Extremely important update: I conducted a vigorous detective search into whether this painting depicted a wizard turning a lizard into a unicorn or the other way around, unicorn into lizard, OR if it was just some strange unicorn-headed lizard beast. This was clearly the most important issue of the week. The painting was used as cover art for an Advanced Dungeon and Dragons 2.0 module called “Wizard’s Challenge”… which had nothing to do with this picture. No unicorns whatsoever. It seemed like I hit a dead-end but I actually managed to track down the artist, Erik Olson’s, email and decided why not ask. He was very nice and sent me a folder of images of his paintings from that time period, all of which are stupendous but here are a couple:
And here is the answer!
It’s a poor innocent lizard being turned into a unicorn! Case closed.
I know ive discussed it before but. blind sex positivity is counter productive. telling girls to have sex can be equally as harmful as telling girls to be ashamed of sex. especially 20+ year old women talking about “sex positivity” to 15, 16 year old girls. even if you mean well, it can be harmful
this sounds anti-feminist so let me rephrase. the normalization of female sexuality is so so so important and a huge step in the right direction when done correctly. in a perfect world nobody would be ashamed of their sexual history or their sex lives. but that’s not how it is, and when i was fourteen or fifteen, even sixteen, i was force fed this idea that sex was empowering, and it got me into sexual situations that were consensual but still traumatizing because i was too young and too unprepared to handle them. i am ashamed of it. i live with that shame still. sex positivity is important. it is vital. but putting “be a slut, do what you want” over pastel backgrounds and encouraging girls to be a Ho or whatever isn’t doing shit. we need to teach girls how to know when they’re ready and have knowledge of how to handle situations. we need to give girls a safe way to own their sexuality. we need to teach and guide girls to make safe and educated decisions about sex. we need to teach girls that while there is nothing wrong with having sex, there are repercussions. we need to fucking protect girls
I think people always equate the pressure for women to be skinny with the pressure for men to be fit is because everyone falsely assumes skinny = automatically healthy.
This is comparing apples to oranges. On one hand, society encourages men to maintain their health, be fit, and be muscular, while on the other hand, society is encouraging women to hate their bodies to the point of starvation and death.
At this point a study conducted by the University of North Carolina estimated that 75% of women have disordered eating habits and an unhealthy relationship to food.
By age 6, girls especially start to express concerns about their own
weight or shape. 40-60% of elementary school girls (ages 6-12) are
concerned about their weight or about becoming too fat. This concern
endures through life (Smolak, 2011).
From the National Eating Disorder Association:
The rate of development of new cases of eating disorders has been
increasing since 1950 (Hudson et al., 2007; Streigel-Moore &Franko,
2003; Wade et al., 2011).
There has been a rise in incidence of anorexia in young women 15-19 in each decade since 1930 (Hoek& van Hoeken, 2003).
The incidence of bulimia in 10-39 year old women TRIPLED between 1988 and 1993 (Hoek& van Hoeken, 2003).
Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
For females between fifteen to twenty-four years old who suffer from
anorexia nervosa, the mortality rate associated with the illness is
twelve times higher than the death rate of all other causes of death
(Sullivan, 1995).
And for people to compare pressure to work out, to eat healthy and a ton of calories in order to sustain work outs, and to have bodies that are fit, it’s absolutely not the same and a totally disgusting comparison to say that men and women both face equal pressure in regards to appearance.
