Unmute to improve your quality of life.

new holiday tradition

may have found the funniest possible thing ever in this essay on medieval sex laws im reading hold on

From Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe by James A. Brundage

I have many important things to do today so of course i spend 20 minutes making this medieval sex calendar

and worked out (very roughly) that your average medieval peasant in the year 1200 would be able to have sex about 73 days of the year. And that's on a LEAP year

Well 73 days of sex in the year 1200 is 73 more days of sex than I had in all of 2020 and half of 2021

@shredsandpatches is this the Medieval Sex Flowchart of Medieval Sex Flowchart Fic Fame!?

That’s the one! 

I will say that the flowchart is a composite of a number of penitential manuals from the early middle ages; these rules weren’t really codified anywhere and the penitentials didn’t really have an official status (in fact, the Church tried to ban them a number of times), although penitential questioning was a real thing. By the later Middle Ages the concept of sex being forbidden on certain days of the week seems to have died out, although I think it was still technically banned during Lent and on major holy days, and foreplay was also deemed more or less acceptable. And of course there was no way to enforce any rules about sex unless people confessed to them; indeed, it doesn’t seem like people would generally have access to those rules outside of the confessional.

(In the fic I am gleefully throwing all that out the window because it’s mostly about my own issues)

And really, historical rules about sex do tell us more about the kind of people who wanted to write rules about having sex than they tell us about the people who were… you know… actually having sex.

Just as a very casual rule of thumb, if there’s lots of talk or a rule about not doing a thing, I assume that’s because people were doing it. If not, there’d be little need for a rule.

Microsoft in talks with Discord over $10 billion-plus acquisition: report

This is hilarious

Don’t forget that Saint Patrick is not the only saint whose feast day is March 17. It is also the feast of Saint Gertrude, the patron saint of cats and the people who love them.

I know what I’M celebrating today.

Jesus, I sent this to my friend who’s now in music school and he said:

“Nah. That’s just the entrance exam for the marching band.”

I now live in fear of his school’s marching band.

Racially motivated extremists pose the most lethal domestic terrorism threats to the US, according to an unclassified intelligence report that warned that the threats could grow this year.

The blunt assessment, in a report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, echoes warnings made by US officials, including the FBI director, Christopher Wray, who testified earlier this month that the threat from domestic violent extremism was “metastasizing” across the country.

Merrick Garland, the attorney general, has also described it as a top priority as his justice department works to prosecute hundreds of people who participated in the mob attack on the US Congress in January.

The riot laid bare the threat posed by domestic extremists and led Joe Biden to assign his intelligence officials the task of studying the scope of the problems. A brief and unclassified summary of that threat assessment was made public Wednesday; a full classified report was presented to the White House and Congress.

“Today’s report underscores how we face the greatest threat from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, especially white supremacists, and militia violent extremists,” said the Democratic representative Adam Schiff of California, the chair of the House intelligence committee.

Intelligence officials said in their assessment that extremists seen as risks for violence are motivated by a range of ideologies.

Developments such as the anger over restrictions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic and a belief in the debunked narrative that November’s presidential election was fraudulent “will almost certainly” spur additional violence in 2021, the report said. Numerous courts and Donald Trump’s own justice department upheld the integrity of the election.

The report says the most lethal threat is presented by racially motivated violent extremists, who officials say are most likely to conduct mass attacks against American civilians, and militia groups, who are seen as likely to target law enforcement and government officials. The threat from militias increased in 2020 and is expected to increase again this year, according to the report’s summary.

The report says white supremacists display what officials say is “the most persistent and concerning transnational connections”.

Read More

Renowned Feminist Philosopher Judith Butler Tears Transphobic Feminism Apart

Judith Butler says that J.K.Rowling and the transphobic TERFs do not speak for feminism at large.

If you haven’t heard about Judith Butler before, here is a short summary: She is one of the most important gender theorists in modern times.  

When right wing extremists despair about postmodern gender theory, she is probably one of the thinkers they are referring to (not that they have ever read her). 

She has shown how social structures, language,  the stories we tell and the roles we play strengthens the oppression and marginalization of women. In other words: For her gender is definitely a cultural and social phenomenon, and because of that she is on a collision course with the so-called “gender critical feminists” (TERFs) who want to reduce gender to biological sex.

I strongly recommend that you read the recent New Statement interview with Butler, where she addresses the thinking and the tactics of TERFs in very clear terms. The interview is behind a paywall, but you should be able to access a couple of articles for free.

Still – in case you are locked out – here are some important excerpts.

She refuses to think of transphobic TERFs as mainstream feminists.

She dismisses J.K. Rowling’s idea that allowing people to identify as they want will be a threat to women in women’s bathrooms.

She dismisses the idea that the term “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” (TERF)  is a slur.

She does not accept the idea that the term gender can be defined once and for all, for example in reference to biology.

She also says:

So there you have it: One of our leading feminist philosophers are comparing TERFs to the transphobic extremists of the right. And she is right to do so.

It is important to stress this: TERFs are not representative of feminism. They represent a toxic fringe movement that at this point in time does more to help right wing misogynists than women. 

Photo: Adorno Preis

By the way, if you’ve ever jumped into debating with radfems or other exclusionists, this is a must-read.

Look at how Butler is dissecting the TERF position. She isn’t arguing on their terms - half the goal of exclusionists is to draw you into an argument over their false premise, in order to get you to legitimize their position. No, Butler is doing exactly the right thing, and pointing out their whole foundation is flawed. Her deconstruction of TERF ideology is most cutting because it’s effectively, concisely, and clearly explaining that the premise of their beliefs is wrong at every level - that what they propose is not for debate because it is fundamentally false.

Anyway, I’m just absolute in adoration over how she talks about these topics. She’s not just tearing down TERF rhetoric, she’s dismantling it with the precision of a master.

Mx. Butler had time today

these were less than 24 hours apart. biology icon

This

gotta be the equivalent to this

Same energy

Lmao

Screaminggggg

Miss Piggy and Dolly Parton

protagonist discovering they have superpowers

Everyone should know the international sign for Help Me. Let’s make this famous!!

Interesting; I didn't know this was a thing.

It’s apparently a thing, but it’s a very new thing, so it may need some help being known.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_for_Help

WHAT is that one poem (?), abt a modern worker contemplating the numerous forgotten who were actually responsible for all the ‘great’ deeds of history

found it!!

So I just went through three notebooks to find this, because I knew it was there.

I was at the ROM, about six years ago, at a special exhibit on Babylon. And there was a brick, formerly part of a palace. And Nebuchadnezzar, the one who built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, had had his name in cuneiform stamped on every single brick, to emphasize that he had built it.

And on this one, a workman had carved his own name, Zabina’, into the block too, in Aramaic. Here’s the brick. It’s 2600 years old.