c h i r y

getting a blowjob is a sexual thing and it also does not ‘feed’ anyone whereas breastfeeding is literally not even a sexual thing a baby is having food that they need to live like it’s nowhere near on the same level as getting a blowjob omg

if you are uncomfortable seeing a woman breastfeeding then that is your problem because you have oversexualised breasts so much that you can’t even stand seeing them being used for their actual purpose and also you’re an idiot

1.) Breasts as sexual fetishes is a (largely Western) cultural construction. Yes, it’s a fetish – anything you are sexually attracted to that is not the genitals of an adult is a fetish, or paraphilia. My professors have met non-Westerners who think our men are “like babies” because they are attracted to breasts.

Breasts ≠ genitals. Scientifically, they are considered secondary sexual characteristics – same category as facial hair. They can be sexual in a sexual context, just as necks and feet can be. But their primary purpose is reproductive.

2.) Breastmilk is not a “bodily fluid.” It is FOOD.

It is not categorized by the CDC as a biohazard, and so no you don’t need to freak out if your coworker wants to store her milk right next to your Lunchables.

MOREOVER,

Breastmilk is not just protein and vitamins. It is a living, dynamic substance that BUILDS HUMANS.

It has hundreds of ingredients (<— actually that list needs to be updated because they’ve discovered more already). There is a lab at the University of Washington St. Louis, where they have written all of the ingredients of human milk on the wall – They have run out of room on that wall. Among those ingredients:

The exact ratio of protein-sugars-fats that human infants need (cow’s milk doesn’t even come close)

Antibodies to pathogens in the baby’s environment (synthesized by the mother within hours of coming into contact with a given pathogen) and other immune factors

Stem cells. FUCKING STEM CELLS. (They used glow-in-the-dark mice to find out what they do!)

Hormones (support growth and regulate behavior)

peptides

Self-digesting fats (what the whaaat)

Growth factors

water, vitamins, minerals, carbs, etc.

prolly other awesome shit we don’t even know about yet because we’ve barely scratched the surface of this research!

These ingredients change hour-to-hour according to the baby’s needs. It will even add more water on hot/dry days. Fuck, breastmilk kills cancer in a petri dish. Breastmilk. is. not. a. bodily. fluid. It. is. liquid. gold. 3.) When you tell a woman to go to the bathroom to breastfeed, you are perpetuating the notion that it is dirty and shameful and needs to be hidden away. This idea is the biggest barrier to achieving breastfeeding goals in the United States. Because women feel ashamed, they often stay isolated at home when they should be spending time out and about with friends and family and having, like, a life. This isolation can contribute to postpartum depression. From the Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding: Women may find themselves excluded from social interactions when they are breastfeeding because others are reluctant to be in the same room while they breastfeed. For many women, the feeling of embarrassment restricts their activities and is cited as a reason for choosing to feed supplementary formula or to give up breastfeeding altogether. And since we have this culture of shame and privacy surrounding breastfeeding, young girls and women don’t see it enough to learn what is normal/not and how to do it, so they often give up when they run into problems because they don’t realize there’s an easy fix. Moreover, an infant needs to be integrated into society in order to develop properly. He/she needs to see faces and hear voices. Isolating them – or throwing a blanket over their head – takes this important component of their development away. It also often annoys them because they are understimulated. 4.) YOU NEED TO SEE IT. That’s right, YOU. Even if you are a dude. Maybe you aren’t a parent, but you probably have loved ones who are. Or you might become one yourself someday. And if you are American chances are you have no idea how breastfeeding actually works, because you never fucking see it. It’s messy and complicated, and hard. It used to be a part of everyday life, because there weren’t any alternatives – So we learned how to do it by being around it all the time, NBD. The whole sexualization/modesty thing surrounding breasts wasn’t a thing until like the mid-20th century. Check out this 1871 drawing of a woman breastfeeding IN FUCKING CHURCH:

I decided to merge it in one photo

But last time I reblogged one ten/fifteen minutes later I got a call offering me a job

But I reblogged it because I was waiting on hearing back from the job. So there you go.

look at all this green

I mainly try to remember the colour wheel and different palette types you get from it. It’s usually in the back of my mind when I’m thinking of what colours to use.

You should limit yourself to a maximum of 5 colours, at least as you’re getting comfortable with colour schemes. Less if often more with colour.

In my art, I lean towards analogous or split-complementary colours and they’re the most common. For Isha and Tashi I use only 3 or 4 distinct colours plus a neutral. Neutral colours like white, grey, black, and brown can be worked into any colour scheme and it’s good to use them to balance the drawing.

Complementary colours schemes work best when used as an accent. You tend to want the majority of the drawing to be one colour and use its opposite sparingly. For example, the majority of the drawing on the left is dark and purple, with the light green used only for the highlight.

Also, when it comes to chosing colours for light and shadow, it works best when one is warm and the other is cool, even with analogous colours. I wanted to keep the drawing on the right mostly warm and pink, but for a more diverse pallet, I used a cooler purple for shadows to contrast the warm orange light.

It helps to keep the different hues in a drawing at different brightnesses. This helps keep them distinct so they don’t fight for attention. Even when you want a piece to be bright or dark, keeping the values distinct is still important. For example, on the left, I kept the reds darker to better contrast the light yellows and mid greens, even if the pallete is overall bright.

In addition to the hue wheel, you can look at the brightness and the saturation of colours in quadrants. To balance a colour palette, I’ve found it’s best to choose from multiple quadrants.

I’d say the second pallette looks better than the first as, despite having the same hues, they have different brightnesses and saturation in contrast to being all heavily saturated and dark.

My first portrait for this year :3

- never take from ‘mom and pop’ type store. Its likely you’ll actually harm them, whereas taking from a walmart wont effect much.

- never take items that a worker is assigned to monitor (usually super expensive items), theyll be in trouble for it. and its usually a minimum wage worker and usually they lose hours or pay, or they even get fired.

- similar to the above, never take things that are usually locked up for the above reason

- if its a store you know gives their near-expiration products to workers/charity, try to avoid taking the near expiration products.

- if youre taking clothing, avoid leaving hangers. it sounds weird, but itll make it seem like it was more likely an error in the computer than a theft, since the empty hanger sitting there will seem suspicious. 

- also for clothing, try not to take more than one item at once, as it will look suspicious if theres 10 medium shirts missing, and it won’t be written off as just a stocking error. and it will lead to workers being penalized

- basically just always consider ‘will this harm a worker’ and if the answer is yes then dont do it

I live in a small town and I knew she was a waitress at a hotel my sister works at, and people at that hotel don’t tip well during off season. Nursing exam books are 50+ bucks. Being a med student myself, I didn’t even breathe a word, and when inventory came up later and the book was missing, I suggested it was likely a mislabel, and the manager wrote it off.