A proposition.
People send me their creative writing about asexual things over a set submission period. Anything. Stories about non-romantic relationships involving asexual people, romance stories involving asexual people, coming-of-age stories involving asexuality, poems about what it’s like to be aromantic and asexual on St. Valentine’s Day, memoiristic essays about people asking you questions about your asexuality, anything. I comb through it all for grammatical stuff and propose edits to the writers.
And then I put it all in a single document. For the cover, I hold a contest for photographs of a right hand wearing a black ring on the middle finger. The winner gets their photograph on the cover.
Then I publish it with the print-on-demand service Lulu, and because I wouldn’t know how to set up a system for paying people fairly, I just set the price as low as possible and none of us get any money, but the book is out there for cheap. And nobody gets a legitimate publishing credit, but we circumvent mainstream publishing because right now maybe that’s what we need to do.
This is an amazing and wonderful idea that I support wholly. Especially the circumventing mainstream publishing like the asexy hipsters we are. :)
I LOVE this idea and would like to contribute, but when’s the set submission period going to be?
(Please say at least that it’ll go into June, as mentioned just now on my tumblr I have some work to do if I want to not fail my classes, and also I’m not allowed on a computer outside of school until after June 4 and will be avoiding all social networking sites until at least the end of May, at which point it won’t matter because we use school-issued tablets and they’re taking those up really soon … the general idea being that I would like to participate, will not be able to before June 4, and have realized, throuh typing it out, the gravity of this pit I’ve dug for myself.)
If I do not appear on Tumblr for the next few weeks
(about five, to be exact)
it’s not beause I hate you
but rather
I am literally failing and this is eating into my free time
I should be pulling my grades up
I should be studying while there’s still something to study for
Is Water Essential to Life?
New research by scientists at the University of Bristol has challenged one of the key beliefs in chemistry: that proteins are dependent on water to survive and function. The team’s findings, published this month in Chemical Science, could eventually lead to the development of new industrial enzymes.
Proteins are large organic molecules that are vital to every living thing, allowing us to convert food into energy, supply oxygen to our blood and muscles, and drive our immune systems. Since proteins evolved in a water-rich environment, it is generally thought that they are dependent on water to survive and function.
Proteins consist of one or more polypeptides – chains of amino acids held together by peptide bonds. If a protein in water is heated to temperatures approaching the boiling point of water, these chains will lose their structure and the protein will denature (unfold).
A classic example of denaturing occurs when an egg is hard-boiled: the structures of the proteins in the egg unfold with temperature and stick together creating a solid. In the egg’s case, this process cannot be reversed – however there are many examples where cooling the protein results in refolding of the structure.
Previously, it was thought that water was essential to the refolding process, however the Bristol findings suggest this isn’t necessarily the case.
5 Countries That Do It Better: How Sexual Prudery Makes America a Less Healthy and Happy Place
Sexual attitudes in Europe are the stuff of the Christian Right’s nightmares — yet many of those societies are better for having more open attitudes toward sexuality.
To extreme social conservatives of the far right, the word prude is not an insult — it’s a badge of honor. Prudes, they would argue, should be upheld as exemplary role models because a sexually repressive society is also a society with fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer sexually transmitted diseases. But not only do the facts not bear that out, they also demonstrate that the exact opposite is true. Countries that embrace many of the things social conservatives detest (comprehensive sex education, pro-gay legislation, nude or topless beaches, legal or decriminalized prostitution, adult entertainment) tend to be countries that have less sexual dysfunction than the United States, not more. And when one compares sexual attitudes in the United States to sexual attitudes in Western Europe, it becomes evident that there is a strong correlation between social conservatism and higher rates of teen pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.
| Supernatural: | There are two brothers who are having sex with each other and an angel, and one of them is a moose. |
| Doctor Who: | An English gentleman who is upset about being human will come in a large blue police box at any point in time to make the most ridiculous faces at you. |
| Sherlock: | An otter and a hedgehog solve crimes in a division not covered by any man. |
| Mass Effect: | A woman has sex with a lot of aliens, while one man's butt saves the universe. |
| Dragon Age: | A man wearing feathers and obsessed with kittens has sex with anyone who has a penis, and a few chicks, too. |
| Game of Thrones: | Everyone dies, but only if they just promised to tell someone something important when they get back. |
| Avengers: | There is a superhero orgy and everyone is invited but the Hulk and Black Widow. |
| Skyrim: | FUS RO DAH |
| Homestuck: | Something about yaoi trolls with Lisa Frank colors making out on stairs. And they all have sea slug penises. |
| The Hunger Games: | Some people who play real life Sims with some kids. One of them loves bread. |
—Horace Campbell (In reference to Ethiopianism [Orthodox Ethiopian Christianity] as particular brand of Black nationalism that opposed white colonial rule and religious ideology.)
black people have been told that they are ugly ever since the first white man raped and pillaged the first african village and brought africans into slavery. since then hair has been a big issue of beauty in the black/african american community. ever head mention of “good hair”? when someone says that someone has “good hair” it means that they have straighter, more caucasian hair. especially back before the civil rights/”black is beautiful” era of the 60s and 70s black women especially were urged, if they didn’t have “good hair”, to straighten their hair to look like white/caucasian hair. (of course, when i say “back in the day” i just mean that it was possibly more pervasive then; it is still very pervasive now and a lot of women go through a lot of work, time, and money to have their hair straightened rather than leave it in its natural state.) so hair has always been a big deal. when folks started wearing afros back in the 60s and 70s that was radical because instead of hating their bodies and trying to adhere to white standards of beauty they were reclaiming their own beauty and saying, no! i come from africa, and this is how i look, and that’s beautiful, and i don’t care what dominant (read: WHITE) america thinks! that was radical and liberating and very important to many people in the black community—it was very important to the evolution/formulation of black social consciousness and identity as well as it was very important for the individual’s sense of self-love.
with regards to dreads specifically, white folks often talk about dreadlocks as if they were dirty, which only perpetuates the white racist stereotype of black people as dirty, unkempt, uncivilized, animal-like, etc. i personally don’t know much about rastafarianism, but besides even that, the wearing of dreadlocks is, for many people of african descent living in the Diaspora, a symbol of resistance and struggle and very much a part of black culture and identity and has very much been rooted in a political statement against such racist stereotypes and against adhering to white standards of beauty.
considering all this, you may begin to see how black people might view white people wearing dreads not only with suspicion but with contempt as it is a fraudulent appropriation of a culture and history of resistance by the very people who have upheld and benefitted from the oppression of black people! when white people wear dreads it’s like a slap in the face to that whole history of oppression and resistance. it dilutes the potency of the message and strips away the power—out of the hands of black people—that such a statement originally made against white supremacy and the status quo. which is, when you think about it, typical; we white people have been making quite a cushy living off of taking everything away from black people and other people of color, so why wouldn’t we, after we’ve taken everything else, take this as well, the very fruits of thier resistance against us taking everything away from them. honestly, it makes me sick.
Oh, REALLY. I never would’ve guessed.
(Source: doortotomorrow)
Dear people who whistle, cat call, stare, grope, grab, “accidentally” brush by, start grinding on me without asking, assault, violate, and/or rape:
Just because you can see it doesn’t mean it’s yours. This is a lesson we’ve been taught since infancy. So don’t think that just because I’m standing in front of you means that all of a sudden I’m yours. I’m not. I’m mine. So fuck off.
