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headspace-hotel · 6 months

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I will write this thought about Veganism and Classism in the USA in another post so as to not derail the other thread:

There are comments in the notes that say meat is only cheaper than plant based foods because of subsidies artificially lowering the price of meat in the United States. This is...part of the story but not all of it.

For my animal agriculture lab we went to a butcher shop and watched the butcher cut up a pig into various cuts of meat. I have had to study quite a bit about the meat industry in that class. This has been the first time I fully realized how strongly the meat on a single animal is divided up by socioeconomic class.

Like yes, meat cumulatively takes more natural resources to create and thus should be more expensive, but once that animal is cut apart, it is divided up between rich and poor based on how good to eat the parts are. I was really shocked at watching this process and seeing just how clean and crisp an indicator of class this is.

Specifically, the types of meat I'm most familiar with are traditionally "waste" parts left over once the desirable parts are gone. For example, beef brisket is the dangly, floppy bit on the front of a cow's neck. Pork spareribs are the part of the ribcage that's barely got anything on it.

And that stuff is a tier above the "meat" that is most of what poor people eat: sausage, hot dogs, bologna, other heavily processed meat products that are essentially made up of all the scraps from the carcass that can't go into the "cuts" of meat. Where my mom comes from in North Carolina, you can buy "livermush" which is a processed meat product made up of a mixture of liver and a bunch of random body parts ground up and congealed together. There's also "head cheese" (made of parts of the pig's head) and pickled pigs' feet and chitlin's (that's made of intestines iirc) and cracklin's (basically crispy fried pig skin) and probably a bunch of stuff i'm forgetting. A lot of traditional Southern cooking uses basically scraps of animal ingredients to stretch across multiple meals, like putting pork fat in beans or saving bacon grease for gravy or the like.

So another dysfunctional thing about our food system, is that instead of people of each socioeconomic class eating a certain number of animals, every individual animal is basically divided up along class lines, with the poorest people eating the scraps no one else will eat (oftentimes heavily processed in a way that makes it incredibly unhealthy).

Even the 70% lean ground beef is made by injecting extra leftover fat back into the ground-up meat because the extra fat is undesirable on the "better" cuts. (Gross!)

I've made, or eaten, many a recipe where the only thing that makes it non-vegan is the chicken broth. Chicken broth, just leftover chicken bones and cartilage rendered and boiled down in water? How much is that "driving demand" for meat, when it's basically a byproduct?

That class really made me twist my brain around about the idea of abstaining from animal products as a way to deprive the industry of profits. Nobody eats "X number of cows, pigs, chickens in a lifetime" because depending on the socioeconomic class, they're eating different parts of the animal, splitting it with someone richer or poorer than they are. If a bunch of people who only ate processed meats anyway abstained, that wouldn't equal "saving" X number of animals, it would just mean the scraps and byproducts from a bunch of people's steaks or pork chops would have something different happen to them.

The other major relevant conclusion I got from that class, was that animal agriculture is so dominant because of monoculture. People think it's animal agriculture vs. plant agriculture (or plants used for human consumption vs. using them to feed livestock), but from capitalism's point of view, feeding animals corn is just another way to use corn to generate profits.

People think we could feed the world by using the grain fed to animals to feed humans, but...the grain fed to animals, is not actually a viable diet for the human population, because it's literally just corn and soybean. Like animal agriculture is used to give some semblance of variety to the consumer's diet in a system that is almost totally dominated by like 3 monocrops.

Do y'all have any idea how much of the American diet is just corn?!?! Corn starch, corn syrup, corn this, corn that, processed into the appearance of variety. And chickens and pigs are just another way to process corn. That's basically why we have them, because they can eat our corn. It's a total disaster.

And it's even worse because almost all the USA's plant foods that aren't the giant industrial monocrops maintained by pesticides and machines, are harvested and cared for by undocumented migrant workers that get abused and mistreated and can't say anything because their boss will tattle on them to ICE.

#agriculture #it's so messed up #plants #livestock

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kxsalt · 2 months

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(Hot Coffee, part one. Part two is here.)

Hot coffee pours from the carafe. The young lady turns back to her customer and hands him the steaming cup. He pauses to look thoughtfully into the brew. Pointing at it, he asks; “Is this vegan?” She stares at him blankly. “Uh, yes. Coffee is vegan.” He nods in approval and wanders over to the condiment bar to pour cream into his cup. The girl watches him with dead eyes, shakes her head, and returns to her work. “Oookay… I can help the next customer!”

The next man in line steps up to the counter. “Small coffee, black, please and thank you.” She’s relieved by his basic manners and comprehensive understanding of how to purchase coffee. Pouring his cup, she looks back at him and meets his eyes. “You look super familiar. Have you been here before?” He leans against the counter as she steals a peek at his toned arms. “No, I haven’t. I might be coming by regularly; I just started some work nearby.” The barista brings the cup to him. “Ah, well, I hope you enjoy your new job!” Handing the man his coffee, they both glance over to see the first customer adding honey into his mug. He looks back at her with a compassionate smile. “Thanks, you too.”

She thinks about him for the rest of her shift, crawling through traffic on her bus ride home, and throughout the evening. I know I’ve seen him before, but where? He didn’t seem to recognize me at all. Finishing her night early, she crawls into bed. The girl opens up her laptop and reaches into her bedside drawer. Pulling out her strongest vibrator, she speaks to it. “It’s been a long day.” Pulling up an old comfort video she presses the buzzing toy firmly against her clit. She exhales deeply and finally starts to relax. Her eyes are fixed on the porn on her laptop. At first, she focuses on the man’s strong arms, gripping the woman by the hips – something that always excited her. But as the video carries on, she finds herself looking at the woman’s face. She looks so excited. Pleasured. Happy.

“You like that, slut?” The girl almost screams, dropping her vibrator between her legs. The man in the video has leaned into the frame. That’s him. From the shop today. That’s him. The woman in the video moans; “Yes! I love it!” He grabs her by the neck. “Do you want to be a good whore?”

She looks into his eyes. “Yes, I do.”

A few days later, the girl clocks out for her break. She spends it like all her other breaks, sitting outside, vaping, and fantasizing about sex or getting hit by a bus, depending on her mood. Today is a bus day. She blows a cloud of vapour into the air which drifts past the entrance to the coffee shop. A customer emerges with his coffee, lights a cigarette, and sits down next to her. The girl barely notices: She’s at the part of her fantasy where she’s in the hospital with a lawyer getting a giant check from the city. He takes a drag of his cigarette and gestures at the cloud in front of the shop.

“That stuff will kill you, you know.”

She jolts from her fantasy and turns to the smoking man. “What? Oh, hi! It’s you again. Um…” She fumbles with her device. “What do you mean? Smoking isn’t any better.”

“What? Really? But it’s vegan.” He retorts in a sing-song voice.

The girl clues in on the joke and they laugh together. She expected to be at a loss for words when she saw him again, but she finds herself oddly comfortable.

“So… I know where I recognize you from…?”

“Shit, really? They still have those wanted posters up? Please don’t call the cops.”

They laugh some more. “I just wanted to say… That I’m a big fan. I think what you do is… cool?”

“Oh, thank you! It takes a lot of vulnerability, so hearing that means a lot.”

“How did you start… you know… making porn?”

“What do you mean? I just started. Life’s short. I wanted to do it. So, I did.”

She nods slowly, stunned by the simplicity of his answer.

“You know, I’m filming right around the corner. If you ever wanted to come by and see the process, you’re more than welcome to. Just so long as it doesn’t ruin the magic for you.”

“Really? Yeah. Yeah, I would love that.”

“Great, here’s my number. Just let me know when you want to come by.”

He stands up and puts out his cigarette.

“By the way, you should quit. It’s bad for your health.”

“Oh please, vaping is the only thing that gets me through the day.”

He walks off to his job. “I wasn’t talking about that!”

She approaches the unassuming apartment door. Hanging from the door handle is a small sign: ‘Filming, don’t knock.’ The girl turns the handle carefully and sneaks inside. All the lights are off, except for the bedroom which is flooded with light. The familiar sounds of sex drift through the apartment. She stealthily approaches the doorway and peers into the bright room.

Three people with various film equipment surround a couple on the bed. She immediately recognizes her new friend kneeling behind a woman. He’s gripping her waist and forcing his cock deep into her. She’s bent over, ass up in the air, with her wrists handcuffed to the bedframe. The woman shrieks in delight with each thrust.

The director sees the young girl at the doorway and slips away to go and talk to her.

“Are you the fluffer?” The director whispers.

“What’s a fluffer?” The girl whispers back.

“Oh, you’re his friend. Never mind. Can you just wait here until the scene is done?”

The woman returns to the improvised set. The girl watches greedily, enjoying her voyeuristic perspective. She feels a combination of fascination and arousal that she’s never felt before. After a few more minutes, the director calls cut and asks the couple to switch positions. The woman on the bed rolls onto her back, her face flushed with ecstasy. The director waves to the actress. “Sorry, we gotta fix your makeup, take five, okay?” The woman releases herself from her handcuffs and scurries off to the bathroom.

“Hey, you made it!” The man sits on the bed, stroking his cock. “Come in, don’t be shy.”

She wanders over to talk to him, giving an awkward wave to the camera crew. Sitting on the bed next to the naked man, they make small talk and he explains a bit of how they work. All the while, he leans back against the bedframe, showing off his muscular body, and stroking himself. She finds himself staring at his thick cock running through his hands.

“Sorry, I just need to stay hard for when we get going again.”

“No problem… That makes sense. Nothing I haven’t seen before!” She jokes and toys with her hair. “Question: what’s a ‘fluffer’?”

“A fluffer is a girl who’s not part of the scene, who helps keep the actor hard during downtime like this. She might have sex or give head.” She catches him glancing at her chest. “…or sometimes just flirt and look cute. Usually, people just do it for fun, but it’s very useful.”

“Aha, okay…” She looks around the room. The crew is entirely ignoring her, scrolling through their phones. Looking into the bathroom she sees the actress still working on fixing her makeup. The girl turns back to the man.

“I don’t want to get in the way, or anything. But… Can I try? Being a fluffer?”

A sweet smile. “That would be really helpful.”

The girl smiles back and lowers her head into his lap. Taking his cock from his hand she strokes it softly, admiring its size. It’s bigger in person. Hungry for him, she wraps her lips around his head. He growls, sending warm waves through her body echoing in her pussy. Her mind goes blank and she slips him into her throat. Wet lips push into the base of his thick, shaved cock. Pride and excitement fill her as he starts to mumble and gasp from her fellatio. Saliva runs onto his balls, which she gently plays with as she deepthroats him. Her pussy drips as his breathing becomes raspy and shallow. I’m deepthroating my favorite porn star, and he loves it. She always knew she was a good cocksucker but getting this reaction from someone so experienced felt incredible.

His hand still softly stroking her hair, she sucks his dick joyfully. Lips wrapped around him, her tongue pushes firmly below his tip, licking upwards to squeeze a little taste of his precum. Still caressing his balls with one hand, the other strokes his shaft. The girl tightens her grip, maximizes her suction, and increases her pace. The man makes another primal noise, and the hand running through her hair finds its grip. Holding onto the back of her head, he pushes her face down again. The girl clamps onto his dick, forcing him to pull hard back up to slide her head up to the top again.

Willing tears roll down her concave cheeks as she holds his cock in his mouth with everything she has. The girl only relents her throat’s hold to let him force his cock deeper. Her shiny eyes meet his unfocused gaze. Her expression is one of complete submission. His expression could easily be mistaken for rage. The man’s other hand reaches down under her dress to find her without panties, and a smooth, bare pussy. She’s wet with her cum, and he grips her bum with the palm of his hand, sliding two fingers into her with ease. The girl’s eyes cross from the feeling of him penetrating her. He bares his teeth and shoves her head down again, and his fingers deep into her pussy.

Sparks fly across her vision and her head swims. A lack of oxygen from her deepthroating of the man’s thick cock, and adrenaline from his touch cause her to come close to fainting. Her pussy only gets wetter at the thought of passing out from getting used by him.

Moments away from darkness, the actress returns from the bathroom and steps over the girl to return to her position. As she reattaches the restraints to her wrists, the director asks them to resume the scene. The fluffer pulls her head off his cock with a pop. She looks up at him, teary-eyed, gasping for breath, and panting for his dick. His eyes are locked deep into hers with a feral glow. Teasing him, she gives him a naughty grin, strings of drool running from her chin to his throbbing cock. “Back to work for you!” Her voice is playful and confident, but her eyes betray a needy disappointment with their interruption.

The girl slowly slides off the bed, standing to face away from him. She looks over her shoulder, down to her exposed bum. His hand still deep between her thighs, gripping her ass, fingers still in her pussy. Not wanting to let go, he doesn’t break eye contact, holding her there. Pushing back just an inch, she fits a little bit more of him inside herself.

“Let’s keep going, we’ve still got a lot to shoot.”

The man gives a disappointed groan and releases the young lady. His fingers slide from her eager slit and he rolls over onto the actress. The girl walks back to the doorway with a sly butt wiggle. The man pushes his cock against the bound woman’s pussy, trying to resume the scene. The actress complains and whines, “Fuck, you’re so hard. Jesus, go slow to start.”

The camera rolls. The man is a professional, and he resumes fucking the actress, with just slightly less enthusiasm than before. Buried deep inside her, he looks up, past the lights, straight into the girl’s eyes. She winks at him and bites her lip.

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