I’ve seen posts floating around asking for people to forget making “heterosexual passing couples” comfortable at Pride and instead focus on keeping Black and Brown trans and gender non-conforming people safe.
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Boricua Pride
Fuck Your Flag
My kid doesn’t stand up for nor recites the Pledge of Allegiance. They tell me their teacher says they should “respect the flag because people died for it.”
Here’s a pic of my boobies
Resiste, Boricua
A quick (for me) drawing dedicated to Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans, on the island and the Diaspora.
Life After Domestic Violence
CN: description of r*pe, uncensored use of that word, domestic violence, violations of privacy, coercion.
Heed the content notice, while this post ends on a positive note, the bulk of it is tough and potentially triggering. Please take your time and take a break if you need to.
Mandesty Monday: Aussie Edition
Brave Mandesty reader CS informed me of this ridiculous display. You thought the Outback with its weird and wild creatures was scary? Well just feast your eyes on this!
For 24 years the Not-So-Wonderful Land of Oz has published a slutty firefighters calendar. This year there are three versions; slutty firefighters posing with wild animals, puppies, and just themselves. The proceeds got to children’s charity.
Save the children! But the fine print sells your soul.
This isn’t the first time firefighters are featured here. Nor is it the first or even the 5th time that I’ve talked about animals being exposed to such sinful flesh.
EMERGENCY HELP NEEDED
A good friend of mine has family in Puerto Rico, specifically a brother and her grandmother. For days now she has been trying to get in contact with them to find out if they made it through the terrible hurricane that hit them just recently. For over a week she hasn’t been able to reach them, but finally she managed to get through.
Her family survived the hurricane, but her grandmother was injured in a fall. She broke her hip. Usually such news isn’t terrifying. The surgery needed to fix it is pretty routine HOWEVER because of the hurricane, the surrounding area has no power, intermittent running water, and many areas are running out of food. The hospital doesn’t have enough power in the generator to complete the surgery and they are trying desperately to have her moved to a larger metropolitan hospital a few hours away.
My friend HAS to get to Puerto Rico. Her brother cannot handle everything on his own, especially because of the devastation from the hurricane, while also trying to help with arranging the transfer of their grandmother from one hospital to another while so many emergency resources are currently otherwise occupied.
Areas that are not known tourist destinations are also struggling quite severely and not receiving the same attention as San Juan. Many people are running out of food with little to no ability to purchase more either due to poverty or just it being unavailable. Any help being sent will go specifically to helping send this friend to Puerto Rico and supplying people in the area with what they need to survive.
PLEASE! If you cannot donate, share this fundraiser directly from the site as far and wide as you can. Please help make sure that the hurricane doesn’t do more damage than it already has.
Grace & Frankie: Nick is a Creep
Netflix’s original series Grace & Frankie returned for it’s third season March 24th. I love this program. However, a plot point which begins towards the end of the latest season bothered me and I needed to write this.
Spoilers ahead, content note for stalking and manipulation
Episode 11, The Other Vibrator
Grace and Frankie now have their own company, Vybrant, and they’ve launched a vibrator made specifically for older women.
They discover another company , Onmi Tech, has stolen their idea. They send a cease-and-desist letter via their lawyer and then have a meeting with the other company’s legal team. It’s during this meeting that the head of the company, Nick, spots Grace. He immediately walks into the meeting.
The whole time he’s in the meeting, he doesn’t take his eyes off Grace, to the point that even when he’s responding to Frankie, he only looks at Grace. He’s told why the meeting is taking place and proceeds to kick out his legal team (which by the way, includes his own son). Grace dismisses her lawyer as well. Grace can already tell this man is interested in her and her intent seems to play this to her advantage. Which, I can get behind. Nick is the type of man who likes to feel powerful and have his ego stroked. If Grace can use her “feminine wiles” to save her company, then by all means. There’s some flirtation and Frankie’s attempts to also be a part of the conversation, which honestly save the whole scene. Otherwise this is a very run of the mill cis hets being bland. Nick suggests he and Grace go to dinner so he can “make this all go away”. Frankie however sees what’s going on.
Frankie tells Nick they’ll sue him. He says, “Ok, I’ll see you in court”. He turns to Grace and says, “At least I’ll get to see you again.”
Episode 13, The Sign (Episode 12, focuses on Sol and Robert which is why I’m skipping it)
In this episode the women is served cease-and-desist papers from Omni Tech.
Later in the episode, Grace is on the phone with Nick. And well, see for yourself:
Grace: Are you kidding me? You can’t sue us! It was our idea!
Nick: Grace, you said you were gonna sue me, but I never heard from you.
What’s a guy got to do to get your attention?
Grace: You’re suing me so you can see me?
Nick: I’m being proactive, one of the things you like about me.
Grace: [scoffs] There is nothing I like about you.
Nick: Oh, come on, it’s cute. I’m a scamp.
Grace: Oh, stop. This is not a game to me. We built Vybrant from nothing in our 70s. And it was just starting to take off. And not filling orders is not good for business. And if you think that I’m going down without a fight, you’re not as smart as you look.
Nick: You think I look smart?
Grace: What is wrong with you?
And scene! (emphasis mine)
So, what do we see here? Nick used the legal system to get a hold of Grace. She and her new company are vulnerable and he knows this. He dismisses her very legitimate concerns by laughing it off. He tries to gaslight her by making it seem like she is the one who likes him, he’s doing this for her, really. This is a joke to him. Like Grace said, she and Frankie built their company in their 70’s. If you’re familiar with the show, you know they’ve dealt with the topic of ageism and how society views (or doesn’t) women over a certain age. This is clearly a way to manipulate Grace. He’s counting on the fact that as an older woman, she’ll feel like she can’t say no.
Later in the episode, Nick shows up at the house, comes in even though Grace never invited him in. Grace tells him Frankie has had a stroke, he shows concern for a second and then it’s back to pressuring Grace to go out with him.
Again, emphasis mine:
Grace: Would you stop playing games with me? Things are hard enough right now.
I can’t even work because of your cease-and-desist.
Nick: I just wanted to see you. Look, Grace, my original offer still stands. Have dinner with me. One little dinner. I’ll drop our vibrator, nobody sues anybody, and we all go on with our lives.
Grace: And what do you expect to get out of this dinner that will never happen?
Nick: Nothing untoward. I want us to get to know each other. Come on one dinner.
Grace: That’s all I’d have to do and you’d drop everything? Stay out of my business? My life?
Nick: Yes.
Then there’s a back and forth about what type of meal, where it’ll be, how they’ll get there, even what they’ll eat. I’m sure it’s meant to be cute. It’s meant to show that Grace isn’t easy and just look at how hard poor Nick has to work to get a simple date with Grace.
After shaking hands on the “deal”:
Grace: Why are we doing this?
Nick: Because I can’t get you out of my head.
Grace: Then you should get a new head.
Nick: I would, but I have great hair.
See? He’s so funny. How very charming.
The “Date”:
Grace arrives and brings along paper work for Nick to sign saying he won’t pursue the lawsuit. Once that matter is settled, Grace begins to tell Nick about herself in a very disinterested tone. Nick offers her alcohol which she at first refuses because “pre-late lunch drinks” had “not been negotiated”. Nick then says he’ll have “to pour out this extremely dry martini with olives flown in this morning all the way from Spain”. Again, if you’ve watched the show, you’ll know a dry martini is Grace’s drink of choice. She asks how he knew that.
Nick: Because I did a little research on you.
Grace: That’s terrifying.
Nick: I got the lowdown on Say Grace.
Grace: Oh, did you?
Nick: Solid growth ten quarters in a row, despite the beauty market’s volatility.
Grace: Well, it’s 11 quarters, but who’s counting?
Nick: We are. It’s so us.
From the beginning, Grace has been rightfully upset about Nick’s behavior. She correctly identifies that his STALKING is indeed terrifying. After another charming obnoxious back and forth:
Nick: If you’re an expert, explain them to me.
Grace: Oh, God, no. I am a nightmare when it comes to relationships.
Nick: Yeah, well, I read that in the research.
Grace: Where are we going? There’s no restaurants out here.
Nick: We never said “restaurant,” we said “food”. I’m meeting all the criteria of our negotiation.
So, we know that Nick is aware of Grace’s past with Robert. He knows she’ll be hesitant to start anything with him or anyone, so he’ll be prepared to use whatever he can to get her to do whatever he wants. He has so far.
I wish Nick wasn’t in this show. His character is gross, a creep who doesn’t respect boundaries and who is willing to use the legal system to bully Grace. This isn’t cute. It isn’t romantic. It’s stalking, manipulation and abusive. This plot line is extremely common, all you need is to look at the synopsis of any “romantic” movie
But just because it’s common doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t speak up about it. I am hoping next season won’t involve Nick but I know better. I just hope I’m proved wrong, because I love this show and I’d hate to have to quit it, but I will if it comes to that.
What Narcissists Taught Me about Talking to Allistic People
In case you’ve been in a beautiful fantasy world for the past few years, I have a sad truth to report: the world is, just, full of allistic people. Not only that, but despite their comically overstated deficiencies at staying organized, attaining intense mastery of niche topics, and being at all bearable to be around, they control almost everything. Learning how to deal with their bizarre needs is a necessary life skill for the rest of us, and I came to learn what I have about how they operate from a still more noisome source: narcissistic, emotionally abusive parents.
Continue reading “What Narcissists Taught Me about Talking to Allistic People”