Lesbianism in Victorian England

In Victorian England, terms such as lesbian and sapphic came into use for female relationships. For some time, the Victorians never seemed to consider criminalising female homosexuality.

Apocryphally, these were also due to be criminalised in the 1885 legislation know as the Labouchere Amendment, until Queen Victoria declared them impossible, whereupon the clause was omitted – a joke that serves to underline a common, and commonly welcomed, ignorance, at a time when lurid, fictionalised lesbianism was often figured as an especially repulsive and seductive French vice.

“The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you’ve just told them.” – Rachel Maddow

One of the first people to break the amendment was Oscar Wilde. The judge sentenced him to two years hard labour, although he wished he could punish him even more saying that, “this is the worst case I have ever tried.” A week earlier, the same judge tried a case of child murder.

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Almost any domestic cat can run faster than Usain Bolt.

According to a 2015 poll conducted by Public Policy Polling, 30% of Republicans polled in favour of bombing the fictional city of Agrabah, featured in Disney’s Aladdin (1992).

Kali is the Hindu goddess of death, violence, sexuality and, motherly love.

In 2015, there were more days with a mass shooting than days without a mass shooting in the United States.

The Moon has earthquakes that last for up to 10 minutes. Because the Moon is so dry and dense, they earthquakes it vibrate like a tuning fork.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

Forced Anal Exams

In the last five years, forced anal examinations on men and transgender women accused of consensual same-sex relations have been reported in Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uganda, and Zambia. These examinations have the purported objective of finding ‘proof of homosexuality’.

Needless to say, this treatment is not only a cruel, inhuman, and degrading practice that may in some cases amount to torture, it also of no evidentiary value since these exams are rooted in discredited 19^th century theories that (male) homosexuals can be identified by the tone of the anal sphincter.

– Courtesy of hrw.org (Human Rights Watch)

“The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese, and that in erotic terms is the Catholic Church in a nutshell.” – Stephen Fry

Conversations: Orlando

Helena
There is every reason to assume that, in a period of time leading up to the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, the perpetrator was dealing with severe feelings of repression and rejection from both men and women. In time, these feelings were converted into anger, which he then directed specifically at homosexual men, culminating in the shooting of 102 people, of which 49 were killed. Although we know the he was not aided by a terrorist organisation, it is obvious that, in the weeks leading up to the shooting, the perpetrator found comfort in hate-driven dogma which not only intensified his anger, but also justified violence. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the perpetrator must have been filled with confused anger and pious indignation when he legally purchased a semi-automatic assault rifle two weeks before the shooting. Can the reasonable worries expressed by reasonable people be any more graphically illustrated by the events that followed?

Repression From Desire

Nothing optional—from homosexuality to adultery—is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishments) have a repressed desire to participate.[1]

Shakespeare touched upon this phenomenon in King Lear, when Lear reproaches the policeman who is whipping a prostitute because of his lust for her company:

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore?
Strip thine own back;
Thou hotly lust’st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp’st her.
– King Lear (Act 4, Scene 6)

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A one-year-old baby is 30% fat.

The Latin for New Netherland was Novum Belgium; its seal depicted a giant beaver.

Lionesses will sometimes have sex 50 times a day, although each session only lasts 10 seconds. About 8% of all lion sex is gay.

When temperatures drop below 55 degrees centigrade, exhaled breath freezes immediately. Siberians call this phenomenon the ‘whisper of the stars’.

Peter Viggers, Conservative MP for Gosport, claimed over £30,000 of taxpayer’s money as gardening expenses. He built a £1,645 ‘Duck Palace’.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

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In 1933, Mussolini met 93 mothers at the Palazzo Venezia who had produced over 1300 children – an average of 13 each.

The largest vein of gold ever discovered is in Antarctica, but international law prohibits mining on the continent.

It is held that Plato had five wives and a lifelong male companion.

Ants can survive in a microwave: they are small enough to dodge the rays.

The Italian town of Viganella gets no direct sunlight for about seven weeks each winter.  In order to solve this problem, in 2006, a computer controlled mirror was installed which is approximately 25 feet by 15 feet.  The mirror is controlled such  that it reflects sunlight into the town’s main city square during the day time.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

Gynemimetophilia

In sexology, there are numerous terms for the attraction to transgender people. The most common variety is the attraction of men who identify themselves as straight or bisexual to transgender women; in the academic world, these men are often (rather originally) referred to as men sexually interested in transwomen (MSTW). This phenomenon is known as gynemimetophilia:

‘Gynemimesis is a subtype of gender transposition or gender dysphoria in which a person with male anatomy and morphology lives in society as a woman without genital sex-reassignment surgery, and with or without taking female sex-hormonal therapy. The lover of such a person is a gynemimetophile. The corresponding terms that apply to the female are andromimesis and andromimetophile. In most large cities of the West there exists an unnamed gynemimetic community that corresponds to the social institution of hijras in India and xanith in Oman.’

– Weinberg, M. S.; Williams, C. J. (2010). “Men Sexually Interested in Transwomen (MSTW): Gendered Embodiment and the Construction of Sexual Desire”. Journal of Sex Research 47 (4)