Roman-Sunshine

About what "Protect the youth" has become. Idk what it was like in other countries and I know that it very likely could have been stricter than it was in my country back then. But generally:

He was like "When I was 16, there were two kinds of adult content: Horror movies and explicitly depicted sexual content. The first made me have nightmares, the latter (as in what you could get in video rental stores) generally wasn't of much interest to me because it wasn't something I, as a 16 year old, could relate to. And other sexual content that was interesting (and/or helpful) WAS freely accessible. So whenever I saw an "18+" label somewhere, I just completely ignored that content because I knew it wouldn't be interesting at all to me.

But NOW, what's declared 18+ is even an excessive amount of swear words in streams! NOW, when I see an "18+" label, I don't know if it's horror movies that'll give some 16 year olds nightmares, if it's completely unrelatable porn, OR if it's educational sex ed, a 20 year old talking about their really healthy relationship with their partner (that includes intimacy), education about consent in BDSM (which affects 16 year olds as well, there's no age limit to curiosity), a live stream of wholesome musicians who happen to drink a couple of beers during kind of therapeutic talks, or simply people who aren't puritans and say "fuck" a lot! An 18+ label isn't worth anything anymore!"

And yeah... That's just it.

People who talk about body changes during their (first!) puberty are even labelled adult content. Even though puberty very much happens BEFORE adulthood. It's helpful content for minors. And it's labelled "adult" to "protect the youth".

Orache moth, Trachea atriplicis, Noctuidae

Photographed in France by Matthieu Berroneau

you will be okay. keep trying!

When I was talking to my top surgeon, he mentioned that he’d done top surgery on a butch lesbian. She identified fully as a woman, she just wanted a flat chest.

And that… blew my mind. My own desire for a dick and a flat chest is in a guy way, but the freedom of knowing that it doesn’t HAVE to be a guy way, that you can just want a body and have it -

That not only is gender presentation in clothes and so forth mix and match, you can treat your body that way too, not only does your gender not have to ‘match’ your assigned body your chosen gender doesn’t have to ‘match’ your chosen body because all that really matters, on any of it, is what feels right to you -

Miriam Margolyes for British Vogue’s July 2023 pride themed issue: “I wouldn’t want to be straight for anything.”