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centrally-unplanned · 5 months

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In my list of orphaned projects is a big damn essay on the fertility transition , which I never wrote. I had this in the docket for almost a decade, back when worrying about fertility rates was still a hot take. But alas the ship has sailed, everyone is talking about it now and has written it all out already, and I have mountains of projects, so I will just outline it quickly, sans graphs and footnotes. Maybe doing that will incentivize me to write up a full one someday, and it also gets my cohesive viewpoint out there.

The Future Is Exowombs & the Global Fertility Transition

The Trendline

The fertility transition has long roots - going back to 19th century France, originating in metropoles like Paris and culturally exporting itself to the countryside.

It seems broadly linked to material prosperity in ways that are load-bearing, one implies the other.

It is a 'sticky' cultural transition - once a country begins to move towards lowered TFR it never recovers outside of temporary blips.

It is not related to "western" cultural norms or specific contingencies of religion or ethnicity - those can matter at the margins, but rarely make a huge difference.

Starting in the 1990's, following sharp increases in A: global economic growth and B: global cultural diffusion/global monoculture, a trendline that used to be reserved for wealthy countries has rapidly accelerated, affecting countries at almost every income level. The fertility transition is now fully global.

The Cause

The primary driver of this phenomenon is the positive realization of desires - and by that I mean it is not something forced on people due to a lack in their lives.

It is not primarily caused by growing singleness; the number of people having any kids at all today is lower but overall pretty similar to the number of people who did a hundred years ago. It makes a marginal difference but not a huge one.

It is not linked to money, or housing prices, or other economic issues - fertility rates do not notably change with income levels or other price factors. At the margins, sure, but not at relevant ones.

It is not linked to specific technologies like contraception. People have understood how to prevent pregnancy for centuries - though like many things they do contribute at the margins. Additionally, you can’t uninvent them.

It is by a large majority linked to the death of large families. It was previously common for there to be families with 5 or more children, sometimes way more. 10+ children was not that rare in the past.

These families were disproportionately engaged in agricultural production; cities have always been fertility sinks.

In a world of manual household labor, rural living, low rights for women, low economic opportunities for women, and high death rates for children, these large families made sense. The 'opportunity cost' of the endless pregnancies & sicknesses was low (economically, not gonna handwave the immense personal toll)

All of these reasons have vanished. People want to have families, and love their children. But enduring multiple painful pregnancies, putting your career on hold, and spending huge chunks of your lifespan on child raising no longer tracks. The experience of having ~2 children is superior, along almost every metric, than the experience of having ~5 children for most people. This is what I mean by positive desires - the family structures of the past were built on misery and necessity, and will not return willingly.

The Problem

Many will point to the economic & social consequences of the Fertility Transition. They are very real, particularly at sub-1.0 fertility rates. If you are South Korea today, you have no plan for how your economy will truly support itself 50 years from now - you will vanish as a country in a few generations.

The focus on nearish-term crises also misses the opportunities lost - economic growth is premised on specialization, and specialization is premised on scale. A smaller world is a poorer world per capita, and a less innovative world, problems which have compounding effects. The difference in the long term is orders of magnitude.

But, far more importantly than any of that, is that we are nowhere close to the capacity of the earth to support humans. Supporting double or even triple the current population of the earth is trivial; a 10-fold increase would be quite easy, particularly once innovation is factored in. Being alive is a good of worth incomparable to anything else - the 'future' is literally defined by it. Time only meaningfully passes through the eye of one who can behold it.

The Failed Solutions

Money cannot buy lifespan or reclaim lost time - all attempts to throw money at the problem of fertility can help at the margins, but won't change the fundamentals. Some people want to have 2 kids, but can only afford 1. Or are prioritizing a career, but will work part time to have 3 kids. But the current policy crop of tax benefits or subsidized child care has not found a way to make someone truly want a larger family size, just mitigate gaps between desire and ability - and only barely.

Could radically larger amounts of money solve this problem? A professional career track in giving birth, 100k+ salaries for full-time mothers? I am open to the idea - but society isn't. The fiscal transfers needed are too radical for the current political environment, no one is proposing this.

Immigration was frequently proposed as a stop-gap, but its a 90's idea, premised on the idea that the Fertility Transition was a western problem that other countries did not face. It is not and never was; as every country's fertility declines, immigration becomes a zero-sum solution.

Turning back the clock on cultural change is A: impossible, the material logic of modern industrial production broke the need for it, and culture is downstream of material constraints. And B: its barbaric - if your answer to humanity's obstacles to greater flourishing is to condemn half of it to misery, we are better off dead.

So population levels will either stagnate or decline - unless something intervenes.

The "Future" Aka Getting Rationalist On Main

Exowombs, aka artificial wombs, allow you to grow a human child outside of the need for a person to incubate it. The baby (hah) step they let you do is strongly lower the cost of having a child; this is time & health given back to a mother, it will make having larger families easier.

But that won't fundamentally, shift the reality - that most people only want 1-2 kids, they don't want to raise more than that. However, with exowombs, you don't need to; you can make children outside of a family's desire for one. You can do that pretty trivially, actually. A society, if committed to solving its fertility issues, could mass-produce people with exowombs. Which would be very good to do ethically, because living is good and I personally don't think kids at orphanages should be euthanized to end their suffering, they are fine.

If some society, somewhere, did this, they would rule the world in a few generations. No one else is solving this problem, and meanwhile the human capacity to live on Earth is being woefully underutilized. Before natural human growth would solve this eventually - now it seems that will never happen, so anyone who actively tackles the problem wins. They literally win the future, by being the future.

Now, no one is going to do this soon - proposing this idea is not my point. Exowomb research is harshly regulated or illegal everywhere, modern society hates the idea of this kind of experimentation. We are, in so many ways, allergic to the idea of solving this problem. It doesn't even have to be exowombs, maybe we do the salaried mothers idea. My point is just the illustration - the future where there is 100 billion people dwarfs any current trendline future. That hypothetical dominates the worldline space, because arriving there organically seems to have faded away. The fact that we are not going to take that future, that it is probably gone now, is really, really sad.

But of course there is the other solution, the reactionary specter - instead of the technological solution, we choose the social one, of cultural regression and expanded reproductive control. I am not so worried about this, personally? Because I think it would unsustainable and result in a lot of bleed to liberal societies. It should not be taken lightly though - in a world where everyone has 1.0 fertility, and the social and economic consequences are becoming dire, I wouldn’t discount the willingness for radical solutions. I myself prefer the technologist side. But I think odds are we don't get either, just the long decline.

TL;DR - don’t let the Mormons win. Build exowomb factories.

#the fertility transition #essay

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thorraborinn · 2 years

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i follow odin (NOT as a folkish/odinist freak, to be clear), which often feels like it raises some weird conflicts as a newbie anarchist. like, considering his whole. situation it seems likely that pops up there would happily accept cops, fash, etc. into valhalla, if only to pad out the troops, yknow? it doesn’t seem like he goes out of his way to only ghost-enlist good drengir or anything. you ever think about that? what’s your outlook on valhalla in general?

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. There's a real contradiction here. A lot of people are going to have different ways of dealing with this, and yours might be different from mine, but I'll share what I can and maybe it'll help.

I guess I should be up-front and admit right away that I don't believe in Valhöll. And I'm glad I don't believe in it, because I also don't like it. I think it's better to just state that outright than to do what some heathens do and either reinterpret it until it's something that makes sense to them, but barely resembles any of the sources about it; or try to argue that "real" heathens didn't believe it themselves (surely, some did and some didn't). We're gonna have contradictions and differences with each other and with our predecessors because we have no centralized religious authorities, and this is all a good thing as long as we can be cool about it and respect difference.

Side note: while I personally don't think it's helpful to reinterpret Valhöll into a place where the downtrodden get rewarded for all their unseen and unappreciated struggles and sacrifices, I at least have more in common with a person who does believe that than with someone who actually believes in the Eddas' description of Valhöll and thinks that sounds good.

Disbelief doesn't get me out of needing to think about it, it just moves the problem. If what I believe is that it's a projection of the ideal life of the aristocratic warrior conqueror, I can disbelieve in Valhöll but still have to deal with the aristocratic warrior conqueror who was a historical reality. Obviously Valhöll is the one thing everyone "knows" about Old Norse culture and it completely dominates the discussion about afterlife concepts but let's think about why that is. Our main sources of information about the mythology at all were produced by the same group of people that Valhöll was most relevant to: the warrior aristocrats who laid the groundwork to establish the kingdom of Norway. The whole thing is an extension and idealization of their way of life, running on magic rather than the slaves, farmers, other workers, and women with rare exception, whose work was needed to keep the aristocracy afloat here in the living world. We don't get nearly the same volume of myth that might have been more relevant to those slaves, farmers, other workers, and women. As much as that sucks and isn't fair to either them or us, it's the reality, and we're better off accounting for that absence than ignoring it.

I don't actually think someone consciously invented Valhöll, I think one root of it is extrapolation from an idea we see elsewhere, that a person's experience following death is somehow continuous with the manner in which they died. So someone who drowns in a shipwreck has an afterlife in the sea; Hel might be characterized by illness and famine because those are ways that a lot of people get there. I expect that the idea of Valhöll started out the same way, that people who died in violent conflict remained in violent conflict after their deaths. In that case it isn't inherently a reward or punishment, and its later glorification comes about because the tradition passed through many people who glorified violence. I also think that a lot of what we think we know about it was actually embellished in retrospect by the Christian descendants of these people, and was probably done in such a way as to exaggerate the manly valor of anyone who would consider being hacked to death every day until the end of time a sort of "heaven." But we also shouldn't rule out the possibility that heathens themselves developed it as they developed their own identity in contrast to Christianity.

But once it emerged into the ecosystem of spiritual beliefs it probably served a bunch of needs that would have solidified its position. As many have pointed out, it probably helped people deal with the fact that they'd never see their dead children or even be able to give them a proper funeral in accordance with whatever their local custom was, including offering grave goods and putting the remains with the rest of the family, or somewhere accessible in the landscape. The aspect I've usually emphasized is that it was probably extremely useful for warlords who needed to convince children to die for them. Around the turn of the millennium it may have become more relevant to make promises of a good afterlife, as Scandinavians became increasingly aware of what Christianity was offering. Indeed, since we get some indications that some Norse people believed in reincarnation, this might be the time period where the concept of the afterlife being permanent consolidated.

Fortunately we do actually get an alternative view of something very similar, but from people embodying a different ethic. Þórólfr Mostrarskegg was a wealthy and powerful aristocrat known for his generosity in Norway during the time that Haraldr fairhair, the semi-legendary first king of Norway (and a central figure for the warrior-aristocratic context we're examining), was expanding his empire. Þórólfr harbored a fugitive (Björn Ketilsson) who had been declared an outlaw by Haraldr, and as a result had to flee Norway himself, choosing to uproot his own life and lose a great deal of his wealth and power rather than fail to offer aid to a fugitive. Þórólfr and his entire homestead fled to Iceland. He was kind of an over-the-top blowhard but continued to be known for his generosity. His son Þorsteinn took over the farm when he died and took after his father. It isn't specified that Þorsteinn had a specific habit of freeing slaves, but it is said that he had a retinue of some 60 freedmen. When Þorsteinn died, a shepherd saw the mountain Helgafell ('holy-mountain'), near Þorsteinn's farm, open up to reveal a huge feast and celebration happening inside, and he saw that Þorsteinn and his comrades who had died with him were going to go sit down across from his father Þórólfr. To be clear, these guys were still aristocrats. The ability to free slaves means they also had the power not to, and I don't want to romanticize these guys. But they still rejected violent conquest and chose personal loss for the good of others, and the afterlives they're depicted as having (basically Valhöll but connected to the land they lived in, and without all the violence and weird class elements) is surely related to that. This is all part of Eyrbyggja saga (no, it may not be reliable historical fact, but it is how they were remembered, which is important for its own reasons).

So I guess the reason I'm bringing this up is that we're all pretty good at reminding each other "there were a variety of beliefs" but we don't always have an opportunity to examine what they actually were, and what there position was in an ecosystem of beliefs, symbolic power, social values, political conflict, etc.; or why some of those beliefs were more likely to be written down, copied, and selected as important by later authors.

There's also a contradiction here, because Þorsteinn drowned while fishing. If Norse people all had the same concept of an afterlife, he should have gone to Rán in the afterlife, but they didn't all believe the same stuff. There's also one thing about these guys that might make the example less helpful -- in case you couldn't figure it out from their names, they were super into Thor specifically. We don't get a lot of examples of regular people who worshiped Odin, he wasn't big among the people who went to Iceland whose experiences were written about by their descendants. If we had something like the Icelandic sagas but for Denmark, maybe we'd have a broader and more nuanced understanding of these things.

I guess to summarize the main point I'm trying to make so far is that we don't need to turn off the criticism for something just because it's projected into the realm of the supernatural or afterlife or whatever, considering that the actual once-living people those ideas come from are subject to that criticism. Heathens have a really bad habit of acting like they believe there was, like, a cohesive Old Norse Religion and if we're to belong to it than we're handed a predetermined package of beliefs, and a lot of the arguments and discourse are about what's in that package. But that just isn't true. A lot of the lore we have has more to do with regional rulers trying to one-up each other, which generates change and innovation rather than being a witness to what came before them. And some of it is even shrouded in the same fake conservatism, the same "back in the good old days when [thing that never happened]" that we still have today. I have a lot of other thoughts about Valhöll so if any of this is confusing or if it would help to go deeper on something I've said, let me know, but this is getting unwieldy now.

I think there's more to be said about what an anarchist is to make of Odin in general (in addition to what I've already said), but my thoughts on that are less cohesive and I've come to fewer conclusions. In some cases we may be better off sitting with those contradictions than trying to resolve them. One thing I'll offer is that I think that when the gods do unambiguously bad, twisted shit in myths it's because it's supposed to hurt. Like, I think it's supposed to feel like when you yourself think about a time when you've done something fucked up and repeatedly ask yourself why you did it or why you can't go back and do it different, because the only way to give those moments any kind of meaning is to be transformed by them into something better than you previously were. Some of Hávamál is even explicitly framed as hoping the audience will learn from Odin's own fuckups (Háv 11-13: "Don't drink too much"; Háv 13-14: "There was this one time when I drank too much...").

I tend to interpret the Ragnarök story as being about how allowing the breakdown of communal relations based in mutual respect and solidarity, in favor of personal advantage or even out of a sense of duty, inevitably leads to total system collapse, ensuring that any "victory" is Pyrrhic; and about how literally having this spelled out for people won't necessarily prevent them from rushing headlong into it even in their attempts to avoid it. IMO, it's a mythic playing out of ideas and emotions that pertain to living in a blood-feud culture, where honor fuels an engine of ever-escalating violence that leaves no room for anything but tragedy on every side, often in the name of "doing the right thing." (incidentally, the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace is the product of peoples who grappled with the same problem, but actually made it out to the other side). If that's true, then not only does Norse mythology not present a single, coherent, monolithic religion; it actually contains within it, along with lot of other, sometimes conflicting things, a desperate grasping toward something better, and any modern person whose identity is formed in relation to them is also taking on a responsibility of carrying that on. Anyway I'm definitely in the weeds now so I better stop but the stuff I've described in this paragraph is kind of constantly running in the background whenever I read about Odin as a narrative figure and is the more religiously interpretive side of why I can't with any einherjar=good.

#ask #anon #heathenry

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loki-zen · 1 year

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when and why'd everybody switch from corsets to bras? (I don't got tits so you might have to explain things from a fairly basic level.)

well okay so i’m not a garment historian but:

Relevant Background:

I’m not sure what kind of garment you think of a corset as? If you’re thinking of something very stiff and restrictive, then you’re thinking of something that was never everyday wear for working women (ie the majority of women) anyway, although towards the end of the corsetry era with the development of cheaper production methods and plastic boning a working class woman with a decent job might’ve owned one to wear on Sundays. Working women did wear supporting garments that were corsetlike in structure (sometimes called stays, although the terminology isn’t strictly differentiated) and these were quite practical to do physical tasks in so long as you had the knack of moving in them.*

Tightlacing (the use of corsets to achieve significant reduction in waist size over time) was always a fad restricted to a small number of trendy rich women and was condemned by medical and moral authorities at the time. Fashion corsets for richer women still might achieve a fair few inches waist reduction, but:

the primary purpose of foundation garments such as corsets was never waist/size reduction, it was about achieving whatever was the fashionable silhouette or shape (while keeping everything ‘supported’, including the breasts). Early off-the-rack clothing for women was developed in the corset/stays era, and the notion of taking a single shape and sizing it up and down makes way more sense when you imagine it in the context of the expectation that everyone is being foundation-garmented into the same vague shape!

average/ common-to-have breast sizes in European women (both absolute volume, and breast size relative to torso diameter (which is what bra ‘cup sizes’ measure) have increased significantly since the early 20th century.

So,

When?

Between the 1920s and 1960s.

This is the era when the bra first appears, initially just as an innovation in the design of foundation garments, which have always changed in form frequently anyway - with new developments in terms of available fabrics, shaping technology and closures, and of course for reasons of fashion (which are sometimes downstream of the above, new things often being popular with designers and trendsetters).

The new corset/stays is a two-piece made up of the new brassiere and a sort of underbust stays called a girdle, but traditional corsets remain in use for some purposes - they’re still popular in bridal wear for instance.

The brassiere in this era features various innovations in garment technology such as underwiring (a variation on metal corset boning that achieves slightly different things in terms of torso shape (and feel/weight distribution, but not in an ‘unambiguous improvement’ way)) and elasticated fabric (developed around the turn of the century, and a structural necessity for bralike objects).

Why?

well as usual in history, lots of reasons. A big factor was World War I, but not in the way people like to think.

There’s a sort of revisionist history about corsets. Many 20th century feminists (lacking in knowledge for a combination of culpable and non-culpable reasons, and doing that very common thing of taking rich women’s historical experiences as universal and primary source scaremongering as accurate reportage) liked to think of them as Tools Of Oppression. Pop culture - funded by advertisers who wanted to sell their newer clothing styles, and tbh ever-ready to imagine women as vain and useless and not having contributed anything to society until five minutes ago - was ready to back them up, and following this you get a lot of accounts that say the wearing of corsets was primarily ended by women’s liberation, which WW1 contributed to because it was the First Time Ever that women had jobs, which of course you can’t do in a corset. That’s an extraordinarily blinkered, middle/upper class view of who ‘women’ are! But upper/middle class women set the narrative, and their upper/middle class mothers and grandmothers wore very different and more restrictive garments than the majority of women, who have always been expected to work. However this narrative - and the fact that working did get middle/upper class trendsetters out of their restrictive garments (but not into the garments worn by working class women bc that Just Wouldn’t Do) - did contribute to the corset going away and not coming back.**

Moreover, WW1 helped kill the corset for 2 reasons:

during the war, the stuff to make corsets with was rationed/needed for other stuff to a greater extent than the stuff for bras, which use a lot less fabric.

after the war, which meant fabric shortages and rationing, a new look developed which allowed the rich (trendsetters) to demonstrate their wealth by being very loose and flowy. It lacked a defined silhouette that would have required traditional shapewear, so helped to cement the corset’s exit from the market. (This look was also highly feminine, and that was definitely a cultural factor in its popularity at this time.)

When people stopped wearing corsets, they stopped making comfortable corsets or innovating in practical ways in the design of corsets using modern fabrics and taking into account modern body shapes (as people have done with bras), so people are unlikely to find them more comfortable and be tempted to go back to them. We also stopped wearing so many layers of clothes all the time in general because of central heating, and (especially casual) clothing in the modern era has in general remained - for men and women - less fitted than it was in the past.

#*variously sourced but most interestingly to me this has been demonstrated by living history experts #**the girdle is still going strong however! it’s made of more high tech fabrics now and called shapewear or waist cinchers #garment history #weigh in if you know more than me #this is very incomplete there are whole books on this

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agp · 4 months

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took a peek at sitting/standing to pee discourse and was reminded of something i havent heard mentioned in a long time, and its that urinals use much less water than a toilet per flush. and sure, you have those half flush technologies that reduce water usage, but ime those are not common in public facilities, and afaik generally still use more water than urinals. if we seriously want to reduce our water use we should invest in urinals in womens bathrooms. yeah yeah itll destigmatize people peeing standing up in the womens, whether with an assistive device or not, but what im trying to say is that you dont need to give a shit about trans people, tma or tme, to get invested as a cis woman in the movement to get urinals in womens public bathrooms because it is honestly also an environmental issue.

and honestly a dedicated pissing toilet where there are social rules about not putting in solids, what we call a urinal, doesnt need to be exclusively for standing either. i might be misinformed about how these work but part of the problem with half flush toilets is that they still need to fill the bowl enough to anticipate solids, whereas a urinal can have much less or even no standing water.

the problem is how do you establish that this toilet is different? that its a urinal for peeing only if it also has a seat function? esp if it looks identical to a regular toilet. i think were far away from having those big group urinals where a row of ppl can simultaneously pee into the same long contraption along a wall, so these are also likely to be in the same kind of stall as the regular toilet nextdoor.

ngl as a person who sits to pee 95% of the time i probably hover rather than sit to avoid a cold or public seat more often than i pee standing when there are no facilities. and even then if its not too cold and the space its private enough i do squat sometimes because i might as well get comfy if im here 20 seconds, and sometimes my legs are tired of standing. but unfortunately we live in a world of transmisogynists where peeing standing up is ontologically advantageous and im tired of constantly putting myself in a position that challenges the prejudice of others so squatting to pee is a thing i have plenty incentive to avoid

but i dont think a urinal designed for hovering over and peeing into 'backwards' as opposed to the wall/standing design should be that big a deal in womens public bathrooms. and like i get it some of us have made a whole thing out of castration so i dont want to insist on standing urinals for all. 'just learn to use an stp device' kind of defeats the whole idea of womanhood for some people, cis or trans.

like idk it sucks that my choice as a trans woman in public bathrooms is either half a dozen urinals and like two stalls on one side and twice as many stalls on the other side, which both have their own problems. i had to throw up at a mall recently and ngl i dont wanna have to manage my vocal pitch while im vomitting but then i had to wait forever in the mens room only to be asked why im in the mens while waiting. at a big event where everyone tries to pee at once? all those urinals make the line process so much faster that it isnt considered that strange in my experience for women who really need to go to say fuck it and use the mens. men seeing those massive lines generally get the problem. transmisogyny not being challenged here is also relevant.

womens urinals now lol

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sailorblossoms · 2 years

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I'm in a silly goofy mood, so let's talk about female boobs in the ren faire. A completely different post by @ionlydrinkhotwater prompted me to go back and re-read those chapters, specifically with a focus on how breasts are talked about it. And it's funny because this is one of the main things used to read Simon as potentially attracted/sexually interested in women, but for me, this is in my top 2 reasons why I argue the complete opposite (i read him as aspec)

Unless I'm forgetting something about Penny, out of the main four, Baz is the only one who explicitly labels his sexuality. He knows enough about himself to label himself as gay. Using the character who is 100% sure breasts are not his "cup of tea" to introduce us to the "abundance of cleavage" tells us pretty clearly that this is really impossible not to notice. As in, even someone who isn't into it at all, and who isn't out there wanting to look at boobies can't possibly ignore them.

Baz here is very aware of boobs and potential interest in Simon, for the same reason Simon is very aware of Lamb as a "handsome vampire with an interest in Baz". It's good ol' jealousy. (Both experience jealousy that comes from much insecurity in this book, Baz is much more chill and low-key about it though lol).

But hear this: Simon doesn't fucking react. (As someone who falls somewhere in the ace spectrum, but can potentially be attracted to anyone regardless of gender–and has thought a lot about the difference between aesthetic attraction vs sexual attraction/interest– boobs are pretty damn high in the list of things confirming I can be very into women, if I was in that position, I would definitely struggle with not looking)

This is kinda like how Baz has zero fucks to give about whether or not Lamb is attractive, it wasn't relevant enough to even care (in awtwb Simon notes, surprised, that Baz “didn't notice” how "fit" Lamb is) (Both of them are hyper-aware of other people being potentially interested in the other, but neither truly registers other people showing interest in them. It tracks with them being truly uninterested in other people, romantically and sexually). These books do not spend much time with descriptions, but when they're there, it's pretty purposeful. Given the reason Baz is noticing boobs in this scene, he would absolutely note if Simon reacted, even if it's to look down/directly towards the breasts, or to turn back to keep looking at the woman while she goes away. All we focus on it's only on what the woman is doing though, meaning that Simon was most likely just standing there, not doing shit. He immediately answers Penny on a completely different subject, not distracted at all. In fact, the only thing that gets his attention here is food. He's pretty enthusiastic about it, truly.

It's also worth noting that, while we have reasons to believe Simon is very good-looking, it's much more likely that Simon picked the nearly-topless woman's attention because of his wings. This is almost immediately afterward:

Simon is stealing looks because his wings are out! Surely y'all wouldn't think I'm crazy for making the following connection: wings out=tits out. What do they have in common? well, freedom, for one. Just like how Simon can't usually walk around with his wings on display (like he's doing here, while everyone just thinks it's cool as hell), a woman can't usually just walk around nearly topless (there are much more situations where dudes can go around shirtless)

My man here nearly comes into contact with boobs and he doesn't even notice. He doesn't register it! All he's focusing on is the food, and what he can have to drink. While looking "a little green" is probably about the lack of papers (or maybe being denied access to alcohol, which Simon wants at the moment?) it's quite a choice to have that being voiced immediately after boobs almost come into contact. Also interesting that what immediately follows is a comparison to Ebb, a woman Simon loved like a close friend, like family. Baz notices the boobs (because they're practically in Simon's face) but Simon doesn't. He shows no interest at all. This is what he thinks about this moment:

He's 100% focusing on the food. All he has to say about this woman, all he notices about her is that she gave him free chocolate sauce, and how friendly that was of her. This is the highlight for him, he didn't pay attention to anything else. Food is used to express connection and love in the series, and this is about Simon feeling welcomed. Everyone is so nice.

This is about freedom and acceptance.

And when are in Simon's POV, this is what we get about boobs.

First of all, "I'm not mad about it" just means "I'm ok with this, I don't have a problem with seeing this". Which isn't really enthusiastic, it doesn't even read as particularly interested (you don't have to be horny or feel sexual interest to be cool with people showing skin). If a character who's explicitly sexually interested in women said this, I'd think they're trying to downplay it. Most importantly: this can't be separated from how, while he thinks this, he's also thinking "was I ever into women? am I only sexually attracted to Baz?".

I've said this many times, and I'll say it again: as a boobie-liker, if someone is looking at breasts, and he's only doing it because he's absolutely surrounded by it and it's impossible not to, and literally never outside of that, and this prompts "it's possible that I was never attracted to women" I'm inclined to think that mayhaps boobs aren't his cups of tea either. Simon has boobs practically on his face at least twice, this would be the moment to bring that up. And he doesn't. He doesn't bring up breasts that were close to coming into contact with him when he mentions them, his breast comment is as in passing as the women he's observing with the vampires (that's what prompts the thought, women he's looking from afar, and not the ones that were very close to him). It's a general observation.

It's also interesting that Simon, who's a generally a more observant character than Baz, is much less "detailed" when mentioning breasts. You actually get a far better idea of how out and truly everywhere the boobs are from Baz's POV (it's in line with Baz to be much more detailed in noticing clothing though, Simon only says corset and calls it a day) "Cleavage" and "busty" are also what I use when I want to be vaguer/less "explicit" about breasts for whatever reason. Simon's observation is a brief sidenote, especially compared to Baz's thoughts, and it's secondary to what the questions he's making about himself reveal. ("Am I still attracted to women?.... was I ever, really?" is in line with doubting/starting to question the heteronormative thinking that trapped Simon during his school years, the kind that assumes straight as the default)

Finding a way to make female boobs about Baz is truly on brand for Simon (he only has eyes for him, I tell you, very in passing comments about other ppl's appearances included, in the way Baz only has eyes for him). His Baz-only-sexual comment, to me, it's part of the reason I read him as aspec, perhaps even demi. Also relevant is that, besides the way heteronormativity can fuck this up, is common for acespec people to spend a lot of time wondering "is this sexual attraction?", struggling to come up with answers, while just knowing you're attracted instinctively is pretty common for allosexuals. (aesthetic attraction vs sexual attraction is also relevant here).

Also relevant is that Simon does show clear signs of attraction in the ren faire. Before entering:

Baz can tell Simon is looking at him with interest. He's looking at him, literally tongue out (similarly, Baz licks his bottom lip while looking at a shirtless Simon in awtwb. Quite suggestive I'd say). We know Simon has a thing for Baz's hair, and he can't help but stare at him when Baz lets it down and free. Baz would've noticed in jealousy if Simon couldn't help but stare at boobs, he was paying attention to that and was ready to intervene (shooing away the nearly topless woman).

Simon also has a thing for Baz's eyes:

Simon is so attracted to Baz that it makes him silly. My man was really out there thinking Baz is... what, striking a pose to prepare for death??? and his main focus is "his eyes are very attractive". Obviously, his thoughts aren't very clear at the moment. His attraction derails them lol

We do get an important bit that says something about the way Simon experiences attraction, and it has nothing to do with boobies

Simon, whose love language includes murder, gets so horny at Baz throwing a couple of flames to do a little murder (without even using a wand!) that he jumps him while in the middle of an escape. He can't control himself. He thinks Baz is hot when he fights. And he's telling us that he used to pick fights with Baz for horny reasons!

Also relevant, on the subject of attraction, it's this part from when Simon is thinking about (failed attempts) at having sex with Baz. (This is where the e-book was when I opened it again before going to the ren faire chapters, and I can't resist adding it lol)

Sexual attraction and romantic love. Hand in hand.

#truly i admire rr for just looking up synonyms and the like for breasts #the actual word breast is only repeated like twice #this is the first time i ever see someone actually use ´bosomy´ lmao #snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #baz x simon #simon snow trilogy #wayward son #'i admire thine accent' i keep forgetting we're supposed to read this characters with a british accent lmaoo

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femenaces · 9 months

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i feel like the really complicated part for me about bisexuality as a phenomenon is like the unending nuance. like if we’re being honest there are bisexual people whose experience is functionally basically the same as heterosexuals. and then there are those who come closer to the gay experience, and there are more classic 50/50 bis, etc. like not only is there not common ground with straights and gays, it often seems there’s less common ground than one would assume within the bisexual population itself. and it is the only sexuality where there is an element of choice in what “lifestyle” (forgive me) you pursue. I would say it’s the sexuality that reacts most interestingly to the norms of a particular society/millieu. and none of this can be meaningfully discussed because it’s such a disparaged sexuality that basically any exploratory discussion about these things is fraught to the point of being dead on arrival.

I agree, you bring up an interesting and important point that bisexuals frequently experience "bisexuality" in ways that are so different from one another that two bisexual people might find they don't even have much in common in regards to their internal experience of their sexuality, despite both technically sharing the same label. And I think this is a big reason why many people don’t recognize that they are actually bisexual.

(post-writing edit: I'm about to go on a tangent about some stuff that might make people uncomfortable so if you are not a fan of reading about this topic here is your warning to bail. But if you choose to continue I just want to say that I'm speaking very honestly from my personal experience, and the experiences I've heard from other bisexuals who have reached out to me about this.)

The two main variables I can think of which combine to form very different experiences of bisexuality from person to person are:

(As you mentioned) different ratios of sex preference

Whether or not a person experiences a temporal aspect to this ratio (not everyone does!), and if so, how does it manifest.

The first point is becoming more discussed in recent years but I don't see the second mentioned hardly at all despite it being extremely relevant to many people. I think the lack of awareness and understanding about the temporal aspect is actually a huge factor in bisexual people "misidentifying" themselves. Straight and gay people often assume bisexual people do this on purpose, "pretending" to be straight or gay for personal gain, and while I'm sure that does happen (for a variety of very interesting social reasons too complex to discuss in this response) there's also the reality that if you are a bisexual person who goes through this, especially on the extreme side, you can 100%, truly and honestly, feel like one or the other at different points in your life. And if you go through something like that without the knowledge of temporal changes even being a thing (termed bi-cycling), it is shockingly easy to fall into the trap of assuming you're not bisexual after all, you're gay. Or, not bisexual after all, you're straight. And even when you DO know that this is a thing, it can still be hard to wrap your mind around in the moment and you can still wind up doubting yourself.

This particular concept is one that causes a lot of intense controversy when it's discussed because if you believe people who say "I thought I was (X), but then I discovered I was (Z)" then it could technically happen to anyone, right? And that thought makes a lot of gay & straight people very uncomfortable. I really can't even blame them for it, because in my experience it IS scary and unsettling if you wind up going through it. So a lot of people don't believe it, probably in part because of this, but also in part because it does sound kind of impossible if you haven't had it happen to you.

So to get into a really controversial example, of all those bisexual women who are assumed to have been purposely lying about being lesbian when they wind up dating a man, I'm 100% certain at least some of them are actually being totally honest when they say they never were into men before (Of course the reverse is also true-- ask me how I know-- but isn't usually as controversial for obvious reasons). But if we don't make it more common knowledge that this is one type of bisexual experience, you're going to continue to get a lot of the "I'm gay with an exception" and the "Hang on, I'm actually (a lesbian)/(straight) despite my (sleeping with men)/(women) phase" nonsense that everyone hates.

to conclude:

Why is this a thing that happens to some people? I don't know.

Will this happen to me? Probably not, but I don't know.

How common is it? I don't know. (Like I said, I think many many people are misidentifying themselves because of this and couldn't even be counted in a survey of bisexual people because they don't think they're bisexual!)

This sounds messy. Yes, it is.

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drdemonprince · 1 year

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hey i know what im about to ask for advice for isnt ur experience but i thought its possible someone else in ur audience has had a similar one its just starting to get unbearable. im in my early 20s and an autistic lesbian. im almost done with college, have had good friends here, have had good friends online as well, but to my knowledge no one throughout my entire life has had even a crush on me. ive never kissed anyone, no one’s asked me out, even as a kid at recess or whatever. like sometimes i even wish a boy had paid attention to me in that way because maybe then it prove theres not something wrong with me. its just so isolating because literally everyone else in my life has at least been kissed or had a crush situation by the time they were my age. ive tried to talk on dating apps but i just have zero confidence about it because no one who has actually seen me or talked to me for more than a couple times has expressed interest. maybe im oblivious to it being autistic but like i would know if someone said something explicit you know? i feel like it wont ever happen. idk. i think it would help to know if people thought the same things about themselves and then something did happen for them. because it just feels like im the only person alive with this experience who actually wants these things to happen (like i know ace/aro people are out there, its just not me)

Thank you for your question. I'll share some of my thoughts, with the huge caveats that I have not lived this experience, and hopefully readers with more relevant perspectives could also weigh in.

I notice here that you describe yourself and your relationship to attraction in terms of things happening to you, or you receiving certain kinds of attention. You frame yourself throughout this as the possible passive recipient of attraction. But what about what you want? How often have you expressed desire to somebody? How frequently and in what ways have you initiated contact, told someone you were interested in them, or invited someone on a date?

You mention using dating sites and talking with people, but those conversations never turning into anything more. That seems to be a very common problem in the lesbian dating world. I think a lot of women do not feel confident and comfortable in expressing their desires outright and it seems to lead to a lot of grinding of gears and people assuming that nobody is interested in them when really all parties involved feel too shy and disempowered to use their words and directly ask for a date.

I understand that to be a very common thing for queer women, though admittedly it is difficult for me to wrap my mind around as someone who was telling people on OK Cupid that i wanted to meet up and fuck them that evening back when I was like 21 years old, and who moves through the realms of steamworks and grindr and the cell block bar dancefloor now. I've had many interpersonal problems but telling somebody directly that I wanted to bang or even to hang out has not historically been one of them, and I really wish I could just lend some of that hutzpah over to my lensbian siblings because I hear people grousing about how dry apps like Lex are all the time.

It seems pretty glib and unhelpful for me to say "just act more like a bluntly direct gay autistic man" and to say that would be to ignore that a lack of confidence and queer women skewing a bit passive are probably not the only factors you're dealing with. There might be biases working against you like fatphobia, racism, or ableism that incline fewer people to openly express desire for you, and that's a real problem that operates outside of you and that no amount of self love can eradicate, and I think it's validating and important to just acknowledge when the deck is stacked against people.

But there are lots of people out there who will want to date and fuck you, for sure, even if you are dealing with any of those injustices, and additionally, I doubt from your message that you're doing anything particularly weird or off putting in your messages with people on dating apps that's like driving anybody away. You mention that you have a lot of good friends and that things are otherwise going pretty decently for you in life, so it really doesn't seem to me like anything you are doing or bringing to the table is "wrong". And over the years I have known a great many lesbians and wlw who were very social, outgoing, fun to be around, cute, and a total romantic prize who just did not fuck or date until their late 20s or 30s or beyond, because of some of the social forces I already described (and again I encourage my lesbian followers to contribute to the conversation because I know it's not my lane and I might not be explaining the phenomenon correctly).

If you haven't, I would suggest showing your dating app profile and messages to some trusted friends (maybe some gay men as well as other queer women?) to get a variety of perspectives and some reassurance.

But I think, based on the admittedly limited information that I have here, that you just need to approach people more and more directly, and that slowly through that you will become more comfortable with initiation and rejection, as well as with seeing yourself as a sexual being with agency, rather than a passive receiver of others' interest.

Try telling people directly that they are cute, that you like them, that you want to be around them, that you'd like to kiss them, that you'd love to go see a movie with them or tie them up or finger blast them or that being near them makes you happy or horny or etc as the situation warrants. If you havent already that is!

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the-sappho-of-lesbos · 1 year

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I don’t know if I’m making any sense with this. And honestly I could be way off or just misunderstanding things. And I don’t think it’s a single sexuality that does it. From what I’ve seen and read it seems pretty equally common among bisexual women and lesbians

And I’m not meaning in really a judging way either. Plus I’m sure things like sexism and homophobia etc have a massive impact on why this happens

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before but it seems to me that so many lesbians and bisexual women use sexual and or romantic relationships with women as a passageway of dealing with their trauma from relationships with men. Be it just in greater society or like past friendships or romantic relationships. And like I get it in a way. There is a unique type of relationship you can have a with another woman and a level of understanding on certain topics that might make you feel more at peace or find naturally healing.

But the way some women approach them in general just seems really unhealthy to me. (I know rich coming from me lolol). But the amount of pressure and rules and expectations some women place on their gay relationships just seems like a recipe for disaster. It’s like they are using it as a coping mechanism or a retaliation to society. That’s not say there attraction is genuine and innate. That’s not what I’m saying. Just that the framework in their minds about how or why to approach them often seems so heavily guided on fixing the trauma they have from men , in whatever regard that maybe.

And I don’t think this is a new thing either. Just from reading non fiction books by gay/bi men and gay/bi women they talk about their approach to their sexuality and their partners in such different ways. It elicits different responses from them.

By nature of being in a gay relationship it has a sense of political nature about it simply because we live in a world that is so homophobic and heteronormative, so I understand why it’ll simply just be there in the way people talk about their sexuality. But it seems a lot of women treat it VERY politically in a way I don’t see as much with gay and bisexual men. Is it because of the sexism, I mean probably.

But I just find it funny a lot of the time when I’ve read about gay and bi men talking about their experiences with love and their sexuality it’s so often fully just focused on other men. Women have little to no relevance to the conversation other then the typical discussions around feeling socially pressured to be with them.

But when I see women and bisexual talk about it there is always such a strong discussion on the trauma men have brought into their lives and how that shapes the relationships they seek with women or even what they feel with other women.

And I’m not criticising. Like I get it. But I just truly think that foundation of shaping so much of the female gay experience around men is unhealthy. Because it tends to put two pretty unrelated things onto each other.

I sometimes wonder if that’s part of the reason there is a stereotype of lesbian relationships moving so quickly. Because so many of us are using our relationships with women as a bandaid response to trauma with men and less solely on just what it is: attraction to women, that it warps our expectations. Puts too much pressure on certain people in the relationship.

I’ve seen a lot of lesbians talk about not being treated as a woman in their relationship and being like a fill in for a man or having heterosexual rules placed on them and I can’t help but wonder if maybe that is a byproduct of all this.

I don’t know I’m probably making no sense whatsoever lol. Also this definitely isn’t me being accusatory or angry or trying to imply men someone have shape on women’s innate sexuality. I just think socialisation is a wild thing and there are things I’ve noticed that confuse me sometimes

But this is just me rambling into the void lol. I’m not even making sense to myself lolol. Everything is just falling out

#and it’s just a theory #a FILM THEORY #lol

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gemsofthegalaxy · 8 months

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tbh i agree with Sarah Z

. acting like no celebrity Could be queerbaiting when their public image is a carefully crafted by a marketing team is like.... silly. it is fully possible that someone who is straight and cis and does not personally feel a connection to an ambiguous or otherwise queer aesthetic might still dress like that or make queer-seeming media etc, in order to get the queer audience dollars

but, ultimately, it's not worth it to try to snoop and speculate and drag people through the mud for not "coming out" or forcing them out of the closet, because that is a very shitty thing to do, and people don't deserve for it to happen to them.

thinking specifically of Becky Albertalli and queer creators, i do think it's challenging when it comes to trying to critique a depiction of queerness by taking the author's own sexuality and intent into account. because, well, looking into authorial intent and the circumstances around someone's writing is not an unfair thing to do. to compare it to something that may be similar, like. if a white person from California is writing about/from the perspective of a black person from the south, personally i think it might be worthwhile or at least relevant to know that the author is white and from California when evaluating how you feel, or how well you think the author did with their subject matter. it is NOT to say the white person from California shouldn't have touched the topic with a ten foot pole, they very well may have done an excellent job with their story, but those details are still relevant when it comes to understanding the text in some ways. maybe.

i don't disagree that it gets heated and nasty, though, because it did when it came to Albertalli's work, she was lambasted as a straight writer catering to a straight audience with a gay love story. but she isn't straight. and, well, she's still not a gay man, but... believe it or not, even queer people can write queer media that some queer people hate (lol)

tangent: i fucking haaateed the movie The Kids Are All Right and low and behold, one of the directors was a whole lesbian. i was surprised! it seemed like such a fucking shitty and annoying depiction of a lesbian couple (including scenes where a lesbian who proclaims she's exclusively a lesbian sleeps with a man several times. no mention of the notion she might be bisexual. the lesbians also watch gay male porn which i guess was supposed to be transgressive and showing that sexuality was complex, but to me it was so eye-roll worthy like what's wrong with showing women who are... into women? sorry im getting off track. maybe there are lesbians who love this movie. im bisexual so /shrug)

anyway. unfortunately, being queer does not mean you will tell an amazing queer story. and knowing an author is queer does not mean you have to like the way queerness was used in the story even if you think it was bad. but, still, i am usually more likely to at least be lighter with criticism if i know the author depicting the story is of the same community or has lived experience, even if i still dislike the overall depiction. maybe that unfairly absolves them of a shitty story, idk. btw this isnt to say Simon vs the Homo Sapiens was bad, it was, like, fine tbh. some of the plot points annoyed me, but that's common in YA novels by now. one of my advisors who is a gay man really loved it so that also made me like it more bc it was cute seeing how much he enjoyed it (ironically, lol)

not sure where i was going with this anymore. but it's an interesting, challenging topic to address "real people queerbaiting". ultimately i think it CAN be done, by celebrities who are crafting an image to market to fans, but that it's not worth the harm of pushing people out of the closet to try to "stop" the "problem" from occuring.

#gems watch #long post

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cerebrobullet · 1 year

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Sharpe's Escape Partial Book Report:

ooooh, lawford and sharpe having a private breakfast together :3c. incredibly awkward, of course. i love it. they literally have nothing in common but my god does lawford try.

mmm as much as i like this narrator, he's bad at women's voices and also, weirdly, has a terrible cadence for lawford. he somehow always makes lawford sound unfriendly and extra snobbish towards sharpe instead of being.... friendly. like a friend. because they are friends. like he's def kind of... disconnected? from everything sharpe experiences in life lmao, but i personally dont see him as malicious about it? more just... lacks imagination and perspective a bit. but he's made to sound more like simmerson would sound, talking to sharpe.

the amount of time pat spends making sure sharpe gets fed tho 🥺

i wont use the "angry stitch" meme again but... it's still relevant. sharpe's salty and grumpy levels are off the charts.

.... i know i use "manslaughter it is" as a joke for how sharpe solves problems but this man really went "this officer annoys me and is taking my job, maybe i should just kill him." and then pulled the trigger huh.

we're in full swing of the bit where cornwell describes a large scale battle and my dumbass brain just goes "😊 i cant envision any of this teehee fuck you for wanting to understand it 😊"

(work got a bit Silly so this was all i could listen to today :( wah)

#sharpesession

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matoitech · 1 year

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i think a lot of my thing on like ‘discussion of transmasc specific issues’ is just that i dont know how relevant a lot of it feels in my life personally so i just kind of lack interest and drive in talking abt these things other ppl might. transphobia i do talk about yeah, and i dont think its inherently bad to talk abt specific community issues obviously (my issue is when ‘talking abt specific community issues’ relies on u being transmisogynistic and pushing other ppl down for You to feel good) but when it gets more specific like, sure ill talk abt my experiences as a trans guy but i just dont agree with or relate to ‘Of Course i must have more in common w ppl who share (what is assumed to be) my exact experiences just bcuz we r both men’. when ive always deeply related to trans women and enjoyed seeing n talking w them abt themselves n their experiences. there’s a lot of comfort and affection and respect and joy being around ppl who Get It on a rly familiar level and u r like high fiving where ur passing each other on a rly funny and cool road. we have so much in common and we can understand each other in rly personal and intimate ways and its just like weird and confusing to me to see other ppl act like Boys And Girls Have Nothing In Common and not think abt how dumb that is especially as trans ppl and how dumb they KNOW it is

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cathademia · 2 years

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Hi! this is following up from the other day. I saw the post about male ob/gyns and was like "I have some lightly contradictory opinions I would like to chuck in" - so that's all this is, and whatever degree of ignoring/posting/responding is completely fine with me.

First is just some personal experience, and in aiming for not-too-much-personal-info on the Internet I'm going with minimal detail: I'm a mid-20s woman who has, since I was old enough to get the choice, mostly said that I would prefer female physicians. But looking back, I don't think I can say that my experiences as a patient with female physicians have been any better, on average, than experiences with male physicians, in any area of medicine. I'm not in any way saying "actually male ob/gyns are better", I just want to emphasize strongly, based on my own personal experience, that female doctors are in no way immune from making patients feel bad just because they're the same gender. (I know you already brought up that some women are comfortable with some male doctors, I just wanted to hit the flip side of that specifically.)

(Also, for the main contrast I'm thinking of, it's entirely possible and even probable that I got one particular female doctor on a too-busy day, or that she didn't realize how anxious I was or she would have acted differently- and I'm very certain that the male doctor who I had a better experience with, at the same office, had been told something about how anxious/upset I had been when seeing the female doctor, and I think he probably adjusted his demeanor based on that knowledge.)

All that to say, I've grown to feel that, PERSONALLY, if I'm already in a patient-doctor situation, I think I'm going to be much more concerned with the doctor's attitude and demeanor than what gender they are, including for very personal fields of medicine. Just my own current opinion, but I felt it was relevant to add.

The second part is something that I heard recently in an educational context- and this is very condensed and paraphrased - from a retired, Catholic, male OB/GYN, in terms of motivation to join that field. He had already talked about some of his journey as a Catholic and a doctor, which was a whole thing on its own. But later, someone asked him why he chose OB/GYN, and his answer really surprised me: in short, it was to earn more for his family. I forget what it was he had originally wanted to go into, but I guess it wasn't great in terms of compensation for supporting his wife (and kid? kids? sorry I forget the timeline) but I do remember him saying that, basically under pressure from his wife, he went OB/GYN so he'd be in a medical field sufficient to support his family financially. (I think it was somehow related to his other interest but I forget exactly how). I wasn't expecting that at all, and I think that falls into an interesting category quite separate from the sort of "selfless moral interest in helping women based in unforeseen life events" idea (although I feel that that's also valid for sure) that you brought up in the other post. Personally, I think it's a non-skeevy reason to join the field, but that really is just my opinion.

Also, and separately, as an aspiring doctor myself (maybe ob/gyn, in fact!) I definitely think the above with the finances is a good reminder that in addition to the Big Stuff, there are a lot of mundane and practical aspects that play into a career in medicine as well, whether we want them to or not.

any kind of response or none at all is completely fine! Just wanted to let you know these thoughts. Thanks!

I don’t disagree with what you’ve said here. And like I said, the amazing physician who worked with my mom (for three VBACs! In geriatric pregnancies!!) was male. There are great male OB/gyns

That said, something pretty important to me that I neglected to mention in my other post is something that’s common in disability activism: nothing about us without us. Now it wouldn’t be practical to have all autistic doctors treat autistic patients or all deaf doctors teach deaf patients etc., because of numbers but also because some disabilities are so debilitating that it would be very hard to live with it and make a name for yourself in medicine. Generally the reason people talk about this is because treatments and care doesn’t often have good enough applicability to actual patients’ lives. But! We can actually do this with obstetric care. Approximately 52% of humans are women, so this is absolutely an area where we can use life experience to inform care and even research questions. A good example of something created WITHOUT life experience is symphysiostomy. It’s a procedure used as an alternative to c-sections… but it also causes severe bladder incontinence. Most women feel really uncomfortable talking about their postpartum incontinence, especially with men (even male doctors). And for the ones that did talk about it, the male doctors misjudged that abdominal wall integrity would be more important than bladder control to most women, and so the procedure was conducted for decades even after we knew the side effects. Again, this isn’t to say that men can’t overcome these barriers. It’s more to say that having the profession be largely or wholly comprised of women would simply make these sorts of barriers nonexistent.

Also referring to the doctor you talked to: obstetrics SHOULD have an additional calling beyond finances and it just being a job. Obviously that’s idealistic but it is how I feel. You’re present for the first day of a lot of babies’ lives and the best day of a lot of parents’ lives. I would like to see the future of obstetrics taken with the same community mindset as midwifery but with the training of medical school. (I’m aware this is a bit much.) We definitely need a large shift in how we in the United States view birth. Part of that is overturning Roe. Another part, in my opinion, is seeing birth as a community event among women. I think having men do the role, as they’re traditionally the providers of the family, puts added social pressure to see it as a job and way to make great money, which goes against what I’m aiming to see going forward

In regards to abuse, it is true that OB-gyns have a higher risk of sexual assault to patients, and that when looking at statistics the vast majority of not all of it was from male OBs. I am writing this right before choir rehearsal so I don’t have my stats on me but you can look it up. Most of them are obviously fine. The percentage is still small. But we also know that it would be very very close to zero if women did that job.

Additionally, given that so many exams are vaginal, for modesty reasons as a Catholic I think it is preferable to have a female physician. (This is not a legal argument, and honestly none of my arguments here are intended to make being a male obgyn illegal. It’s more the social expectation I’m hoping will change.) Obviously it’s not always practical to have female doctors treat women but I think for OB-gyns, whose primary interactions with a patient are with either their vagina or breasts, it makes some sense to have women do it. This is obviously a very religious line of reasoning, but where else can you make religious lines of reasoning than on tumblr dot com.

And then lastly for practical reasons getting a vaginal exam that’s more involved than just a Pap smear is simply less painful when the person has narrower fingers. With rare exception, women have narrower fingers

#answer

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mysticdragon3md3 · 7 months

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A while ago, I posted about realizing that a lot of my favorite personal waifus weren't just "impassive, dead inside" characters, but that they also had to have a self-destructive streak for me to get really attached to them: https://mysticdragon3md3.tumblr.com/post/695972425782919168/pic-reads-shout-out-to-emotionless-women-bound

I've been thinking a lot lately about Kikyo in particular. I think she was the first of this trend of archetypes that I grew really attached to. I didn't even care about shipping her with Inuyasha; I just identified with her. But recently, I've realized that maybe one of the big reasons she caught my eye, was her second life aspect. During her first life, she was the "priestess whose purity would purify the Shikon Jewel". She mentions during the manga or anime, about always being on guard, to not have any intense emotions, especially negative emotions, so her spirit could stay pure and thus purify the Shikon Jewel, merely by her presence. (That's why her indulgence in feeling love for Inuyasha was so dangerous.) But after she is resurrected, during her second life, she mentions that now she is free to both love and hate. And that's been really sticking into my brain lately, even though I hadn't thought about the Inuyasha series in years.

So now I have to consider if this aspect of Kikyo has become more relevant to my current life, or maybe always was pertinent, and I was only aware on a subconscious level of this relatability.

For a lot of my life, I didn't allow myself negative emotions. I didn't enjoy being angry. (Though, I sure did spend a lot of my formative years being sad. O.o?) I didn't enjoy feeling anger or disdain towards people. I wasn't better than anyone. I couldn't stand the malice involved in merely gossiping about others behind their backs. I didn't allow myself to hate others, be angry, and I usually turned that anger and usually blame onto myself. I was the only acceptable target. After all, hating someone, allowing myself to be angry at certain people in my life, felt like an infection in my brain, that would fester and rot my soul from the inside out. I felt too guilty. It felt like an arrogant emotion to have. It made me feel like I was becoming things I didn't like, things that went against my ideals. And I couldn't help feeling too much sympathy for others, to ever make dismissive feelings towards them feel justified. Later, I learned, this was a Defense Mechanism state of mind, so I could tolerate bad situations/relationships that I couldn't escape. Because as soon as I got out of such environments, I could suddenly feel so clearly, how wrong the whole thing was, how much hatred and aggravation I felt, how I wouldn't be wrong to feel that way, and the realization of how much I had suppressed.

In recent years, I've allowed myself to hate things. Bad movies, fictional characters, people in my life that I didn't allow myself to feel anger towards before, etc. I thought it was a bad thing. I felt so guilty about it. There are still old posts on my blog about how I vowed to only post about my positive feelings/experiences in fandom, and keep any negativity off my blog (and only keep to private offline journals). "Fangirl over what I love, not about what I hate." Then much later, my blog had posts about feeling guilty for venting-posting about characters who made me angry. But then YouTube movie reviewers made ranting about bad movies, so much fun. I got too accustomed to and too comfortable with the idea of disliking something and enjoying ranting about it. Maybe it's made my blog a more toxic place. But other people commented to reassure me that even my Akechi Goro hate wasn't really bad. And I realized, "why should I disallow myself my own feelings??????" These were FICTIONAL characters! I keep my hate-posts away from common tags of the characters names. There shouldn't be anything wrong with me having opinions and feelings, including things I DISLIKE. There shouldn't be anything wrong with me disliking specific characters; just like there isn't anything wrong with me liking other characters. Maybe I was afraid of the fandoms, because so many characters I dislike are very popular: Ishida Mitsunari, Oikawa Toru, Tsukishima Kei, Goro Akechi, Bakugou Katsuki, Edelgard von Heresvelg,… But what's so wrong about having an opinion about FICTIONAL characters???? I should be allowed to dislike Akechi and Edelgard! They're not real! Their feelings can't get hurt! (And I take precautions against their fans seeing my character-hate, in respect for their fans' feelings as real life people. That should be sufficient.) My perspectives and interpretations on their series mean something TO ME, even if they've lead me to dislike certain characters. And I should be allowed to have opinions which include disliking things! I shouldn't have to feel guilty for HAVING EMOTIONS…especially a full range of emotions, after my formative years of repressing so many of my emotions.

I'm considering that maybe I'm in a point of my life, similar to Kikyo's second life: where she is allowed to feel whatever emotions she has, instead of repressing "unacceptable" emotions. It sounds like a healthier way to live.

#positive media psychology #favorite characters #disliked characters #lists #archetypes #processing throughts #confused with myself #rumicsekai #elredeaglescrit #get out of here akechi #reminiscing #figure photography

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wickedproblemsblog · 1 year

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WEEK 4 & 5 - WICKED PROBLEMS

During these weeks my group began our design thinking process. Ky and Mim took a field trip to MAC to gain deeper insight into the wicked problem space & empathise with some of the stakeholders (museum staff).

I was unable to attend MAC due to work commitments, but it was decided that I would conduct desk research instead to make up for it. We made a google drive to collate all our information.

I started my research journey by breaking it down into a smaller problem, asking the question; ‘Why aren’t young people currently visiting museums?’ to try and empathise with the issues that young people have surrounding museums.

This problem definition phase is one that is common when a designer is trying to solve a wicked problem. An article by Ming states that her group “changed the definition of their original problem several times” & that “wicked problems, by nature, are hard to pin down” due to the complexity of them (Ming, 2016).

The sources that I read to begin to better understand the wicked problem were:

This article explores the issues of inclusivity that exist within the museum sector stating that: “Gender museology has allowed the uncovering of the negative effects of white heterosexual male domination, which has rendered some women and other minorities’ (art)work invisible throughout history” (Grácio et al., 2020). This article challenged my prior assumptions, as I did not recognise that there was so many inclusivity issues within the museum sector. It provided me with an empathetic insight into the many complex issues that exist.

This article explores the many barriers that exist when trying to get young people involved in museum programs such them believing that museums are “boring”, “dictating” and “uninviting” due to the negative views that countless forced school visits have created (Shrapnel, 2012).

These sources emphasised the importance in getting young people involved in creating a more positive future for the museum sector, allowing museums to become more inclusive and remain relevant into the future. As well as this, it allowed me to recognise that the prototype that the group creates must be new and exciting, reframing the current negative views that young people have of museums.

In class, we started to complete an empathy map. After my research, I was able to add a huge amount of insight into the empathy map about what a young person might experience when visiting a museum. My research also helped the group move onto the define phase of the process, starting to “define the core problems” that exist (Yu Siang, 2009).

At this stage I also created two personas based off my research. Because our target audience is so large (12-25) I made sure to create two personas to cater for the whole target group.

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cobble-stone · 1 year

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🔥 - How has the way you think about yourself changed since you realized you were queer?

🌼 - If you used any other labels before your current one, what were they?

🌾 - How queer do you think you look? Would it be obvious to someone that you were queer if they looked at you?

🌱 - How would your younger self act if your current self told them they were queer?

💙 - When you first learned about the Queer community, did you immediately realize ‘That’s me!’ Or did you consider yourself a ‘really good ally’ for some time?

🔥: When I first figured out that I was queer it kinda like- it was very much a “ah. so that’s why Things Are the way they Are,” with the way they Are being the reason i felt so- other, to everyone else. I later figured out the reason for said othered feeling was actually because i was autistic. Figuring out I was trans was more- it was a lot harder and not an immediate “yes that’s me,” and while there’s been difficult parts, it’s largely been a very good thing for me. I started putting more effort into how I look/present because I wasn’t just completely apathetic towards my appearance, I actually- had ways that I wanted to look and realized I could feel happy in my appearance instead of just trying my best to ignore it

🌼: I identified as a lesbian for like….three? Years? From when I was 12 until I was 15. It turns out I was not a lesbian, I just didn’t want a romantic relationship where I was “the woman,” which meant even just the thought of dating men was very uncomfortable for me. I started questioning my gender properly when I was 15, and realized I was nonbinary. I just identified as gay and nonbinary but like gay in the “every attraction I experience is gay” way. Now I’m just unlabeled and a trans man, I’ve tried finding labels but like- nothing fits? I’ve tested out identifying as aroace, as gay, as bi, as combinations, and like. I’ve just come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter sexuality is a social construct I can just do whatever. I have no canonical sexuality feel free to impose whatever headcanons you want onto me as long as you know they aren’t canon

🌾: I used to look a lot more queer, but I decided to go mostly stealth at college (I’ll tell people I’m trans if it’s relevant but like- most people just accept i’m just Some Guy), I was only really openly trans in high school because I had to be in order for people to know I was a guy. The dyed hair (I have an underbleach) and my general style is like- vaguely edgy. Like if someone diluted an alt kid. I don’t immediately look queer but I also don’t immediately look straight. I used to put in more effort but like I’m tired man I don’t want to get all dressed up just for class every day

🌱: I think if I told (deadname) or Blue that she turned out to be a guy she would be. Very confused. I was not a tomboy as a kid at all, I honestly had very little concept of gender or sexuality for a long time. It used to be kinda distressing for me and it was why I was hesitant to identify as a trans guy for a long time- it’s kinda the common stereotype for a trans person to always just know, and I didn’t just know. How I see it now is like- (deadname) and Blue are separate from who I am now, (deadname) and Blue weren’t a guy, but I, Cobalt, sure am.

💙: Kinda both! When I first realized I was queer it was cause I saw “women could kiss women,” took the Strange Discomfort at the idea of dating men, did the math wrong, and immediately went “ah yes. i’m a lesbian.” I then very much was “just a good ally” about trans people for three years, to the point where my logic was “I can’t possibly be trans, that’d be transphobic of me.” This was especially doubled because I was just starting to poke at my transgenderness right as the end of the truscum era of the trans community, and like- my general opinion was “everyone is valid regardless of their identity or dysphoria but *I* can’t be trans *I* don’t have dysphoria.” (despite the fact that i did have dysphoria, it just wasn’t the stereotype of dysphoria just being “overwhelmingly bad body dysphoria” so I thought I didn’t .”

#cobble’s tones #ask games #hello anon hope you’re having a good day :)#oh god i talked for a while. my bad kdgdkdjdh i have lots to say about my trans identity #long post

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