"Because I'm Fucking Curious"

ETA2: we do use inches/miles in poetic ways ("he was lost in thought/miles away" or "his lips were a bare inch away").

(was asked to put my Bluesky thread on tumblr)

Just because of some stuff I saw yesterday: if you are a minor online, please do not openly identify yourself as such. It is not safe, it allows adults who want to interact with minors for bad purposes to know you are one.

There are different, safer ways to accomplish your goals than to do that.

You do not need to identify yourself publicly as a minor online to:

Ask that people respect your boundaries

Not create or interact with adult material

Not be a victim of harassment

Not give away personal information

All these are normal things anyone of any age can do online.

If you are being invited into spaces you don't want to be in as a minor, or which people have asked you not to be in as a minor, decline for any or no reason. If an adult wants to do something with you they should not with a minor, decline for any or no reason. If people do not accept that, they are not people you should be interacting with. Don't pretend to be an adult, just don't say you aren't.

I understand that recently, more people under 18 tend to say that they are under 18 to protect themselves online. People who are not dangerous don't need that information. People who are dangerous will gladly use it because they know you are vulnerable. You are not protecting yourself.

As an adult who doesn't really care to interact with minors, I probably won't interact a lot with you if you are "young." That's not hard to catch from the way people act online. If you are "young" I care about you being safe and not victimized by opportunists, regardless of your birth year.

Protect your identity and safety on the internet, and if you are a person who is vulnerable, be a mysterious figure. Make silly posts. Complain about "people you know." Complain about "living with your parents."

if the scenario is that they're pretending to be single, it's sad that they've never met each other in this pretend universe and now it's less sexy and more "oh my god what if we DIDN'T ever meet as teenagers?? what if you WERE just a stranger to me??"

if the scenario is that they're playing at infidelity, person picking up gets lowkey offended if the other lies and says they're not married. like EXCUSE YOU??? you won't even own that you're cheating on me with me? and now the whole scenario is off because now they're mad.

ilya will NOT let it go because he's being annoying for fun and shane finally just :) okay :) play ball :)

and then calls out "steve" instead of "ilya" in bed later

the idea of shane having put so much thought into this character is killing me (he 100% ran it past rose to get ideas and feedback, and she's the one who focused on the physicality of how would shane's character move through the world?) (and when shane didn't remotely understand wtf she was talking about, she just fully created a character for him and sent him notes).

oh NO

them talking it through because shane wants to understand All The Rules because their first attempt just ended sad and frustrated, and part of the kink of it is SUPPOSED TO BE ilya convincing shane to have sex with him, so shane's instruction is, "whoever you would have been otherwise"

and it's a little sad, but okay

but this results in ilya asking (flirtatiously) if his husband knows he's out alone tonight, shane answering wife, actually (because without ilya, he doesn't know if he ever would have actually lived his truth or not), and ilya is. a little. thrown?? but okay. maybe he just wants to REALLY be seduced here so okay. maybe the fantasy is straight guy tempted into gay sex. shane has historically been wilder, so it's not THAT outside the realm of possibility.

but shane is just playing PURELY by "what would my life look like now if ilya wasn't a factor?", which means ilya's flirty question about the name of the wife he's left at home tonight is "rose"

which ends this scenario IMMEDIATELY because ilya is mad now and goes, "pretty name. mine's svetlana." and now SHANE is mad now, too.

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.