The thing that sucks about Girls and Seinfeld and Sex and the City and every other TV show like them isn’t that they don’t include strong characters focusing on the problems facing blacks and Latinos in America today. The thing that sucks about those shows is that millions of black people look at them and can relate on so many levels to Hannah Horvath and Charlotte York and George Costanza, and yet those characters never look like us. The guys begging for money look like us. The mad black chicks telling white ladies to stay away from their families look like us. Always a gangster, never a rich kid whose parents are both college professors. After a while, the disparity between our affinity for these shows and their lack of affinity towards us puts reality into stark relief: When we look at Lena Dunham and Jerry Seinfeld, we see people with whom we have a lot in common. When they look at us, they see strangers.

“

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Hipster Racism Runoff And The Search for The Black Costanza by Cord Jefferson @ Gawker

When they look at us, they see strangers.

(via darkdarkgirlvashti)

I was trying to find this quote recently. I don’t think most white people understand how it feels to be thought of as only as a dehumanized stereotype or a token. Never as someone like you who can be relatable and have things in common with you. It’s always a surprise to people online and offline when people find out that I like things that they do, too ; that I’m not just some angry activism-obsessed woman. When people like Lena Dunham say they don’t know how to write Black people, it’s pretty much saying that she doesn’t think that Black people are also fully complex human beings like her. Sure, there are cultural considerations to be made, but it’s ignoring the fact that people of color are diverse and not a monolith, so it’s not like the only girls who are like her are white.

(via wretchedoftheearth)

I first saw this like a week ago and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

(via rosalarian)

They have such a cute friendship. I’m so incredibly thankful to J.K. Rowling for not going the cliched route of making it a romance.

There is no organization, board or coalition that regulates the safety of sexual aids in the United States, Japan, Canada and the European Union. None, zero, zilch. Why does that matter? Because, with no regulations, they CAN and DO, make it out of whatever material they want. Toxic? Who cares. Hazardous? Whatever. Cancer-Causing materials? What the consumer doesn’t know will make us more money! Keeping them made cheap? Now we’re talking sex toy production style. Regulating sex toys production would be admitting that people use them, and our government doesn’t want to do that-for goodness sakes, sex toys are illegal in 6 states! How could the government evaluate the safety of something that is illegal? Doing so would be admitting that people used them, and as a result, that the government condoned such behavior.

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It’s National Masturbation Month! To celebrate, we’ll be highlighting resources on the topic every Sunday in May. Today we’re featuring our Introduction to Sex Toys page. Check it out here! (via thecsph)

I wonder if there is some way to turn my Chemistry degree in to a job working on sex toy materials safety. I would love that job.

(via theclarkknight)

Yay! My friend clarified that she wasn’t upset with me, she was just frustrated over something else! =D

The Orgasm Gap: The Real Reason Women Get Off Less Often Than Men and How to Fix It | Alternet »

sociologr:

“Instead of being driven by biology, women’s rate of orgasm relative to men is a function of social forces. For one, we often bifurcate the sexual experience in line with gender norms: men are sexual (they experience desire) and women are sexy (they inspire desire). The focus on men’s internal wants and sensations also draws our attention to his satisfaction. Thus his orgasm, but not necessarily hers, becomes a critical part of what must happen for a sexual encounter to be successful and fulfilling. This is part of why intercourse – a sexual act that is strongly correlated with orgasm for men – is the only act that almost everyone agrees counts as “real sex,” whereas activities that are more likely to produce orgasm in women are considered optional foreplay.” —Lisa Wade

Great article for a sexuality class.

Sigh… I managed to upset one of my friends once again… I’m horrible…

sodamnrelatable:

Diet ideas: Eat whatever you want, and if anyone tries to lecture you about your weight, eat them too.

Arpakasso (by Bitter Fox)

menophiliac:

thingsivemade:

Rochelle Ballantyne, 17, of Brooklyn is taking the chess world by storm. She is on the verge of becoming the first African-American female chess master…

Clutch Magazine, via Jezebel

FUCK YES

High schooler arrested, expelled for same-sex relationship »

kuunakullanvalkeana:

girljanitor:

gaywrites:

A teenager in Florida has been expelled from school and charged with two felonies simply because her girlfriend’s parents disapprove of their relationship. She now faces two years of house arrest and a year of probation.

Kaitlyn Hunt was a popular student at Sebastian River High School, participating in everything from cheerleading to basketball. Hunt began dating another female student and the latter girl’s parents became enraged, according to Hunt’s parents. Kaitlyn was 17 at the time the relationship began, while her girlfriend was 15. Upon Kaitlyn’s 18th birthday, her girlfriend’s parents sent the police to the Hunt home and the teenager was arrested.

Hunt was charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child. Then, weeks before her graduation, Hunt was expelled from school.

“[The girlfriend’s parents] are out to destroy my daughter,” Hunt’s mother told the Examiner, “because they feel like she ‘made’ their daughter gay. They see being gay as wrong and they blame my daughter. Of course, I see it 100% differently. I don’t see or label these girls as gay. They are teenagers in high school experimenting with their sexuality — with mutual consent. And even if their daughter is gay, who cares? She is still their daughter.”

Infuriating. So many things wrong with this.

First, this is a case of homophobic parents blackmailing a girl they don’t like in a slimy, roundabout way that serves to mask their bigotry. I can’t believe what a cheap shot they took. Absolutely disgusting.

Second, “I don’t see these girls as gay”? Cool, thanks, Mom. Thank goodness she’s not disowning her daughter, but I don’t totally see this as being supportive either.

Third, there’s a petition circulating to drop or lessen the charges against Kaitlyn. Go sign it. And try not to lose faith in humanity, even though people like this exist.

You may notice how “not seeing her as gay” made absolutely no difference to her being expelled, charged with a felony, or having people with a lot more power than her trying their hardest to destroy her life.

This is why “NO LABELS!11!! WE ALL BLEED RED!!1!!!” doesn’t work. Ever.

“I don’t see these girls as gay.” So it’s wrong to treat them like this as long as they’re just “experimenting”…