shaved pits make me so sad like I understand but I wish you didn’t feel that way. I want you to live
Every time there’s a post like this the notes are like #so true! #except i hate body hair bcs it feels disgusting and smells terrible and makes me want to kill myself but you do you:)
Ok I don’t mean to be doing this too often but I literally just wrote a paper about this so I thought I would comment! The English translation is The Cursed Woman but the original French is La Femme Damnée. “Femmes Damnées” was the title of a Baudelaire poem from his acclaimed 1857 book Fleurs du mal, which was known, among other things, to be a collection that famously dealt with the subject of lesbians. The poem tells the story of the desires and passionate love between two lesbians: Delphine and Hippolyte. As a result of this poem and of the book as a whole, the terms “fleurs du mal” and “femme damnée” became lesbian monikers of the turn of the century. Though some have deemed the term “damned women” to be accusatory of some moral dissonance, the poem it is derived from is actually quite sympathetic to the condition of lesbian love as it is a love which is unable to fully flourish in that time. Regardless, the translated title of Tassaert’s painting is misleading, as the original French is less accusatory and more identifying. The title is more accurately “the lesbian.”
okay but like. This exact concept is what finally got me to be open about being queer in my day to day.
I was at work. I can’t go into detail about the situation, but someone was outed without their consent. And nobody was saying anything, and it was quiet, so I outed myself, too. So at least neither of us would be alone.
I was worried about the consequences. I’d never considered my identity a secret, but I wasn’t open about it, either. It felt like it wasn’t relevant to my job. If someone asked, I’d tell them, but otherwise, what did it matter?
After the incident, I met privately with a higher up. Told them what had happened and why it wasn’t good, and made some suggestions on what to do in the future to keep everyone safe to be in the closet or out of it on their own terms.
To my absolute amazement, they told me that others had come forwards anonymously to say the same things. Then word spread. Meetings were had. Policy and procedures were put in place. A training course on gender and sexuality was implemented for the very first time.
And of course there were protests- people who dug in their heels and kicked up a fuss and didn’t want to learn about “all that bullshit”, and when those people showed their colors, their superiors realized that they weren’t actually good representatives of the sort of environment they wanted to provide our clients, and a small number were actually let go.
I went to a meeting again the other week. And do you know what happened?
The meeting lead introduced themselves by name and pronouns, and asked everyone to please state their name, and, if they wished, theirs as well.
I was near the front. I introduced myself with He/Him. I thought I’d stand out like a sore thumb and feel like an idiot for hoping for better.
Two people down, someone introduced themselves as They/Them. Someone I’d never spoken much to before.
Then, She/they. At least two “anything fine"s. A he/her.
It was incredible. And it wasn’t even a whole year ago.
There are so many of us, now. Even more, as we teach and learn about ourselves, and it’s not so scary because there are others like us.
I’m not as loud and proud as I hope to be some day, because I’m still scared, a little, but I am here.
And I’ve learned that being openly queer isn’t about just expressing myself for the sake of it, bringing personal details into places it doesn’t matter-
-it’s about telling someone, it’s not just you. I’m in your corner. There are more of us than they think. There is power in numbers, and you are not alone.
Something no one tells you when you’re going through a tough time, is that even the smallest people will remember you. They’ll wonder why you haven’t bought food for your dog, where the pictures of your boyfriend went, or why their favourite cashier hasn’t been there for awhile. People notice you. People love you. Even if it’s for your jokes, even if it’s for your patience, even if it’s just seeing you around. People miss you. People love you. People care.
I’m grateful for everyone who is still here today, no matter how hard it is.
I still remember when I quit my old job at a McDonald’s, I was talking about how it was my last day, and had accidentally left the drive thru window open. The lady in the window overheard me and said “oh no, you’re quitting? I’ll miss you, you were always so nice!” And I almost sobbed. This random lady came through my drive thru enough to recognize me, enough to care that I was leaving, despite having barely had a single conversation other than what I had to say to do my job. People really do remember you, especially if you’re nice.
i get the point of the polls informally showing that the vast majority of tumblr users have been here for years and barely anyone is new. the problem is that the suits don’t look at that kind of data and go “ah, we understand. the majority of our users are oldheads who want things to stay the same. we misunderstood our audience.” they absolutely have hard numbers on these things. they surely know most active users have been here forever. but they look at these stats and go “wow, our growth rate really IS shit. we’re still relying on an ever-dwindling pool of users who have been here since they were teenagers in the early 2010s. we need to be working even harder to make this place appeal to new users”
the higher ups and investors on sites like this want infinite growth forever. this is why they keep changing the layout to make it look like other, more popular sites, even though we hate it. this is why they try out shit like tumblr live that doesn’t appeal to the established core userbase in the slightest. it’s not for us. it’s also not for the ~5% of active users (if the poll going around is to be believed) who signed up within the last year. no, they’re chasing after the hundreds of millions of people who use twitter and the BILLIONS of people who use tiktok, hoping to appeal to them and make tumblr more popular again
this is, of course, deeply stupid. nobody is leaving tiktok to hop on tumblr live. they already have tiktok. and we’re on tumblr because we like tumblr, not because we want it to morph into something else. but i’m sure automattic’s got venture capital investors breathing down their necks going “why isn’t tumblr more like twitter or tiktok or facebook or instagram or” etc. etc., and so here we are
