“Being an ambiguously brown-ish person, there are a huge amount of strangers that ask me questions about my race. I’m not ashamed. I just don’t think it’s anyone’s business or that I should be singled out as different or foreign because I’m not white. I’m not someone’s personal exotic puzzle to solve.” - glav-draws-things on Autostraddle’s Saturday Morning Cartoon
The fact that you’re working through all this now doesn’t say anything negative about you or the way you moved through life for the past 24 years. What you did then was valid, and what you’re doing now is valid; you don’t owe anyone an explanation. (And by the way, this applies even if you use a different identity label in the future. You don’t need to justify being true to your feelings as you feel them, even if they change.)
Ever slept with or had a relationship with a man?
Congratulations, your sexuality is not deemed an “immutable characteristic” by the U.K’s Home Office and thus you can’t claim asylum on grounds of discrimination since you clearly made a choice to be queer. These revelations come with the London High Court appeal raised by Ms. Aderonke Apata against the Home Office refusal of her asylum case. In fact as Mr. Andrew Bird, representing the Home Office, said “You can’t be a heterosexual one day and a lesbian the next day. Just as you can’t change your race,” Stunningly the same nation which regularly requires queer women provide video proof of their sex lives to confirm their sexuality also participates in bisexual erasure (it should be noted that Ms. Apata herself, as far as I am aware, does not identify as bisexual, although Orashia Edwards was denied asylum essentially because of his bisexuality last year). The titles of the news articles seem like hyperbole — Home Office tells Nigerian asylum seeker: ‘You can’t be a lesbian, you’ve got children’ — and yet that is exactly what was argued.
The ethical or fair trade label is used across industries from coffee to clothing to diamonds, but it’s often scoffed at in porn. The concept that something sexually appealing can be made ethically often faces criticism even within the industry, with slurs used to fetishize sexual minorities and those attracted to their bodies. I think what’s important about ethical porn is the ability to take something that is so important to our sense of ourselves — our sexuality — and think about it like any other aspect of our daily habits. If we buy organic free-range beef so that we know the cow wasn’t poorly treated, why shouldn’t we think about the concerns of the people who make our porn in the same way? It’s important we don’t leave an industry and its workers behind when we all consume what they make on a level that largely created the modern internet.
1. Ohhhhh it’s Jennifer Love Hewitt!
2. Look, the sex worker is Patricia Arquette! Remember her from Boyhood?
3. Oh that’s that guy from Nashville, Tami Taylor’s husband? I feel like he always plays like, politicians or something.
4. That guy is in everything! He was in Selma and The Wire remember I was telling you about him after Selma?
5. You know that other guy in Selma who I thought I’d seen in a comedy or something but didn’t know which one? It turns out he was in the Big Gay Sketch Show. So random, right?
Riese, 27 Things I Didn’t Say Out Loud While Watching Teevee
Happy Women’s History Month, y’all! Much like every history month in the calendar year, this is a time for us to look back on all we’ve learned about the world and find the big, gaping holes where people who look like us belong! This March, I want us to embark on some serious herstorical journeys through time, but I simply cannot condense the immense herstory of America into one post. That’s why instead, I’m gonna condense everyone else’s pieces about women’s history into one post! From online articles to archives to physical books you can hold in your hands (something that was quite a pastime in the good ol’ days, I hear), these are my recommended readings for a solid glimpse into the extent of women’s contributions to this fine, crumbling nation.
Right now, this girl is making you feel like you have to defend your sexuality — I can tell because you asked “Why must I defend my sexuality?”. The key here is to remember that you don’t have anything to be defensive about; your sexuality is totally normal and fine. The only person who should be on the defensive is her, because her attitudes are ridiculous and poisonous. So with that established, that’s the dynamic to push for: don’t let the conversation center around your identity and choices, but hers. Put the spotlight on her behavior, and push her to be the one providing explanations. Next time she says something like that, here are some possibilities to respond with:
“Wow, so you’re just super uncomfortable with bisexual people, huh?”
“So you just really can’t get over who I’ve slept with? Like, you’re still thinking about it?”
“You sure talk about this a lot. It’s like a really big deal to you, isn’t it?”
“Do you ever worry about how you sound when you just go on and on about bisexuality like this?”
“Why do you think you can’t let go of this stuff for even just one evening while we all hang out? What’s going on there?”
“Do you do this to other bisexual people, or just me?”
“Do you ever feel like you should have warned me about how you feel about bisexual girls before we dated?”
We’re having an Advice-a-Thon/AMA on A+ on Monday to celebrate our sixth birthday with tons of Autostraddle editors and special guests like La Loba Loca, Mallory Ortberg, Dannielle Owens-Reid and more! We’re also giving away some free A+ memberships to ‘Straddlers-in-need and THIS is the post wherein you can get yourself in the running!
Hi. Liz Feldman got a haircut, created ONE BIG HAPPY (premiering on NBC, March 17th), wrote some jokes for The Oscars, and brought back THIS JUST OUT WITH LIZ FELDMAN.
WE GET IT, you’re wonderful. Stahhhhp.
Top 5 reasons to watch her first episode:
Wow has it already been a week? HAVE SEVEN MORE DAYS ALREADY BEEN RIPPED FROM THE CALENDAR? They sure have, reader, and in those seven days I’ve come to realize a few things. One is that y’all are a bunch of g-d geniuses and I love you like a million stars up in the sky! I threw some panicky bullshit at you last week and you just sipped your cucumber juice and said, “There, there, little peach. It’s alright. Everything’s just fine. Look at this world full of fine, spread out before you. Relax. Have some water. Put your feet up. Listen to some stories about everything being alright and fine.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much brilliant and energetic advice for another person’s wedding. Thank you! It was a real fucking treat. I think when this particular series is all over, we’ll compile everyone’s solid advice into an open thread and make margaritas and watch Clueless together.
When people ask me why I started Autostraddle I tell them that I always wanted to be the editor of a magazine, but since nobody would hire me to be the editor of their magazine, I decided to make my own magazine. There’s a much longer version of that story but that’s a quickie and it’s pretty true.
Like probably 99.9% of the human beings reading this, I’ve applied for and was ignored or rejected for hundreds of positions with hundreds of employers.
Here are some of my most relevant rejections.
