If you’re reading this you, like I, are probably not at A-Camp. If you’re at A-Camp, you should probably stop wasting your precious cell phone battery and go attend a workshop or take a hike or slip that cutie patootie your number and you know, live in the moment! BE THE MOMENT! BE THE MOUNTAIN! If you’re home like me, you should totally check out these hot, hot links and keep refreshing Insta to see if there’s any fresh #autostraddlecamp posts.
I’m living my best summer/camp aesthetic, even though I’m stuck at home. For example, I had an extra cucumber so I made cucumber-infused water yesterday. It’s super refreshing. It tastes like summer! I even got outside this weekend and logged some sunshine time and today I have the day off work for Memorial Day, so I’m going to barbeque ALL THE THINGS. I’ve got asparagus and zucchini and sliders and Italian sausage and hot dogs and romaine hearts for grilled caesar salad. Suffice it to say, I’m most likely eating better than everyone at camp, so I’ve got that going for me!
I hope you have the bestest Monday and get to eat something yummy today!
Queer as in F*ck You
+ Texas Congressman Says US Should Not Make Gay Space Colonies.
+ Peaches Performed on ‘Orphan Black’ on Friday, Providing Blissful Queer Background Noise.
+ How This Activist Is Shifting The Narrative Around Queer Women In Africa.
+ The Case of Thomas/Thomasine Hall: Intersex and Genderfluid Identity in the Colonial Period.
+ Will LGBT Superheroes Ever Hit the Big Screen?.
+ Lesbian Couple Taken Off Apple Mother’s Day Commercials.
+ UNC Says it Won’t Enforce Transgender Restroom Rules.
+ An Anthology of Queer Art Theory Puts Artists First.
+ Ellen DeGeneres Auditions To Be First Lesbian Vice President.
+ Alabama Supreme Court Now Recognizes Lesbian Adoption After SCOTUS Opinion.
+ 5 Up-And-Coming Queer Comics To Laugh At.
Doll Parts
+ The Story Of Three Women Who Prevented A Rape Will Restore Your Faith In The Kindness Of Strangers.
+ Lindy West wrote a memoir, Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman. I’d read it and this Newsweek reviewer agrees.
+ The Women’s Soccer Team Is Getting Ready to Go On Strike Just in Time for the Olympics.
+ What the War on Reproductive Rights Has to do With Poverty and Race. A lot, obvs.
+ Japanese Plus-Size Model Naomi Watanabe Takes Over the Internet.
+ Women Dominate The NYT Bestseller List for Young Adult Hardcover.
+ The Goop Crowd’s Latest Craze Is Vagina Massage and it’s exacty what you think it is and I wouldn’t pay $300 for one, but you do you.
Saw This, Thought of You
+ We Cannot Continue to Overlook ‘High-Functioning’ Depression.
+ Photo Essay: Fifth-graders perform “The Trial of Harry Potter in America: Dementors in Little Whinging” to learn about the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and jury duty and it’s really cute.
+ ‘What’s Worst?’: A Beyoncé Grammar Adventure with Mia McKenzie
+ Asian-American Actors Are Fighting for Visibility. They Will Not Be Ignored.
+ Latino Immigrant Families File Discrimination Suit Against Mobile Home Company.
+ Earth and Mars Are About to Get Very Cozy. Aww.
And Finally
+ 9 Incredibly Useful LEGO Hacks
Hello,
There’s a problem with the “Will LGBT Superheroes Ever Hit the Big Screen?” link.
Whoops! I fixed it! Thanks for noticing!
There is nothing I would love more this summer than to watch the USWNT at the Olympics. The possibility of watching the gals get gold is really one of the only things I have to look forward to in the next few months.
I’ve been spontaneously clapping every few hours all weekend since finding out that Rapinoe is with the team at their camp right now in Denver.
BUT if they go on strike I will 100% support that decision and drown my tears in world cup highlight reels, NWSL games and Bud/Heineken (assuming they keep their sponsorship deals with Sauerbrunn/Lloyd in spite of the strike).
Though from what I hear it sounds like they might not be too likely to win the legal case to allow them to strike. So we’ll see. Sigh.
I am so with you on the “one of the only things I have to look forward to.” And the spontaneous Pinoe clapping!! AAAH!
The money thing is actually ridiculous though. Somehow I am optimistic that it will get worked out, strike or not–I guess it seems such an obvious (and embarrassing?) injustice that surely there must be someone in Payroll correcting it at this moment.
and yet, there are still mansplainers out there saying, “Well, actually” and trying to find an excuse to justify it.
I have made the mistake a few times of looking at comments on twitter on articles about this and every time I have ended up banging my head against a wall and then lying in bed to meditate on how grand it would be to live in a cabin in the forest with a herd of dogs, an endless supply of books/chocolate/fresh fruit and veg, and very limited contact with the rest of humanity.
Thanks for the round-up! I have a question though regarding the vagina massage article, how does that not qualify as prostitution? Just curious.
It is basically sensual massage, which is a form of sex work, but distinct from full service sex work (which is what people think when they say “prostitution”). I’ve had one of those – the main difference in my experience is that you as the client is way more passive, you don’t really do anything TO the practitioner (as opposed to say FSS). And depending on whether you go all Tantra or not there may be extra woo ritual stuff.
Oh thank you for your reply. There’s a still monetary transaction for sex, however sensual, that’s why I’m asking.
(oh and the $300 price tag is pretty common esp if you’re going a little more high-end or you have a longer appt)
I’m glad the USWNT is willing to stand their ground and not compete in the Olympic games to assure equal pay. Given the crowd they’re attracting, compared to the men’s team, they equal pay is, quite literally, the least that US Soccer could do (h/t AOPHX):
Dear god what the men get compared to the women is so outrageous its ridiculous. In this day and age when the women are equal to men and are obviously surpassing men in popularity its smacks of old boy network.
You know if the men are not willing to go on strike with the women then they are as useless as could be. Maybe then we should have our professional soccer leagues be staffed by both men and women so we can actually have a real match.
Seriously, the olympics should not be played in Brazil while there is a major health crisis (Zika) and athletes are getting robbed and mugged right and left. Whoever decided on the location likely got a kick back b/c no one with any sense would hold it there.
I put my aspirational A-Camp hoodie on over the bank holiday. Some day we’ll get there. High functioning depressives unite! Such a necessary article, if short. Also Peaches was amazing on Orphan Black, she retweeted an extended version of that scene yesterday. Awesome! The USWNT situation is completely beyond comprehension at this point. Sadly we have the opposite disparity of attendance and support in England, even though the Women’s team fares better in international competition. Very sad. Also very sad that the “home nations” couldn’t get themselves in order to put together a GB team for the Olympics, although given the Zika situation I’m seeing the bright side.
Goddess, I hope the USWNT doesn’t have to strike. I haven’t been this excited about an Olympics since I was a kid, but I understand and respect their stand. My only beef with this debate is that everyone keeps talking about making the women equal to the men. They’re not equal. The U.S. women get more fans at the games, more viewers on TV, and more money in the pockets of U.S. soccer. And it’s not even close. The women shouldn’t have to fight for the same; they should be fighting for what’s right: a hell of a lot more.
Striking worked for the Matildas (and they were fighting for what should be bare minimum pay in reality) so I hope it works for the US as well. I also hope it is resolved before the Olympics because I think any gold medal won by another team would be hollow without all the best teams there.
Well, it looks like the court has ruled they are bound by the (very) old collective bargaining agreement which does not allow them to strike. So, here’s hoping the other avenues for getting what they deserve work out better.
I occasionally get hung up on the practical implications of ridiculous things, and consequently feel the need to point out to “no gay space colonies” guy that, from a purely practical standpoint, (until we can grow people in vitro) a space ark should be populated entirely by people with uteruses and a suitcase of frozen sperm. So, lesbians, bi women, transmasculine people…anyone who’s willing to be continually pregnant to save humanity. Packing along cis men would just be hugely inefficient.
I like the way you think!