Also.Also.Also: Is Celery the Reason You’re a Lesbian?

Hi how was your weekend!? I spent mine trying super hard not to work, because I really think in order to do your best at work, you should only work at work, and then spend your off time — especially if it’s limited — being OFF. It mostly worked! I baked a loaf of oatmeal wheat bread and organized an upstairs bookshelf. I also dreamed that a beautiful brown rabbit was born under a cloche on our dining room table and I was so excited that it had chosen us to live with. Maybe if you’re feeling down today, you can think, “How would I feel if a) I had a large cloche on my dining table and b) a sizable walnut brown rabbit with implied magical abilities was born inside it one night?” And I think you’ll find that your spirits will pick right up! Really though, what is life like with a large cloche? I do not know.

You Should Go or Do or Give

+ So Killjoy Fest is this week in East Vancouver! It’s designed mostly for queer, trans, and intersex people who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color, will include a discussion about deaf people of color, and honestly seems like a fucking amazing situation. If you’re part of the audience that this fest is aimed at and you’re in East Vancouver or anywhere nearby, you should probably go!

Queer as in F*ck You

+ LGBT Olympic Soccer Players Surprised to Hear Homophobic Chant.

+ Yes, Editing Two Women Kissing Out of a Movie is Problematic.

+ Gaycation to Air Special Episode on Orlando Shooting.

+ Hannah Hart is Having Fun with Seth Rogen.

+ Being They: God and Nonbinary Gender.

+ Seven Bizarre Theories on What Causes Lesbianism.

+ Methodist Church Reverend Removed from the Pulpit After Declaring She’s a Lesbian.

+ This week in Not Gonna Link It: “Why I support the idea of a Heterosexual Pride Day” ! Aaaaah just grab a tea and maybe a cookie and be glad you didn’t read that.

Doll Parts

+ The Internet of Dead Girls.

+ Leslie Jones is the Olympics Commentator the World Desperately Needs.

+ Look Back on These 10 Olympic Milestones for Women

+ Preorder your deck of Woman Cards.

+ New Study Examines How Weed and Alcohol Affect Your Sex Life.

+ Furious Mother ‘Squirted Her Boob’ at Woman Who Told Her to Move Because Her Breastfeeding Was Distracting Her Husband. I mean, the title alone.

Saw This, Thought of You

+ On that Stranger Things beat! Read this Interview with Winona Ryder and Millie Bobby Brown and Sing Along With the Theme Song and then:

And for the Heather Hogans among us: Stranger Things for Wimps.

+ Make Your Monopoly Board Harry Potter Themed.

And Finally

Here is the Muppet Band, Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem, playing Outside Lands, in case you weren’t already wallowing in jealousy because you didn’t go.

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lnj

lnj has written 310 articles for us.

33 Comments

  1. I haven’t watched the Gaycation Orlando trailer (yet) because just seeing Ellen Page’s facial expression suggests I’m going to shed some tears over this one . . .

  2. Should have listened to you about that article you didn’t want to link. The comments are no fun either. I also wonder if this author wandered into a radfem den and didn’t realise where she was?

    • Yeah my thoughts exactly. That experience did not necessitate the writing of this article…but it’s all about that clickbait.

    • I think one person who commented on that article put it pretty well–straight people who advocate for straight pride events seem like they have the constant worry that somewhere, somebody is having more fun than they are. It’s like they feel left out, although I don’t think anyone is chomping at the bit to be regularly harassed the way queer people everywhere are.

    • AHAH I was actually just reacting to the very same article on 7 bizarre theories of lesbianism that Carolyn gave us on NSFW Sunday.

  4. I couldn’t decide if Seth Rogan’s new movie was going to be worth it, but I think Salma Hayek as a sexy taco swayed me.

  6. i really want to read that stranger things for wimps article–opening scene of ghostbusters and i’m like wait a second what am i doing here this is too scary, but i hate spoilers. plus even when i know what’s coming, it’s mostly the scary music and jump scare factor that do me in. i dunnoooo.

    • This is me too! All it takes is a good scare chord on the soundtrack and I am cowering under the couch.

      I was regularly terrified out of my mind by Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1–you know, the one where they barely have enough duct tape to keep the sets upright–because I have a good imagination and am very suggestible.

      • YES i am glad i’m not the only one scared by buffy despite the fact that it is ridiculous and silly and not scary

    • I am a bona fide scaredy cat who is curious about all the Stranger Things hype, so I read the article and the spoilers were really very minimal. Nothing important, I don’t think.

  8. Thanks for the pointer to “Being They.” Gotta love the sudden appearance of Karl Barth in a smart discussion of non-binary identity.

  9. I love that the 7 bizarre theories of lesbianism article draws the 1st three from Sahar Amer’s wonderful article “Medieval Arab Lesbians and Lesbian-Like Women”! I suspected it as soon as I saw the headline about celery…

    But Amer also makes the points that doctors in the medieval Islamicate world saw lesbianism as a lifelong incurable condition–having sex with women is literally the only treatment that will help that darn vaginal itching, which happens because your mom or wet-nurse ate too much celery or argula while you were nursing–and that it wasn’t consistently or severely punished (unlike a woman having sex with a man she wasn’t married to, which was a big deal). Yes, it’s yet another example of blaming homosexuality on mothers doing something wrong, but in the larger context it feels much more benign than a lot of later examples.

    And yes, the Romans thought your sexual orientation (and they had at least a dozen options, way more than us, because they thought attractions to people of different social classes were as big a deal as attractions to different sexes) was set by your horoscope. But I wish the author had cited Bernadette Brooten’s excellent research on that topic, because she’s great at showing how deeply deeply sexist the entire structure of those horoscopes were.

  12. The funniest part of the 7 Bizarre Theories article to me is that the cover photo is two people of unknown gender identity cosplaying two men from Attack On Titan. I expected the article to then list “degeneracy related to an obsession with gay anime men” or something, but it doesn’t explain the cover photo ever.

    “degeneracy related to gay anime men” is exactly what “turned” me into a lesbian though, so that would’ve been right at home.

  14. Leslie Jones can commentate for all sporting events from now on as far as I’m concerned! She said recently that America needs to get its release from laughter instead of anger in order to fix the political situation, which I’m preeetty sure means she gets a place in Hillary’s cabinet after the election.

  16. Thanks laneia, I looked up cloche and learned something new! I’ve only ever called it a “dessert tray cake thing,” which is CRIMINAL.

  17. I re-watched Carol on a Delta flight a few weeks ago, and they did edit out all the kissing! At the time I couldn’t remember if there had been any kissing outside of the sex scene. A less-than-astude viewer of the Delta version could have gotten all the way through the movie without knowing the two characters were lovers.

  18. Once upon time in my days of youthful experimentation I did dumb thing and can confirm that celery does indeed cause itching in the nether regions.
    Just not in the way or process the good 9th century Assyrian doctor suggested.
    <.<

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