A heart with a(r)mour.

Do not let us die again, we where left once before because of a part of ourselves we can’t control.

We are grateful to everyone who contacted us and asked how they can help. What do we need now? - Help us to spread the information about the fact that the Russian LGBT Network is ready to evacuate people. Please think for whom this information can be useful. You can spread the information publicly or personally. Everyone who needs help can contact us by email or call the Hotline (8 800 555 73 74). The call is free all over Russia. - In accordance with the Russian legislation, every citizen can apply to the Investigative Committee with the demand to investigate the information about the crime published in mass media. We encourage everyone to apply (the template of the claim will be published tomorrow).

We understand that many people want to help those in need. But please remember that any uncoordinated actions can put in additional danger people in need and those who are ready to help. Therefore, we do not recommend to collect the addresses of people who are ready to provide temporarily shelter.

Be aware, that the situation with the human rights in the North Caucasus is truly difficult. Now people’s lives are endangered and the only way to help is the evacuation. The Russian LGBT Network has the necessary resources to evacuate people, there is a team that already makes every effort to safe lives. That is why we ask everyone to share with us the information about people in need and any offers of assistance.

This is not even the news being news, as a person who can read Russian I can sadly confirm the information. Also, seconding the reblog before mine - DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT MESSAGE PEOPLE DIRECTLY ABOUT IT. YOU CAN PUT THEM IN DANGER BY DOING THAT. Especially if using any Russia-based messaging app/social media. Russian police are assholes they are known to confiscate things they are not allowed to confiscate and request and get the information they are not allowed to get and generally ignore the same laws they are supposedly enforcing. The less evidence they can get by legal or illegal means, the better.

There is not a lot of people from Russia subscribed to me or even a lot of just people who are subscribed to me in general, but the more information is spread about this, the better. If you know any LGBT people living in Russia or Chechnya (Especially Chechnya!) you probably should reblog this. 

Good thing I am not living in Russia right now.

Russian newspapers and human rights groups report that more than 100 gay men have been detained “in connection with their non-traditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such” as part of a purge. Several people were also reportedly feared dead following violent raids.

Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch wrote: “For several weeks now, a brutal campaign against LGBT people has been sweeping through Chechnya.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/04/10/chechnya-has-opened-concentration-camps-for-gay-men/

Two television reporters, a waiter, and numerous other men ranging in age from 16 to 50 have been reported missing from the state of Chechnya, in Russia.

In one instance, a 16-year-old boy was detained but reappeared later with severe injuries from being beaten.

Human rights activists in the area believe that authorities have been arresting and killing the missing men, all of whom are believed to be gay.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/04/07/british-government-calls-for-urgent-investigation-into-abhorrent-gay-purge-in-chechnya/

Also reported by:

Amnesty Internationa

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/stop-abducting-and-killing-gay-men-chechnya

Human Rights Watch: Anti-LGBT Violence in Chechnya

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/04/anti-lgbt-violence-chechnya

The Guardian: Chechen police ‘have rounded up more than 100 suspected gay men’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/02/chechen-police-rounded-up-100-gay-men-report-russian-newspaper-chechnya

International Business Times: Chechnya detains 100 gay men in first concentration camps since the Holocaust

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/chechnya-detains-100-gay-men-first-concentration-camps-since-holocaust-1616363

That’s a very good question and thank you for asking so politely. 

The word feminism was coined by Charles Fourier in 1837, a French philosopher who advocated for the emancipation of women because he believed society treated women as slaves. We weren’t allowed to vote, own anything, or work a real job. Women were ruled by their fathers/household patriarch until they married at which time they’d be under the rule of their husband. If a woman did not belong to male household she was shunned by society and had very little means to make money, most of them unsavory. You know the idiom “rule of thumb”? That comes from a running joke that started in the 1600s, and was still around in Fourier’s time, that said it was okay for a man to beat a woman with a stick as long as it wasn’t any thicker than his thumb. 

so I’ve been in a relationship for 5 years now. And I see a lot of posts about how people think relationships mean having butterflies forever, your heart beating faster when they walk into a room, about cuddling together every night, legs intertwined, that you’d be so happy to live together you’d sleep on a double bed with each other every night.

And its not really like that, at least not to me.

You stop getting the butterflies when you live together. Your heart no longer speeds up when you see them, but instead, everything calms down. When youre in the room with them, you feel calm, and secure. When you cuddle them you feel your heart beat slow, and the sound of their breathing carry you towards comfort. It doesnt feel like a roller coaster anymore, it feels like home.

You don’t sleep curled up with each other every night, legs twisted between theirs so tight its hard to tell where yours begin and theirs end.

Instead, you sleep comfortably, side by side, sometimes facing different directions. But every night, you find yourself scooting backwards on the bed so you bump into them. You snuggle against their arm, or stroke their hair as they fall asleep. There are nights when my boyfriend, in his sleep, reaches around me and pulls me to him, like a child with his teddybear, like I am his comfort.

 In the wee hours of the morning before the dawn breaks, when the world is blue and you see through cracked eyes, you curl into their chest and inhale their scent before drifting back to sleep. 

Kisses aren’t always romantic and firey anymore. But there are so much more of them now. There are cold kisses when you’re eating ice cream in the summer, and sticky kisses over breakfast pancakes. There’s “im leaving now” kisses, and “one more kiss before you go” kisses. There’s sleepy morning kisses before work, when you don’t remember the alarm going off but instead the press of their lips against yours is what brings you into the day.

There’s kisses before sleep, and, you are so sweet with the things you do kisses. There’s kisses because you treat animals so tenderly, and I’m so glad i’m with you and not someone else kisses. There’s quick kisses in the aisles of the grocery store, when its loud and you gravitate together, when instead of having your own personal space and their own personal space, its both of yours together, and you step into their chest to take up less area together. 

You don’t always text each other with confessions of love and care like you used to, because that’s a given now, and you’ve moved on to quirky inside jokes about the life youve built together. You share looks of exasperation and amusement in public, your own little world against the outside one. 

Relationships aren’t always a fairy tale. They’re not always fireworks and sparks, at least, after the start.

But they are a quiet rhythm and hum of love and care. It’s not a fire in your soul, but one in your hearth, keeping you warm and comfortable, comforting you as you drowsily drift into sleep.

The Loneliest Whale in the World.

In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about the loneliest whale in the world. Scientists have been tracking her since 1992 and they discovered the problem:

She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had one. Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by.