"Come with me." "Where?" "Wherever you like."

As someone who is in the middle of a long period of work-and-travel, this article really struck a chord with me. Nearly everyone I meet is lucky enough to come from countries whose passports and education systems allow them to travel and work in a huge swathe of the world. So much is accessible to us because of the quirks of fate that gave us our lives of relative comfort and privilege, and it’s important that travellers (especially long term ones) think about that. When I was in Beijing the receptionist at my hostel told me she had to save up for a long time before she could go to Europe. “You could get a working holiday visa for Austra - “, I began to reply, before realising that she might not be able to because of where she came from. “You’re lucky. Your passport is a good one”, she told me, grinning. Read this article.

-hermione:

I think one of the weird things about bisexuality - and sexuality in general - is that it’s often difficult to maintain visibility for the minority simply because we’re not conditioned to see what’s not right in front of us.

Bisexuality is hard to see, I think, in snippets of time and fractured moments; we don’t ask the woman in a lesbian relationship if she’s attracted to men as well - unless it’s in the context of a threesome and that’s just riddled with problematic elements that I can’t really delve into - and we certainly don’t ask a man in a gay relationship if he’d ever consider dating a woman. (There are usually some problematic nuances to instead that imply the superiority of heterosexual ideals, but… not the point.) The point is, we don’t ask. We don’t ask the single woman if, perhaps, she’s aromantic rather than simply forever alone; we don’t ask the college graduate if maybe he’s asexual rather than without ‘game’. We are socially conditioned to see, evaluate, and move on - everything is taken in at first glance.

So when there are complaints about visibility, be it for bisexuality or asexuality or aromantics or any of the less immediately visible variables of the human condition, I sometimes wonder how we can make them more visible. Is it our responsibility, as the less than cookie-cutter versions of humanity, the bisexuals and pansexuals and asexuals and so on, to inform the world around us what exactly we identify as? Is it my job as a bisexual woman to inform the world that, while yes I am currently dating a woman, no I’m not strictly a lesbian? I don’t think that’s the answer. Voluntary disclosure of identity and feelings is fine and good and honestly fantastic if you’re looking to educate and enlighten the people around you, but it’s draining and emotionally exhausting and also not always the safest decision in the world, so there has to be another option.

I just am at a loss as to what that option should be. It’s easy to say ‘don’t assume’ about your fellow humans, but how do we implement that into our understanding of the world around us? It can be easy, for example, to make inferences based on the facts, but remember the laws of assumptions. You cannot take a single fact (Alan Cummings, for example, who has a male partner) and assume causality or totality from it. Alan Cummings is not gay because he is dating a man. He is in a homosexual relationship right now, and exercising that portion of his sexuality. It does not imply and should not imply that other aspects of the spectrum do not suit him at other times. People change, and their sexuality and self-identification change with it. Understanding that in connection with the people around us can make us less prone to finality in our internal categorizing of the world.

I know it’s a lot to ask. I know it’s difficult to see a straight couple and not immediately assume they’re both 100% heterosexual - and that many would quite honestly take offense if you were to verbalize an understanding that someday they may not be! - or to see a lesbian couple and not interpret that they’ve both sworn off men forever, but remember: not everything is as it seems.

Remembering that the human condition is varied and fluctuating can help us make those less visible stand out a little more, even if it’s just in our minds. In short, it’s not up to us to decipher someone’s identity, but rather to appreciate how they are right now. 

leatherpumpkin:

I don’t want the word “slut.” I do not want to take it back. I do not want it to be a ‘thing.’ I cannot find one positive connotation within that word because really and truly there isn’t one. It wasn’t made for that and it is not used in that way now. It was made as an insult and to be degrading. There isn’t a need to claim the word slut especially if we are spending out time trying to be sex-positive. Why would there be a slut in a sex-positive environment in we are being ever so accepting? You can’t create positivity when there isn’t any there. It isn’t a word used to describe women who are strong and powerful generally, and if it is used in their favor it is with the intention to knock them down ten pegs. The word is misogynistic there is no way around that and should really just go away tbh.

somatrip:

THINGS THAT DO NOT MAKE A WOMAN A WHORE:

• Dating the boy you like
• Having sex because she likes having sex
• Going on dates with people whom she has no intention of calling again/dating exclusively
• Wearing clothes that show her cleavage
• Flirting

THINGS THAT DO MAKE A WOMAN A WHORE:

• Soliciting sexual acts for currency, and although that fits the definition of “whore” that’s still a derogatory term and you should probably stop using it because it sets back the feminist movement several decades and the preferred term is ‘sex worker’ and please get over your internalized misogyny, why do we keep having this discussion.