a new law is about to be passed in Saudi Arabia that will allow the government to execute people for coming out or being openly gay online.
ignoring the fact that this is literally something out of some kind of dystopian novel, in the interests of safety i’ve emptied out my face tag and may temporarily deactivate or password protect this blog.
please reblog this and get the word out, and if you pray, please pray for me and my fellow Saudi LGBTQ+/MOGAI family.
ALSO, for those who need it [x]. its a post on erasing all traces of yourself from the interwebs.
I saw a post about “Please stop hitting on women while they’re at work” and I 100% agree with it, which is why I’m making a separate post to say please don’t hit on people in general when they’re at work.
I work at a bakery and we have this sweet 16 about to turn 17 year old boy who works up front of our store. He used to work at the place next door to us and, while he was there, a girl he was working with developed a bit of a crush on him and asked him out.
He said no, that he has a girlfriend (which she already knew) and thought they could just continue on being friends and coworkers.
Since beginning work at our bakery she stops in every single day and talks to him for the entirety of her 30 minute long break. He has told her multiple times that he’s at work and can’t stand around and talk and when I asked him if he was uncomfortable his response was a very relieved “Oh, God, yes.”
He’s tried to talk to one of the owners about it and his response was “You can talk to her after work” not realizing this poor boy is being made incredibly uncomfortable on a daily basis in the work place.
When we told him he could come into the back to find something to do if he needed to he was so incredibly thankful and relieved. This girl spent twenty minutes standing up front waiting for him to come back after he said he had to go do something. Twenty minutes in the front of the store ever after being told he can’t talk to her. He doesn’t know what would happen if he says that he doesn’t want to talk to her and is genuinely nervous every time she walks in.
The only reprieve he gets is from the bakers in the back saying “I get it. Come back here” because the Owners don’t understand that he, a male coworker,can be made uncomfortable by these unwanted advancements being made toward him.
Please.
This post isn’t made to undersell not hitting on women while they’re at work. I get that and that’s why this separate post exists.
“I think lesbians are smarter in a sense that we know what we want and we go for it, that’s why we’re gay”
“so if you’re at a party and you see the hottest girl there who turns out to be bisexual, whats your reaction?” “that’s really unfortunate”
“if she can make me laugh then I might be able to get past the fact that she had a dick in her mouth last week”
“if you’re with a lesbian then you know that they’re going to be going for you, for a woman, but if you’re with a bisexual…”
and a special mention for personal experience:
“I’ll have to keep a meter away from you tonight, otherwise you might make out with me haha”
“I wanted to tell you that you looked good last night but someone told me not because you might make out with me”
we constantly get told not to attend pride unless we’re in a same sex relationship, get degrading comments from both the gay community and straight people, are told we aren’t ‘queer enough’ and that because we can pass as straight we don’t deserve a place in LGBTQ+ spaces.
get fucked.
to add to this: if you’re a bisexual dude people are straight up not going to believe you’re not secretly gay/in the closet bisexual girls are fetishized and bisexual guys are considered liars
tfw u want to talk to people and become friends but you’re actually super shitty as conversing
when people start talking to you and you dont know what to do
When someone talks to me I have to think of a witty comeback or response but I’m not smart so it always takes me a second to process and by the time I’ve thought of something I’ve already just been staring at them blankly for a while and they don’t wanna talk to me anymore
And then I debated whether or not to put it on Tumblr…but I decided it was important. Because in my own way, I can (unfortunately) point out exactly what is wrong with men when they don’t realize how hard it is to be a woman. How we do not have equal opportunities and freedoms in everyday life. How most men, even good caring men, have no clue what we go through on a daily basis just trying to live our lives.
So here goes.
I often ride the Metro when I commute from North Hollywood to Long Beach in order to save money. I bring a book, pointedly wear a ring on my ring finger to imply I’m married (I’m not) and keep to myself.
Without fail, I am aggressively approached by men on at least half of these commutes. The most common approach is to walk up to where I am sitting with body language that practically screams LEAVE ME ALONE and sit down next to me or as close to me as possible, when the train is not crowded and there are many empty rows. Sometimes an overly friendly arm is draped over the railing behind me, or they attempt to lean in close to talk to me as if we are old friends. Without fail, the man or boy in question will lean to close and ask me
What are you reading?
Is that a good book?
What’s that book about?
This serves the double purpose of getting my attention and trapping me in a conversation. If I stop reading the book I enjoy to talk to you, random stranger, you hit on me or just stay way too close to me. If I tell you to leave me alone, you get mad at me. Because I somehow, as a woman, owe you conversation.
Tonight when I boarded the train in Long Beach at 10:30pm, it started up right away. I was not on the train more than three minutes before three boys who looked eighteen sat in the row behind me and leaned over the seats into my personal space, close enough to breathe on me. The one with his arm draped over onto the back of my seat asked me–surprise– “what are you reading?” I went through my usual routine. I told them loudly and firmly that I wanted to be left alone to read my book. They got angry. I was told “Why are you going to be like that? I just wanted to talk!” His friends start laughing at me and they don’t move, telling me come on! and why are you gonna be like that? until I tell them to leave me the fuck alone, stand up, and move to the front of the car near the three other people on the train, a couple and a business man in a suit. They spend the next two stops shouting at me from the back of the car, alternating between trying to sound flirtatious and making fun of me, shouting “I bet she’s reading Stephanie Meyer! I bet she’s reading Twilight or some shit! You reading Twilight or some shit?”
They exit the train at the next stop, and I’m relieved. The train is going out of service at the next station, so we all exit to board a new train to Los Angeles. As we board, the business man steps aside to let me go through the door first and asks me if those guys were bothering me. I say yes, that it happens all the time, and he tells he’ll beat them up for me if they come back. He is a nice person who talks to me like I’m a human being instead of a walking pair of tits, and I make a mental note: This is how a real man talks to a woman on a train.
The business man and the couple exit our new Blue Line train an exit or so later, and I think my night is ending on a good note. A seemingly normal man enters the train with his bicycle. At this point I am three rows from the front of the car, another man was sitting near the back of the car, and the rest of the car is empty. Bicycle Man walks halfway down the row, and settles into the seat directly opposite me. Perfect, I think. Twice in one night.
It’s not the first time I’ve been bothered multiple times. As such, I’m still amped from the teenagers on the first train. So when this man leans across the aisle into my personal space and asks me, yes, what are you reading, I assertively but calmly tell him to please leave me alone, I am reading. The man stands up, moving to the front and muttering angrily over his shoulder that it isn’t his fault I’m pretty.
Yes. Exactly that. I am the bad person in this situation because somehow this is all my fault. I started this by being attractive. I am making a mental note to bitch about this to my friends later. I go so far as to write it down so I know I’m remembering it properly.
It is at this exact moment I realize Bicycle Man is not taking it well. The seemingly annoying but normal man a moment before is now talking to himself, becoming agitated. In my years of being bothered by total strangers, I have learned how to hold a book and seem to be reading while taking in everything around me. He is glaring at me, and says out loud in an angry baby talk voice “PLEASELEAVEMEALONEI'MREADING. PLEASE LEAVE ME ALOOOONE.”
Then he’s up out of his seat and things go from bad to worse. He begins pacing back and forth in front of his bike, alternating between screaming something about his mother being dead and calling me a slut, a hoe, a bitch. I am frozen in place. There is one other person in the car, and I’m not sure if trying to change seats will draw more attention to me or less. I trust my instincts and show no fear, doing my best to appear to be calmly reading my book, never once looking up to acknowledge the abuse he’s hurling at me. There are four stops left until we reach the main downtown station where there are lights and security officers. Those four stops are virtually abandoned, and I have no guarantee that leaving to wait for another train won’t motivate him to leave the train as well, leaving us potentially alone at a metro station platform just outside of Compton. I’m frozen in place, trying to plan what I’m going to do if he decides to take all this rage directly to me. I’m ready to kick him, scream, make enough noise that he panics and flees.
At this point he’s punching the walls and doors of the train, screaming at me. He stares me full in the face and screams
SUCK MY DICK, BITCH
YOU BITCH
YOU STUPID BITCH
YOU GODDAMN HO
IF I HAD A GUN I’D SHOOT YOU
I WOULD FUCKING KILL YOU BITCH
This went on for two stops. No one came to see what was happening. The man in the last row was as frozen as I was. I’m not angry he didn’t come to my defense. He was smaller, older, and frailer-looking than I was. Again, I was worried if I got up, I would be turning my back on him to walk down the aisle. In the state he was in, I had no guarantee it wouldn’t get physical, and I had more physical strength with my back to the window and feet in kicking position where I was. If he had chosen to assault me, I would only be making it easier for him by standing up and putting myself directly in his path. On and on, over and over, he screamed at me, screamed at his dead mother, screamed at me again.
The moment we reached the downtown station, I was out the door and down the stairs. I still had to catch a connecting train to North Hollywood, and made sure there was no sign of Bicycle Man before I entered the car. That’s when I finally starting shaking, and almost threw up. By the time I exited the Red Line and reached my car I could barely breathe and my heart was pounding out of my chest. Even now, in my own home, my hands are still shaking and for some reason the stress has made my back muscles feel cold and numb. From all the tension, I can only assume. I can’t eat anything, I still feel like I’m going to vomit, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t cried so much, so hard I still have the headache.
So when people (men) want to talk about “legitimate” forms of assault, tell girls they should be nice to strangers and give men the benefit of a doubt, tell them to consider it a compliment, tell them to ignore the bad behavior of men, I want them to be forced to feel, for even one minute, what it feels like to have so much verbal hatred and physical intimidation thrown at them for nothing more than being female and not wanting to share.
I just wanted to read my book.
It’s not my fault I’m pretty.
This shit happens every time I take public transportation and whenever I wait for the bus I hope the people I’m surrounded by or the people that sit next to me aren’t creeps. Old men, young dude bros, trying to make conversation or eye contact. It’s gross af. And not to take away from OP’s post, but street harassment isn’t just about “being pretty”. It’s about power, dominace, entitlement, and misogyny. The phrase “it’s not my fault I’m pretty” is problematic because it implies that people who aren’t seen as “conventionally attractive” should be thankful that they’re being harassed, cause someone found them pretty.
they were ironically echoing the line bicycle guy was spewing not throwing conventionally unattractive people under the bus.
if you threw a pad or tampon into a crowd of boys they would probably all scream and it would be like that scene from monsters inc where george gets contaminated by a sock
story time
ok so in high school on away game days, the football players and cheerleaders would have to share busses because our school was broke as fuck so our cheer bus would always have a group of varsity footballerers in the back of it. one day my genius friend and I were discussing our feminist rage when she said “bridget you should totally throw a tampon back there and see what they do” and me being myself, stood up and hurled a one (1) tampon at the Manly Men. IT LOOKED LIKE A WAR MOVIE. THE BROS FACES WERE FILLED WITH HORROR AS THEIR BUDDY GOT SHOT. HE WENT DOWN SO DRAMATICALLY AS SCREAMS FILLED THE BUS. BOYS WERE SLINKING AS FAR AWAY FROM THE DEADLY TAMPON AS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. ONE BRO WAS EYEING THE EMERGENCY WINDOW WITH ALL SERIOUSNESS, READY TO FREE HIMSELF FROM THE THREAT. BEING IN CHICAGO, THE BUS DRIVER PULLED OVER ASSUMING A KID ACTUALLY GOT SHOT. A GIRL HAD TO GO GET THE TAMPON SO THE GUYS WOULD STOP SHITTING THEIR PANTS AND SIT THEIR ASSES THE FUCK BACK DOWN.
I have deduced 2 things from this whole experience: 1. men are ridiculous 2. I wish I had thrown more than one tampon
TRUE STORY
When my brother was in high school, as a prank, someone stuck a pad to the front bumper of his truck. A CLEAN, UNUSED PAD.
My brother came home from high school, 17 years old, CRYING and my dad made ME go get it off his truck.
I had honestly forgotten about that until just now.
I sincerely regret never having done this during my school days.
story time (again!)
one time, in the middle of my freshman year, I was sitting in the band hall talking to a bunch of friends before school. let me preface this story by saying they were all guys (one of the hazards of being in the saxophone section–guys outnumbered the girls 6:1). Anyway, I dug around in my backpack for a tampon and slipped it into the sleeve of my sweater and was about to excuse myself to the restroom (which, if anybody has been paying attention, they would’ve known what was going on, because I’ve never been exactly subtle about things like this) but one of the guys kind of guffaws and goes “what’s in your sleeve? a tampon?” and I guess the way he rolled the word off his tongue like it was some kind of insult really bothered me, so I just pulled the brand new, still wrapped tampon out of my sleeve and went “you guessed it” and popped him across the cheek with it. I walked away to the restroom, vaguely aware of the strangled noises and sounds of disbelief and horror coming from the group of guys. They were all paying attention enough to know that I was digging in my bag for a tampon or pad, but apparently, the sight of the thing was too much for them. That group of guys couldn’t look me in the eyes for a few weeks, all because of a wrapped tampon
Yep. I’m an electrician, and we carry voltage meters with us (slang: “Wiggy”, from an old brand name of meter that just about no one uses any more). They take up too much space to put in a tool pouch, so if you don’t want to leave it in the tool box/bag, you’ll have a separate pouch on your tool belt for it. A long, narrow pouch that is convenient as hell for putting spare tampons in where they’ll stay clean and undamaged until needed.
A lot of the guys just leave their meters back in their tool boxes, which are in the gang box, which is usually some hike away from the actual work. So, “can I borrow your meter?” is something I hear a lot. And the response is always, “sure.” They always emit a high-pitched scream (somewhat similar to the tone emitted by the meter when voltage is present) when the tampons fall out when they take out the meter. “WHAT ARE *THOSE* DOING IN THERE?!!” I’ll pick one up and do my best Groucho Marx imitation (with the tampon as cigar): “Whaddya think they’re doing in there, sweetheart?” (wiggling eyebrows, “cigar” tapping). Their reaction is adorable. In almost thirty years of doing this work, I’ve yet to get a blase–“oops, didn’t mean to drop your tampons” response.
So what I’m getting from this is tampon shotguns/grenades as a weapon against overaggressive dudes in public spaces, y/y?
oh my god, what a genius idea. some dude won’t shut the fuck up, you don’t even look up from your phone as you pull a tampon out of the bag and just wave it at the motherfucker like a wizard’s wand. AWAAAAAAY.
….what the hell is wrong with guys.
oh man oh man
I now want to keep a new pad in my pocket at all times
for the occasion of being harrassed, calmly opening the pad, and stickying it to the jerkface’s face
“To catch the bloody stupid ideas that keep dripping out of your mouth”
using an applicator tampon to fire the tampon at someone (you’d have to hit it hard & fast but practice makes perfect)
MOAR STORY TIME:
in high school, in an AP science class, all the boys were in a group and huddled around something and acting like it was a bag of puke or something and daring each other to poke it. one of the girls asks what they’re doing and the boys look at each other all sly and shit and run over and shove this long white odd-shaped pen in her face. they ask her to identify it. she says its a pen. the boys look disappointed and go over to me and ask the same thing.
i say “its a weird shaped pen” and they wiggle it around a little bit and go “yeah but what does it look like?” Im clueless to what they’re going on about. meanwhile all the rest of the class is watching. the dude finally gets tired of the unimpressed responses he’s getting and goes “it looks like a tampon, right?!” all triumphant like he found a bug and expects us all to scream in fear of it
instead the first girl he talked to reaches over to her bag and starts to rummage around going “no, THIS is what a tampon looks like” and BEFORE SHE CAN EVEN FINISH PULLING IT OUT all the boys have scattered to the farthest corners of the room, screaming, like banshee-roaches when the lights come on
it was funny as hell XD
all the girls were laughing their asses off. the boys didn't’ live that down for the rest of the year.
I once opened a brand new box of pads and as I was opening it my brother literally started screaming about how gross it was. I tried to tell him they were clean but he just kept telling me they were still disgusting so I took one out and threw one at him and he FREAKED THE FUCK OUT. My mom was lowkey laughing but I still got in trouble cuz he literally would not stop screaming. Keep in mind my brother is 21. Men are weak in the face of plastic and cotton.
