donate it would be much appreciated.God Bless.
My abusive mother just told me that she “accidentally” threw away my passport when she was spring cleaning.
Guys, I’m supposed to be travelling overseas on January 10 to reconnect with my dad and discuss the possibility of him supporting me. After struggling to survive for months, this was supposed to be my chance at finally getting financial support.
But now I’m absolutely devastated. My mother will stop at nothing to keep me financially screwed and relying on food banks to live.
I MAY be able to get a new passport in time, but I would have to pay so many fees. $277 for a new one and $183 for it to be processed quickly.
I KNOW THIS ISN’T THE MOST URGENT THING BUT I CANNOT EXPRESS HOW MUCH THIS TRIP MEANS TO ME. I HAVEN’T SEEN MY FATHER IN YEARS. I WANT HAVE A CHANCE TO SEE HIM FOR YEARS AFTER THIS BECAUSE THIS WAS A ONE-TIME ONLY DEAL. I CAN’T LET MY MOTHER DO THIS TO ME.
PLEASE HELP AND REBLOG IF YOU CAN
If this post upsets you, please just keep scrolling
I’ve been telling everyone I know for YEARS not to buy Blue Buffalo.
This is the short story:
A few years ago I took my sick cat, Ankh, to the vet. The vet and vet tech asked what I fed her. I told them Blue Buffalo. They looked like I had just told them I fed her razor blades and cyanide. They diagnosed her with pancreatitis and said that nearly all of the cats they’d been seeing lately with pancreatitis were being fed Blue Buffalo. They gave her medicine and sent her home. Two days later she had a seizure and died right in my arms.
The day after she died Hannibal started displaying the same symptoms she had so I panicked hard and took him to the vet. Got the same meds and the same diagnosis. Luckily Hannibal survived.
I wish Ankh had survived. She was only ten and the best cat I’ve ever had. Literally the best and five years later I still cry when I think about her.
FUCK BLUE BUFFALO.
I don’t know the full story behind the tweets above, but a Google search shows there HAVE been several recalls regarding this brand, especially in 2016. I would absolutely avoid as it is not worth the risk.
Good god thank you so much for sharing this because I’ve lately been considering switching to this brand cus it’s supposed to be so much better than all the others but good god what the hell.
I worked in a vet for a little while and I shit you not, when a dog came in with constant diarrhea they were always eating Blue Buffalo. We changed the food and the dog got better every time. Blue Buffalo is garbage food and never feed it to your pets.
I’ve never heard of this brand but I love my dog with all of my heart and I’d be broken if I ever accidently fed her this and got her sick (people give me different dog food to try all the time). I’d hate for anyone else to lose their pet also.
um?? what the fuck? holy FUCK my boyfriend and I were just about to start feeding our cat blue buffalo omg
Wft really?? Im never going to buy that killer food!! Praying for your pets!
I’m so glad I know this, I’d be heartbroken if my dog died
A beautiful thought for the new year from @neilhimself
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repost via @instarepost20 from @missmichb New Year sentiments. Always a fave of mine. #newyear #surpriseyourself #inspiration #liveyourlife #WildeGeeks #positivethinking (at Wilde Designs)
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 