Draw Me Like One of Your French Girls

don’t buy into the whole needing a special shower gel for your p*ssy hype. use water only. anything else will mess with the ph and strip natural oils and fluids from your vag that it needs to function normally

if you’re acne prone (esp. acne prone sensitive skinned) coconut oil probably won’t work for you. it has a 4/5 on the scale of how pore blocking it is (5 being the highest)

steer clear of most “astringent” toners that are promoted by acne treatment skincare lines. it’s just alcohol which will dry you out > cause cracks in your skin > let more bacteria in/irritate the area

glossier™ skincare is all the rage rn but it is shitty. they don’t declare percentages of active ingredient in their line and when pulled up on it still refuse

actually fuck glossier™ in general I hate them

pores are normal and nothing can shrink them

pore masks (and those diy elmers glue ones wtf lmao) don’t do anything but damage

nothing and i repeat NOTHING has the ability to “detoxify” you. no face mask no skincare no tea no ma'am. only your liver and kidneys “detoxify” your body

flat tummy tea or skinny tea or whatever they’re calling it this week is a SCAM and is harmful to you. all it does is act as a laxative and diuretic. it is in essence drinking to potentially dehydrate yourself

that said, if you’re uncomfortably bloated after a meal/whilst you’re sick peppermint tea or a peppermint and parsley infusion can help

fasting diets like the 5:2 or whatever are also a scam that just encourages disordered eating

speaking of scams…jefree star is a hideous racist and violent gremlin and his beauty line ain’t worth shit, don’t give him your money

collagen in face products is useless and you will pay through the nose for it. collagen molecules are too big to be absorbed by the skin and thus do fuck all

same for gold in any skincare products. does fuck all. absolutely nothing.

bicarb of soda is bad for your skin, it’s too harsh and messes with your ph balance. it also doesn’t actually exfoliate

same for facial sugar scrubs - the grains are too harsh and cause microtears in the skin

mario bedascu or however it’s spelt has that famous spot drying facial treatment. it’s just alcohol and calamine. bad.

speaking of which, alcohol on zits is bad. it inflames and dries our your skin which doesn’t do shit for making them go away.

try a zinc cream (I use sudocrem) dotted on them after I’ve moisturised. it’s antibacterial and will take some of the redness down.

don’t splash out for expensive body creams for sensitive skin. the baby care aisle will have a fragrance free option for 5-10$/about 5£ for a big bottle.

don’t put undiluted essential oils on bare skin. they’re too harsh.

if you use hd setting powders (aka ones that are made of mica), there is 0 difference between say, and urban decay one, and the drugstore. 0. nothing. nada.

As a gay man, I am incredibly thankful to lesbians. I hope all gay men out there realise that lesbians have been our staunchest and closest allies throughout history, and have often been the ones who have been there for us when nobody else wanted to be.

Let’s talk about the AIDS crisis. Lesbians - mostly volunteers - provided care, aid and comfort to gay men who had been abandoned by their families and had watched so many of their friends and loved ones die. Without lesbians, these men would have spent their last days not only in agony, but alone. Lesbians had no obligation to gay men, they could have not even lifted a finger, yet they stayed with us. In fact, many, many lesbians were deeply committed to fighting AIDS as well, saying “It was never not our battle.” [x]

There are many other examples throughout history where lesbians have come to the aid of gay men in times of trouble. Lesbians have a rich history of being the best allies to gay men than we could ask for.

To get a bit more personal, lesbians have impacted my life greatly. When I was struggling with anorexia, my lesbian friends were the ones who helped me through it even when my own parents didn’t make the effort to understand. Going through another major depressive phase now, my lesbian friends are the ones who have been the most supportive, and the ones who have picked me up when I didn’t even try. My lesbian friends are the ones who finally made me comfortable with my identity as a man, and my own version of ‘masculinity’.

When my own family has made me feel like I don’t belong, lesbians made me feel like I do. When I feel worthless, lesbians have reminded me that I’m not. 

Lesbians are some of the only people who have consistently been there for me personally, and for gay men as a whole.

And what are we doing in return? Well, not very much. New age lesbophobia has become accepted in society, and even within LGBT discourse. Lesbians everywhere, of every age, are told that they should choke, die, kill themselves, that they deserve to experience misogyny, that they’re required to like dick, that they’re “not really lesbians”, and a whole host of other terrible things.

It is our duty, as gay men, to stand with lesbians against this. We owe them that, for all they’ve done for us, and we would owe them that regardless because they’re human beings.

To lesbians today and throughout history, I say thank you. Thank you for being there for us.

or she expects him to be an adult who knows how to run a functional household and for whom maintaining a functioning household is also a priority but it’s not. john here will literally be like “hurr durr pick up some milk” and picks up just some milk. If he helped out with the laundry or dishes he might realize “oh, shoot, we’re low on dishwasher detergent and the dryer is still broken. I’ll get some detergent while I’m here and then call the repairman tonight.” but he doesn’t. he also forgets to put the milk in the fridge when he gets home because the game is on. he doesn’t have a brain that’s constantly trying to maximize efficiency at any given moment to accomplish an endless list of tasks that can’t all get done in the amount of time there is in a day because to him, the list of tasks is much shorter. his wife takes care of everything for him. 

when his wife finally says “john you worthless ass deadbeat, you don’t do anything” he will point out that he too works and just wants to relax when he gets home, can’t she understand that (she can, but she picked up the kids after work and dropped them off and got them ready this morning and made their lunches last night and she’ll make them again tonight and remember to use her lunch hour to take one of them to the dentist tomorrow and she also has to do her own damn laundry tonight because she too works and has to have clean clothes) AND/OR he will insist he does do things because he mows the lawn and keeps the shed clean and got the milk that one time and once when she was out of town on business he had to make sure the kids were fed. he gave them popsicles for dinner and they didn’t sleep that night until like 1 am and he let them stay up and the next day the same one that had to go to the dentist had a spelling test that they failed so now the teacher is all concerned and guess who’s gonna be like “ugh, marriage is such a drag” when his wife “nags” him about “coming to the parent teacher conference about your child failing english” at which he says lots of useless things like “i had no idea”

Married men have longer lives and better quality of life than single men.

(Since Tumblr glitched out and deleted my old blog as I was deleting old side blogs, I decided to remake some of my old radfem posts)

I’m going to preface this by saying I worked as a professional dog/animal trainer and handler for 7 years. After becoming a radical feminist, I began noticing a lot of similarities between concepts and methods of animal training and how femininity is reenforced in society. Before I get in to what I’ve observed, I’m going to briefly cover 3 types of conditioning; classical, operant, and physical. 

Most everyone knows the basics of classical conditioning, as it was made famous by pavlov and his dogs. A neutral stimulus (the bell) was added to a situation (mealtime) in which the subject (dogs) already had a response (slobber). Over time the situation (mealtime) was removed and we’re left with a natural response (slobber) to the previously neutral stimuli (bell). 

Operant conditioning is what is most commonly used in animal training. This is your standard reward/punishment based training, eg: command (sit!) *ass hits the ground* reward (good boy! / *treat*). I’m not going to get into Skinner’s model because in order to get the concept of operant conditioning for this post, all you need to know is that the subject is actively being rewarded or punished based on their action. 

A good way to remember the difference between classical and operant conditioning is that in the case of classical conditioning the subject doesn’t know it’s learning, whereas in operant condition the subject is aware that it is learning or being trained. 

Physical conditioning is a different ball of wax and usually in animal training it’s exactly what you’d think it is; getting the animal physically fit enough to be healthy and perform the tasks you ask of them. A good example of this is making sure a search and rescue dog is physically able to safely climb rocky mountain slopes, spend extended time in cold weather, or jump from a hovering helicopter into a body of water. These are all examples of positive physical conditioning, but the concept of physical conditioning can be used for very negative things as well. An example of this would be keeping a large animal under-muscled to make them easier to handle. 

So what do these have to do with femininity? Lets go through one at a time.

Classical conditioning

Everyone has those mornings where they know they have things to do around the house, but they just don’t want to get out of bed. There are a few ways to get yourself going on mornings like this; some people put on a pot of coffee, listen to music, or do some yoga. I, like many other women, have another method of making myself feel in a more productive mood: I put on a bra. 

Like most women I started wearing a bra in my tween years, so it’s been *ahem* a very long time since I started wearing them. Like most women, I put on a bra when I get ready to go to work, when I get ready to run errands, meet people, go out for the night, and to go to school. All of these things are associated with productivity. Now, at nearly 27, I’ve been classically conditioned to feel more productive when I wear a bra. 

A neutral stimulus (the bra) was added to a situation (leaving the house to do things) in which the subject (me) already had a response (feeling productive). Now the situation (leaving the house to do things) can be completely removed and we’re left with the response (feeling productive) triggered by the previously neutral stimuli (the bra). 

And bras aren’t the only thing that can be classically conditioned in this way. If you wear makeup whenever you leave the house, you’d probably find it has the same effect. 

Operant Conditioning

This is very straight forward when it comes to femininity and starts pretty much from birth. Lets run through a scenario:

It’s this little girl’s first Easter and she’s given a pretty dress

Adorable, no? Everyone at the Easter gathering thinks so, too. Everyone coos over her and tells her how pretty she is, how beautiful her dress is, etc. This is a positive reward for being feminine. Now lets say she gets ahold of some chocolate and of course gets it all over her dress. Everyone says ‘oh no! your pretty dress!’ and scrambles to get the chocolate away from her. This is both positive and negative punishment for not being feminine (positive here meaning the addition of their disparaging voices, negative here meaning the subtraction of something she likes; the chocolate). This type of scenario plays out year after year in all sorts of circumstances and the little girls are trained to be more feminine in order to get positive responses from those around them. 

This occurs in adult women, too. We’re constantly praised and given compliments for looking more feminine and ridiculed for being unfeminine. Think of some of the go-to insults directed at women: “ugly” “fat” “hairy” “bad makeup/hair”. The extent of the conditioning isn’t just social: women who are more traditionally feminine tend to be given more opportunities for career advancement and tend to be considered more intelligent by peers. 

Physical Conditioning

This is a more extreme form of training femininity, but it does occur. 

This is something I’ve personally experienced. From about 15-16 I wore almost nothing but heels. High heeled shoes, wedge sandals, boots with heel, you name it. Then around 17 I noticed that it was actually becoming very uncomfortable for me to wear flat shoes, or even to walk around my home with no shoes on. I’d been physically conditioned to be dependent on high heeled shoes to be physically comfortable when walking. 

And as extreme as this may seem, it’s not as uncommon as one might think. Of course, the obvious solution is to ditch the heels and work on repairing the damage done to your body, but for many women the solution is to just continue buying more heels than flat shoes. 

Another more extreme example is crash dieting. In this case I’m not even talking about the physical effect of losing weight. I’m talking about how women physically condition themselves to ignore hunger signals, and often to become physically dependent on non-food substances to get them through the day, be it nicotine, diet pills, or caffeine. Too often women who attempt to ditch diet culture and eat more intuitively don’t realize that they can no longer accurately interpret the signals their bodies are trying to give them. My aunt is a good example of this. After decades of crash dieting, when she feels hunger, she craves a cigarette and a diet soda, rather than actual food. 

obviously straight men don’t like the idea of a woman that is unavailable to them

straight women view attraction to men as an essential part of womanhood, so lesbians are less-than-women to them

of all the members of the queer community, lesbians are the only group not attracted to men. because of this, lesbians are deemed close-minded and old-fashioned

Also, when we move too much during an argument, or lean forward, it’s scary, and I never knew. I was even a little insulted at first, because surely she didn’t think I would hurt her. But see, that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a sign that she mistrusted me specifically; it’s a conditioned response. (Although if you keep doing it once you realize it scares her, she SHOULDN’T trust you.)

Not every woman has been physically harmed by a man she trusted, but every woman KNOWS a woman who has.

I used to be horrible about this, because I didn’t realize how intimidating it was. I didn’t understand why the woman I was with clammed up or tried to tell me what she thought I wanted to hear, and I only got angrier, and acted even more like an asshole. It was wrong. It was abusive. It didn’t matter if I INTENDED it that way; it was still emotionally abusive. And it was inexcusable.

I get that when passions are high, and when you’re frustrated, it’s a natural tendency to let your voice get louder, to shout and gesture and lean forward. But you can train yourself to do better. You can train yourself to keep more of an even tone, to refrain from large and fast gestures, to not lean into her personal space. I did. I’m not perfect at it yet, but goddamn it, I WILL be.

History is littered with the bodies of women who believed a man “would never.” This includes women killed by men who honestly, deeply, truly believed they “would never”… right up until she said that one thing or moved in just that way and he just got so mad, just that once, and pushed her or punched her or slashed her or shot her… just once, y’know, to shut her up, or because she was flinching and didn’t she know that HE’S NOT LIKE THAT and I’LL TEACH HER TO BE AFRAID OF ME…

We are trained, from infancy, that Men With Loud Voices are a source of pain from which we cannot escape, and attempts to escape may result in more pain. And as soon as we’re old enough to comprehend a world broader than our immediate circle, a world that extends into the past and will run into the future, we realize that there is no way, no way at all, to tell which men “would never” and which men “would never… except if.”

We live or die on that “if.” And any man who doesn’t like facing that hyper-vigilance can work on fixing OTHER MEN, not women’s fear.

The reaction shouldn’t be “not all men are like that;” it should be “no woman should have to live in fear.”

Start a 1-Acre, Self-Sufficient Homestead

Expert advice on how to establish self-sufficient food production, including guidance on crop rotations, raising livestock and grazing management.

By John Seymour

1) Don’t wait until you’ve acquired your little patch of heaven to start. Finding land is expensive and time consuming. Start where you are, even if it’s just herbs in the window sill or a patio garden. Grow where you’re planted. 🌿

2) Living in the country is cool. Driving 45 minutes to get anywhere is not. Don’t limit your search to rural areas. Empty and abandoned land in urban areas can be a good deal AND you won’t bleed out before the ambulance reaches you. A less dramatic example: forgetting the butter doesn’t mean an hour + round trip.

3) About butter…yeah, you’ll be buying it. It’s incredibly cost prohibitive to to raise large livestock on a small scale. Maybe goats? No matter what size, remember animals are a 24/7/365 responsibility.

4) You would be a god among insects if you grew a 1/10 acre of wheat, harvested it, milled it and baked your own bread. Next level for sure. Just consider: 5 lbs of organic red winter wheat for planting costs $11.75. A FIFTY pound bag of unbleached flour is $18.25. Consider trade offs for time and growing space for every thing you plant.

5) Self-sufficiency isn’t about isolation. You can’t do it alone, no matter how cute the diagrams look. Sharing knowledge and harvests increases your knowledge and builds community. Isn’t the whole point to make something better?

Don’t give children Hormone Blockers just because they think they are trans.

Don’t push your GNC children into being trans.

CHILDREN CAN NOT MAKE LIFE CHANGING DECISIONS LIKE THAT. CHILDREN ARE PRONE TO EXPERIMENT WITH GENDER. LET CHILDREN BE GNC. LET CHILDREN TRY THEMSELVES OUT WITHOUT LABELING THEM.

suppose i hadn’t been a terf, suppose i had been a libfem, a trans inclusionist (as i used to be). likely, you would have added a comment saying “this includes trans lesbians!” or “terfs don’t touch” or “@ op maybe think about mentioning how transmisogyny especially affects trans lesbians like this” or even just in your rb tags “glad this wasn’t a terf” or “could’ve been a terf” or something, something, something about terfs/trans activism. and so even then the post and point wouldn’t be allowed to be simply about lesbians—it would’ve been altered to re-villianize “terfs” or re-prioritize trans people. simply reblogging the post with the intent of agreeing with what it is saying about lesbians just isn’t possible. the post could so easily be assumed to be inclusive of trans lesbians and mean the same thing to trans inclusionists—because it’s saying that lesbians are least connected to men and the most criticized as well. it’s analyzing that the population that least benefits men are treated as the greatest threat. from your perspective, trans lesbians are just the same as (cis) lesbians so my observation should be applicable. still, it’s not.

because from your side of the table, anything discussing lesbians or lesbophobia is at High Risk for terfy poison, isn’t it? do you see the issue? in your circles lesbians and lesbophobia can’t just be discussed as lesbians and lesbophobia, since they’ve been marked as terf-magnets. it’s so, so, so unfair. when you do that, when you placed guilty until proven innocent upon discussions of lesbians and lesbophobia, you are contributing to the actual lesbophobia. you are adding to the cloud of suspicion and mistrust already settled upon the lesbian population. you don’t contribute anything by doing what you are doing.