this is not a space egg

Now then.

A key takeaway from the massive amount of almost universally negative feedback to the reblog change should have been: Tumblr users do not, as a rule, care about clout. We do not want quantified "credit" for how good our addition to a post is, and we don't want influencers who are anointed as more important than everyone else because they are popular. That's not what we do here; it's never been what we do here. If we wanted that, we could get it from ANY other social media. The fact that we're here instead makes it pretty clear that clout is not important to us, and in fact is actively repulsive to us. Anointing particular Tumblr users as "top Tumblristas" and putting them on an "advisory board" that gets special access to new features and the opportunity to give feedback on them would constitute the exact type of hierarchy we despise.

Furthermore: When a corporate entity proposes an "advisory board of power users", what they're actually doing is trying to pre-empt wider user pushback against executive decisions, by creating the illusion of user buy-in while using social pressure to enforce decisions that have already been made. The actual reasoning behind selecting "top" users is because they are popular, which suggests they have influence over other users. The idea is, rather than convincing the community as a whole, you convince a smaller subset of influential people, and then they convince everyone else. Again, this depends on a kind of hierarchy and clout-based "influencer" system that we don't have and don't want.

As for the "top users" board themselves: By choosing someone and telling them "you're a Top User and you get to be on the special committee and have special privileges," you are giving them something (supposedly) desirable: social status, (the appearance of) influence and power, etc. And you can take it away. That means now you have power over them. If they don't want to lose their special status, they will avoid displeasing you. Which means they are less likely to give you significant pushback, and they are more willing to pressure others to go along with what you want to do. That makes them incredibly useful to corporate, but completely undermines their supposed role as a voice for the community. We see this already with influencers on every other platform, who become de facto spokespeople for corporations and brands and stop meaningfully criticizing them out of fear of losing the access that is critical to their status.

I'm not saying all this because I think it's news to the CEO of a tech company. I think you know all of that perfectly well already. I'm saying it because I think you assume we don't know it, and because some people might not. But I have played this game before and I know how it goes. It never benefits the community. It is always a way to control the community.

Apparently there isn’t much news coverage of this outside of the islands

Towns are flooded, homes destroyed and collapsed, roads collapsed, lives at risk, gas leaks from the flood damage

Haleiwa and Waialua are currently evacuated because the 120 year old dam is at risk of bursting

Mind you that damn is owned by Dole. Theyve known about it needing to be fixed for years and years and years. Despite having more than enough money they refuse

The state has been trying to buy it out from them for years so they can fix it, but the sale hasn’t gone through

Keep in mind that the Dole family were the ones who illegally imprisoned Queen Liliuʻokalani and illegally overthrew the monarchy.

If I see another goddamn person say how sad this is for the tourists whose “trips were ruined” and compare a messed up vacation to people losing their homes, belongings, and livelihoods, I’m going to lose my mind

I am so lucky that my family or friend’s are safe and the few whose houses flooded didnt have it too bad, but so so so many were not as fortunate

If you haven’t heard anything about this until now, I suggest looking into it

The sirens didn’t go off until the flood had been going on for hours. Our state government is spending so much money on a fucking monorail we don’t need rather than fixing the infrastructure.

It’s been the locals and Kanaka doing the most to help get people to safety from the start

I don’t really know how to end this

I just need to know people are aware

"Do not call me after 9" is not a boundary. I can't control someone else's actions

When people say a boundary has to be something you can enforce it's not about how you frame it, but about those who try to manipulate others with therapy speak. It's more like

"I have a boundary where you can't see your male friends." Not a reasonable or healthy boundary; controls the other person.

"Please don't call me after 9." Reasonable boundary, sets expectations, can be referred back to if ignored.

Most recently, a friend came over my house and saw my computer background and went, "Wow, um, I didn't know you were into that." To which I look at the picture of the well drawn muscular female minotaur in historically accurate Greek clothing and I start geeking out about how I love the detail the artist did with the clothing and I point out the period appropriate folds and pins, how the artist even inserted the native plant that was used to dye the clothing this particular shade in the background, and even how the belt has technology AND historically accurate weaving patterns on it.

Then I start explaining how I love the muscular choices of the minotaur, that I was so impressed with the artist's anatomically correct depiction of the muscles converging into the neck. That many people get an upright cow's neck wrong because cow's don't have collarbones, so it can be very difficult to merge the upper arms and a chest of a human with a cow's body. I draw her attention to the beautiful way they've merged the pectoralis major so smoothly while also staying true to how muscular they've depicted the rest of the body.

I finish up with my thoughts on the artist's bold choice to depict the minotaur as a female, and despite the underlying themes of a minotaur being violence, child murder, strength, and muscles. I segue into how unlike bulls, cow are perceived as mothers. That they are the major source of milk in human culture, and that idyllic depictions of them in a field usually depict calves frolicking nearby, yet the minotaur kills and eats children.

I finish and there is a long pause.

Some of the boldest political and emotional messages I've ever seen came from straight up no nonsense porn. It's a setting that allows people to approach a major facet of the human experience without shame or obfuscation.

Keep in mind this is coming from an asexual person-- I don't think physical desire is some foundational keystone of life without which one isn't fully human. I think it's as morally neutral as hunger and thirst, and almost as impactful on all of human culture.

So why does the fetish cancel out the art?

Our tendency to dismiss anything associated with sex or the expression of sexual desire as frivelous and meaningless leads a lot of people to forget that pornographic art is still art.

The artist didn't just jerk off on the canvas and a beautiful minotaur appeared. They didn't spend hours researching greek dyemaking and bovine anatomy just because they were horny for muscular women. And their admiration for muscular women doesn't cease to be inherently transgressive of traditional and mainstream views of femininity just because they expressed that admiration in a sexual way.

Francisco Goya's The Nude Maja is a classical masterpiece that took three years to paint and is considered one of the greatest works of art ever made. [^] It's also porn. It was commissioned by a man-- the Prime Minister in fact-- to hang in a private room specifically for his nudes where he "often retired after dinner." It's believed the model depicted may have been his mistress.

In the political climate in which it was made, depicting a fully nude woman was extremely controversial (in fact it's considered one of the earliest western works to depict a woman's pubic hair without obvious negative connotations) especially because Goya painted her looking directly at the viewer, making her an active participant in an exchange of desire, rather than a passive object.

Eight years after it was finished, the Spanish Inquisition raided the Prime Minister's home, stole The Nude Maja and all his other paintings, and put Goya on trial for "moral depravity."

Goya, who had by then been rendered deaf by an unknown illness that may have been cumulative lead poisoning and was already sinking into the deep depression that marked his later years, escaped prosecution only by arguing that The Nude Maja followed in the "respectable" tradition of the classical nude [^^] , despite the fact that the full frontal nudity, pubic hair, direct stare, and the details that established the subject as a modern, living, literal woman, not a mythological figure or allegory-- the very features for which it was considered problematic-- were substantial departures from that tradition.

He could draw enough connections between it and a "respectable" painting in that genre by another lauded Spanish artist, appeasing nationalist egos and satisfying people that he was suitably reverent of the idealized past. Therefore, it wasn't porn. It was valuable, it was a classical nude.

To a modern viewer, it is in fact, more or less indistinguishable from any classical nude, despite the fact that when it was painted, anyone who saw it could have told you it was porn.

Today, The Clothed Maja, an almost identical but less risque painting which he created directly after The Nude Maja [^^^] is one of the paintings included in Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

Another painting included in New Leaf is Beauty Looking Back by Hishikawa Moronobu. It's an arch-typical example of the ukiyo-e genre. While far from all ukiyo-e art was erotic, it's not an exaggeration to say the overwhelming majority of it was, at the very least, intended to titillate.

The very name ukiyo-e associates the genre with hedonism, courtesans, brothels and pleasure districts. Beautiful courtesans were the most common subject. Nearly every ukiyo-e master produced explicitly pornographic work at some point in their careers. [^^^^] Beauty Looking Back is a pin up. It would have been recognized in the time it was created as something inherently sensual and referential towards sex, despite not being explicit.

And yet, it's "artistic value" (I do not like this term. The value of art is not and should not be quantifiable) is so unquestionable that Nintendo included it in arguably one of the most family friendly games in their notoriously, stringently family friendly catalog.

What is a fetish, if not a non-sexual element that inspires sexual desire?

What is fetish art, if not a depiction of these non-sexual elements intended, whether explicit or not, to arouse that same desire in the viewer?

What defines something as being outside the boundaries of "normal" sexual desire? Breasts aren't a reproductive organ, they're not inherently sexual. Neither is the ass. But they do inspire sexual desire, at least in those whose cultural back ground has taught them to associate those body parts with sex.

If feeling sexual desire because of anything that isn't genitalia is a fetish, then all erotic art-- from the most explicit adult films to those Levi's billboard ads where the models are doing their best not to wear the jeans they are advertising-- is fetish art.

So when did The Nude Maja and Beauty Looking Back stop being fetish art, and become art?

When does it stop being shameful to admire the beauty and technical skill of a creative work just because it's sexual in nature?

Is it just time? Or have we let ourselves be led into imagining the past was a land of chastity and virtue, its art inherently more valuable and firmly divorced from physical desire-- where men could paint tits all day and other men pay small fortunes to commission and purchase those tit paintings all without a single impure thought-- compared to which our modern age is debauched, immoral, deviant, degenerate?

If that Minotaur was hanging in a museum with a placard that said it was painted in the 1700's, would you, or your friend, still assume it was fetish art?

If you'd come across it in a context where you knew it was sexual, would you still have stopped to notice and appreciate the skill and the research put into the details?

This was a hell of a tangent, and if OP is the kind of person who notices period accurate historical details at a glance and the particulars of bovine anatomy to the degree of being able to make an educated statement about how well someone has accounted for the musculature whilst attaching a cow head to a human body-- probably none of this art history trivia is news to you.

The point is just this. Maybe you weren't "tricked" into seeing the art before the porn.

Maybe your friend was tricked by our deeply sex negative culture into only seeing the porn and missing the art entirely.

[^]: Though he's better known on tumblr for Saturn Devouring His Son, which I'm always delighted to remind people is not a name he gave it. It wasn't discovered until after his death, so we can't know for certain what he intended to depict. The greek myth of Zeus's father eating his children was a best guess and, imo, a way of sanitizing the disturbing nature of the image by framing it as part of the classical tradition of mythological art, rendering it allegorical and academic instead of horrifying and unexplained. It was not the first time Goya's work would rendered more palatable to conservative audiences by claiming it was part of classical tradition, which brings me back to Maja.

[^^]: Physically fighting the urge to add a rant here about fascism and "degenerate" art. Just go watch Jacob Gellar's "Who's Afraid Of Modern Art." He does a better job of it than I would anyway.

[^^^]: presumably also at the Prime Minister's request, with the intention they be displayed together and not, as urban legend likes to say, because the Inquisition forced him to. The concept of creating a clothed and a naked version of the subject so that the viewer can imagine undressing them is a tradition well preserved in commissioned pornographic art today.

Check it out at afroindex.org! 💛✨

Just a few important and gentle reminders:

🫶🏻 DO NOT WATCH THIS FUCKING SHOW 🫶🏻

If you claim you support human rights - not just trans rights but human rights in general - yet still plan to watch this show, unfollow me. You’re a fucking hypocrite and I don’t want you following me.

Do not watch it even if you’re hate watching it, it still contributes to streaming revenue and views!

The adults in this reboot of the franchise are FULLY accountable for choosing to do this show and accepting a pay cheque over supporting a minority group. Even if they claim they support trans rights, they’re cowards and don’t actually support them at all.

The kids do NOT deserve abuse or hate, whether it’s because you’re comparing them to Dan/Rupert/Emma or because you’re boycotting due to the author’s views. They are literal CHILDREN.

For example...

From yestersday. This follows on from the UK supreme court ruling last year that equalities laws would be based on 'biological sex only.'

That supreme court ruling got through, not because 'everyone believes in it.' But because JKR directly payed MASSIVE amounts of money into right wing thinktanks, politicians, and TERF influencers.

Harry Potter directly funds transphobia and anti-trans laws in the UK.

She pours her money into the J.K Rowling women's fund. Meaning Harry Potter revenue directly pays for right wing transphobic pearl clutchers to take trans people to court and to stamp out the rights of trans people in the UK.

In court that day, the judge asked the boy, “Are you afraid?” No, the boy said.

Pipes says the judge seemed surprised, and asked, “Why not?”

Chief’s thesis was that a child who has been abused by an adult can benefit psychologically from the presence of even more intimidating adults that they know are on their side. “When we tell a child they don’t have to be afraid, they believe us,” Arizona biker Pipes told azcentral.com. “When we tell them we will be there for them, they believe us.” ( Article)

They go on runs to protect the child if they feel even the slightest threatened no matter where. If the child needs them to go on vacation with them, they do. Bikers come from across the nation to watch over and take shifts for these kids. And the best part is once you’re adopted into this family as a BACA kid, you’re always one. Even when you’re 40 and the perp gets released from jail, they’ll come meet with you and find your best options for avoiding the person and maintaining the life you’ve built for yourself. Once a BACA child, always a BACA child. In Florida, there’s 100% rate for identifying the perp based on the child’s testimony. Why? Because BACA stands with the child and supports the child so they feel comfortable enough to point out their attacker.

They’re in Canada as well and probably other countries. I met and talked with a native guy who runs the place near me. His name is Shaman. I got in, and I’m considered a BACA child now. Despite being 17, turning 18 when I talked to them. They spent time with me when my abuser was over, they gave me therapy resources. They give you something called a ‘level 1′ where they go to your house with as many bikers as they can, i shit you not a solid 20-40 bikers came from even out of province, and met me. I got to choose my biker name and I got a vest with patches on it and my name on it. They all hugged a Teddybear before giving it to me, and told me if I ever felt the BACA bear was running out of love, to give them a call and they’d refill it for me, and then I got a ride on one of their bikes. Just a day or so ago I went to an annual party with them and they we ate food one of them cooked and had a lot of laughs. 

I’ve never felt as loved as I did being a part of the BACA family. They also gave me dog tags with the names, and phone numbers of my 2 workers.  So I can call them whenever I feel scared. 

BACA is an absolutely wonderful group that will do everything in it’s power to help any child whos been abused. 

And it doesn’t end when you’re 18 either. As long as you get in contact/get your level 1 before you’re 18? you’re ALWAYS a BACA kid. I’m 18 now and they still invite me to parties, ask me if I’m okay, and are there for me. They’re still trying to find me resources for therapy. 

BACA has changed my fucking life. 

United States

Canada

Australia

Belgium

Denmark

Germany

Spain

France

Italy

Netherlands

Iceland

Austria

Greece

New Zealand

Portugal

Sweden

United Kingdom

Switzerland

B.A.C.A’s Byline: “Keepers of the Children.” B.A.C.A.’s Motto: “No child deserves to live in fear.”

them: 

- https://www.skincancer.org/prevention/skin-cancer-and-skin-of-color

They get flagged on your blog AND in your queue, and sometimes you can't even tell what the fuck was even in the post so you can give a justification for asking an appeal

And if you aren't scrolling your own blog or queue constantly like a maniac, you won't even know the reblog is flagged cuz they get put in your Review Flagged Posts section of your app and website, somewhere NOBODY even checks, and has no number next to it to tell you how many posts are in there

I got reblogs flagged all the way to 2017 in there, and the only way to know is to SCROLL DOWN

And the cherry on that bullshit Sunday is that some of these reblogs can be flagged without you even being able to appeal them like I have a bunch of them which are simply impossible to appeal, even if yet again the post is completely innocent

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