ranma-official:

delcat177:

finnglas:

dangerwaffle:

castiel-knight-of-hell:

masquerading-as-a-genius:

sage-of-rocknroll-oromis:

the-deaf-mermaid:

giants0rbiting:

I LITERALLY THINK THIS EVERY TIME THE SONG COMES ON

What song is this talking about?

‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’

Otherwise known as the original ‘Blurred Lines’

HEY FRIENDS HISTORICAL REMINDER: ‘WHAT’S IN THIS DRINK’ ISN’T TALKING ABOUT DRUGS, HE IS NOT TRYING TO ROOFIE HER

THE SONG IS TALKING ABOUT ALCOHOL

but still a pushy song

historical reminder that the reason pina coladas and pink squirrels are known as “girly drinks” is because they mask the taste of alcohol and men were know to give women these drinks without informing them that they were alcoholic. It takes a couple of drinks to realize you’ve been consuming alcohol and by then you’re more susceptible to suggestion, making it easier for him to convince you to stick around and have a third drink. When this song was written in 1944 most women didn’t drink regularly, meaning they had a low tolerance and it would only take 2-3 drinks to get her drunk enough that she wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. This was the 1940s version of being roofied

No no no it was not.

“Hey what’s in this drink” was a stock joke at the time, and the punchline was invariably that there’s actually pretty much nothing in the drink, not even a significant amount of alcohol. 

See, this woman is staying late, unchaperoned, at a dude’s house. In the 1940’s, that’s the kind of thing Good Girls aren’t supposed to do – and she wants people to think she’s a good girl. The woman in the song says outright, multiple times, that what other people will think of her staying is what she’s really concerned about: “the neighbors might think,” “my maiden aunt’s mind is vicious,” “there’s bound to be talk tomorrow.“ But she’s having a really good time, and she wants to stay, and so she is excusing her uncharacteristically bold behavior (either to the guy or to herself) by blaming it on the drink – unaware that the drink is actually really weak, maybe not even alcoholic at all. That’s the joke. That is the standard joke that’s going on when a woman in media from the early-to-mid 20th century says “hey, what’s in this drink?“ It is not a joke about how she’s drunk and about to be raped. It’s a joke about how she’s perfectly sober and about to have awesome consensual sex and use the drink for plausible deniability because she’s living in a society where women aren’t supposed to have sexual agency.

Basically, the song only makes sense in the context of a society in which women are expected to reject men’s advances whether they actually want to or not, and therefore it’s normal and expected for a lady’s gentleman companion to pressure her despite her protests, because he knows she would have to say that whether or not she meant it, and if she really wants to stay she won’t be able to justify doing so unless he offers her an excuse other than “I’m staying because I want to.” (That’s the main theme of the man’s lines in the song, suggesting excuses she can use when people ask later why she spent the night at his house: it was so cold out, there were no cabs available, he simply insisted because he was concerned about my safety in such awful weather, it was perfectly innocent and definitely not about sex at all!) In this particular case, he’s pretty clearly right, because unlike in Blurred Lines, the woman actually has a voice, and she’s using it to give all the culturally-understood signals that she actually does want to stay but can’t say so. She states explicitly that she’s resisting because she’s supposedto, not because she wants to: “I ought to say no no no…" She states explicitly that she’s just putting up a token resistance so she’ll be able to claim later that she did what’s expected of a decent woman in this situation: “at least I’m gonna say that I tried.” And at the end of the song they’re singing together, in harmony, because they’re both on the same page and they have been all along.

So it’s not actually a song about rape – in fact it’s a song about a woman finding a way to exercise sexual agency in a patriarchal society designed to stop her from doing so. But it’s also, at the same time, one of the best illustrations of rape culture that pop culture has ever produced. It’s a song about a society where women aren’t allowed to say yes…which happens to mean it’s also a society where women don’t have a clear and unambiguous way to say no.

Reblogging for that last bit because this is what I rant about to Kellie every time this discourse happens on my blog but I’m too lazy to type it out. SO thank you to @dangerwaffle for not being as lazy as me. This song has a cultural context, and a historical context, and it’s worth talking about how fucked up that context is, but you have to get WHICH context it is right first.

I see the Annual Discourse has been reblogged, it is Christmas in fact an deed

broke: tracking christmas by calendar date

joke: tracking christmas by christmas song google searches

woke: tracking christmas by baby it’s cold outside discourse

missusalmighty:

pantheris:

rattlecat:

rikkipoynter:

digg:

this tip tho!!!!!!!!

I need to try this for trips I only bring a carry-on to.

I use to do this all the time in the military. Just forgot how to over time o.o

I wish I’d known about this when I was homeless.

I could’ve taught it to all the other ladies at the shelter and Darlene could’ve sucked a sour one because she never would have been able to bitch at us for “having too many clothes.”

reblogging this to have it forever because holy god damn

psa to people who menstruate

burnslikeabluedream:

oopsabird:

deadcatwithaflamethrower:

fozmeadows:

– The reason you get extra hungry before and during your period is because your body is physically burning more calories, sometimes as many as 300 more per day for the duration of your period, with an elevated BMR (base metabolic rate) in the days before it starts. So no, you’re not being weird or gross or undisciplined if you want to eat a bunch of chocolate – your body is just burning the same amount of calories you’d expend in 25 minutes on a crosstrainer to shed your uterine lining. 

– This is especially important to remember if you’re already, for whatever reason, eating fewer calories per day than it takes to maintain your current weight, which is about 2000 for an adult, though it can be dangerous to have much less than 1300 per day. Think of it like this: if you’re eating 1600 calories a day out of a potential healthy 2000, and your body suddenly wants an extra 300, you’re not craving 1900, but 2300, which is the difference between wanting a chocolate bar and a slice of toast, and wanting an entire extra meal. So, I say again: DO NOT feel bad about wanting to eat more during your period. Your body is working hard, and needs fuel!

–  Paradoxically, despite the rate at which you’re burning calories, you’re also retaining water, which can make you both feel and weigh as heavier. Speaking personally, I’ve noticed my weight fluctuate by as much two kilos (4.5 pounds) before and after a period, rising before and during, then dropping sharply afterwards. So if you’re struggling with body image or weight issues, this is a suboptimal time at which to get on the scales: the result you’ll get will only reflect a temporary reality, not your actual progress, and is therefore unhelpful.

– If, for whatever reason, you’re self-conscious about easing your cramps with a hot water bottle where other people can see it, whether at home or work, consider using a plastic soft drink bottle filled with hot/boiling water. Even if you put it openly on your lap, instead of tucking it under a shirt or into a front hoodie pocket, it will just look like a regular bottle of water, and any relief is better than none!

– No, it’s not weird if you shit more during your period than usual, either. The hormones your body releases that make your uterus to contract and release sometimes end up in the bowel, particularly if you happen to produce a lot of them, which means that bowel contracts and releases, too.

– If anyone tries to make a dumbass sexist joke about your being more [insert stereotypically negative feminine quality here] while on your period, you can tell them that actually, menstruation raises testosterone levels, not oestrogen. (Telling them to go fuck themselves with an angry cactus can also be therapeutic.)

– The cramps and lower back pain often experienced during menstruation, when the uterus expels its contents and your hips shift slightly wider to accommodate it, are a microcosm of what happens during actual labour. So yeah: it can hurt!

– That being said, we’ve culturally accepted the idea of massive period pain as normative to such an extent that many people don’t realise their pain is a sign that something’s wrong. Despite how common they are, a lot of conditions like PCOS and endometriosis are poorly understood in terms of their etiology, which means it can be hard to get an accurate diagnosis. But if your periods regularly have you screaming, vomiting or totally incapacitated, get checked out: you shouldn’t have to just shut up and endure because it’s ‘meant’ to feel like that. It’s not, and there are ways to manage it.

– As well as being a form of birth control, you can take the pill to control or stop your period. When used to prevent menstruation, the pill tricks the body into thinking you’re already pregnant, which stalls your cycle (and stops you from actually getting pregnant). Though some people worry that it’s unnatural not to menstruate for long periods of time, or for your body to ‘feel’ pregnant for so long, it’s also important to remember that, after an actual pregnancy, especially if you breastfeed, your period won’t resume right away. This is called 

lactational amenorrhea, which can work as a form (though not, I hasten to add, a 100% reliable form) of natural birth control. Basically, it means your body is focussed on producing milk for an existing child, such that you can’t easily conceive another one until the first child is weaned. While this varies from person to person, the important thing to remember is that there’s ample biological precedent for stopping menstruation for long periods of time whether you’re pregnant or not, and that choosing to do so via the pill doesn’t make you unnatural, nor does it cause your body to do something it otherwise wouldn’t or couldn’t. 

In conclusion: periods suck, but knowing how and why they work and how best to manage them can make them suck slightly less. So go ye forth, and be educated!

As someone who had to have a uterus removed for severe endometriosis, I will always reblog this sort of information. Don’t sit and endure, and don’t listen to the twatwaffles who insist that the pain is normal or you’re just overreacting. It isn’t just in your head and you are in legitimate pain.

Also!!!! From personal experience: if you find you get really unbearably tired/physically exhausted and depressed for no discernible reason right before/during the heaviest part of of your period, consider asking your doctor about getting your blood checked!!

I assumed for years that being exhausted and depressed to the point of barely being able to move from bed or focus on anything during my period was just part of the normal suffering, and then when I mentioned it to my doctor while troubleshooting for possible depression she said “Hmm… that’s uh, not normal.” and made me get a test to check for blood disorders. Turns out my blood iron levels were at like, critical rock-bottom (aka I now had severe anemia) due to me having pretty heavy periods for such a small person! I was basically living a week of my life every month like a person dying of severe blood loss, exhausted because my cells weren’t getting the oxygen they needed to make energy. She said it probably had been that way for a long while and getting worse over time, and I had no idea, because nobody in health class or anywhere else had ever told me it was a thing that might happen!

Trying to get birth control sorted out such that it minimizes/eliminates my period is still a work in progress, but in the meantime I’ve also been on (relatively inexpensive, like $10 buys 105 of them) daily over-the-counter oral iron supplements which in six months brought my blood back to healthy iron levels and allowed me to function with something more like a normal human level of energy again, no matter what time of the month it is!

If your period is causing side effects that are severely interfering with your ability to live your life, even if you think that might be “normal” please talk to a healthcare expert about it if you can! There are more options to help with this stuff than you might think, and way way more layers to the subject than anyone ever taught you in middle school sex ed.

If your period makes you bonkers-over-Yonkers crazy, you might have PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder).

If you have bipolar, PMDD might trigger depressive OR manic episodes.

If you have PCOS or amenorrhea or really really infrequent periods, it’s important to get them semi regularly or not at all in a way your lining doesn’t build up. Lining buildup can cause cancer later on in life. Options that have been presented to me are birth control, a hormonal IUD and a 10-day progesterone regiment that induces it every three months.

The PCOS-PMDD-bipolar trifecta makes it really difficult to manage and if I figure something out I’ll let y’all know.

I’m not a doctor, by the way. I just deal with a lot of period hell.