Culture wars on Tumblr

Sometimes between what might be a planned post, something unexpected happens  that changes matters.
I do blog about Scouting for personal reasons and on Tumblr had followed a number of blogs connected with it but had noticed a number seemed to be disappearing.

One I loved by by a user who went under the username Redneckerchief who as far as I was aware was an American who blog about youth movements around the world both from the past and the present day.
He looked at some people like me had political and moral issues without political endorsement such as The Young Pioneers in what was the Soviet Union connected with the Communist Party and then things such as Scouting such as Boy Scouts of America (B.S.A.), GirlScouting and their British parents the Scout Association and Girlguilding UK, posting about and images of members engaged learning useful skills and building up good knowledge that would help the become useful, reliable young people, an asset to their communities.

The username came from the fact all these groups used the neckerchief as a symbol of belonging and all of his posts and comments were very much safe for work, respectful of the young people themselves and not in violation of Tumblr's terms and conditions.
Thus it was a surprise to me to see his account wiped out on Friday when I went to  back up my Scouting Tumblr to blogger which sadly is a must given the arbitrary nature of these things.
The sad thing is they take little action against people who hold despicable material such as child pr0n and yet blogs that are about childhood and often positive about things like boys education, traditional school dress and scouting just get axed.
There are times when I wonder if that sites ultra liberal bias such as summing everyone is a social justice activist fighting for 76 genders, putting gay and transgendered, people on pedestal where being so trumps anything else they do (or have done) supporting extreme climate change demonstrators while allowing anti male posts and memes to be posted has something to do with it.
Are things associated more with traditional social models and gender roles something Tumblr and the Liberals want shut down or at least neutered to comply with the second wave of feminism with its issues with men and stay at home Mums?

Careful!

The pouty look personified for  boy who may of had a bad day or is just fed up of being messed about by the grown ups which I can easily understand as you're sat waiting to let in with your case.
I rather suspect if he was anything like myself he's going to end up with at least the threat of a spanking for it if he doesn't stop on a count of three seconds as it isn't looking good.

Getting it together

Being away got me thinking about something in very much clear cut ways and that's what I'm devoting column space to this week.

One thing that always pissed me off from boyhood was write large in the signage and that was there were three categories of children and even adults, boys, girls and 'disabled' OR later on mens, women's and 'disabled'.

To put it bluntly, the presumption seemed to be that the minute a person had a disability, you also lost your sense of gender identity too as if you acquired a second disability straightaway that while notionally gender neutral in reality was far more feminine like assuming your clothes fastened the same as girls did are your interests were.

You'd struggle to find a Man who'd handle you when it comes dressing, treating you as one of the boys and engaging in male talk with you.

Worst still, even your toilet needs were regarded as female so you never went to the same toilets as boys did, you were always dealt with by females, never men and you had to sit down to go.

I always wanted to piss with the other boys  even if it meant being parked up in the urinals pissing into a bottle, emptying at the urinal and washing my hands in front of every other boy who was pissing too.

That's why I love that sign- it gets it right, disabled boys ARE boys and really facilities like a larger disabled toilet should be in your own genders spaces that you enter like any other boy.

The other thing connected with all of that is how all that plus meddling by various people left me in sense of gender otherness, a malaise when really going back and looking at my more formative years it was more obvious that odd gender untypical interest aside I was very much a boy and happy with and being pushed along other directions had not really done anything for me. 

Quite the opposite actually.

Working from the time I was at asb.org to sorting out old tumblr account to even sorting out an even older music forum account  and just coming out openly as a boy and masculine progress is being made like coming out with the short form of my first name.

That malaise had added own issues like not feeling I could like my own body when you'd been pushed into thinking it wasn't really you.

Well where I was it was a bit hot plus we'd been playing physical games afterward that took my mind a bit to school games and swimming where you'd shower afterwards and in truth I was a bit sweaty.
After all most boys do sweat more by design compared with girls.

After spending a long time disassociating from my body by hiding in a bubble filled bath, decided to take a shower which I wasn't sure over not least for forgetting completely how to use one managed to get it going .

I started to apply the shower gel all over me, torso, legs and intimate parts and then as I looked in the left hand mirror directed the water spray over me as I rubbed into in cleaning myself. 

I made myself look at my body as I worked on my intimate areas rather than averting my eyes realizing I loved my boyish genitalia and it was nothing to feel ashamed over.

I Love what makes me my gender and all it means.

Embracing that and loving myself means no more hiding my gender from anyone and that my sex organs are at core of me.They are me.

Another thing is over the years I have moved much further back in part through the regressive side of me as well as the side dealing all that other mess toward more overtly boyish dress.

It was very obvious during the period I was away, really that is what I feel most comfortable with, it is my second skin as it were not things that made me feel bad about who I really was so anything like that will be going for good from my life.

I feel outside of uniform traditional boys sports shorts and tops is much more in tune with the spirit of what is in me.

I also know I'm a hetrosexual male and this is a good thing so I will stand up for my own sexuality in a sea where only gay or non sexual sexual identities are preferred.

Thoughts from away

The week's been  a bit different for spending time with friends doing things together which to me this whole life is really about rather than just how many times you can put on a uniform or some other outfit because its what you do that brings the sense of being that boy forever out much more I feel.

It is the invoking of the spirit of your boyhood past, what made you 'tick', feeling your whole mind and body was very much alive and allowing that to return to you after years of having to appear grown up but not actually feeling as one with it to being that boy all over again.

Now it is the case not everybody can be living like this all day long because people may have relationships to maintain, jobs to go to that may have dress code restrictions and so on but even spending sometime as that boy reaps dividends

.
As well for reason only known to them Tumblr restored after nine months my original Traditional Schoolboy 2  blog after nuking it in November 2018 which I wrote about on here which I guess is better late than never.
A link to it is Here *

I do need to think through it's medium to long term future because I did in effect replace it even if most the images were not as it was too sudden to have a back up of as having multiple Tumblr accounts is messy.

*  altered 2021 after original account removed to replacement that has most of the posts but was renamed.

Certified disabled

Well this weeks had a few damp patches in it with showers mixed in with sunshine and my Fur Affinity account being down for a about a day and bit due to some computer database thing or other.
In with the good stuff has been one of my Wordpress tumblr backups seems to gathering a following all by itself although I've scarcely promoted it rather like with here actually so I'm kind of pleased by it.
The bigger thing has been to do with an assessment I wrote a little about on here because of some changes about the money I get to help with me deal with my disabilities was changing and I had to apply for a new system.
Well that has finally been sorted  out and I've been given a full award for a long time with little more than brief checking I'm no better than I was at the end of it which is as good as it gets really.
Fun thing was that I was dressed as a adult little boy  in my shorts and that for that assessment which took me back to how bits of this started as a boy being examined , trying to get help for school work as well as help at home as I needed more help than most boys did so when home my folks could have a break and the battle to be accepted as being disabled, sometimes falling through what some people saw it as.
in 2019 an adult little boy of ten mental years is classed as fully disabled.

Moving ahead

This week I took delivery of a traditional laptop as the old one had died which had been used for working on pictures, downloads and making copies of my own music cds and it also was as old as some that malaise I had.

I decided at the outset to make this very much the machine of this boy so the screen saver rather than being some girlish anime series  is one very much of boys and I reviewed and trimmed down every bookmark so it only has on those sites which are more suited to the real me rather than those that were ailing me.

Things are going better at the music site as I'm dealing with past threads  which were around eleven or so years old so only a small number of current members might recall by making some newer ones to drive a few off the first page so that in time my more openly male identity will become more prevalent should anyone look beyond just the twenty or so current posts.

Ideally I'd love to be able edit a few of those threads but instead I'm going to hold my head up tall and show I've moved on.

One member reminded me in a post about a past member who no longer is around of how it was ten or so years ago more a "boys own club" which in someways it was with "Hot females" posts in Off Topic which did to be fair get a bit cringe worthy.

In other ways it is pretty much remains a boys own club with a male code of behaviour and in jokes to which females are more accepted on our terms which I'm more comfortable with. 

Coming out with being a boy

This week I've been out into town as I had left over from my Birthday a W H Smiths book voucher from a relative who was of that generation which not just bought things from an actual store but also used specialist stores rather than catch all supermarket chains that might say sell a limited range of books and other odds and ends like bags and so on.

The thing about book and most other sorts of vouchers is they can't be redeemed even though their own online stores and when one massive bookstore I loved going into from childhood shut down over a year ago you can't be sure they have in the book you may want whereas just entering it in any online store or site such as Amazon gives you an instant result.

I just headed to the children's section, not that today they label it as such  - you just see the signs, 5-8 9+ and the "Teens" - and gravitate toward the racks and pick up what you need which was two books, one about a ten year old boy evacuee who forms a forms a friendship with a man who takes him in and a book on the story of Harry Kane of Arsenal from boyhood to ace goalscorer. The one thing both have in common is they are about boyhood dreams and hopes.

It was also a week where I made further progress with that site account contributing to a discussion on male underwear in a sub forum where they talk about things that aren't about music and what you use to listen to it.

It wasn't as much how much I had to say about it so much as I affirmed my gender by openly referring to my most intimate attire in front of everyone including female members in a simple matter of fact way.

Metaphorically I took my pants down and let my gender out.

Tearing down some of that malaise from the past, learning to be openly proud of my boyishness and my manhood, to associate with and let others associate you with being male is the progress I am making.