art refs/inspo archive

The pit courtyard or sunken courtyard (地坑院dikengyuan), traditional Chinese courtyard on the Loess Plateau.

Cnetizen showing the interior of a dikengyuan—renovated for nowadays living (cr住在森林深处的小精灵)

POV you're ejected from imperial court

Princess: an effeminate and relatively youthful male homosexual or lesbian (1931-4)

Daffodil: effeminate young man (1925)

To throw a fuck into: to have sex with (1919)

Top sergeant: a masculine lesbian (1939) [‘she takes command of the girls’ privates’]

Lily: penis (1919)

Wolf: sexually aggressive man (1847); a homosexual top (1918)

Soul kiss: a deep kiss, involving putting one’s tongue into one’s partner’s mouth (1907)

Tom: a lesbian (1909); [in 'old tom'] prostitute catering to lesbians (1966)

Church mouse: a male homosexual who frequents crowded churches in order to fondle any potential sex partners. (1941)

Discover one's gender: to accept or acknowledge one’s homosexuality (1941) / Lose one's gender: To return to living as a heterosexual

Minty: a masculine lesbian (1941)

Also a lot of early 20th century vulgarity is recorded in Letter from My Father, which is a collection of letters published by a man who's dad was, in short, a major slut and human disaster who wrote about his sex life for his son. It's insane. You can find copies of it online & it's a wild fucking read (literally!) and I think a really interesting look at the life of a person who goes against our stereotypes of what people in the past were "supposed" to be like.

note for writers: these are dated to the first time they were recorded, not necessarily to their first use. I imagine for many of these, they came about naturally through spoken language before they were written down anywhere. This is especially true of more underground slang because it's probably being recorded (in ways we still have) the least. So if you wanna use a term but it's a little off date-wise, give yourself some wiggle room.

also gonna take this moment to highlight two more i found recently:

Best boy: a sweetheart, a boyfriend, a husband. (1893) [w the obvious equivalent term 'best girl']

Honeydripper or honeydrips: a sexual partner (1917)

filipinomodel

desimalemodels 

modelsofcolor  

pinoysonthelimelight  

highfashionpakistan 

black-boys

bollywoodeditorial

pakistanifashionedits

celebritiesofcolor

koreanmodel

indonesianmodels

theasianmalemodel

al-Andalus/Muslim Spain

Andalusian women’s dress between 8th and 12th centuries was quite varied. I’m just focusing on Muslima dress, but Christian and Jewish is just as fascinating. And Muslimas were also from a variety of backgrounds. Many were from North African cultures - Berber, non-Berber Egyptians, Nubians, etc. There were also Arabs, Sub-Saharan Africans, converted Jews and Europeans, and many more.

The first thing to know about muslim dress is the difference between indoor and outdoor costume. Outdoor costume is what you put OVER your indoor clothes in situations where males unrelated to you might be present. Images with ḥijāb (head scarf) should be compared with European women wearing cloaks (and head-coverings, usually)*.

and then, for reasons usually at least slightly less arbitrary, fucks off again.