Space Lesbian

“Listen to me– all of you out there! You were told by this man– your hero– that America is the greatest country in the world! He told you that Americans were the greatest people– that America could be refined like silver, could have the impurities hammered out of it, and shine more brightly! He went on about how precious America was – how you needed to make sure it remained great! And he told you anything was justified to preserve that great treasure, that pearl of great price that is America!

“Well, I say America is nothing! Without its ideals– its commitment to the freedom of all men, America is a piece of trash! A nation is nothing! A flag is a piece of cloth! I fought Adolf Hitler not because America was great, but because it was fragile! I knew that liberty could be snuffed out here as in Nazi Germany! As a people, we were no different than them! When I returned, I saw that you nearly did turn American into nothing! And the only reason you’re not less then nothing– is that it’s still possible for you to bring freedom back to America!”

Female figurine from the Hohle Fels cave near Stuttgart, about 35,000 years old. Interpreted as a pornographic pin-up.

“The Earliest Pornography” says Science Now, describing the 35,000 year old ivory figurine that’s been dug up in a cave near Stuttgart. The tiny statuette is of a female with exaggerated breasts and vulva. According to Paul Mellars, one of the archaeologist twits who commented on the find for Nature, this makes the figurine “pornographic.” Nature is even titling its article, “Prehistoric Pin Up.” It’s the Venus of Willendorf double standard all over again. Ancient figures of naked pregnant women are interpreted by smirking male archaeologists as pornography, while equally sexualized images of men are assumed to depict gods or shamans. Or even hunters or warriors. Funny, huh?

Consider: phallic images from the Paleolithic are at least 28,000 years old. Neolithic cultures all over the world seemed to have a thing for sculptures with enormous erect phalluses. Ancient civilizations were awash in images of male genitalia, from the Indian lingam to the Egyptian benben to the Greek herm. The Romans even painted phalluses on their doors and wore phallic charms around their necks.

Ithyphallic figure from Lascaux, about 17,000 years old. Interpreted as a shaman.

But nobody ever interprets this ancient phallic imagery as pornography. Instead, it’s understood to indicate reverence for male sexual potency. No one, for example, has ever suggested that the Lascaux cave dude was a pin-up; he’s assumed to be a shaman. The ithyphallic figurines from the Neolithic — and there are many — are interpreted as gods. And everyone knows that the phalluses of ancient India and Egypt and Greece and Rome represented awesome divine powers of fertility and protection. Yet an ancient figurine of a nude woman — a life-giving woman, with her vulva ready to bring forth a new human being, and her milk-filled breasts ready to nourish that being — is interpreted as pornography. Just something for a man to whack off to. It’s not as if there’s no other context in which to interpret the figure. After all, the European Paleolithic is chock full of pregnant-looking female statuettes that are quite similar to this one. By the time we get to the Neolithic, the naked pregnant female is enthroned with lions at her feet, and it’s clear that people are worshipping some kind of female god.

Yet in the Science Now article, the archaeologist who found the figurine is talking about pornographic pin-ups: “I showed it to a male colleague, and his response was, ‘Nothing’s changed in 40,000 years.’” That sentence needs to be bronzed and hung up on a plaque somewhere, because you couldn’t ask for a better demonstration of the classic fallacy of reading the present into the past. The archaeologist assumes the artist who created the figurine was male; why? He assumes the motive was lust; why? Because that’s all he knows. To his mind, the image of a naked woman with big breasts and exposed vulva can only mean one thing: porn! Porn made by men, for men! And so he assumes, without questioning his assumptions, that the image must have meant the same thing 35,000 years ago. No other mental categories for “naked woman” are available to him. His mind is a closed box. This has been the central flaw of anthropology for as long there’s been anthropology. And even before: the English invaders of North America thought the Iroquois chiefs had concubines who accompanied them everywhere, because they had no other mental categories to account for well-dressed, important-looking women sitting in a council house. It’s the same fallacy that bedevils archaeologists who dig up male skeletons with fancy beads and conclude that the society was male dominant (because powerful people wear jewelry!), and at another site dig up female skeletons with fancy beads and conclude that this society, too, was male dominant (because women have to dress up as sex objects and trophy wives!). Male dominance is all they can imagine. And so no matter what they dig up, they interpret it to fit their mental model. It’s the fallacy that also drives evolutionary psychology, the central premise of which is that human beings in the African Pleistocene had exactly the same values, beliefs, prejudices, power struggles, goals, and needs as the middle-class white professors and students in a graduate psychology lab in modern-day Santa Barbara, California. And that these same factors are universal and unchanged and true for all time.

Hohle Fels phallus, about 28,000 years old. Interpreted as a symbolic object and …flint knapper. Yes.

That’s not science; it’s circular, self-serving propaganda. This little figurine from Hohle Fels, for example, is going to be used as “proof” that pornography is ancient and natural. I guarantee it. Having been interpreted by pornsick male archaeologists as pornography because that’s all they know, the statuette will now be trotted out by every every psycho and male supremacist on the planet as “proof” that pornography is eternal, that male dominance is how it’s supposed to be, and that feminists are crazy so shut the fuck up. Look for it in Steven Pinker’s next book. ***

P.S. My own completely speculative guess on the figurine is that it might be connected to childbirth rituals. Notice the engraved marks and slashes; that’s a motif that continues for thousands of years on these little female figurines. No one knows what they mean, but they meant something. They’re not just random cut marks. Someone put a great deal of work into this sculpture. Given that childbirth was incredibly risky for Paleolithic women, they must have prayed their hearts out for help and protection in that time. I can imagine an elder female shaman or artist carving this potent little figure, and propping it up somewhere as a focus for those prayers.

On the other hand, it is possible that it has nothing to do with childbearing or sexual behavior at all. The breasts and vulva may simply indicate who the figure is: the female god. Think of how Christ is always depicted with a beard, which is a male sexual characteristic, even though Christ isn’t about male sexuality. The beard is just a marker. Or, given the figurine’s exaggerated breasts, it may have something to do with sustenance: milk, food, nourishment.

When looked at from above, as a woman observes herself, the breasts of PKG-style figurines assume the natural proportions of the average modern woman of childbearing age. For example, the dimensions of the breasts of the off-illustrated Venus of Willendorf are comparable to those of a 26-year-old mother-to-be with a 34C bust (see fig. 5). When foreshortened from above, even the apparent hypertrophic dimensions of the Venus of Lespugue and the best-preserved figurine from Dolní Vestonice enter into a reasonably normal, albeit buxom, range.

McDermott goes on to theorise that the reason most of these hyper-female statues are missing a head and hands is that the head, obviously, can’t be viewed by the sculptor without access to a reflection of some kind. As the hands are in a constant state of motion making the figurine, it would also be difficult to have a fixed reference to work from.

The whole thing reminds me of that oft-quoted Sandi Toksvig article:

When I was a student at Cambridge I remember an anthropology professor holding up a picture of a bone with 28 incisions carved in it. “This is often considered to be man’s first attempt at a calendar” she explained. She paused as we dutifully wrote this down. “My question to you is this – what man needs to mark 28 days? I would suggest to you that this is woman’s first attempt at a calendar.”

It was a moment that changed my life. In that second I stopped to question almost everything I had been taught about the past. How often had I overlooked women’s contributions? How often had I sped past them as I learned of male achievement and men’s place in the history books?

Buenos Aires, Argentina. 8 August 2018. | Source

“No es una marcha. No es una moviliación. Tampoco es un festival. Es una revolución y está sucediendo en la calle.”

Hoy, el Senado argentino debatirá un proyecto de ley que legalizará el aborto para embarazos de hasta 14 semanas. Si el proyecto de ley se aprueba y se promulga, Argentina se convertirá en el país más poblado para legalizar el aborto en América Latina, una región donde las estrictas leyes sobre el aborto son la norma y donde la enseñanza católica ha influenciado la política durante décadas.

El mundo está observando.

“It is not a march. It is not a demonstration. Nor is it a festival. It’s a revolution and it’s happening on the street.”

Today, Argentina’s Senate is set to debate a bill that would legalize abortion for pregnancies up to 14 weeks. If the bill passes and is signed into law, Argentina will become the most populous nation to legalize abortion in Latin America, a region where strict abortion laws are the norm and where Catholic teaching has influenced policy for decades.

The world is watching.

Photos translated in English:

1. Legal abortion: we will shout in the name of the girls that are no longer here.

2. If there is no law, there is protest.

3. There shall not be motherhood if it is not desired.

4. Illegal abortion = state femicide.

5. We want to live free without fear.

Let’s say you have a badass job. A great job. You make $100 AN HOUR. You work 10 hours a day ($1000 A DAY), 5 days a week ($5000 a week!!!), every week ($20,000 A MONTH), thats $240,000 Every Year.

African Canvas Margaret Courtney-Clarke

The Art of Africa is a casualty of colonial exploitation, surviving principally in the museums of other countries. ~ Nadine Gordimer

Don’t try that mascara/arm hair shit. I’ve been passing for more than a year with short, blond arm hair. It’s not an important secondary sex characteristic.

Board shorts (without pockets in the front) do wonders to minimize the width of your hips. Always choose board shorts over swim trunks. Choose them over cargo shorts if it’s appropriate.

Speak from your chest, never from your head.

The goal of binding should not be an entirely flat chest; you should bind for your body type.

GC2b makes the best binders out there, and their products are designed specifically for trans men/transmasculine people.

It might seem useless if you’re pre-T, but working out can be a big help for dysphoria.

Eyebrows are really important to passing pre-testosterone. Muss that shit up. Make them look unkempt.

When you ask for a haircut, make sure the edges in the back are squared, not rounded.

If you have peach fuzz, I would advise shaving it. Cis guys shed theirs when they go through puberty. Shaving can also help with facial hair dysphoria.

-Patience is a virtue you need to come to terms with. Even on T, things take time. My voice dropped immediately, but my cycle continued for 6 months. We’re all different. 

-In the summer, HYDRATE YOURSELF. A binder is an extra layer, and mine have always been very warm. 

-When its not too hot, layers are your friend. You’d be surprised what even simply an undershirt can do to smooth out your look. 

-You are going to get misgendered. This is a fact, and it sucks. Learn to politely correct people. Remember you might be the first (openly) trans person they meet, so be a good ambassador. 

Don’t double bind.

DON’T USE DUCK TAPE. I still have scars from a dumb decision I made as a teen and I’m 31 now.

When the time comes for top surgery, shop around. Find someone who will tailor your chest to your needs. Look at their portfolio. Compare surgeons. See if you can find someone who will work with your health insurance if you have it.