I don't even know

When I was 10, my mom made me wear a bra and it felt like a punishment for being different.

When I was 10, I took the bra off when changing for gymnastics and accidentally dropped it in the school hallway. A teacher picked it up and said, “Oh, this must belong to you” and handed it back to me in front of everyone. I quit gymnastics.

When I was 11, I thought maybe the boobs would be okay so long as they didn’t get any bigger than would fit in my hand, so I kept measuring it, but they did.

When I was 12, I started wearing two or three sports bras to smush them down, until one day a classmate said, “Are you wearing two bras?!” while laughing.

When I was 13, a boy told me he wanted to squeeze my boobs “until they popped.”

When I was 14, I got cast in a play as an older character and a classmate told me I got the role because I had boobs.

When I was 17, my mom told me to return a swimsuit because it would be too distracting for my boyfriend’s father.

When I was 21, I got properly fitted for a bra and everyone felt the need to tell me how much better my boobs looked.

When I was 26, I got pregnant and my immediate fear was that my boobs would get bigger.

When I was 28, I got shamed for trying to feed my screaming baby in public without a cover.

When I was 28, people asked me “why are you bothering to use a breastfeeding cover?”

When I was 30, people gave me weird looks that I wasn’t yelling at my kid for putting their hand on my boob.

When I was 31, I avoided going to the beach or pool because I didn’t want to have to deal with boobs in a swimsuit.

When I was 32, I got asked, again, “why don’t you get a breast reduction?”

When I was 33, I watched a 5yo girl get shamed for running around in sweltering heat without a shirt on and had to reprimand a bunch of tween boys who thought it was okay to shame her for doing something they do all the time.

When I was 34, my kid kept patting my breast and saying “Mommy’s squishy breast!!” They will never see me express any shame about tits, because I want them to have a different mindset than I had. Yes, boobs are nice! They’re squishy! They’re fun! That’s the end of that.

I’m 35 and no longer give a fuck. I don’t care anymore. As a teenager my tits were covered in stretch marks. They’ve been engorged with milk. My nipple changed shape with pregnancy. Give it another couple decades and my breasts will probably be all wrinkly. It’s sexual when I’m using it sexually. I don’t fucking care, and I won’t be ashamed anymore. 

Every time a policy or cultural hangup treats people with breasts differently, it fucks us over. 

Tumblr’s new policy makes an active choice to participate in this culture of shame. By classifying “female-presenting nipples” as explicit material, Tumblr has taken a stance that any chest or breast that differs from a male default is worthy of shame and unavoidably sexual. The idea that breasts are shameful and unavoidably sexual is exactly what fucked me up for so much of my life.

“I didn’t think nothin’ of it. Thought it was just a seed.” 

“Deep breath”

I SWEAR TO THE FUCKIN GODS…..

(cue 25 minutes of unintelligible yelling)

Plum pits do not contain as much as cherry, but they do. 

Do not eat stone fruit pits, people. Or bitter almonds. 

I have been wanting to use these photos for months.

The recommendation is to only eat 3 in one hour. because that is just the most filling snack and of course they will stop at three.

But then they say DON’T EAT MORE THEN 10 A DAY.

Just because it’s food for another creature doesn’t mean it’s fine for you.

Best case scenario it’s like grass which is basically neutral- it’s generally not going to kill you but there’s no nutrition for humans in it, and enough will probably make you sick.

Worst case scenario it’s something like belladonna berries which taste sweet but will kill you stone cold dead.

Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

I’m gonna assume that you have good intentions with this, and that you’re not on a slander campaign, you just heard this claim from someone and are just here to warn me to protect me and my followers from harm. So, thank you. But it’s not true.

I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t want to get involved in this discussion because I’m a CSA survivor and answering these asks brings up traumatic memories for me. And I don’t want to open myself up to interactions with:a) pedophiles, andb) people who call anyone disagreeing with them pedophile defenders.I think it’s pretty obvious why I don’t want to be in this discussion but fine, I’ll make this statement and then leave.

First, queeranarchism is not a pedophile, and there’s no evidence for this. I’ve heard them called a pedophile defender before, but I guess that wasn’t strong enough to stop people questioning the claim or looking for proof. Call an innocent person a pedophile and anyone who tries to defend them is automatically seen as evil. Convenient.

Second, the claim that queeranarchism is a defender of pedophilia is also not true, and a horrible thing to call someone when they’re not. But let’s go into why they’re being called this, and I’ll have my panic attack/throw up when I’ve finished typing.

When a person says “X is a pedophile. Kick them out of our space to protect kids” our instinct is to agree with this, and really no moral person would disagree that we need to keep pedophiles away from kids. I’d like them to stay the fuck away from me, an adult, too. Good. But let’s look closer.

I don’t really want to get into who counts as a pedophile. Of course this definition can be shifted by whoever to suit agendas, but whatever. I can think of a pretty straightforward definition, and it’s one that labels way more people pedophiles than society at large generally does.

So let’s ignore the “grey areas” (whatever that means to you) and go for the inarguable pedophile asking for help as an example. Someone says that they’re struggling with sexual thoughts about children. That they’re worried they might harm a child, or even that they’ve done so in the past and are worried they’ll do so again.

The gut reaction of most people is disgust, and rightly so. For survivors like me, the reaction can be even stronger than that. But what should we, as a community, do with this person? As I see it, there are three options:

1) Vilify this person. Call them evil. Exclude them from spaces where they could reach out for help. Cut off all their support networks. Make sure they and everyone else knows how much of a monster they are.

I can see why this is appealing on a visceral level. But bear with me, and think about what this does. It discourages or even prevents the person from accessing help to stop those thoughts and stop them acting on it. It further internalises their belief that they are a monster. I don’t care if you agree they’re a monster. If they believe they are, that means they might as well stop trying to be a good person and just embrace being a monster.

It doesn’t require you to have any sympathy for pedophiles to realise that this is an approach which leads to more kids being harmed. And while the accusers can feel good about themselves that they’ve removed pedophiles from their online space, they’ve actually created more problems elsewhere, including, not to play down online crimes, real fucking life. Those pedophiles were on this site asking for help, now they’re embracing their evil on awful websites and in the offline world. This approach is endangering children.

2) Another “option” is to embrace this person, tell them there’s nothing wrong with their desires, give them a place to post photos/videos of kids.

Fuck that.

This approach would also endanger children by letting pedophiles think sexual attraction to children is healthy, and by solidifying their desires.

This approach is what people are trying to pretend queeranarchism supports. But in fact queeranarchism supports a third way:

3) Allow pedophiles the support/environment they need to stop wanting to fuck kids.

I don’t personally want this fucking job, and I’m not going to “be nice” to pedophiles. I don’t owe them any sympathy or my time. And you fucking bet that if any of them come near children I’ll be there keeping them away and protecting the kids. That’s the right thing to do.

But to stop children being endangered even more than they already are, I want pedophiles to be able to access therapy. I want them to be able to talk to each other about moving past their desires. I want former pedophiles to be able to act as their mentors in reforming. I want pedophiles to believe that they can actually become better people.

3) is the approach which will protect children. But it’s also a dangerous position to support on tumblr, where if you take any approach other than 1) people try to make it sound like you support 2). This is what’s happening to queeranarchism, and I bet that by wading in I’ll also get it happening to me.

But I know this is what will keep kids safe, and fuck it, I won’t stop protecting kids because some people misrepresent this approach as defending pedophiles.

I imagine that if you receive a message like this, the least painful option is to immediately delete it and try not to think of this again. But you did take the time and energy to write a long reply about a topic that is very triggering to you and that might expose you to more triggering responses. You didn’t have to defend me, but you did. That’s amazing and I want you to know how much I appreciate that. Thank you.

Now, a little for other readers about this anon:

No. I am not a pedophile. I am not a minor attracted person.

I am not a ‘pedophile defender’ or ‘pedophile apologist’ either and like Veganvenom, I believe that the people who call me this are purposely trying to mislead their audience, to bully and isolate me.

My actual opinion on this topic is based on  transformative justice:

I believe it’s important to stress that experiencing a desire or a fantasy or an intrusive thought does not make you a monster, it’s about what you actually do with it. Your actions define who you are.

I believe people who experience attraction towards children should have access to support, therapy and spaces to talk with other people who go through this experience. Even if the conversations make outsiders uncomfortable.

I don’t really care whether we see attraction towards children as something that people are born with, the result of trauma or the result of our culture, or a combination of all that.

It’s clear that when someone experiences an attraction that would be harmful to act out, they need an environment that is conductive to shame free self-examination, open conversations, and emotional support as they figure out how to live ethically and happily. And they should have the space to be seen and treated as whole people, who are not defined by that one aspect.

I believe an attitude of ‘kill anyone who experienced attraction towards children, they’re always going to be evil’ is a very harmful attitude that is actively making children less safe.

Such an attitude pushes people to isolate themselves, to tell no one, to not seek help, to be alone with their self-hatred. This is not a situation that is conductive towards personal growth and finding ways to live well and ethically. This is a situation where people become perpetrators. If you’re already an irredeemable monster, why not act on it?

I believe that if we honestly care about preventing harm to children, we must do better.

Oh, and finally, I believe that the people who stalk my Tumblr, who call opinions like mine ‘defending pedophiles’ and ‘pedophile apologists’ or who actively excuse me of being a pedophile because of this, are manipulate toxic people who want to lash out at me to feel in control. They are not people who actually have children’s safety as a priority.

Veganvenom summarized that pretty well at (3) although there is one thing I would have phrased differently:

- I do not know if a desire towards children can ‘go away’. Without a clear identifiable cause, I’m very sceptical about the idea that an unethical desire can be ‘healed’. I’d like that to be true but the tendency to see ethical desires as fixed and unethical desires as fixable seems like wishful thinking to me.

So to me the goal of therapy & support would be to live ethically, to do no harm. Whether the desire continues to exist doesn’t concern me as long as there is no harm.

And according to transformative justice, that also means working through feelings of shame and self-hatred and breaking through isolation. Because we know suffering is not conductive to ethical behavior. ‘I want this person to live ethically and to suffer greatly’ is not a sustainable opinion in a transformative justice model. Whether you feel compassion or not is not relevant, the ‘living well’ is an essential part of ‘living ethically’.

(And I absolutely agree with Veganvenom that CSA survivors have nooooo responsibility at all to participate in that process or to feel a specific way about it.)