Open your mind

carnivorouscarnation:

I got chills watching this.

(Source: eatpussylivehappy)

sexxxisbeautiful: cuntbarf:

PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!

(Source: explicitsubstance)

sluthaditcoming:

“Mark at #27:

“Wow, calling a human life a parasite.”

As a zygote and fetus, it is parasitic. During those stages of development, the one (zygote/fetus) isn’t separate from the other (parasite). The earliest part of the human life cycle is a parasitic cellular collection.

“So, when does it stop being a parasite and become a human being?”

Mark, the point is, the opening stages of the human life cycle is parasitic. The parasitic stage of the human life cycle stops upon birth and excision from the umbilicus. At that point, the life form may be sustained by resources outside (if necessary) that of the host. Food, oxygen, shelter, and so forth, may be provided independent of the host. Up until that point, the life form remains parasitic.

I would argue that the status of human being as organism with rights defined in a collective social environment and acknowledged within legal and other social systems therein, also starts at birth and host-independent viability, as well, though there have been socio-cultural systems that argue that actually happens later.

Here’s the thing about all this: it’s not an insult. It’s not a “bad” thing. Before I was born, I was a parasite on the system of my mother (and I didn’t have enough cellular structure or collective complexity to have self-awareness of an identity as “I” or “me,” incidentally). It’s just the circumstances of the biological system. Ultimately, however, during the zygote and fetus stages, the host system is the viable system, and the host’s independence is paramount in terms of rights and autonomy. The host gets to decide. I don’t get to decide, even if my spermatozoan managed to fuse with the host’s ovum. I hope I might be a party to the discussion if I did contribute a spermatozoan, but ultimately, the host (the mother, the woman) is the one who’s ultimate autonomy about health and life decisions are paramount.

You’re trying to re-categorize this issue as one of tyranny of one life over another (host over parasite), when in fact your own re-categorization is an imposition of tyranny of one life over another (your opinion over the independent health decisions of a woman, any woman). Your re-categorization demonstrates the extent to which you don’t value both the life and autonomy of women.

The maintenance of that choice – the choices women make about their own health – exceeds the potentiality of a cluster of cells. Moreover, working to ensure that choice of health and well-being decisions remains with the person most dramatically affected (and in the case of pregnancy that is the woman, not the cluster of cells) actually helps improve the health and life chances of women and clusters of cells alike.

I know it may be hard to see, but better availability of choice, and better infrastructure to support the outcomes of those choices, actually helps reduce long term human suffering. You want things to get better for potential clusters of cells? Start working to ensure that women have independence, autonomy, and choice in their health care decisions.

“I have the power and you don’t because you are a parasite in my eyes.”

One of the problems of religion and its effect on human psychology is how perfectly legitimate terms used to describe an elegant classification system have been appropriated as pejoratives. Now maybe you, Mark, aren’t religious, but here’s what happens: “Animal” becomes an insult. “Parasite” becomes something abhorrent.

Except that I am an animal, nothing more, nothing less. I share many characteristics, down to the atomic level, with many other animals. I am a chordate, but that’s not unique to me or my species. I am a mammal, but that’s not unique to me or my species. I am a social animal, but that’s not unique to me or my species. I have multiple systems of communication, but that’s not unique to me or my species.

And during the cellular collection that would eventually gain independence from its host such that it might continue to grow and attain enough consciousness that it identifies as “me” (even though that consciousness is strictly a manifestation of the material organism), I was a parasite.

I was a parasite, but that wasn’t unique to me or my species.

“It is amazing how human beings can De-humanize another human being to justify killing them.”

I agree, especially the way many men (and some women) will de-humanize women to justify killing them or oppressing them by enforcing parasitic development that threatens the health and well-being of the woman, and by trying to remove the autonomy of choice from women such that they cannot make the best possible and most well-informed decision possible.

“Oh, you aren’t human you are a parasite.”

As I’ve explained, the one doesn’t exclude the other. I’m a human, but also an animal. I am a member of a species that biologically starts off in a parasitic state before achieving viable independence, and remains an animal throughout it’s life cycle.

There’s a kind of special pleading that sometimes comes from religious believers (though perhaps you’re not a religious believer, I don’t know) who think that “human” is some sort of special achievement, some sort of unique state of being, a boss-level that you unlock in the X-box game of life. It’s easy to understand where that comes from if you imagine (as many religious believers do) that the universe is specially created for humans by a being that holds humans dear above all else.

Except that’s not the case. Sure, there are some features that don’t appear very frequently elsewhere in other animals, but at our most elemental, we’re just organisms, long chains of hydrogen and carbon, and we share many other features, such as complex neurological systems, certain environmental adaptability (within limits), tool use, omnivorous diet, an endoskeleton, certain sexual proclivities, and so on, with other animals.

And there’s no evidence that we’re special outside our own socio-cultural and psychological behavior of meaning-making. There’s no evidence of a universal creator that holds us dear. We’re not particularly special outside our socio-cultural meaning-making. It’s actually not a bad thing (or a good thing) to have started on the road to present consciousness (as an extension of the electro-chemical neural net) as a parasite. It’s just how it is. My mother happens to love her youngest former-parasite (she’s given birth to three of the little previously-non-independently-viable-collection-of-cells), but it still started as a parasite. Now her youngest has attained viability independent of host. Guess what? Mom still loves it, even when it doesn’t believe in the god that she does!

That doesn’t change the fact that Mom loves it because loving is a behavioral characteristic of many examples of the species, and because our psychology makes meaning.

“Sounds a lot like the people in Rwanda when they slaughtered thousands of people and they called them cockroaches.”

Except that those were viable humans killing other viable humans, not zygotes and not fetuses, and not in consideration of the mother’s health and well-being. Those weren’t health decisions about the integral bodily autonomy of a host, and they weren’t health decisions made by the person most affected by the health circumstance. Those were just socio-political differences fallen under that age-old human method of resolution: violence.

Nice try, but what you’ve created there is what’s known as a false equivalency, and it doesn’t work in arguing against abortion (or pretty much any other argument, for that matter). Try again.”

— So, some silly forced-birth troll decided to take on a trained biologist in the wake of Abby Johnson’s rage-bait presentation at UW, “Do women have too many rights?”

Hold on, just blacked out for a minute there from the sheer force of the eyeroll I get typing that question out…OK, I’m back.

The comments are amazing—I really recommend you check them out if you’ve got some free time—but this one in particular is one of the most eloquent, well-reasoned deconstructions of some of the most common and galling forced-birther fallacies I’ve ever come across. I love this comment. If this comment were a person I’d be writing its name on my Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper and constructing elaborate romantic fantasies about our futures together.

❝ When I submit, I do it from a place of strength. I decide whether my partner is worthy of such a powerful and intimate gift, and I do not give my submission to anyone who does not both understand and appreciate the depths of what I am giving up for them. I value myself highly, and so I submit to people who realize that doing so does not make me less. I accept I am an intelligent, competent, submissive feminist – who sometimes finds her power by choosing to let it go. ❞

- Feminist Sex Submissive? How I Reconcile My Politics With My Sex Life | Sex & Relationships | AlterNet (via a-blog-called-everything)

A Dialogue With My 86-year-old Grandmother About LGBT Rights & Marriage Equality

I saw this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/29/gay-activists-grandparents-marriage-equality_n_1310537.html
earlier this afternoon and I got suddenly curious how my 86yo grandmother felt about marriage equality and LGBT rights. Since she's often hilarious, I decided to interview her on the phone and post it here. I put it on speakerphone, recorded it, then transcribed it. She's in Miami, and Cuban-born, so this is translated from Spanish. She's a pretty feisty lady. I want to be her when I grow up. Here's what she said:
Me: Grandma, what do you think about this couple in their 90s supporting their gay grandkids in the fight for marriage equality?
Grandma: I think it's very nice. You have to support your family, no matter who they are. You can't reject people for things like that.
Me: If you had gay or lesbian family, would you do the same?
Grandma: I don't know if I could make a video like those people. They speak English.
Me: What about in Spanish? Would you make videos supporting marriage equality in Spanish.
Grandma: Ay... don't get any ideas. I don't want to make a video.
Me: But is it okay if I post this on the Internet? On one of my websites
Grandma: Ignorant people might yell at you.
Me: Oh, that's okay, I don't mind.
Grandma: Yes, you can put what I said on the Internet.
Me: Okay. So do you support gay and lesbian people getting married?
Grandma: I think gay people should be able to get married. Times have changed. Even my ideas have changed. There used to be a lot of ignorance and rumors about gay people, mostly because they had to live in hiding, you know, you couldn't be yourself out in public like they can be sometimes now. So I think people just made things up. But think gay people should be allowed to live their lives like everyone else.
Me: Would you go to a gay wedding?
Grandma: Yes, I would. It would probably be more lively than a regular one. I hate weddings. They're so boring.
Me: They really are. What do you think about people who protest gay marriage?
Grandma: Oh. Idiots.
Me: They're wrong?
Grandma: Idiots. Dumb people with nothing better to do. Out of all the things to protest. They should be out trying to do some good in the world instead.
Me: Do you think you would have felt the same way when you were my age?
Grandma: (Pauses) I don't think I gave it any thought. People didn't talk about these things back then. There was a lot of ignorance. Everybody knew gay people, of course, but people didn't talk about it in normal conversation, much less in public like on the news now. I think that's good. Talking is always good. When people know things, they can make up their own minds.I would like to think that maybe with a little information and thinking about it, I would feel the same way.
Me: Do you think gay people should be able to adopt kids?
Grandma: Of course.
Me: As a Christian, what do you think the Bible says about gay people?
Grandma: The Bible is very clear that Jesus doesn't care about race or gender or where you came from or anything. He loves everyone.
Me: What about the parts of the Bible that says gay people should be stoned to death?
Grandma: We don't stone people to death anymore...
Me: So you don't think that applies?
Grandma: I think God gave us some common sense to be able to figure out what parts were meant for forever, like "don't kill" and "don't steal" and "be good to people," and what parts were just a record of the society people lived in back then. We don't hide women in the dark during their periods anymore, either. Things like that.
Me: What about gays in the military? Do you think that should be allowed?
Grandma: You know, when I heard President Obama had helped made that legal, I was surprised it already wasn't. If you're willing to pick up a gun and go fight in some war somewhere for my freedom, I'm not willing to do that, so if you are, I don't care if you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or fifteen cats.
Me: Yeah, I think most people supported that one.
Grandma: It's like I told you. God gave us common sense for a reason.
Me: I know you've had a few close gay male friends. Have you ever had a lesbian friend?
Grandma: I did in Cuba. She was my neighbor and she did everyone's hair on the block. You couldn't really tell she was a lesbian, but she told me, after many years of knowing her.
Me: What do you mean by "you couldn't tell she was a lesbian?"
Grandma: Well, she was very glamorous. She looked like a movie star all the time - that's why she did everyone's hair. Some lesbians, you can tell.
Me: In English, they call the ability to tell if someone's gay "gaydar." Like "radar" but for "gay."
Grandma: Oh! I think I have that.
Me: You think you have good gaydar?
Grandma: Well, I was an artist, so I was around a lot of gay men. And I can usually tell, but Paula fooled me.
Me: The slang term for lesbians who are very conventionally feminine in English is "lipstick lesbian."
Grandma: She did wear lipstick!
Me: Do you think a lot of older people think like you do?
Grandma: I think so. A lot of older people keep up with the news better than you think. And you get to be my age and you realize a lot of past mistakes in your thinking. You realize that a lot of things you think mattered, really don't. And the people who don't think like that, it's mostly because they don't know any better. But even at my age, people can be taught.
Me: Thank you, Pupa.
Grandma: You should show me your website when you put this up. I hope a lot of people read it.

these two and all the people in this show! *-*

(Source: myinsanebrain)

[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

so hot!

yourmoansareasymphony:

(Source: delectatiomorosa)

Feminist Sex Submissive? How I Reconcile My Politics With My Sex Life

“I want people to look at me and see me as the competent, capable, intelligent woman that I am … even when I’m on my knees.”

(Source: carlykitty)

bearhumble:

Awwwww~~~~~~~Can’t handle his cuteness

❝ Gender essentialism is the assumption that women are naturally like this, while men are naturally like that, and nature made it so and anyone who deviates from that pattern is a freak. Most commonly it comes in the form of “women are naturally submissive and men are naturally dominant”.

This is an absolutely unprovable statement. It is an opinion, not a fact. Look at the amount of gender conditioning we receive from infancy: different colors for girls and boys (in some cultures), commercials proclaiming boys like toy guns and trucks while girls like dollies that pee. Throughout life, we are punished for deviating from our cultural gender norms, and yet very few people find it easy to avoid those deviations.

If it’s so natural, why all the conditioning? ❞

- Jennifer Kesler, Why there will be no more gender essentialist comments allowed on this site  (via wewantrevolutiongirlstylenow)

(Source: cheshiregrin52)

❝ Although most boys figure out how to bring themselves to orgasm by age thirteen, half of girls don’t have their first orgasms until their late teens, twenties, or beyond. Teenage girls widely agree that they get the message loud and clear that masturbation is something boys do, but girls don’t, can’t, or shouldn’t. The cultural focus on intercourse tells young women to expect they’ll begin to experience sexual pleasure once they have sex with a man (whether or not they’re even interested in sex with men). Nearly all teen boys, on the other hand, experience sexual pleasure long before they get their hands—or other body parts—into a partner’s pants. Despite the massive advances in women’s equality, young women’s sexuality is stuck in a surprising paradox. Young women are sold provocative clothes but aren’t taught where to find their own clitoris. Many girls give their boyfriends oral sex, but are too uncomfortable with their own bodies to allow the guys to return the favor. It’s still a radical act to say that women need and deserve access to information about their own sexual pleasure—not just about the risks and negative consequences of sex. ❞

-

Dorian Solot, I Love Female Orgasm: An Extraordinary Orgasm Guide. (via feministhistorian)

I love that book, and I lost my copy when I moved! I knew this sounded familiar.

(via kateordie)

(Source: historicalslut)

(Source: thecokemonster)