i think the moment i was disillusioned about life was when i was maybe 7 years old and realized the reason all my friends had become assholes was because boys aren’t allowed to have any physcial contact that isn’t fighting
my parents were hippie feminists so my brother and i could play clapping games and sleep in puppy piles and give each other weird hairdos, but all the ‘normal’ boys just up and stopped knowing how to touch anyone without hitting sometime between kindergarten and first grade
and my little kid mind briefly saw the vastness of life stretching out in front of all of us, and all the hugs everyone would need and not get, and for a moment i was just like
maybe life is not such a good idea after all
I grew up around a Russian ballet school. Let me tell you something about Russian men: They touch each other. Especially dancers, who are in my experience almost always super tactile people. They rough house like Americans, but they also hug each other, and sit on each other’s laps, and share blankets when it’s cold backstage.
So I grew up knowing full well that the whole Men Don’t Touch thing was puritanical bullshit.
What I was absolutely not prepared for, however, is the super intense effect it has on straight men’s romantic relationships.
Because when you are literally the only person it is okay for your boyfriend to touch, Jesus fucking Christ, that changes the game.
I strongly suspect that a lot of Str8 Dude feelings of entitlement to women’s bodies, particularly the bodies of their wives and girlfriends, is a direct result of those women being the only non-violent physical contact they’re allowed to have.
I know for certain that the framing of any and all platonic physical contact as un-manly has been directly responsible for a lot of sexual dysfunction (and then the attendant misery of trying to get that treated at the ripe old age of 22) with at least one of my exes. It’s a mess when you can’t get it up because you’re depressed and want to be held but you’ve been brainwashed into thinking what you actually want is sex because being held is for girls.
Amazing how the erectile dysfunction went completely away when he learned the difference between feeling horny and feeling cuddly. /sarcasm
“I strongly suspect that a lot of Str8 Dude feelings of entitlement to women’s bodies, particularly the bodies of their wives and girlfriends, is a direct result of those women being the only non-violent physical contact they’re allowed to have.”
Omfg
No wonder the worst of them seem crazy… profound isolation does exactly that
When I taught in Japan, the boys were all super comfortable with each other. They’d sit on laps and hug and roughhouse and it wasn’t seen as bad ? Like it surprised me at first, but then you realize the problem is with so many men feeling that they have to prove… something? I dunno. I personally don’t like hugs or touches, but that is my own personal reasons and nothing of how I was brought up.
Because when you are literally the only person it is okay for your boyfriend to touch, Jesus fucking Christ, that changes the game.
Things I never thought of…I couldn’t imagine if my husband were the only person I was allowed to touch. As I think on it, that extends to the kids, too. The dudes aren’t allowed to really even cuddle their own damned children or nieces and nephews.
Wow.
Also explains why western media romanticizes co-dependency in romantic relationships to such an insane degree.
I hope you all realize this is more than just “losing memes and fan art”
This affects how content is shared online. Period. This is censorship. If this is implemented it opens the door to the government deciding what you can share and when.
“Web services large and small might decide to implement the directive globally, which would diminish American users’ capacity to share memes, political satire, or news articlesonline.” (Meaning due to the European law, websites might just change how they operate world wide, so the rules placed on them they will probabaly inforce in countries who don’t have the law)
If this could affect Americans in this way, imagine how heavy handed it will be on those who actually live in Europe??
This is a way to control what you do, say, think and read. It’s put under the disguise of “copyright” protection, but you are a fool if you think that’s what this really is.
Men like to believe theyd be great in apocalypse scenarios but they dont even know how to sew
Some male friends of mine were once talking about how useful they’d be in an apocalypse, and I pointed out that as a weaver and sewer and maker of stuff, I’d be pretty damn useful and they tried to tell me they could just loot clothes from WalMart and they’d be fine. As if WalMart has endless supplies without weekly deliveries.
So just last night a friend of mine was talking about who he’d round up in the event of a zombie apocalypse and how I’m his go-to farmer on account of I know how to keep an entire homestead up and running and we’re talking about what kind of resources I’d need to keep a colony of about 50-ish people alive and i bring up what all goes into processing wool for clothing and such and he just kind of stops me like ‘wait, wait, we don’t need to do all of that because we can scavenge for clothes we don’t need to be able to make them’ and i’m just like, ‘dude, that works in the short-term maybe but if this community is going to be sustainable you’ve gotta have people whose job it is to make clothes and blankets and shit’
also cloth rots pretty quickly when left exposed to the elements and after the first few years or so anything we manage to scavenge isn’t going to be wearable anymore and anywho we’ve got to teach the kids everything or they’re not gonna know what to do some decades down the line when everything’s too rusted or rotted out to be of any practical use anymore, etc etc, and he’s reckoning that things like woodworking and smithing and ranching are more important than say, cleaning or cooking or dairying and meanwhile i’m just smh may all the gods have mercy on this poor fool
He also balked when i brought up how to run a laundry and what all was needed to make everyday shit like soap and toothpaste – like dude, you think this is going to be all about hunting and scavenging and being neato manly-man drifters like in the walking dead let me teach you a thing about keeping a village alive and healthy for more than a week man most of it is shit you keep thinking is non-essential on account of it being “women’s work” or “simple chores” that’re actually pretty labor-intensive and take time, training, knowledge, and practice to do successfully, let alone well, and are 100% absolutely necessary work in order for you to have any reasonably good quality of life after the world ends
I’m reminded of this post I read a while back about some guy who thought his underwear lasted years because his wife would periodically replace his boxers and socks with identical boxers and socks when they started to look old and he just … never noticed.
Hey @ Wikipedia, if you could not list a trans person’s deadname right after their name that would be great.
Hey @ literally every piece of media in the universe you too
Excellent news! Editors who retain deadnames in articles are violating Wikipedia’s Gender Identity guidelines, at least implicitly. You are fully empowered to, and absolutely should, remove any deadname you find on Wikipedia. Editors who tell you otherwise are simply incorrect, and you should refer them to the relevant entry in the Wikipedia Manual of Style.
Anxiety-prone-human 