maybe it’s just the lesbianism but over the course of the last few months, as ive grown more secure and more at home in my sexuality, ive found increasingly that the things i like most about women are the things society hates most about us. i like our muscles. i like our bellies and the way the skin folds on the stomach. i like our shoulders, wide and strong, or small and weak. i like strong jaws and confident eyes and loud voices. i like obnoxious laughs that snort and chortle and fill the whole room with bubbles that snap and pop like bubblegum let loose. i like strength, i like a woman who takes up space, who spreads her legs and stomps her feet and grins toothily at her friends. i like a woman with dimples. i like a woman with freckles and blemishes and acne scars, with stretch marks and hairy legs and curves where they don’t like them and straight lines where they do. i like a bony girl, i like the way the clavicle looks, i like the gap between the neck and the shoulder, i like the way sunlight catches on the sweat hanging from the peachfuzz on the upper lip…i like a lot of things about women that society told me to hate about us…realizing i was a lesbian revealed to me the beauty in “ugly” things that i had never considered before. none of these traits is something i “work past” when falling for a girl — they are things i love just as much on a woman as society loves a woman’s long hair or perfect curves. the so-called “"imperfections”“ only serve to captivate me more.
as this reaches 3k notes i just wanted to share with everyone some of my favorite tags on this. and yes, i do read literally all of them. these are 12 tags that made my heart sing:
and finally: bi girls, you are so completely allowed to relate to this post. all of us love women as equally and as completely and as fervently as each other, and all of us create little suns every time we fall in love.
FAILED TO NURTURE RELATIONSHIPS BORN OUT OF CONVENIENCE ONCE CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRED ACTIVE PARTICIPATION FROM YOU
WATCHED NETFLIX FOR SEVEN HOURS INSTEAD OF SLEEPING BECAUSE YOU HAVE ONCE AGAIN MISTAKEN INERTIA FOR REST
CONFUSED “SELF-CARE” WITH “SELF-INDULGENCE” AGAIN; YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF EXPERIENCING GENUINE REFRESHMENT OR RESTORATION BUT YOU DO SPEND A LOT OF MONEY AT NAIL SALONS
ONCE AGAIN CONFUSED “EMPATHY” FOR “TAKING RESPONSIBILITY” AND INVITED OTHERS TO UNLOAD THEIR EMOTIONAL BURDENS ON YOU WITHOUT FIRST ENSURING RECIPROCITY, WHOOPS
ANTICIPATORILY BLAMED OTHER PEOPLE FOR NOT CALLING YOU WITHOUT ONCE ASKING YOURSELF WHY YOU CAN’T CALL THEM
ASSUMING ANY TIME SPENT TOGETHER THAT YOU HAD TO INITIATE IS SOMEHOW LESS AUTHENTIC THAN REQUESTS FOR TIME SPENT TOGETHER THAT YOU ACCEPT
BELIEVE “PERIODICALLY EXPERIENCING THE HUMAN CONDITION” MEANS SOMETHING IS FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN WITHIN YOU
CONSTANTLY LIE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS THEN WONDER WHY YOU FEEL LIKE NO ONE KNOWS YOU
MISTAKENLY BELIEVE THAT NEGATIVE FEELINGS MUST BE MISTAKES EITHER TO BE AVOIDED OR FIXED RATHER THAN EXPERIENCED
DESIRE TO BE FULLY UNDERSTOOD WITHOUT THE CONCOMITANT WILLINGNESS TO FULLY EXPLAIN YOURSELF
BELIEVE TRYING AT SOMETHING A LITTLE BIT SHOULD RESULT IN INSTANT PERFECTION AND FIND YOURSELF HORRIFIED AND ASHAMED OF MAKING REALISTIC PROGRESS
TRY COCONUT OIL
CONVINCED THAT HONESTLY ADMITTING YOUR PROBLEMS WILL DRIVE PEOPLE AWAY BECAUSE NO ONE LIKES COMPLAINING SO INSTEAD YOU OFFER EVERYONE A PISS-POOR SIMULACRUM OF BEING EASY-GOING
STILL JUST WAITING FOR THINGS TO HAPPEN TO YOU INSTEAD OF EXPRESSING YOUR DESIRES ALOUD
THINK YOU’RE BEING PLAYFUL BUT ACTUALLY YOU JUST GET MEAN WHEN YOU DRINK
SPEND ALL YOUR TIME SAYING THINGS LIKE “EITHER’S GOOD” OR “DOESN’T MATTER TO ME” WHEN IN FACT ONLY ONE THING IS GOOD AND IT DOES MATTER TO YOU BUT YOU THINK “NOT EXPRESSING A PREFERENCE” IS THE BEST PERSONALITY TRAIT YOU HAVE TO OFFER OTHERS
PEOPLE ACTUALLY MORE AWARE OF YOUR BARELY-CONCEALED CONTEMPT FOR THEIR CHOICES AND RELATIONSHIPS THAN YOU THINK THEY ARE
speak nicely to yourself! it makes a world of difference.
ok but how
any time you get a negative thought about yourself, cut it off completely and, if you can, contradict it. for example, if i start to think “i’m so ugly”, i should try to cut it off and say something like “no i’m not, beauty is subjective, i’m beautiful if i say i’m beautiful”. it sounds very corny, but it works.
if you can’t say something nice about yourself (and i totally get not being able to do that bc the bad thoughts are just too loud), change the subject of your thoughts to something positive. so, using the above example, if i start to think “i’m so ugly”, i could just cut the thought off and say “no. it’s so sunny and nice outside today!” or “no. that dog on the sidewalk is cute!” or “no. i don’t have homework today!” or any number of other positive things.
i often have to cut the bad thought off with a firm, decisive “no”. you have to make a decision to be kind to yourself and stick to it.
DO NOT make self-deprecating jokes. you might say “but it’s a joke!” and while that’s true, it does mess up your self-esteem if you do it regularly. it has happened to me and i am still recovering. please, even when kidding, don’t put yourself down, bc if you hear it enough, you’ll start to believe it. (i’m so serious about not doing this bc it’s a really sneaky method of ruining your self-esteem, and people often don’t realize it has a negative impact on them when they do it.)
to supplement all the things you can do for yourself, also make sure you’re surrounding yourself with people who love you and encourage you to treat yourself kindly. friendly teasing is fine (i do it to my friends often), but make sure your friends are receptive to you and what you need at any given moment, and that they’re aware of the line between friendly teasing and being mean.
Cool subtle pride gear – these designs with the meanings behind the original gay pride flag on them! Threadless added this cool new t-shirt style (left) that I love so you should totally get one for pride month…. 30% of the profit goes to the artist which is far more than society6 and redbubble!!
Perhaps one reason why it takes some people a long time to realize that they’re not straight is because conventional beauty standards about what is “hot” and “not hot” just don’t always resonate with them.
You could show me an image of the Sexiest Woman in the World as voted by all straight cis dudes in the world and I might think she’s pretty. I guess. Maybe if I got to know her as a person, I would see the appeal… but she’s not really doing it for me right now.
If you’re not attracted to this walking talking Aphrodite, this ideal of a woman, you must not be attracted to girls, right?
Anyway, maybe eventually you realize that your tastes just don’t match up to conventions – at least not heterosexual conventions. Maybe traits that general, straight society maligns as “ugly” are actually really appealing to you.
Or maybe it’s as simple as realizing you’ve just… never actually been the intended target of a narrative of attraction. Commercialized sexuality hasn’t been created with you in mind – or if it has, it’s meant to cater to straight people at the same time.
“At some point growing stopped being painful and started to become interesting. I’m so curious about the girl punching her way out of me: dirt under her fingernails, lightning in her eyes.
St. Jude has never been called upon to save her. She looks like she has smashed into starlight
and I am probably in love with her. I have always avoided knowledge of myself, documentation of my growth. I am not accomplished at looking back over myself like a sprawling landscape. There are certain things that I am aware I must have lived
through but I don’t remember the emergence of this girl. I couldn’t tell you what circumstances shaped her. Maybe none. Maybe she was just biding her time, like people so often do. I never know what she is going to do next;
the hair she will cut off without a moment’s thought, the notes she will leave behind in coffee shops wishing the barista a lovely day. She wants to read everything, know the story of how her parents fell in love, follow the lines of her blood back to the other side of the continent. She holds certain convictions firmly in her hand, like religion: you must always have a fresh bunch of flowers in your bedroom, you must allow yourself to outgrow and depart from certain eras of your life with a gentle sort of
ruthlessness, you must learn to recognise important poetry.
I follow her rules. I find that I like them. This girl of the earth, with her knowledge of full moons and fists full of survival stories, is going to change everything. ‘Don’t go,’ I tell her. ‘I will follow you anywhere.’”
take time to figure it out 