LGBTAitP #28: Come Taste the Rainbow!

[Lentrax]

Ugh...I'm sorry I haven't been around to be helpful/supportive/silly as often as usual. I'm still having a rough time, apparently.

Being out to my friends and family hasn't changed any of the things I was hoping it would. I've asked both my group of friends and my parents to refer to me using female pronouns, but both groups have either forgotten, or else are too uncomfortable to do it.

The reason why I was so anxious to come out to my parents was because I don't want to be a secret anymore. But that's exactly how they're treating this. "No, you can't tell this person; Don't tell that person, either! You should just wait to do anything until you've gotten a permanent job...and gone to grad school (part time) and graduated from there...it's only a few more years, it can't be that bad, can it?"

I've started to feel really weird, too. Like, every morning when I get up for work, when I'm buttoning up my shirt it feels like I'm literally locking myself in a cage. There have been times when I just want to rip all of my clothes to shreds, so that I'm forced to go get new ones.

I feel like I'm lost - coming out was the big first step I needed to take to start along my path, but now that I've done that...I don't know where to go, and my parents are very nervous about "letting" me go anywhere. And I can't talk to my therapist about it, either - now that I've let them into that world, my parents keep wanting to talk to her. And since I don't want to just sign a release for them to talk about whatever, that means I have to bring one of them along every time I go, where we rehash things I've already figured out and dealt with ad naseum, talk about things that have no bearing whatsoever ("Well, what if he's just a transvestite, and that's it?"; "He's never really been in an adult relationship. Do you think that if he was, that could change things?").

Plus other things that are against board rules to talk about, all in all everything seems to haev settled into a big ball of gloom...

So, how is everyone elses day :smallsmile: ?

Oh, Phee. I'm sorry. This must be very rough for you. I know that its been said before, but I don't think they are purposefully trying to upset you. It will just take time. Maybe just an occasional correction. Reminding everyone, respectfully, of the proper pronouns and identification. It will be hard. it will take time.

But you are a beautiful person, Phee, and deserve to be who you wish.

Everyone else will see it too, just be patient.

[Asta Kask]

Interesting talk just gave me an experiment you could do with asexuals. It's completely non-invasive and painless - all you need to do is measure galvanic skin response, like a lie detector.

Galvanic skin response (GSR) is a measure of excitation. If you show a normal person* pictures of violent imagery, they show a GSR. Likewise if you show them pictures of naked men or women (depending on the preferences of test subject), you get a GSR. So my prediction is that a person who is asexual (and probably a demisexual as well) would show no such response.

And no, I can't think of something actually useful with the experiment (unless you wanted to screen for asexuality for some bizarre reason). And no, if you show a GSR that doesn't mean you're not asexual - it means my prediction is wrong.

*people with damage to their frontal lobes do not, and it is speculated that this is connected to their problems.

[Astrella]

Ugh...I'm sorry I haven't been around to be helpful/supportive/silly as often as usual. I'm still having a rough time, apparently.

Being out to my friends and family hasn't changed any of the things I was hoping it would. I've asked both my group of friends and my parents to refer to me using female pronouns, but both groups have either forgotten, or else are too uncomfortable to do it.

The reason why I was so anxious to come out to my parents was because I don't want to be a secret anymore. But that's exactly how they're treating this. "No, you can't tell this person; Don't tell that person, either! You should just wait to do anything until you've gotten a permanent job...and gone to grad school (part time) and graduated from there...it's only a few more years, it can't be that bad, can it?"

I've started to feel really weird, too. Like, every morning when I get up for work, when I'm buttoning up my shirt it feels like I'm literally locking myself in a cage. There have been times when I just want to rip all of my clothes to shreds, so that I'm forced to go get new ones.

I feel like I'm lost - coming out was the big first step I needed to take to start along my path, but now that I've done that...I don't know where to go, and my parents are very nervous about "letting" me go anywhere. And I can't talk to my therapist about it, either - now that I've let them into that world, my parents keep wanting to talk to her. And since I don't want to just sign a release for them to talk about whatever, that means I have to bring one of them along every time I go, where we rehash things I've already figured out and dealt with ad naseum, talk about things that have no bearing whatsoever ("Well, what if he's just a transvestite, and that's it?"; "He's never really been in an adult relationship. Do you think that if he was, that could change things?").

Plus other things that are against board rules to talk about, all in all everything seems to haev settled into a big ball of gloom...

So, how is everyone elses day :smallsmile: ?

*hugs*

Are they forcing themselves on you to go with you to your therapist? Cause I think you should have that time alone; especially since dealing with your family is something you should be able to talk with your therapist about.

Hmm, about the pronouns, I guess there's the option of constantly correcting them about it, but that might end up getting frustrating. Ugh, I know it's very frustrating to feel like, well, it sorta feels like "did you guys actually listen?"...

Mrrr. I have an idea though. Do you have any way of presenting more feminine (at home / around your friends)? Clothes etc...? Even if that's not really the style you want to go for it could serve as a bit of a reminder to them / a sign you're 'serious' about this? (Yes, that's silly but it might help.)

And the whole looking yourself into a cage rang really true for me; so you have all my sympathies.

Also, pm me for my skype / email, whatever you prefer for the non-board allowed stuff. I mean, obviously you don't have to talk about it (with me), but I really don't mind and I'd like to help if I can, so if you want to, don't hesitate.

*hugs*

-----

Own ramblings:
Ugh, I hate facial hair so much. It makes me super self conscious about even leaving my room right now, I hate it so much and no matter what I do I just can't shave without it hurting or being rashy.

Also having a little freak out about going to the store to buy a few tops which I really want to do but bleeeh....

[gunnar11]

Being out to my friends and family hasn't changed any of the things I was hoping it would. I've asked both my group of friends and my parents to refer to me using female pronouns, but both groups have either forgotten, or else are too uncomfortable to do it.

The reason why I was so anxious to come out to my parents was because I don't want to be a secret anymore. But that's exactly how they're treating this. "No, you can't tell this person; Don't tell that person, either! You should just wait to do anything until you've gotten a permanent job...and gone to grad school (part time) and graduated from there...it's only a few more years, it can't be that bad, can it?"

I've started to feel really weird, too. Like, every morning when I get up for work, when I'm buttoning up my shirt it feels like I'm literally locking myself in a cage. There have been times when I just want to rip all of my clothes to shreds, so that I'm forced to go get new ones.

I feel like I'm lost - coming out was the big first step I needed to take to start along my path, but now that I've done that...I don't know where to go, and my parents are very nervous about "letting" me go anywhere. And I can't talk to my therapist about it, either - now that I've let them into that world, my parents keep wanting to talk to her. And since I don't want to just sign a release for them to talk about whatever, that means I have to bring one of them along every time I go, where we rehash things I've already figured out and dealt with ad naseum, talk about things that have no bearing whatsoever ("Well, what if he's just a transvestite, and that's it?"; "He's never really been in an adult relationship. Do you think that if he was, that could change things?").

Plus other things that are against board rules to talk about, all in all everything seems to haev settled into a big ball of gloom...

So, how is everyone elses day :smallsmile: ?

As everyone else has already said, coming out is a hard process. To be honest, trying to relate to you is a bit hard for me, as I'm very much stuck in my closet at the moment. Nevertheless I think you shouldn't blame your parents and friends so much. This is a big change; it takes a while to acustom to that.
What I do think you should do is ask them to be a bit more thoughtful. To not question wether it is true or how come it is true that you are who you are, but to try to live with it and accept it. It'll only hurt you more if they try to fight it instead of understand it.
Maybe you should also spend a little more time with your friends. They are the ones that will be able to support you when you feel down, empathise with you like always before. This little 'change' doesn't affect your personality, and as such, it shouldn't be a problem.
From the experience I have recollected from others friends accept it first, family second. And to have the support of your friends already makes a person feel a lot better.

But now, to answer your question: My day has been pretty boring, and I've been goofing off, while I should be learning cuz I have a history exam tomorrow! *runs off*

*runs back*
I forgot! *BIG hug* We're here for you :smallsmile:
*runs off again*

[turkishproverb]

Ugh...I'm sorry I haven't been around to be helpful/supportive/silly as often as usual. I'm still having a rough time, apparently.

Being out to my friends and family hasn't changed any of the things I was hoping it would. I've asked both my group of friends and my parents to refer to me using female pronouns, but both groups have either forgotten, or else are too uncomfortable to do it.

The reason why I was so anxious to come out to my parents was because I don't want to be a secret anymore. But that's exactly how they're treating this. "No, you can't tell this person; Don't tell that person, either! You should just wait to do anything until you've gotten a permanent job...and gone to grad school (part time) and graduated from there...it's only a few more years, it can't be that bad, can it?"

I've started to feel really weird, too. Like, every morning when I get up for work, when I'm buttoning up my shirt it feels like I'm literally locking myself in a cage. There have been times when I just want to rip all of my clothes to shreds, so that I'm forced to go get new ones.

I feel like I'm lost - coming out was the big first step I needed to take to start along my path, but now that I've done that...I don't know where to go, and my parents are very nervous about "letting" me go anywhere. And I can't talk to my therapist about it, either - now that I've let them into that world, my parents keep wanting to talk to her. And since I don't want to just sign a release for them to talk about whatever, that means I have to bring one of them along every time I go, where we rehash things I've already figured out and dealt with ad naseum, talk about things that have no bearing whatsoever ("Well, what if he's just a transvestite, and that's it?"; "He's never really been in an adult relationship. Do you think that if he was, that could change things?").

Plus other things that are against board rules to talk about, all in all everything seems to haev settled into a big ball of gloom...

So, how is everyone elses day :smallsmile: ?

*Hugs* I'm a little panicked, but seems like you need more hugs than me by far. Just keep at it *HUGS*

[Arachu]

*So many hugs for Pheonix and Lena*


~Bianca

[Selpharia]

Ugh...I'm sorry I haven't been around to be helpful/supportive/silly as often as usual. I'm still having a rough time, apparently.

Being out to my friends and family hasn't changed any of the things I was hoping it would. I've asked both my group of friends and my parents to refer to me using female pronouns, but both groups have either forgotten, or else are too uncomfortable to do it.

The reason why I was so anxious to come out to my parents was because I don't want to be a secret anymore. But that's exactly how they're treating this. "No, you can't tell this person; Don't tell that person, either! You should just wait to do anything until you've gotten a permanent job...and gone to grad school (part time) and graduated from there...it's only a few more years, it can't be that bad, can it?"

I've started to feel really weird, too. Like, every morning when I get up for work, when I'm buttoning up my shirt it feels like I'm literally locking myself in a cage. There have been times when I just want to rip all of my clothes to shreds, so that I'm forced to go get new ones.

I feel like I'm lost - coming out was the big first step I needed to take to start along my path, but now that I've done that...I don't know where to go, and my parents are very nervous about "letting" me go anywhere. And I can't talk to my therapist about it, either - now that I've let them into that world, my parents keep wanting to talk to her. And since I don't want to just sign a release for them to talk about whatever, that means I have to bring one of them along every time I go, where we rehash things I've already figured out and dealt with ad naseum, talk about things that have no bearing whatsoever ("Well, what if he's just a transvestite, and that's it?"; "He's never really been in an adult relationship. Do you think that if he was, that could change things?").

Plus other things that are against board rules to talk about, all in all everything seems to haev settled into a big ball of gloom...

So, how is everyone elses day :smallsmile: ?

*hugs*
Ugh, that's miserable, Phee. I think you really should see if you can get your time with your therapist back for yourself, since it saeems like havin that be taken over by your parents is the biggest thing, since you don't have a privaqte space to talk about this (except with us I suppose, but that's not a meatspace option) Maybe you can ask your therapist for ideas for resources for your parents to use. The good thing is that they seem to trust her, and so they might go for something she suggests. If you can propose this without being confrontational, or get your therapist to mention it herself, then at least you can regain a little breathing space. Also, getting them to find a space to air their concerns (without you) with someone knowledgeable and ezxperienced in these things can only help in the long run

As for pronouns, you may be starting with expectations a little high here. Most of the people you've asked to change have known you for awhile, so its going to be hard to get them to switch, since you're firmly labeled in their minds. Maybe just getting them to use less masculine forms of address (if they use the classics like "man" a lot) would be a good start. I can't say much on presenting more femininely, but some subtle things like Astrelia mentioned might be a good start. Their worries about grad school and a career seem very pragmatic to me, so those at least might be dealt with by adopting a similar approach: come up with several options that satisfy their worries about your financial/job security and get you what you want earlier than their way will. All these solutions are band-aids, and really painful, but the cynic in me thinks they might be the best you're going to get in the short term

One other thing though, that can be easy to lose sight of when they're taking it upon themselves to gatekeep for you, is that they are doing what they think is best and out of good motives. This doesn't make them any less wrongheaded or hurtful, but it's good to keep in mind so you don't start a confrontation where the only possible outcome is that you lose and they restrict you more, and may help you get to common ground with them faster than if you deal with this another way, since their hand is objectively better than yours at the moment.

I'm sorry if that sounds really cold and heartless. I wanted to jsut offer comfort and a little bit of advice, but I let my inner brutal pragmatist out a little too much. *Hugs* again, and I hope you manage to work things out with them so that you can be truer to who you are.

~Laura

[Saskia]

When I said "scientific skepticism" I meant a (mostly American) political/philosophical movement based on empiricism and, well, skepticism.

...Oh. Well that explains a lot. lol :smallbiggrin:

Also I'm not entirely sure what "totes" means, except a bag or a totem :smallredface:


Sadly, the Sceptics community has had a lot of problems with that lately. Particularly regarding anyone ever mentioning feminism, which really became apparent under the hatred directed at Rebecca Watson. Hopefully we will eventually get better, but it is a long way until the majority lives up to the scepticism that we are supposed to have. ;_;

That's true, but I can understand why so many people have such a bad taste in their mouths about feminism. Placing my own opinions aside, a disturbing number of prominent feminists have proposed artificially reducing the male population to some small percentage of the total population. Granted, any more than zero is a disturbing number for something like that, but the fact that they are not ridiculed into submission as is wont to happen with detestable people with detestable ideas in prominent positions suggests tacit approval, or at least prioritizing group cohesion over anything else; either way, it doesn't offer a good image. The fact that Mary Daly was ever given the time of day is disgraceful enough, that she was given a position as professor at such a respectable establishment as Boston College will remain a black mark on humanity's collective soul. Breeding out gays and Jews and selective abortions against girls is horrendously bigoted and unacceptable, but getting rid of men is taking a brave and noble stand? Hardly, and all of us here surely know that, as do the vast majority of people, feminists included. The problem feminism has is the same problem many other groups have though, be they religious or philosophical or political, where the most extreme and rabid members are often the loudest and most outspoken members, and that gives the entire group a bad reputation, deserved or not. What it shares with other dogmatic ideologies is a large degree of silence from members who act out taking the idea to extremes for fear of looking weak or not unified, or simply because "Well obviously that's not REAL feminism! Only a fool would think that's what we support!" While it may be true that it's not mainstream feminism, they ARE the most prominent voices for feminism in mainstream society. Finally, while the patriarchy model may be interesting and explain some things very well, it doesn't explain all problems in gender studies; "Men get harsher prison sentences than women because men rigged the system against women" requires an explanation that is... less than intuitive.

If I'm being honest, it only makes sense then that the self-described skeptical community which purports to have such a problem with dogmatic groupthink would find large swaths of feminism dubious, and again if I'm being honest I don't know that they're entirely off-base, either.


Being out to my friends and family hasn't changed any of the things I was hoping it would. I've asked both my group of friends and my parents to refer to me using female pronouns, but both groups have either forgotten, or else are too uncomfortable to do it.

The reason why I was so anxious to come out to my parents was because I don't want to be a secret anymore. But that's exactly how they're treating this. "No, you can't tell this person; Don't tell that person, either! You should just wait to do anything until you've gotten a permanent job...and gone to grad school (part time) and graduated from there...it's only a few more years, it can't be that bad, can it?"

I've started to feel really weird, too. Like, every morning when I get up for work, when I'm buttoning up my shirt it feels like I'm literally locking myself in a cage. There have been times when I just want to rip all of my clothes to shreds, so that I'm forced to go get new ones.

I feel like I'm lost - coming out was the big first step I needed to take to start along my path, but now that I've done that...I don't know where to go, and my parents are very nervous about "letting" me go anywhere. And I can't talk to my therapist about it, either - now that I've let them into that world, my parents keep wanting to talk to her. And since I don't want to just sign a release for them to talk about whatever, that means I have to bring one of them along every time I go, where we rehash things I've already figured out and dealt with ad naseum, talk about things that have no bearing whatsoever ("Well, what if he's just a transvestite, and that's it?"; "He's never really been in an adult relationship. Do you think that if he was, that could change things?").

Plus other things that are against board rules to talk about, all in all everything seems to haev settled into a big ball of gloom...

That is... Harsh. I feel for you. One of my most darling friends is going through kind of the same thing. I wish it was easier for you. I respect that it's difficult for the parents since transsexualism for most older people is something entirely foreign and thus more frightening even than being gay, but it galls me all the same that they can't understand how painful it is for you when they act like transsexualism is even in the ballpark of transvestitism. It's like mistaking a baseball bat for a pen. I wish I could offer more than sympathy.


Regarding plasticity/rigidity of LGBTA traits - this is again a red herring. It's fascinating because of what it tells us about the human brain and psyche, but it's utterly irrelevant to the question of LGBTA rights.

Absolutely. Interesting, but ultimately irrelevant.


Let's say that we found a way to alter someone's sexual orientation - so what? It would still be wrong to use it on someone's without their consent (we'd have to watch so that bigoted or well-meaning parents don't use it on their kids, but that's not more complex than saying to parents that they can't cut off a kid's ear).

That's sticky territory because it relates, albeit tangentially, to religion. At least, legally. Infant circumcision should be illegal for the same reasons (I know I would be furious if my parents had decided to lop something off just 'cause, particularly something from the joy department), but it is not. This is why I'm not comfortable with the idea of studying the plasticity of sexuality and sexual identity until acceptance is more common and abuse is less likely; this line of study could be Pandora's box. While in most circumstances I'm all for advancing knowledge in all arenas, I think it would be prudent to wait a few years before pursuing this particular line of inquiry because of the harm it could do no matter the result.

[Lady Serpentine]

...Oh. Well that explains a lot. lol :smallbiggrin:

Also I'm not entirely sure what "totes" means, except a bag or a totem :smallredface:


It's a contraction of 'totally', I believe.

Also, what is (a?) 'SPAG'?

[Kindablue]

Also I'm not entirely sure what "totes" means, except a bag or a totem :smallredface:

It's, like, totes a thing that brosefs say to each another when they mean "totally."


Also, what is (a?) 'SPAG'?

Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar?

[Astrella]

I want to make the remark that prominent here means mostly academic though. People from other currents of feminism like womanism are just as prominent; just less in the spotlight cause of not being white / academic.

[Zorg]

Ugh...I'm sorry I haven't been around to be helpful/supportive/silly as often as usual. I'm still having a rough time, apparently.

Being out to my friends and family hasn't changed any of the things I was hoping it would. I've asked both my group of friends and my parents to refer to me using female pronouns, but both groups have either forgotten, or else are too uncomfortable to do it.

The reason why I was so anxious to come out to my parents was because I don't want to be a secret anymore. But that's exactly how they're treating this. "No, you can't tell this person; Don't tell that person, either! You should just wait to do anything until you've gotten a permanent job...and gone to grad school (part time) and graduated from there...it's only a few more years, it can't be that bad, can it?"

I've started to feel really weird, too. Like, every morning when I get up for work, when I'm buttoning up my shirt it feels like I'm literally locking myself in a cage. There have been times when I just want to rip all of my clothes to shreds, so that I'm forced to go get new ones.

I feel like I'm lost - coming out was the big first step I needed to take to start along my path, but now that I've done that...I don't know where to go, and my parents are very nervous about "letting" me go anywhere. And I can't talk to my therapist about it, either - now that I've let them into that world, my parents keep wanting to talk to her. And since I don't want to just sign a release for them to talk about whatever, that means I have to bring one of them along every time I go, where we rehash things I've already figured out and dealt with ad naseum, talk about things that have no bearing whatsoever ("Well, what if he's just a transvestite, and that's it?"; "He's never really been in an adult relationship. Do you think that if he was, that could change things?").

Plus other things that are against board rules to talk about, all in all everything seems to haev settled into a big ball of gloom...


If you remember my rant from the last thread, I totally understand where you're coming from with feeling more restricted than before and the increasing weirdness.

I'm quite surprised your therapist is allowing your parents in still, it seems like a conflict of interests as they were hired as your therapist, not a relationship one. I'd definitely talk to the therapist and say that you need your space back (Selpharia's suggestion to get them to remove your parents is a good one).
And yes, it's hard, but you might have to tell your parents you need your own therapist to talk about your personal issues. Maybe there's a parent's support group around or online they could get info from?

In regards to them trying to hold you back, try pointing out how much faster it will be if you do it now (while you're young) and that you'll be transitioned before trying to find a job so it'll be easier than trying to transition at work.
Perhaps because I'm older and jaded, but if they told me not to tell people or whatever, I'd tell them that I'll tell whatever people I want about my business, as that is my decision and nobody elses.

It is harder being younger and more dependent on them, but they're going to have to deal with this sooner or later.



So, how is everyone elses day :smallsmile: ?

Well I just bought a $700 coat, so I'm either very good or have lost my damn mind or both!

[turkishproverb]

can't it be both?

[Lentrax]

Well I just bought a $700 coat, so I'm either very good or have lost my damn mind or both!

Both sounds about right to me.

*Belated hugs for Pheonix*

*more hugs for everyone*

[Lycunadari]

Ugh...I'm sorry I haven't been around to be helpful/supportive/silly as often as usual. I'm still having a rough time, apparently.

Being out to my friends and family hasn't changed any of the things I was hoping it would. I've asked both my group of friends and my parents to refer to me using female pronouns, but both groups have either forgotten, or else are too uncomfortable to do it.

The reason why I was so anxious to come out to my parents was because I don't want to be a secret anymore. But that's exactly how they're treating this. "No, you can't tell this person; Don't tell that person, either! You should just wait to do anything until you've gotten a permanent job...and gone to grad school (part time) and graduated from there...it's only a few more years, it can't be that bad, can it?"

I've started to feel really weird, too. Like, every morning when I get up for work, when I'm buttoning up my shirt it feels like I'm literally locking myself in a cage. There have been times when I just want to rip all of my clothes to shreds, so that I'm forced to go get new ones.

I feel like I'm lost - coming out was the big first step I needed to take to start along my path, but now that I've done that...I don't know where to go, and my parents are very nervous about "letting" me go anywhere. And I can't talk to my therapist about it, either - now that I've let them into that world, my parents keep wanting to talk to her. And since I don't want to just sign a release for them to talk about whatever, that means I have to bring one of them along every time I go, where we rehash things I've already figured out and dealt with ad naseum, talk about things that have no bearing whatsoever ("Well, what if he's just a transvestite, and that's it?"; "He's never really been in an adult relationship. Do you think that if he was, that could change things?").

Plus other things that are against board rules to talk about, all in all everything seems to haev settled into a big ball of gloom...

So, how is everyone elses day :smallsmile: ?

*hugs* I sadly don't have any advise for you, but I think what the others suggested is really good? *hugs*



Ugh, I hate facial hair so much. It makes me super self conscious about even leaving my room right now, I hate it so much and no matter what I do I just can't shave without it hurting or being rashy.

Also having a little freak out about going to the store to buy a few tops which I really want to do but bleeeh....

Are you afraid of bad reactions of the shop assistants or other customers? Then you could just say that the tops are a present for your sister/friend/whatever. That might be terrible advise, if it is, just ignore it. :smallredface: *hugs*

[Socratov]

Hugs for those in need/want of them.

shoulders for those who need to lean on them.

and further I have nothing to say except to people having a hard time to stay strong and that they will get there...

[Lord Raziere]

It's, like, totes a thing that brosefs say to each another when they mean "totally."


I dislike that word, in my honest opinion, that word is a barbaric and violent mangling of "totally", sounds stupid and will only confuse things further.

and now that I think about, slang in general is a stupid concept, perpetuated by people who dislike other people other than their friends understanding them in in some mindless clique-ish obsession, and thus only rendering language less comprehensible for the whole of humanity. I know, sounds a little hateful and extreme, but I'm just being slightly grumpy.

[Lentrax]

Are you afraid of bad reactions of the shop assistants or other customers? Then you could just say that the tops are a present for your sister/friend/whatever. That might be terrible advise, if it is, just ignore it. :smallredface: *hugs*

Online shopping as well, perhaps? I do all my shopping on the internets. At least i get the shirt I want without having to go all over. You have no idea how difficult it is to find nerdy stuff in Real Small Town, USA.

edit: It dawns on me after I posted this that some of ya'll may be from Real Small Town, USA. If you are, and you find it isn't, let me know, 'cause I would love to move.

[Heliomance]

I found someone that said they could help with makeup. I might actually be able to go half-and-half like the individual in the photo I posted!

[Lentrax]

That's awesome, Helio.

Makes me wish I could do more for Halloween. Ah well.

I'm just glad I'll be able to take the kids this year. Maybe I can do a good costume next year.

[appending_doom]

Ah, costuming. Every time I get inspired I spend entirely too much time on it and drive myself a little nuts in the process.

Still, I hope you feel accomplished when you get it worked out; or at least that other people enjoy it. If I never got either of those feelings, I'd never put the effort.

And hi, I'm Drew. Friendlier than I seem, I've been assured.

[Mina Kobold]

...Oh. Well that explains a lot. lol :smallbiggrin:

Also I'm not entirely sure what "totes" means, except a bag or a totem :smallredface:



That's true, but I can understand why so many people have such a bad taste in their mouths about feminism. Placing my own opinions aside, a disturbing number of prominent feminists have proposed artificially reducing the male population to some small percentage of the total population. Granted, any more than zero is a disturbing number for something like that, but the fact that they are not ridiculed into submission as is wont to happen with detestable people with detestable ideas in prominent positions suggests tacit approval, or at least prioritizing group cohesion over anything else; either way, it doesn't offer a good image. The fact that Mary Daly was ever given the time of day is disgraceful enough, that she was given a position as professor at such a respectable establishment as Boston College will remain a black mark on humanity's collective soul. Breeding out gays and Jews and selective abortions against girls is horrendously bigoted and unacceptable, but getting rid of men is taking a brave and noble stand? Hardly, and all of us here surely know that, as do the vast majority of people, feminists included. The problem feminism has is the same problem many other groups have though, be they religious or philosophical or political, where the most extreme and rabid members are often the loudest and most outspoken members, and that gives the entire group a bad reputation, deserved or not. What it shares with other dogmatic ideologies is a large degree of silence from members who act out taking the idea to extremes for fear of looking weak or not unified, or simply because "Well obviously that's not REAL feminism! Only a fool would think that's what we support!" While it may be true that it's not mainstream feminism, they ARE the most prominent voices for feminism in mainstream society. Finally, while the patriarchy model may be interesting and explain some things very well, it doesn't explain all problems in gender studies; "Men get harsher prison sentences than women because men rigged the system against women" requires an explanation that is... less than intuitive.

If I'm being honest, it only makes sense then that the self-described skeptical community which purports to have such a problem with dogmatic groupthink would find large swaths of feminism dubious, and again if I'm being honest I don't know that they're entirely off-base, either.

From what I can tell, that is actually not the case. While Radical Feminists (A label adopted by some who seek such things) are seemingly around, the vast majority of outspoken and loud feminists are in the ballpark of Watson, Natalie Reed and others like them. Speaking for equality and reason for all genders, while also criticising the bigoted feminists on the same level as they criticise MRAs. The stereotype of feminists being evil women-supremacists who wish to castrate every male in existence is prevalent, but it is by far a straw-man argument. In the same vein that sceptics are labelled as cynical nihilists who eat babies, so are feminists often labelled as malicious sexists who eat male-assigned babies.

Not to say that we should not fight to be more loud about egalitarian feminism, but we are not coming in large swaths of feminism. It has merely been a few instances of someone talking about how groping and rape jokes are not OK. The response was for the majority to bully the speakers into silence and call them femi-nazis. It is quite likely that I am missing some large amount of anti-men feminists from before my time, but they were not sceptical, they were bullies. As a member of both the sceptical and feminist communities, I find that "dubiousness" dubious. If you are not sure if it is not off-base, you do not hurl insults. You explain your doubts, like you did! ^_^


I found someone that said they could help with makeup. I might actually be able to go half-and-half like the individual in the photo I posted!

Congrats! ^_^


Ah, costuming. Every time I get inspired I spend entirely too much time on it and drive myself a little nuts in the process.

Still, I hope you feel accomplished when you get it worked out; or at least that other people enjoy it. If I never got either of those feelings, I'd never put the effort.

And hi, I'm Drew. Friendlier than I seem, I've been assured.

Welcome, Drew. Hope you will have fun! :smallsmile:

PS: My apologies if I seem angry. I have been a bit annoyed at some things lately, both at myself (I can be way too stereotyping sometimes, sorry if I do that! m(_ _)m) and at some classmates. Sorry! ^_^'

PPS: *HUGS for Lena, Absol and Turkish*

[Serpentine]

and now that I think about, slang in general is a stupid concept, perpetuated by people who dislike other people other than their friends understanding them in in some mindless clique-ish obsession, and thus only rendering language less comprehensible for the whole of humanity. I know, sounds a little hateful and extreme, but I'm just being slightly grumpy.I couldn't disagree more. Slang is some of the most colourful, interesting language that helps to generate and distinguish whole cultures and often helps drive the development of language itself. One of the many things that excite me about coming into contact with and learning about a foreign culture is learning about their slang, how it works, and what it says about the society that developed it. Slang is almost as necessary, inevitable and fundamental an aspect of human communication as grammar.

[Kindablue]

I dislike that word, in my honest opinion, that word is a barbaric and violent mangling of "totally", sounds stupid and will only confuse things further.

and now that I think about, slang in general is a stupid concept, perpetuated by people who dislike other people other than their friends understanding them in in some mindless clique-ish obsession, and thus only rendering language less comprehensible for the whole of humanity. I know, sounds a little hateful and extreme, but I'm just being slightly grumpy.

That's just, like, your opinion, man. And I've never actually met anyone who talks like that, so you can feel a bit better that it's not a totes popular word.

[appending_doom]

I couldn't disagree more. Slang is some of the most colourful, interesting language that helps to generate and distinguish whole cultures and often helps drive the development of language itself. One of the many things that excite me about coming into contact with and learning about a foreign culture is learning about their slang, how it works, and what it says about the society that developed it. Slang is almost as necessary, inevitable and fundamental an aspect of human communication as grammar.

Discussions like these remind me of the linguistic maps showing what names people in the US give to their carbonated drinks.

Also, you know, Shakespeare, who just made up words left and right.

[Serpentine]

Words for swimwear is a good one in Australia. Depending on where you're from, it can be swimmers, bathers, cossie or togs.

[Asta Kask]

Why are kangaroo infants called 'joeys'?

And hi Appending Doom! We don't bite unless you pay extra.

[Zorg]

The etymology is lost in time - might be a corrupted native word or possibly even derived from slang!
And it's also the term for any marsupial's young.


Serps - don't forget boardies (I've heard it used as a generic unisex term) and the good ol' budgie smugglers.

[Astrella]

*sigh* So I didn't go out for clothes and now I'm wondering if I should even bother going to the halloween thingie. And to top it of I ended up hurting one of my friends. :/

How am I going to get there when I can't even do this? :smallfrown:

[Arachu]

And hi, I'm Drew. Friendlier than I seem, I've been assured.

Hi~ ^_^


PS: My apologies if I seem angry. I have been a bit annoyed at some things lately, both at myself (I can be way too stereotyping sometimes, sorry if I do that! m(_ _)m) and at some classmates. Sorry! ^_^'

*Hugs!* I think some (most?) Radfems don't fit the stereotype either, but you made a good point...


I couldn't disagree more. Slang is some of the most colourful, interesting language that helps to generate and distinguish whole cultures and often helps drive the development of language itself. One of the many things that excite me about coming into contact with and learning about a foreign culture is learning about their slang, how it works, and what it says about the society that developed it. Slang is almost as necessary, inevitable and fundamental an aspect of human communication as grammar.

If nobody ever made words up, there wouldn't be an English language to mangle. :smalltongue:


*sigh* So I didn't go out for clothes and now I'm wondering if I should even bother going to the halloween thingie. And to top it of I ended up hurting one of my friends. :/

How am I going to get there when I can't even do this? :smallfrown:

*So many hugs* Please don't be so hard on yourself. There's nothing wrong with being stressed out about stuff. :c


~Bianca

[Irish Musician]

*sigh* So I didn't go out for clothes and now I'm wondering if I should even bother going to the halloween thingie. And to top it of I ended up hurting one of my friends. :/

How am I going to get there when I can't even do this? :smallfrown:

Awww, I'm sorry!!:smalleek: what happened?! Ya know, that is if you want to talk about it, if not, then *HUGS*

~Matthew~

[Zorg]

You'll make it - friends can be repaired, and it takes time to get the courage to do things (I chickened out today when buying my coat and said it was for my now non-existant girlfriend despite planning not to). Dealing with other people is the bit I'm finding the hardest too.

If you're going to a store and know what you want write it down on a shopping list so that way it looks like you've been sent on a mission to get particular things. If not certain write down a general description / size and if anyone asks say you'll recognise the style when you see it as "you were in before with sister/GF/friend" etc.

[Coidzor]

*sigh* So I didn't go out for clothes and now I'm wondering if I should even bother going to the halloween thingie. And to top it of I ended up hurting one of my friends. :/

How am I going to get there when I can't even do this? :smallfrown:

Well, it's a bit of a philosophical question as to whether they're your friend if it came to violence over LGBTA-related things. And another, different one if knowing who and what you are caused them pain.

And if it was just a tiff separate from the previous context (apologies if I missed a post that lays this out, but I didn't see one when I double checked), then that's hardly an obstacle to deflate your spirit and keep you from going out there and having fun and meeting people to bolster yourself against the coming winter doldrums with social interaction.

All you can do is get up, dust yourself off, and try again. Or maybe redistribute the ordering of your goals so that they're broken down in such a way that you concentrate on one step at a time. Focus on today and what you're doing rather than on the long road ahead and having to keep doing it day in and day out.

It's like with exercise, you don't focus on the long months of the regimen that you have to keep up and let yourself stop completely when you have one bad day or have to go to a wedding or a funeral or a sexy dinner party that you hadn't already planned for, no, you keep yourself focused on making sure that today is a success and keeps to the plan and if you slip up then you get back on and make sure the rest of the day is on target as much as you can and focus on the next day as it comes.

That's how you build up habit and experience as a support mechanism so that you don't have to actively think about it anymore.

You can do it.

[Lentrax]

*sigh* So I didn't go out for clothes and now I'm wondering if I should even bother going to the halloween thingie. And to top it of I ended up hurting one of my friends. :/

How am I going to get there when I can't even do this? :smallfrown:


Well, it's a bit of a philosophical question as to whether they're your friend if it came to violence over LGBTA-related things. And another, different one if knowing who and what you are caused them pain.

And if it was just a tiff irrespective of the previous context (apologies if I missed a post that lays this out, but I didn't see one when I double checked), then that's hardly an obstacle to deflate your spirit and keep you from going out there and having fun and meeting people to bolster yourself against the coming winter doldrums with social interaction.

All you can do is get up, dust yourself off, and try again. Or maybe redistribute the ordering of your goals so that they're broken down in such a way that you concentrate on one step at a time. Focus on today and what you're doing rather than on the long road ahead and having to keep doing it day in and day out.

It's like with exercise, you don't focus on the long months of the regimen that you have to keep up and let yourself stop completely when you have one bad day or have to go to a wedding or a funeral or a sexy dinner party that you hadn't already planned for, no, you keep yourself focused on making sure that today is a success and keeps to the plan and if you slip up then you get back on and make sure the rest of the day is on target as much as you can and focus on the next day as it comes.

That's how you build up habit and experience as a support mechanism so that you don't have to actively think about it anymore.

You can do it.

I'm sorry to hear that. Its hard when you hurt friends, especially if you don't mean to.

I don't have a lot of friends IRL, so when I do hurt one of them it hurts me too.

But the best advice I can give is above. Learning from it and trying to move forward, trying to repair the damge done, is what defines who we are.

[Irish Musician]

*Wonderfully worded advice snip*
Yeah, pretty much this. Lovely words Coidzor!!

~Matthew~

[Coidzor]

Yeah, pretty much this. Lovely words Coidzor!!

~Matthew~

Now if only I could live by them keep from trying to use words like "irrespective" instead of ones that actually communicate my meaning. :smallsigh:

[Absol197]

Thanks for all your support. You guys are the bestest :smallsmile: !


*sigh* So I didn't go out for clothes and now I'm wondering if I should even bother going to the halloween thingie. And to top it of I ended up hurting one of my friends. :/

How am I going to get there when I can't even do this? :smallfrown:

*Hugs!* Don't worry Lena, I know it can be hard to go shopping when you're afraid about judging eyes. Zorg's suggestion's a good one, you could try that! But you'll be able to pluck up the courage soon enough, and then we won't be able to keep you out of the stores!

And I don't know what happened with your friend, but if they're truly your friend, they'll find a way to forgive you. The important thing is to talk. It may be hard, but if you feel like you hurt them, be big and apologize. You may find out that they didn't really feel hurt at all (of course, depending on the situation this may not be true, but it's a possibility...)!

If you want to talk, I have a newly clean inbox :smallsmile: .


~Phoenix~

[appending_doom]

The important thing is to talk. It may be hard, but if you feel like you hurt them, be big and apologize. You may find out that they didn't really feel hurt at all (of course, depending on the situation this may not be true, but it's a possibility...)!


~Phoenix~

I'll agree on this point. Talking's the best way to deal with the hurt - I'd advise getting very clear (if you don't know) how your friend feels about it. It's hard to have a serious conversation about that sort of stuff (especially if it's personal for either of you), but it's worth it.

[Lord Raziere]

I couldn't disagree more. Slang is some of the most colourful, interesting language that helps to generate and distinguish whole cultures and often helps drive the development of language itself. One of the many things that excite me about coming into contact with and learning about a foreign culture is learning about their slang, how it works, and what it says about the society that developed it. Slang is almost as necessary, inevitable and fundamental an aspect of human communication as grammar.

kay. I reserve my right then, to say "complexily" "complicatedness" "imaginize" and "constringent" then. as well as any other words I modify or make up. like disastrophe.

[noparlpf]

kay. I reserve my right then, to say "complexily" "complicatedness" "imaginize" and "constringent" then. as well as any other words I modify or make up. like disastrophe.

That's basically your right, the same way it's my right to use contractions and speak modern English as opposed to ancient Hebrew or Greek or even whatever came before that.

[Serpentine]

Sure, you can do that if you want. You'll probably just end up looking silly, though. Doesn't effect my point in even the slightest bit.
I assume you hate swearing, too. You know, what with all swearing being slang. And regional terms for certain items. Cockney rhyming slang...

[golentan]

I like evolving languages. Learning how they've changed is one of the more pleasant ways I've found to while away the centuries.

And romance. Romance is by far my number one distraction from the eternal navel gazing I find myself drawn to in undistracted moments. Speaking of which *SQUEE* Girlfriend So Cute!

[Socratov]

I have mixed feelings on shanging languages, on theone hand you gain lovely new things, but on the other hand some language gets lost while also being beautiful.

and I have a lack of romance as of late, and sadly not much time to do something about it (also, the neighbourhood seems to be almost devoid of women of my age), ah well, maybe when I'm back going to class again instead of in my internship...

[Lord Raziere]

Sure, you can do that if you want. You'll probably just end up looking silly, though. Doesn't effect my point in even the slightest bit.
I assume you hate swearing, too. You know, what with all swearing being slang. And regional terms for certain items. Cockney rhyming slang...

really? looking silly? how do you think you look to me when you use that mangled form of "totally"? not anything I'd take seriously.

as for swearing…..eh….there are instances where a well-placed swear is needed, but swear too much and crosses over from flavor to incomprehensible offensive gibberish not worth listening to. and cockney rhyming slang sounds like something I hate to. just because it combines those three words together. I don't even know what it is, and I don't particularly care to find out.

@ golentan: why would WANT to distract yourself from navel-gazing? I practically navel-gaze like breathing.

[Socratov]

I always though swearing was ok, provided it had some comedic value liek in Blackadder and Chef! (BTW, lenny henry is really, really , really great at swearing in that series)

[Zorg]

I'm on my phone at the moment, so just imagine I'm embedding a macro here implying that I use some form of obsolete language like 'æ' and making a reference that "you probably wouldn't have heard of it".

The implication of course being that you're all starting to sound like a bunch of linguistics hipsters and there's a language thread already.

[Socratov]

well, I don't know about accusing us of being hipster, but one (relevant) example of lost language I pity losing is the change of meaning for the word 'gay' from happy through homosexual into a derogatory term for a homosexual passing at the moment into a derogatory term of things (some) people generally don't like.

[Serpentine]

really? looking silly? how do you think you look to me when you use that mangled form of "totally"? not anything I'd take seriously.*insert Gone With The Wind reference here* :I

as for swearing…..eh….there are instances where a well-placed swear is needed, but swear too much and crosses over from flavor to incomprehensible offensive gibberish not worth listening to. and cockney rhyming slang sounds like something I hate to. just because it combines those three words together. I don't even know what it is, and I don't particularly care to find out.As this has no place in this thread, I just want to make one last teeny tiny main point.
When you say this:
and now that I think about, slang in general is a stupid concept, perpetuated by people who dislike other people other than their friends understanding them in in some mindless clique-ish obsession, and thus only rendering language less comprehensible for the whole of humanity.you are insulting (almost?) every single person on this planet, including yourself I'd bet. Every single person who swears; every single person who refers to carbonated sugary beverages as soft drink, soda or pop; every single person who refers to children as kids; every single geek who refers to "d4s" as "caltrops" - or as d4s, for that matter, or to themselves as "geeks"; if you refer to genitals as anything but their scientific names; if you've ever referred to your money as anything other than dollars or pounds (or whatever you have where you are)... If you use language at all, I pretty much guarantee you use slang. And thus, you are thereby calling yourself a "person who dislikes other people other than their friends understanding them in some mindless clique-ish obsession". You are making a humongous generalisation, and big claims demand big backing-up - especially when your claims are insulting literally billions of people.
I kinda wanna divert this into a discussion of LGBTA-related slang, but I'm honestly not sure whether we could do that while staying within the forum rules...

[Coidzor]

From what I recall, it first became a derogatory term for sexually promiscuous individuals and those who were viewed as abusing drugs in those days before it became applied to homosexuality. So in an unfortunate way it makes some amount of sense how the use expanded outward again, though it's messy because of the time scales we're working on and reclamation of the term into a sense of identity.

[Socratov]

*insert Gone With The Wind reference here* :I
As this has no place in this thread, I just want to make one last teeny tiny main point.
When you say this: you are insulting (almost?) every single person on this planet, including yourself I'd bet. Every single person who swears; every single person who refers to carbonated sugary beverages as soft drink, soda or pop; every single person who refers to children as kids; every single geek who refers to "d4s" as "caltrops" - or as d4s, for that matter, or to themselves as "geeks"; if you refer to genitals as anything but their scientific names; if you've ever referred to your money as anything other than dollars or pounds (or whatever you have where you are)... If you use language at all, I pretty much guarantee you use slang. And thus, you are thereby calling yourself a "person who dislikes other people other than their friends understanding them in some mindless clique-ish obsession". You are making a humongous generalisation, and big claims demand big backing-up - especially when your claims are insulting literally billions of people.
I kinda wanna divert this into a discussion of LGBTA-related slang, but I'm honestly not sure whether we could do that while staying within the forum rules...
ofcourse we could, as long as people don't start to call other people names it could even have a positive effect in negating slurs by turnging them into something positive, or generate understanding because of discovering the roots of said term or word.

From what I recall, it first became a derogatory term for sexually promiscuous individuals and those who were viewed as abusing drugs in those days before it became applied to homosexuality. So in an unfortunate way it makes some amount of sense how the use expanded outward again, though it's messy because of the time scales we're working on and reclamation of the term into a sense of identity.

well, it's a mere 90 years (give or take). So if I understand correctly the word 'gay' has gone from an adjective indicating positive traits, to a euphemism for certain practices, to a euphemism for a certain preference of partner (as well as parodied character trait of a group of said preference), to a slur for a group of people, to an adjective indicating negative traits, completely opposite in terms of meaning compared to where it started. IMO that is quite the twist, especially in a mere 90 years (gay was still a positive adjective in the roaring '20s)

[Asta Kask]

I kinda wanna divert this into a discussion of LGBTA-related slang, but I'm honestly not sure whether we could do that while staying within the forum rules...

I think a lot of the derogatory terms are filtered. Apart from those I only know 'bear' and 'beard'. I think. There are probably terms I use that I don't think of as slang, though.

What is slang anyway? Who determines what slang is? Is 'lol' slang?

[Socratov]

well, I think slang is a term for words (or alternative meanings of a word) that are used by a certain group of people to make it popular enough to advertise it's existence while not being used enough to be added to the language in question as conventional language.

[Mina Kobold]

I'm on my phone at the moment, so just imagine I'm embedding a macro here implying that I use some form of obsolete language like 'æ' and making a reference that "you probably wouldn't have heard of it".

The implication of course being that you're all starting to sound like a bunch of linguistics hipsters and there's a language thread already.

The letter standing Twenty-Sixth in the alphabetum Danum dost be a language by itself? And obsolete? Malefactor!* :smallmad::smalltongue:


*The 26th letter of the Danish alphabet is a language? And obsolete? Evil-doer!


well, I think slang is a term for words (or alternative meanings of a word) that are used by a certain group of people to make it popular enough to advertise it's existence while not being used enough to be added to the language in question as conventional language.

According to the Oxford dictionary, that definition is pretty close. It is generally informal, restricted mostly to speech and usually only used in specific contexts or groups. So they are the kitten equivalent to a proper word's cat. So to speak. :3

[Irish Musician]

Good morning my Beautiful people of this thread, hope you all had a good night.

I didn't. MY wife is out of town because her gpa died, which wasn't a good thing, but we are glad that he did due to the fact that he had lymphoma and was in a lot of pain. And when she isn't sleeping next to me in the bed, I can't sleep. Not to mention the fact that I have second hand poison oak from her (not really her fault, she was just the source), and all in all I got it worse than she did and she was the one who was all up in it. Well, went last night to get some steroids (shot and 15 regiment of pills) from the Dr's office, and it helped quite a bit, however the shot kept me up all night as well.

On the brighter side, I got my new TV stand all set up with my surround sound, game consoles, and the like last night while I couldn't sleep.....so that was at least some silver lining.

I know there aren't strictly LGBTA related, really, I just needed a little venting time, so thank you for that. Now, for coffee..........lots of coffee.....

~Matthew~

[turkishproverb]

*Hugs Matthew* Sorry.

[Asta Kask]

*hug Matthew from a distance, so I don't get third-hand poison oak*

[turkishproverb]

I don't think you can get poison oak on the internets.

[Asta Kask]

Well, you hugged him, right? I guess we're about to find out... :smallamused:

[turkishproverb]

*Hugs Asta* :smalltongue:

[SiuiS]

Nuts. Thought I was on count but apparently this is quote 2-11, and quote 1 dropped.


I think the emphasis is on the complete inability to experience love in this capacity without the (usual?) complete inability to find someone else desirable.

It's not even that academic. It's entirely sort of a toupe fallacy that sunk in; the only examples I've ever experienced of people who seek sex but abjure emotional attachment are predatory, and dehumanizing. So while I have most likely met people who fall under sexual aromatic, the only ones who exist under that label in my head are terrible people. This has come up before, and I believe Nix Nihila rebuked me then as well. I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. This post will be the last I bring it up.



If you're sexually active then why did you class yourself as asexual? :smallconfused:

Or did I miss some kind of time lapse? :smallconfused:


Not a time lapse, but he said he goes by asexual due to ease and efficacy. You must have missed it, it would be about four or five pages ago, maybe more.



You don't need to know special terms to know not to say "I don't want to have sex with anyone" when you mean "I don't feel romantic attraction or love for anyone but I'm sexually attracted to X and Y and Z." :smalltongue:

It doesn't take that much longer to say than giving out a single word and expecting that to suffice and it takes less time than having to explain the term as is so often necessary due to the differing personal definitions of terms and the need for explanation and clarification.

Maybe I'm just hypersensitive because it's a pet peeve of mine, but I'd swear that I run into this sentiment that one needs a special term to condense paragraphs of exposition when a general term with a sentence of qualification will suffice and communicate the idea more clearly. :smallconfused:

Quite the contrary, these labels are needed, for various quantities of need. Having a handy name makes something Obvious, it is a part of society and harder to question. Labelin yourself grants you legitimacy. You can be a big guy with training, a too heart, strong morals, a clean record and the ability to stop other people from breaking the rules, or you can be a police officer. This is why people usually respond to big definitions with "so, like a [thing], then?" because it's a way of hooking it into ourselves.

Someone can never want sex ever no not even then, and it weird. Someone can be asexual, and you accept that it is a thin they know which is legitimate. The label is the verbal equivalent of a uniform.


Ah, I see. Yes, I think I misconstrued your meaning. It's admittedly something which I can get a bit defensive about, as many people are rather unpleasant about the whole thing.

It is a possibility that I just haven't found "the right person" yet, though I do find it at least a little irritating when people tell me so. But mostly because it usually comes across as rather patronizing. I'm perfectly open to falling in love, but I have no real desire to go looking for it (outside of a small bit of curiosity as to what romantic love is like, though I imagine it is fairly similar to the kinds of love which I have experienced).

I personally want the concept of The Right One to go away forever. That concept has ruined so many things, so many people. U watch folks pass up good opportunities do they can be available "just in case" all the time and it's guy wrenching.

This whole one true love thing ruins movies for me too. Rassunfrassun.



-I like to get involved in sexual activities with both genders if I find them attractive, but I don't love them and thus won't have a relationship with them.
-Wait, how can you find some people attractive and others less attractive if you can't fall in love with someone? Isn't a body a body? Don't you just need something to be able to use your needs on, instead of a carefully selected guy/girl?

I just point out the differences there. A lot of people love their parents and don't lust for them. A lot of people like pornography and dot develop romantic attachment to the actors.



-No. Think about it. You like girls with big boobs and a nice ass, right? Well, it's the same for me, only with guys as well as girls. You don't fall in love with every girl you see that has a nice body. I don't fall in love at all with a girl or guy with a nice body.


You like guys with boobs and a nice butt? :smalltongue:



-Wait, I don't follow, are you bisexual or asexual, cuz you're not making any sense now.

These aren't creature types or Pokemon types. You can be bisexual, and aromatic. Or switch, biromantic and asexual. Although categories give the appearance of mutual exclusion so I get that part.



By the way, that was a conversation I had just two hours ago.


Wow. Man that stinks. :smalleek:



Edit: Just read my post again. Sorry I'm writing so angrily, but I don't get why it's so difficult to understand what I do/am. I thought you guys would understand it, but I guess that's not true.

Come now friend, no need to be passive aggressive. Coidzor goes in for academic discussion; to learn thins and discuss them to resolution even when the answer doesn't matter anymore. It's nothing personal, and I do it too. It's just a method of getting information so we will have it for next time.


I would have expected that anyone who's ever been physically attracted to someone, or had happyfuntime activities with someone, that they weren't in love with, would understand the concept of sexual aromantic.

Except we are discussing the furthest possible end of the scale. There is a magnitude, possible several, of difference between being able to get arroused without love involved, and being unable to love. I find both furthest ends of the spectrum alien. I can encapsulate asexual romantic because love feeds the soul, and I can't place a meaningful difference between celibate and asexual in this instance, strictly because it is none of my business (not to say there is no difference; however, I am caught here between over explaining and opening myself to criticism and not explaining enough. Opening myself to criticism. Le sigh). I have a harder time with understanding people who will never in their life develop emotional attachment but are fine using people for gratification. This has always in my experience come with not warning others of a lack of attachment, an in one case seemed rather sociopathic.

It also doesn't help that a sufficient number of asexuals are aromantic, or profess such, causing a mental correlation between sexuality and love.

I have half achieved my aim, here. The counter arguments, my thinking about them and formulating responses has helped me understand. The amount of discomfort and almost blame placement has me baffled though. I forget sometimes that these are touchy topics on which people expect crushing chastisement, as I am only ever around the playground where everything is nice. If it makes you feel better though, this wasn't just "aromatics are weird", it was "I find his weird and recognize it is a problem. Thoughts?"


Isn't that the name for the group of people that is really into trying new things?
No? How about this: Demoromantic. We're the Shareware version of love.


I thought demoromantic was something that only occured in TF2 slash fiction.

These both prompted spots of giggling~


Ugh...I'm sorry I haven't been around to be helpful/supportive/silly as often as usual. I'm still having a rough time, apparently.

Being out to my friends and family hasn't changed any of the things I was hoping it would. I've asked both my group of friends and my parents to refer to me using female pronouns, but both groups have either forgotten, or else are too uncomfortable to do it.

The reason why I was so anxious to come out to my parents was because I don't want to be a secret anymore. But that's exactly how they're treating this. "No, you can't tell this person; Don't tell that person, either! You should just wait to do anything until you've gotten a permanent job...and gone to grad school (part time) and graduated from there...it's only a few more years, it can't be that bad, can it?"

I've started to feel really weird, too. Like, every morning when I get up for work, when I'm buttoning up my shirt it feels like I'm literally locking myself in a cage. There have been times when I just want to rip all of my clothes to shreds, so that I'm forced to go get new ones.

I feel like I'm lost - coming out was the big first step I needed to take to start along my path, but now that I've done that...I don't know where to go, and my parents are very nervous about "letting" me go anywhere. And I can't talk to my therapist about it, either - now that I've let them into that world, my parents keep wanting to talk to her. And since I don't want to just sign a release for them to talk about whatever, that means I have to bring one of them along every time I go, where we rehash things I've already figured out and dealt with ad naseum, talk about things that have no bearing whatsoever ("Well, what if he's just a transvestite, and that's it?"; "He's never really been in an adult relationship. Do you think that if he was, that could change things?").

Plus other things that are against board rules to talk about, all in all everything seems to haev settled into a big ball of gloom...

So, how is everyone elses day :smallsmile: ?

I have nothing meaningful to say, except we love you and all hope this fixes. I'm sorry things are going south like that Phee. Such a by change should sit continued development, not be considered getting it out of your system so things can go back to SNAFU. I don't know what to do except rant.

*hug*


I dislike that word, in my honest opinion, that word is a barbaric and violent mangling of "totally", sounds stupid and will only confuse things further.

and now that I think about, slang in general is a stupid concept, perpetuated by people who dislike other people other than their friends understanding them in in some mindless clique-ish obsession, and thus only rendering language less comprehensible for the whole of humanity. I know, sounds a little hateful and extreme, but I'm just being slightly grumpy.

I think there is a secret society of people who promulgate these words because they like the sounds, irrespective of the meaning attached.


I found someone that said they could help with makeup. I might actually be able to go half-and-half like the individual in the photo I posted!

HUZZAH!

I'm probably not going to do anything myself, in the traditional line of dressing up and candy. I may set an empty place at the table for my mother though. :smallsmile:

[Socratov]

my sympathies for both you and your wife, Matthew. those things just plain suck. I hope the poisoning goes away quickly and that family matters are settled neatly. lastly I hope you found some incredibly fantastic coffee to put the sunrise back into your morning.

[Absol197]

I don't think you can get poison oak on the internets.

That's just what those tricksy oaks want you to think!

Don't worry, Matthew! My flaming feathers make me impervious to the toxins! *HUGS!* I'm sorry you're feeling so bad. I have a story to share with you that will hopefully make you feel better! :smallsmile:

Back when I was...oh, probably about thirteen, I was visiting my dad in Indiana. He had a boat, and he, a friend, that friend's nephew who was a friend of mine, and our dog went sailing around the lake. At one point, we stopped and went hiking in the woods.

The next morning when I woke up, I was deathly itchy all over, and I couldn't even open my left eye! The dog had run through a patch of poison ivy, and when I had snuggled with him later that night, it had got almost literally all over me! It took nearly a month and over three dozen bottle of Calemin (or however you spell it) lotion to clear me up. I couldn't see out of my left eye for a week, the lid was swollen shut.

Let's just say that when I got back to my mom's after that trip, she was freaking out :smallamused: .

And now I know how to recognize poison ivy on sight.

I know how hard it can be without sleep, but you can get through this!

...Hey, is it just me, or is it getting itchy in here :smallconfused: ?


~Phoenix~

EDIT: :smalleek:

[Serpentine]

I have a harder time with understanding people who will never in their life develop emotional attachment but are fine using people for gratification.Now this isn't fair at all, and I find it hard to believe that you of all people can't see that it's offensive. Do you seriously believe that romantic love is the only, or only valuable, kind of emotional attachment, and moreover that any sexual contact without love must involve someone being "used for gratification"?

What's more, it's not like love is a switch you can turn on and off. You don't choose whether, and whom, you fall in love with. You just do, or you don't, and you just have to deal with it, there's nothing you can do about it. At least that's certainly the case for me. It's not like - I imagine - aromantics wander around going "no, I shan't love you! And I shan't love you! Shan't shan't shan't!" It's that they can't.
I find it sad, and yeah I do find it a bit odd considering how fundamental it is to human psyche - maybe even more than sex - but I don't find it impossible to comprehend.

[The Succubus]

The letter standing Twenty-Sixth in the alphabetum Danum dost be a language by itself? And obsolete? Malefactor!* :smallmad::smalltongue:

Shouldn't that be Femalefactor? :smallwink:

[Asta Kask]

That's just what those tricksy oaks want you to think!

Don't worry, Matthew! My flaming feathers make me impervious to the toxins! *HUGS!* I'm sorry you're feeling so bad. I have a story to share with you that will hopefully make you feel better! :smallsmile:

~Phoenix~

Great. Now he has 3rd degree burns as well. :smalltongue:

[Saskia]

From what I can tell, that is actually not the case. While Radical Feminists (A label adopted by some who seek such things) are seemingly around, the vast majority of outspoken and loud feminists are in the ballpark of Watson, Natalie Reed and others like them. Speaking for equality and reason for all genders, while also criticising the bigoted feminists on the same level as they criticise MRAs. The stereotype of feminists being evil women-supremacists who wish to castrate every male in existence is prevalent, but it is by far a straw-man argument. In the same vein that sceptics are labelled as cynical nihilists who eat babies, so are feminists often labelled as malicious sexists who eat male-assigned babies.

I agree, that stereotype is absurd and I think that to anybody who cares to look it becomes clear very quickly that there are far more egalitarians among feminists than anything else. "Prominent" was not the right word to use, I should have said "visible"; the extremist and generally nutty ideas in any group are always more visible than those in the mainstream. Naturally that's for the same reason it's hard to look away from a train wreck but when the voices non-feminists hear are so often only even heard because of how ridiculous they are it gives the same impression even if it's the same few crazies as if it were the mainstream. Subconsciously we determine popularity of an opinion not on how many people say it, but how often we hear it. (http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-925821.pdf) When you're in a group (such as feminism) you will be exposed naturally to the mainstream and reasonable more than the extreme, so it's easy to forget about the damaging impact they have on the perception of feminism in the general public because this isn't the case for the uninitiated. Ask any given person on the street who Natalie Reed is and you shouldn't be surprised to find out that many don't know who she is. But even reasonable people aren't immune from occasionally saying silly things or holding strange or distorted beliefs; Hillary Clinton saying that women are the primary victims of war because we lose our husbands ands sons (keeping in mind of course that our husbands and sons lose their lives in this situation) is I think inarguably selfish, coming from an unthinkingly gynocentric point of view, minimizing the fact that men die in favor of focusing on women having to pick up the pieces. This just isn't borne out by the data though, far more people recover from despair of being widowed than people killed in war recover from being dead. Even though she's not (or at least she doesn't seem to be) a radical, I don't think it's unreasonable for an enlisted man or even a civilian man to be offended by that proposition that mens' lives are less important than women's comfort. But of course when somebody says something reasonable, like "Women and men should have equal employment opportunities" or "Men and women should have equal rights in divorce proceedings" nobody pays attention because it's not surprising; everybody thinks equal rights is a good thing, right? Yes, it's a systemic flaw in our society and a biological flaw ingrained in us as a species, but that's why it's so hard to compensate and why so much damage can be done by something as reasonable and innocuous as Watson saying it always comes off the wrong way when a guy offers you coffee in an elevator.


Not to say that we should not fight to be more loud about egalitarian feminism, but we are not coming in large swaths of feminism. It has merely been a few instances of someone talking about how groping and rape jokes are not OK. The response was for the majority to bully the speakers into silence and call them femi-nazis. It is quite likely that I am missing some large amount of anti-men feminists from before my time, but they were not sceptical, they were bullies. As a member of both the sceptical and feminist communities, I find that "dubiousness" dubious.

I completely agree. Rape jokes are not funny, and they're as different from murder jokes as coughing at a jar of mayonnaise is to ***********. Sexual violence isn't something that most men think of as a serious danger or take into account and actively try to avoid while going about their daily lives and the idea of rape is something far more abstract to most men as a result, whereas being beat up or killed are much more equal-opportunity crimes so they're fair game for humor. In my experience the reason coming down on rape jokes goes over poorly is because the person making the complaint acts as if they're on a crusade and that the heretics should be burned, rather than actually explaining why they don't find it acceptable. Again, if it's not something you've ever altered your route walking home at night specifically to avoid, it's not something you're likely to think about too deeply when you're making jokes. I really don't think the anti-man brigade is really that big or ever really has been, they just have a larger soap box than they deserve because they're just so fascinating to watch.


If you are not sure if it is not off-base, you do not hurl insults. You explain your doubts, like you did! ^_^

Of course! Insults are for children, politicians, and other people not interested in fixing things, not for those of us wanting an end to the world's problems :smallbiggrin: We all have the same goals anyway so there's no sense in alienating anybody.


PS: My apologies if I seem angry. I have been a bit annoyed at some things lately, both at myself (I can be way too stereotyping sometimes, sorry if I do that! m(_ _)m) and at some classmates. Sorry! ^_^'

I certainly take no offense :smallsmile: I didn't think you seemed angry at all.


I don't think you can get poison oak on the internets.

E-syphilis would like to have a word with you.

[Socratov]

I agree, that stereotype is absurd and I think that to anybody who cares to look it becomes clear very quickly that there are far more egalitarians among feminists than anything else. "Prominent" was not the right word to use, I should have said "visible"; the extremist and generally nutty ideas in any group are always more visible than those in the mainstream. Naturally that's for the same reason it's hard to look away from a train wreck but when the voices non-feminists hear are so often only even heard because of how ridiculous they are it gives the same impression even if it's the same few crazies as if it were the mainstream. Subconsciously we determine popularity of an opinion not on how many people say it, but how often we hear it. (http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-925821.pdf) When you're in a group (such as feminism) you will be exposed naturally to the mainstream and reasonable more than the extreme, so it's easy to forget about the damaging impact they have on the perception of feminism in the general public because this isn't the case for the uninitiated. Ask any given person on the street who Natalie Reed is and you shouldn't be surprised to find out that many don't know who she is. But even reasonable people aren't immune from occasionally saying silly things or holding strange or distorted beliefs; Hillary Clinton saying that women are the primary victims of war because we lose our husbands ands sons (keeping in mind of course that our husbands and sons lose their lives in this situation) is I think inarguably selfish, coming from an unthinkingly gynocentric point of view, minimizing the fact that men die in favor of focusing on women having to pick up the pieces. This just isn't borne out by the data though, far more people recover from despair of being widowed than people killed in war recover from being dead. Even though she's not (or at least she doesn't seem to be) a radical, I don't think it's unreasonable for an enlisted man or even a civilian man to be offended by that proposition that mens' lives are less important than women's comfort. But of course when somebody says something reasonable, like "Women and men should have equal employment opportunities" or "Men and women should have equal rights in divorce proceedings" nobody pays attention because it's not surprising; everybody thinks equal rights is a good thing, right? Yes, it's a systemic flaw in our society and a biological flaw ingrained in us as a species, but that's why it's so hard to compensate and why so much damage can be done by something as reasonable and innocuous as Watson saying it always comes off the wrong way when a guy offers you coffee in an elevator.
fair enough



I completely agree. Rape jokes are not funny, and they're as different from murder jokes as coughing at a jar of mayonnaise is to ***********. Sexual violence isn't something that most men think of as a serious danger or take into account and actively try to avoid while going about their daily lives and the idea of rape is something far more abstract to most men as a result, whereas being beat up or killed are much more equal-opportunity crimes so they're fair game for humor. In my experience the reason coming down on rape jokes goes over poorly is because the person making the complaint acts as if they're on a crusade and that the heretics should be burned, rather than actually explaining why they don't find it acceptable. Again, if it's not something you've ever altered your route walking home at night specifically to avoid, it's not something you're likely to think about too deeply when you're making jokes. I really don't think the anti-man brigade is really that big or ever really has been, they just have a larger soap box than they deserve because they're just so fascinating to watch.

I agree with the fact that rape jokes are not funny, though this is a personal opinion. The same goes for dead baby jokes, though some people enjoy them. who am I to deny them their sense of humor (as ill as it may be). I think the generalization that most men like rape jokes is a false one. We (i feel arrogant enough to be speaking for mmost men) are not all *******s to the extent of trivializing rape and joking about it.

However, the assumption that men in general aren't concerned about sexual violence is a bit iffy if I may say so. I think this statement is vague and maybe even incorrect. I think that if you mean that men in general are not worried of being tarted by sexual violence, that you could be right. I think that if you think men generally trivialize sexual violence existing that you are wrong. I think most men have formed attachments with some women/girls, enough to worry about their friends/wives/girlfriends/daughters/other female family when they go out because they might become a target of sexual violence. if the previous statement is incorrect and I am an exception to the general rule I'd like to see that backed up by data.

also remember that changing your path isn't special for people who feel they might be tartgetd by sexual violence, but by 'regular' violence as well. I must admit that seeïng people hang about in a shady manner near a not well lit road I change my path home as well. that has nothing to do with me feeling a potential target of sexual violence, but with the fact that a group might prove too strong for me if it came to fighting and thus responding to my fight of flee (or in this case remain on the route or take an other route) instinct.


Of course! Insults are for children, politicians, and other people not interested in fixing things, not for those of us wanting an end to the world's problems :smallbiggrin: We all have the same goals anyway so there's no sense in alienating anybody.



I certainly take no offense :smallsmile: I didn't think you seemed angry at all.



E-syphilis would like to have a word with you.

:smallconfused: I have never heard of that... Honestly...

[Irish Musician]

Thank you all! Does make me feel better :smallsmile:


my sympathies for both you and your wife, Matthew. those things just plain suck. I hope the poisoning goes away quickly and that family matters are settled neatly. lastly I hope you found some incredibly fantastic coffee to put the sunrise back into your morning.
Pumpkin coffee, actually :smallbiggrin: Yum Yum

That's just what those tricksy oaks want you to think!

Don't worry, Matthew! My flaming feathers make me impervious to the toxins! *HUGS!* I'm sorry you're feeling so bad. I have a story to share with you that will hopefully make you feel better! :smallsmile:

Back when I was...oh, probably about thirteen, I was visiting my dad in Indiana. He had a boat, and he, a friend, that friend's nephew who was a friend of mine, and our dog went sailing around the lake. At one point, we stopped and went hiking in the woods.

The next morning when I woke up, I was deathly itchy all over, and I couldn't even open my left eye! The dog had run through a patch of poison ivy, and when I had snuggled with him later that night, it had got almost literally all over me! It took nearly a month and over three dozen bottle of Calemin (or however you spell it) lotion to clear me up. I couldn't see out of my left eye for a week, the lid was swollen shut.

Let's just say that when I got back to my mom's after that trip, she was freaking out :smallamused: .

And now I know how to recognize poison ivy on sight.

I know how hard it can be without sleep, but you can get through this!

...Hey, is it just me, or is it getting itchy in here :smallconfused: ?


~Phoenix~

EDIT: :smalleek:
Incidentally, I know how to identify all the poisonous things, ivy, oak, and sumac, seeing as I have been in boy scouts since I was 6 (nowe an Eagle Scout) and in all that time camping never ONCE got anything, but maybe a tick or two. No poison nothing, at all, in 22 years......and I get it 2nd degree from that damned redhead I married :smallamused:

Great. Now he has 3rd degree burns as well. :smalltongue:
Oddly enough my rash from the Poison Oak looks like 2nd degree burns :smallwink:

~Matthew~

[noparlpf]

Good morning my Beautiful people of this thread, hope you all had a good night.

I didn't. MY wife is out of town because her gpa died, which wasn't a good thing, but we are glad that he did due to the fact that he had lymphoma and was in a lot of pain. And when she isn't sleeping next to me in the bed, I can't sleep. Not to mention the fact that I have second hand poison oak from her (not really her fault, she was just the source), and all in all I got it worse than she did and she was the one who was all up in it. Well, went last night to get some steroids (shot and 15 regiment of pills) from the Dr's office, and it helped quite a bit, however the shot kept me up all night as well.

On the brighter side, I got my new TV stand all set up with my surround sound, game consoles, and the like last night while I couldn't sleep.....so that was at least some silver lining.

I know there aren't strictly LGBTA related, really, I just needed a little venting time, so thank you for that. Now, for coffee..........lots of coffee.....

~Matthew~

Man, that stinks. As somebody who hates urushiols and sleepless nights, you have my sympathies.

[Asta Kask]

Incidentally, I know how to identify all the poisonous things, ivy, oak, and sumac, seeing as I have been in boy scouts since I was 6 (nowe an Eagle Scout) and in all that time camping never ONCE got anything, but maybe a tick or two. No poison nothing, at all, in 22 years......and I get it 2nd degree from that damned redhead I married :smallamused:

Well, redheads are known to be fiery.




~Matthew~

[Saskia]

I agree with the fact that rape jokes are not funny, though this is a personal opinion. The same goes for dead baby jokes, though some people enjoy them. who am I to deny them their sense of humor (as ill as it may be). I think the generalization that most men like rape jokes is a false one. We (i feel arrogant enough to be speaking for mmost men) are not all *******s to the extent of trivializing rape and joking about it.

However, the assumption that men in general aren't concerned about sexual violence is a bit iffy if I may say so. I think this statement is vague and maybe even incorrect. I think that if you mean that men in general are not worried of being tarted by sexual violence, that you could be right. I think that if you think men generally trivialize sexual violence existing that you are wrong. I think most men have formed attachments with some women/girls, enough to worry about their friends/wives/girlfriends/daughters/other female family when they go out because they might become a target of sexual violence. if the previous statement is incorrect and I am an exception to the general rule I'd like to see that backed up by data.

also remember that changing your path isn't special for people who feel they might be tartgetd by sexual violence, but by 'regular' violence as well. I must admit that seeïng people hang about in a shady manner near a not well lit road I change my path home as well. that has nothing to do with me feeling a potential target of sexual violence, but with the fact that a group might prove too strong for me if it came to fighting and thus responding to my fight of flee (or in this case remain on the route or take an other route) instinct.

:smallconfused: I have never heard of that... Honestly...

E-syphilis was a joke, it was just a bad one. It was a lot funnier while it was still in my head, I promise!

I certainly do not think that most men find rape jokes entertaining, nor do I think that I made that generalization. My point isn't that rape jokes are objectively not funny, nor was my point that rape jokes have no place ever under any circumstances, I only said that I don't care for them. The only objectivity in humor is that it is objectively subjective, and my statement that rape jokes are not funny is not to be taken as anything more than a statement that "I do not find rape jokes to be funny." It doesn't mean people can't make rape jokes, and it doesn't mean that they shouldn't make rape jokes, it just means that I find them tasteless and would rather not hear them, given the choice. My point is that the objection a lot of people have against rape jokes is that rape is at least assumed by the majority of people to be a gender-specific risk, which is why they come off as so incredibly insensitive. I didn't even suggest though that all men are unkind or unpleasant or unlikeable and I would never suggest such a thing, I said that men in general are not as worried about being raped as women in general, and so it can be harder for men to relate to the objections against rape jokes because men are not as likely to fear rape in a bogeyman sort of way, the way women are socialized to see it.

I also did not say that avoiding certain places to avoid violence of any kind are terribly different, but that avoiding certain places to avoid being raped is something women do much more than men do, and because women tend to worry so much more about rape than any other crime it puts us on edge about rape a lot more which is why rape jokes are so unpleasant. Jokes about violence more generally like murder or battery or carjacking are less likely to elicit the same viscerally negative reaction because of the perception of those sorts of crimes is that they can happen to anybody (which they can), while the perception of rape is that it only happens to women (which is of course fallacious, but that doesn't change how society sees rape). Nobody jokes to a father or mother about killing their kids because it's so personal and also because parents don't take it for granted that nobody is going to hurt their kids, and poking at a spot that constant vigilance has rubbed raw will very often yield a negative reaction. I was explaining why rape jokes don't get a warm reception, not explaining why rape jokes are bad. Sorry for not making that more clear.

I know very well that men care a lot about sexual violence, I didn't mean to imply that men are unconcerned about it. What I meant was that men in general don't worry about being targeted for sexual violence the way women do; being constantly told that one in six women will be raped or that one in three women in college will be raped and in four out of five rape cases the attacker was somebody close to the victim and so on; that kind of constant bombardment has a way of inducing a degree of paranoia.

I don't think it's any secret that dark humor can be a healthy outlet for intense emotions and I'm really not keen on censoring anybody, particularly when they're in company that understands the nature of the jokes being made. Just because somebody makes a joke about rape doesn't mean that they're going to go out and find a victim any more than making the passing unthinking comment "sometimes I really want to kill my boss" means that I'm going to eat her remains in the grand tradition of Jeffrey Dahmer.

[noparlpf]

Well hello, cissexist heteronormative culture. Everyone knows that in that one gag arc where people change sex, everyone's sexuality has to swap, because obviously everyone is straight and sexuality is tied to physical sex, and also wouldn't it be hilarious if that one guy started hitting on his gender-swapped friend? Oh wait, not everyone has to be straight all the time. A little harmless lesbianism is cool because that's just a phase all girls go through.

[Lix Lorn]

I like evolving languages. Learning how they've changed is one of the more pleasant ways I've found to while away the centuries.

And romance. Romance is by far my number one distraction from the eternal navel gazing I find myself drawn to in undistracted moments. Speaking of which *SQUEE* Girlfriend So Cute!
Nuhuh, YOU so cute!
(Anti-zing!)


Good morning my Beautiful people of this thread, hope you all had a good night.

I didn't.
(Huggles)

[Irish Musician]

Nuhuh, YOU so cute!
(Anti-zing!)
OR (http://i48.tinypic.com/11c455t.jpg)


(Huggles)
:smallsmile: *shrinks and jumps in Lixie's shirt pocket*

[Coidzor]

Well hello, cissexist heteronormative culture. Everyone knows that in that one gag arc where people change sex, everyone's sexuality has to swap, because obviously everyone is straight and sexuality is tied to physical sex, and also wouldn't it be hilarious if that one guy started hitting on his gender-swapped friend? Oh wait, not everyone has to be straight all the time. A little harmless lesbianism is cool because that's just a phase all girls go through.

Hmm? What are you referencing at present?

If you're just talking the general case, I'd honestly be more jostled that people would abandon their established romantic pairings with speed and gusto given the short and definitively temporary nature of such things. I've only got my own brain to work with, but I'd probably be too busy acclimating to a female body and figuring out what to do about it to break things off with my girlfriend-come-boyfriend and find a new pairing. :smallconfused:

[Lix Lorn]

OR (http://i48.tinypic.com/11c455t.jpg)
Well, true.


:smallsmile: *shrinks and jumps in Lixie's shirt pocket*
And what does the other half think of this? xD

[Irish Musician]

And what does the other half think of this? xD

Hehe think more sugar glider in your pocket (https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRHSoJO84E8HlcZ_OeY0vtyNJjVkfIKG RbJmAH5dcbqveARbzWA)

[Kindablue]

And now I know how to recognize poison ivy on sight.

Green spandex, red hair, she's kind of hard to miss.

[Asta Kask]

It's amazing how unerotic a fight between Alicia Silverstone and Uma Thurmann can be.

[Mystic Muse]

Been trying to be a little bit more feminine lately. I just bought a big plushie of a My Little Pony character.

I regret nothing.

[noparlpf]

Hmm? What are you referencing at present?

If you're just talking the general case, I'd honestly be more jostled that people would abandon their established romantic pairings with speed and gusto given the short and definitively temporary nature of such things. I've only got my own brain to work with, but I'd probably be too busy acclimating to a female body and figuring out what to do about it to break things off with my girlfriend-come-boyfriend and find a new pairing. :smallconfused:

Oh yeah, context is a thing. It was a random webcomic I was reading earlier.
And you're probably right, except it's not supposed to be realistic, it's for humour. Later, two guys get magically turned gay for each other, which is obviously hilarious because homosexuality is edgy?
I need to do better things with my day. I guess it's back to Doctor Who. I'm all the way up to season fifteen.


Been trying to be a little bit more feminine lately. I just bought a big plushie of a My Little Pony character.

I regret nothing.

Not to be a downer, but unfortunately, this time around MLP is kind of a guys' show.
http://www.tikihumor.com/wp-content/uploads/tiki-humor/2012/02/Ponies-are-considered-manlier-than-Vampires.jpg
Though I don't think most guys get plushies.

[Lix Lorn]

Hehe think more sugar glider in your pocket (https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRHSoJO84E8HlcZ_OeY0vtyNJjVkfIKG RbJmAH5dcbqveARbzWA)
Lolwhut. xD


Not to be a downer, but unfortunately, this time around MLP is kind of a guys' show.
http://www.tikihumor.com/wp-content/uploads/tiki-humor/2012/02/Ponies-are-considered-manlier-than-Vampires.jpg
Though I don't think most guys get plushies.
...not really? A lot of guys watch it, but it is in no way a guy's show.

[noparlpf]

Lolwhut. xD


...not really? A lot of guys watch it, but it is in no way a guy's show.

Eh, I guess it's technically a little girls' show, but the majority of the people you hear about watching MLP:FiM are late-adolescent guys. I guess it's a case of vocal group vs. everyone else not being noticed?

[Lix Lorn]

Indeed, but the reason this is such a big thing is because of how stereotypically feminine the show is.

[Ceric]

However, the assumption that men in general aren't concerned about sexual violence is a bit iffy if I may say so. I think this statement is vague and maybe even incorrect. I think that if you mean that men in general are not worried of being tarted by sexual violence, that you could be right. I think that if you think men generally trivialize sexual violence existing that you are wrong. I think most men have formed attachments with some women/girls, enough to worry about their friends/wives/girlfriends/daughters/other female family when they go out because they might become a target of sexual violence. if the previous statement is incorrect and I am an exception to the general rule I'd like to see that backed up by data.

also remember that changing your path isn't special for people who feel they might be tartgetd by sexual violence, but by 'regular' violence as well. I must admit that seeïng people hang about in a shady manner near a not well lit road I change my path home as well. that has nothing to do with me feeling a potential target of sexual violence, but with the fact that a group might prove too strong for me if it came to fighting and thus responding to my fight of flee (or in this case remain on the route or take an other route) instinct.

I agree that men do not have no concern about sexual violence. When a group of friends and I were playing a CTF-based game at night, one of the first rules a guy came up with was "scream if you get attacked and we'll all drop what we're doing and find you." I have another friend from another country who won't even let his girlfriend walk alone in the city at night. (I live in the USA and he's told us that his country is a third-world country; one of his ten-year-old students once fought off an attempted mugging on the way to class.) But these are the only instances I can think of where a guy showed explicit concern for a girl's safety. Otherwise it's always the girls who first bring up rules about buddy systems and staying safe.

And while neither guys nor girls would walk into a shady alley at night, I find that guys overall tend to be less cautious than girls. If I'm on campus late at night, I lock my bike and take the bus home instead of biking by myself. And when I do bike home, there's two routes - one alongside a busy street and another that cuts through an empty field - and I always prefer the street route, where I find the guys tend to take the field route.

You mention that you might change your route due to avoiding a group of people who "might" be too strong for you... But as a woman, I assume by default that if I get attacked my attacker will be too strong for me. Maybe they won't be if they're also female. I know some (admittedly non-combative) martial arts and I'm of about average fitness. But I assume that my attackers are much more likely to be male and stronger or at least heavier than me. Yes, I just told a story about a (male) 10-year-old who fought off his attackers, but the way my friend told it they simply hadn't expected a ten-year-old to know martial arts and ran away as soon as he started throwing punches. I can't risk my safety on that luck. Not to mention that sexual assault doesn't necessarily mean a fight. If someone gets close enough or is simply unexpected enough to grope you, it doesn't matter if you beat them to a bloody pulp afterwards; the sexual assault has already happened. Sexual violence is different from regular violence in that respect.

These are obviously anecdotes and not data as you've requested, but that's my thoughts on the issue.

[Worira]

Stats (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85f0033m/2010024/ct001-eng.htm)

link (http://1in6.org/)

trivialize male victimization less thanks

ps muggers aren't looking for a fair fight and muscles won't stop a knife in the gut

[Mystic Muse]

Not to be a downer, but unfortunately, this time around MLP is kind of a guys' show.
Though I don't think most guys get plushies.

Not really, and most guys also wouldn't spend $93 on a plushie either.

[noparlpf]

Not really, and most guys also wouldn't spend $93 on a plushie either.

I wouldn't spend $93 on almost anything. Except maybe a car or a computer.

[Mystic Muse]

I wouldn't spend $93 on almost anything. Except maybe a car or a computer.

I just got my paycheck today and could afford to splurge a little, and had been wanting it for a while. I don't plan on making this a habit, but I really wanted that plushie.

[Saskia]

Stats (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85f0033m/2010024/ct001-eng.htm)

link (http://1in6.org/)

trivialize male victimization less thanks

ps muggers aren't looking for a fair fight and muscles won't stop a knife in the gut

Who do you feel is trivializing male victims, and in what way?

[Worira]

Who do you feel is trivializing male victims, and in what way?

You've actually been doing a pretty good job at avoiding it, much better than I've seen people do in similar discussions. However, I've gotten a general vibe that men have less to fear from violent crime, which is... not really the case. Ceric's post, in particular, seems to make the assumption that men are safer from violent crime based on size and strength, while disregarding the fact that those aren't actually particularly relevant factors in most predatory crimes. I also object to "men don't have concern for sexual violence" being used to mean almost exclusively "men don't have concern for sexual violence against women", and in doing so disregarding the very real fact of sexual violence against men.

[Zorg]

So, how 'bouts thems LGBT issues, am I right?

[Irish Musician]

I wouldn't spend $93 on almost anything. Except maybe a car or a computer.

I'd buy a very nice 1930's Mandolin for that.....just saying:smallamused:

[noparlpf]

I'd buy a very nice 1930's Mandolin for that.....just saying:smallamused:

I don't have an income and I don't like spending money on things anyway. With a steady job and whatnot that might not sound as much.

[Arachu]

Good morning my Beautiful people of this thread, hope you all had a good night.

I didn't. MY wife is out of town because her gpa died, which wasn't a good thing, but we are glad that he did due to the fact that he had lymphoma and was in a lot of pain. And when she isn't sleeping next to me in the bed, I can't sleep. Not to mention the fact that I have second hand poison oak from her (not really her fault, she was just the source), and all in all I got it worse than she did and she was the one who was all up in it. Well, went last night to get some steroids (shot and 15 regiment of pills) from the Dr's office, and it helped quite a bit, however the shot kept me up all night as well.

On the brighter side, I got my new TV stand all set up with my surround sound, game consoles, and the like last night while I couldn't sleep.....so that was at least some silver lining.

I know there aren't strictly LGBTA related, really, I just needed a little venting time, so thank you for that. Now, for coffee..........lots of coffee.....

~Matthew~

*Hugs!*


It's not even that academic. It's entirely sort of a toupe fallacy that sunk in; the only examples I've ever experienced of people who seek sex but abjure emotional attachment are predatory, and dehumanizing. So while I have most likely met people who fall under sexual aromatic, the only ones who exist under that label in my head are terrible people. This has come up before, and I believe Nix Nihila rebuked me then as well. I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. This post will be the last I bring it up.

*Hugs* That image is pretty common in a lot of peoples' heads. Have you tried singling out dehumanization itself as 'bad'? I find it a bit easier to work through these sorts of things with some compartmentalization.


Quite the contrary, these labels are needed, for various quantities of need. Having a handy name makes something Obvious, it is a part of society and harder to question. Labelin yourself grants you legitimacy. You can be a big guy with training, a too heart, strong morals, a clean record and the ability to stop other people from breaking the rules, or you can be a police officer. This is why people usually respond to big definitions with "so, like a [thing], then?" because it's a way of hooking it into ourselves.

Someone can never want sex ever no not even then, and it weird. Someone can be asexual, and you accept that it is a thin they know which is legitimate. The label is the verbal equivalent of a uniform.

Like food allergies - just saying you "can't eat" a given food tends to get you a lot of dirty looks from disgruntled cooks (along with accusations of pickiness), but saying that your body outright rejects it tends to get your point across without offending anyone. Usually.


I personally want the concept of The Right One to go away forever. That concept has ruined so many things, so many people. U watch folks pass up good opportunities do they can be available "just in case" all the time and it's guy wrenching.

This whole one true love thing ruins movies for me too. Rassunfrassun.

You and me both, sister. Between that and... Almost every other popular sexual/romantic concept, I can barely visit a theater without feeling insulted at some point. :smallsigh:


Back when I was...oh, probably about thirteen, I was visiting my dad in Indiana. He had a boat, and he, a friend, that friend's nephew who was a friend of mine, and our dog went sailing around the lake. At one point, we stopped and went hiking in the woods.

The next morning when I woke up, I was deathly itchy all over, and I couldn't even open my left eye! The dog had run through a patch of poison ivy, and when I had snuggled with him later that night, it had got almost literally all over me! It took nearly a month and over three dozen bottle of Calemin (or however you spell it) lotion to clear me up. I couldn't see out of my left eye for a week, the lid was swollen shut.

Let's just say that when I got back to my mom's after that trip, she was freaking out :smallamused: .

And now I know how to recognize poison ivy on sight.


~Phoenix~

Dear god that sounds worse than that time I got that sunburn that killed the top layer of epidermis. :smalleek: *Hugs!*


Been trying to be a little bit more feminine lately. I just bought a big plushie of a My Little Pony character.

I regret nothing.

X3


~Bianca

[Irish Musician]

I don't have an income and I don't like spending money on things anyway. With a steady job and whatnot that might not sound as much.
Definitely understand that. I hate money, but unfortunately it is necessary.

also, Thank you all for your well wishes!

~Matthew~

[appending_doom]

Indeed, but the reason this is such a big thing is because of how stereotypically feminine the show is.

I actually spent a while being a little ashamed of liking it - in part because I'd internalized a lot of gender baggage that made me uncomfortable to be too closely associated with something branded as "feminine" (boo, gender narratives).

However, I think that whether we like it or not, a primarily female-dominated show that focuses on the relationships of the characters is "feminine" by the western understanding of gender branding.

[Ravens_cry]

My gender identity is pretty fluid, and I like a lot of things on 'both sides' of the line and am never afraid to admit it.

[gunnar11]

Someone can never want sex ever no not even then, and it weird. Someone can be asexual, and you accept that it is a thin they know which is legitimate. The label is the verbal equivalent of a uniform.

I personally want the concept of The Right One to go away forever. That concept has ruined so many things, so many people. U watch folks pass up good opportunities do they can be available "just in case" all the time and it's guy wrenching.

This whole one true love thing ruins movies for me too. Rassunfrassun.

My thoughts exactly


I just point out the differences there. A lot of people love their parents and don't lust for them. A lot of people like pornography and dot develop romantic attachment to the actors.

That wasn't what I was referring to at all...
Although I think I agree... not sure...



You like guys with boobs and a nice butt? :smalltongue:

Yes, and horns coming out of their backs and wings on each of their fingers. YOU GET WHAT I MEAN
:smalltongue:



Come now friend, no need to be passive aggressive. Coidzor goes in for academic discussion; to learn thins and discuss them to resolution even when the answer doesn't matter anymore. It's nothing personal, and I do it too. It's just a method of getting information so we will have it for next time.

Yeah, it's just that it seemed more like an attack than a question, but oh well, I guess I just misread.


I have a harder time with understanding people who will never in their life develop emotional attachment but are fine using people for gratification. This has always in my experience come with not warning others of a lack of attachment, an in one case seemed rather sociopathic.

It also doesn't help that a sufficient number of asexuals are aromantic, or profess such, causing a mental correlation between sexuality and love.

First of all: I never said I would never in my life develop romantic feelings towards someone, I just haven't up until now.
Second: I am fine using people for gratification? Where did you get that idea from? Let me tell you that I know a lot more romantics that use other people to gratify themselves than I do (according to you).
I do not use people for gratification. I even have had some relationships. The problem lies in the fact that I don't love them, so eventually we break up. I don't do everything for the sex. I like people, and love to spend time with them.
It can be as family, it can be as friends, or as lovers (though never do those overlap) IF we act as lovers, we do everything lovers do, with the exception of me really feeling the love. In no way is that gratification. It's just nice.

Also: I understand you have a hard time understanding this concept, but what I don't understand is why you would call it 'disturbing'.
I don't understand why people eat pineapple on their pizza's, but I certainly do not find it 'disturbing'



I have half achieved my aim, here. The counter arguments, my thinking about them and formulating responses has helped me understand. The amount of discomfort and almost blame placement has me baffled though. I forget sometimes that these are touchy topics on which people expect crushing chastisement, as I am only ever around the playground where everything is nice. If it makes you feel better though, this wasn't just "aromatics are weird", it was "I find his weird and recognize it is a problem. Thoughts?"

I'm glad you understand it better.
Don't get me wrong, I never wanted to place blame on you, or discomfort you, it's just those words 'Disturbs me' are really heavy :smallfrown:

It's not that much of a touchy topic, it just hits hard when it gets shot down like that. I know not everything is nice in the playground.
A lot of shady things happen here...


Now this isn't fair at all, and I find it hard to believe that you of all people can't see that it's offensive. Do you seriously believe that romantic love is the only, or only valuable, kind of emotional attachment, and moreover that any sexual contact without love must involve someone being "used for gratification"?

What's more, it's not like love is a switch you can turn on and off. You don't choose whether, and whom, you fall in love with. You just do, or you don't, and you just have to deal with it, there's nothing you can do about it. At least that's certainly the case for me. It's not like - I imagine - aromantics wander around going "no, I shan't love you! And I shan't love you! Shan't shan't shan't!" It's that they can't.
I find it sad, and yeah I do find it a bit odd considering how fundamental it is to human psyche - maybe even more than sex - but I don't find it impossible to comprehend.
SHAN'T SHAN'T SHAN'T :smalltongue:
but seriously: that's just what I meant, thanks for writing it down for me :smaltongue:

And really, I don't mind. I know I'm missing out on something, but It's something I've never had. There's no use in trying to get something that was never yours to begin with.
I don't know, though, how fundamental it is. Sometimes I even think 'love' isn't a real thing, just a word people made up, like 'the spark'. It's just that people experience it very differently, and as such they think it's exclusive for everybody apart, 'Love'. (speaking about love for a partner, not family of friends)


That's just what those tricksy oaks want you to think!
~Phoenix~

*chuckle* hihihi

Shouldn't that be Femalefactor? :smallwink:
*chuckles more* hihihi hahahi

Great. Now he has 3rd degree burns as well. :smalltongue:
hahahhahahahaha *laughs*

E-syphilis would like to have a word with you.
*rolling on the floor* Stop it, you guys! You're killing me!

Well, redheads are known to be fiery.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAA *rolls and laughs maniacally*


You guys are so funny xD I seriously laughed my ass off. My mom and sis are looking at me like 'wtf?' right now :smalltongue:

[noparlpf]

I actually spent a while being a little ashamed of liking it - in part because I'd internalized a lot of gender baggage that made me uncomfortable to be too closely associated with something branded as "feminine" (boo, gender narratives).

However, I think that whether we like it or not, a primarily female-dominated show that focuses on the relationships of the characters is "feminine" by the western understanding of gender branding.

I'm pretty solidly male, but I've never cared much about what gender society thinks my interests are. On the other hand, I basically hate most mainstream things that are heavily identified with one gender or the other, not because of that, but because I usually think they're dumb.

[Ravens_cry]

My biggest problem is I have a desire to be pregnant, yet not even the best plastic surgery in the world can let me achieve that.

[appending_doom]

I'm pretty solidly male, but I've never cared much about what gender society thinks my interests are. On the other hand, I basically hate most mainstream things that are heavily identified with one gender or the other, not because of that, but because I usually think they're dumb.

Well, there's that, too.

[noparlpf]

My biggest problem is I have a desire to be pregnant, yet not even the best plastic surgery in the world can let me achieve that.

They've had moderate success with uterus transplants recently.
And as we can make viable eggs from stem cells, at least in mice, and we're working on making dedifferentiation from mature cells to stem cells practical and cost-effective, no doubt they'll figure out how to coerce XY cells to produce X eggs soon, which would be neat. We might eventually also be able to convince XY cells to grow into a functional uterus so as to avoid the issue of rejection for transsexual women seeking uteruses. I think pregnancies in transplanted uteruses in both male and female bodies (no offense intended, I'm thinking about science and need to differentiate between bodies, not minds) would have to conclude by c-section, though, at least for the foreseeable future.

[Ravens_cry]

I guess I would have to live with that, assuming the technology comes soon enough, though I admit to wanting the package deal, even though it sounds incredibly painful. No offence is taken; I know you mean in a biological sense.

[Ceric]

Stats (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85f0033m/2010024/ct001-eng.htm)

link (http://1in6.org/)

trivialize male victimization less thanks

ps muggers aren't looking for a fair fight and muscles won't stop a knife in the gut


You've actually been doing a pretty good job at avoiding it, much better than I've seen people do in similar discussions. However, I've gotten a general vibe that men have less to fear from violent crime, which is... not really the case. Ceric's post, in particular, seems to make the assumption that men are safer from violent crime based on size and strength, while disregarding the fact that those aren't actually particularly relevant factors in most predatory crimes. I also object to "men don't have concern for sexual violence" being used to mean almost exclusively "men don't have concern for sexual violence against women", and in doing so disregarding the very real fact of sexual violence against men.

My post was mostly in response to Socratov's, who addressed men being concerned about sexual violence in terms of their friends/wives/girlfriends/daughters/other female family's safety (specifically compared to being concerned about being a target of sexual violence, which he did say that they might not be so I didn't mention it), and who mentioned that men as well as women change their path for safety reasons. I wanted to state that in my experience the former, while sometimes true, is not as strong as the concern women have about being a target of sexual violence, and the latter also does not happen as much for men as for women.

The third point about being able to win/loose a fight was in response to Socratov's specific wording ("might" win a fight compared to my own "definitely won't" win a fight), although I agree with you on all other points.

That said, I definitely didn't mean to trivialize male victims and I should have made that more clear.


So, how 'bouts thems LGBT issues, am I right?

Sorry >.>

[SiuiS]

Serps - don't forget boardies (I've heard it used as a generic unisex term) and the good ol' budgie smugglers.

I hear budgie smuggler and I see Kneen in a speedo. It is neon yellow, he is wearing like, a fez or toureg hat, and somehow looks fabulous. I do not brain.


*sigh* So I didn't go out for clothes and now I'm wondering if I should even bother going to the halloween thingie. And to top it of I ended up hurting one of my friends. :/*

How am I going to get there when I can't even do this? :smallfrown:

Oh, luv, I'm sorry. But like they said, friendship heals.

We're you unable to buy appropriate clothes, like you couldn't muster the will? Or we're you unable to get to the store in time?


Now if only I could live by them keep from trying to use words like "irrespective" instead of ones that actually communicate my meaning. :smallsigh:

I think irrespective is a perfectly fine word!

I had trouble with this once though. I was on the Xbox live-a-majig, and came across some folks who were, um, "critiquing" the equipment of other players. So I put on my headset and explained my load out, as they were pretty reasonable... Up until I said "m'lee" instead of "may-lay". My response was that I would pronounce it French if I were speaking French, and that I don't think there's a definitive American English pronunciation for the word. I got a lecture about trying to sound smart (:smallcurious:), and how I was homosexual and then a slew of what I understand to be big-standard harassment via threats of sexual violence.

So I suppose I can see why one would decide that using words which come naturally is maybe not the best idea, but if that is the alternative then I'd rather remain salubriously verbose.*


kay. I reserve my right then, to say "complexily" "complicatedness" "imaginize" and "constringent" then. as well as any other words I modify or make up. like disastrophe.

Disastrophe is the best word.

Is it the glottal stop made during speech when an emergency of sufficient magnitude causes vocal cessation?


I'm on my phone at the moment, so just imagine I'm embedding a macro here implying that I use some form of obsolete language like 'æ' and making a reference that "you probably wouldn't have heard of it".*

The implication of course being that you're all starting to sound like a bunch of linguistics hipsters and there's a language thread already.

Psh. Lazy~
Though I suppose if I spent more time in sexy clothes and less on my phone... Hm.

Do eth and thorn count? I use those whenever possible and my keyboard complies.


I think a lot of the derogatory terms are filtered. Apart from those I only know 'bear' and 'beard'. I think. There are probably terms I use that I don't think of as slang, though.

What is slang anyway? Who determines what slang is? Is 'lol' slang?

No, silly, that is an acronym :3


The letter standing Twenty-Sixth in the alphabetum Danum dost be a language by itself? And obsolete? Malefactor!* :smallmad::smalltongue:

You just...
And then...
Malefactor?

...

<3


Good morning my Beautiful people of this thread, hope you all had a good night.

I didn't. *MY wife is out of town because her gpa died, which wasn't a good thing, but we are glad that he did due to the fact that he had lymphoma and was in a lot of pain. *And when she isn't sleeping next to me in the bed, I can't sleep. *Not to mention the fact that I have second hand poison oak from her (not really her fault, she was just the source), and all in all I got it worse than she did and she was the one who was all up in it. *Well, went last night to get some steroids (shot and 15 regiment of pills) from the Dr's office, and it helped quite a bit, however the shot kept me up all night as well.

On the brighter side, I got my new TV stand all set up with my surround sound, game consoles, and the like last night while I couldn't sleep.....so that was at least some silver lining.

I know there aren't strictly LGBTA related, really, I just needed a little venting time, so thank you for that. *Now, for coffee..........lots of coffee.....

~Matthew~

Oooouch. But at least it was productive! I guess?


Now this isn't fair at all, and I find it hard to believe that you of all people can't see that it's offensive.

You are correct. I actually thought I had an explanatory paragraph in there... An I thought I caught all my typos as well. So before going any further, some exposition.

I have this habit which makes perfect sense to me but frustrates the hell out of others. When I am wrong, and I am owning up to it, I do not seem properly penitent. I don't stop talking, I don't apologize profusely. I continue, because having established that I am in the wrong, we can set that aside as a decided factor and focus only on those factors which are still undecided. I am led to believe this seems a lot like I do not care I am wrong and insist on my correctness regardless? Even when it does not seem that way, my response doesn't trigger the proper visceral feel. You can know logically that I know I'm wrong, but I'm not acting like it, so you discount it.

I considered that this would be offensive. I went through several drafts, an several drafts of explanation. I finally settled on erring on the side of an honest mistake. I know not all people who feel I am calling them out fall into this category. I know no one I am calling out fits in this category.

And there is also; so what if it is offensive? There is no tactful way to say something like this. I suppose if I said, basically, "I view this in the worst possible light, can you help me fix that?" you would be more predisposed to help, but eventually it would be asked "what worst possible light?" and then we would be here again.

I also find it strange that saying the furthest, say, .0001 percent on either end of the spectrum bothers me is okay, but describing what I perceive as one of those extreme poles causes umbrage. I understand it - it's a concrete thought which could be construed as directed at individuals - but in reality it's no different than being creeped out by people who enjoy extreme bondage and degredation. It is not a judgement, it is a statement.


Do you seriously believe that romantic love is the only, or only valuable, kind of emotional attachment, and moreover that any sexual contact without love must involve someone being "used for gratification"?

Not at all, and your surmising that really only shows that you are operating in - or assuming I am operating in - a binary system. There are other kinds of sexual contact than gratification and abstinence. Pure self gratification with no regard toward your partner(s) as anything but a sex object is to me, bad. Being in a relationship which you do not emotionally reciprocate is to me, bad. Both at once is bad^2.

Of your partner considers afterglow a sufficient connection that's fine. If you do, and just aren't aware they don't, that's fine. Going into a relationship wherein you are aware not only that the other expects relationship to involve reciprocal romantic, platonic, or emotional bonding of some other variety, but also that sexual acts will be undertaken predominantly as expressions of that bond; and therein engaging in sexual acts while feeling none of these things perforce constitutes leading the other party on in many ways for the sole purpose of your own pleasure. And yes, I find that objectively abominable. Deception, use and abuse, of a person's heart and soul is bad. These are just some of the At-the-time-relevant methods of doing so.

Unfortunately, I have met a lot of people who do this, and I have not known of any who are in superficially similar relationships who do otherwise. As I said, it is a toupe fallacy thingy, where I only see the bad examples and seem to have assumed that all examples would thus be bad. This conversation has helped immensely, and I apologize (again) that it came up, but I find fixing this issue to be more immediately worth effort than backing down, maintaining a bad paradigm, and not stepping on some toes. This is partially because those who would be hurt haven't said much, so I can only surmise that the damage done is superficial. I certainly feel as if this series of discussions has lumped me in with the people who willingly practice severe bigotry, rather than using a fine enough granularity, and in a situation where my declaration of an honest issue is met with "OMG bigotry!" I cannot help but feel the outpouring is perhaps more severe than necessary.

That is not to say that you are over exaggerating. It is also not to say that the hurt anyone has felt is superficial or should be discounted. It is to say that both the hurt and the misunderstanding should be fixed, and because of other factors, not the least I which is I sincerely doubt anyone I've offended would accept an apology if they did not believe I had made progress towards correcting my faulty understanding, we needs must redress my lack of capacity for insight before addressing the harm the discussion Has done. Doing otherwise would mean the harm was still caused but nothing good came of it, and I would be upset at that. Needless harm is terrible.




An suddenly I see Coidzor's Dilemma. There does not seem to be a sufficient way to be concise. Too little detail leaves the statement open for interpretation. Too much implies that anything not directly stated must not be part of the conversation. Is it any wonder that his speech is so labyrinthine?


What's more, it's not like love is a switch you can turn on and off. You don't choose whether, and whom, you fall in love with.

I do not know that this is true. I believe it to hold in the majority of cases though, which means I am probably being pedantic? I can't tell. I'm in Orator mode.


You just do, or you don't, and you just have to deal with it, there's nothing you can do about it. At least that's certainly the case for me. It's not like - I imagine - aromantics wander around going "no, I shan't love you! And I shan't love you! Shan't shan't shan't!" It's that they can't.
I find it sad, and yeah I do find it a bit odd considering how fundamental it is to human psyche - maybe even more than sex - but I don't find it impossible to comprehend.

I don't find it incomprehensible. I find it unsettling, and it creates in me an anxiety which is converted to aggression by twenty years of misguided application of martial philosophy. I've develope the toolset to survive ambush with a machete, which is great, but it doesn't apply to sections of my life that are really hard. So gut-reactions which I am used to being vital to my continued survival are wrong. Reactionary responses I have conditioned into myself are wrong. But it's not enough to stop enabling such reactions because they have become literally reflexive. I must actively combat them, undo the old patterns and instill new ones. It is an uphill battle, and academic and philosophical pedantry are a coping mechanism. I cannot quite help it, but I appreciate you calling me out on it.



Incidentally, I know how to identify all the poisonous things, ivy, oak, and sumac, seeing as I have been in boy scouts since I was 6 (nowe an Eagle Scout) and in all that time camping never ONCE got anything, but maybe a tick or two. No poison nothing, at all, in 22 years......and I get it 2nd degree from that damned redhead I married :smallamused:
~Matthew~

Well, redheads are known to be--


Well, redheads are known to be fiery.

Dangit.


Green spandex, red hair, she's kind of hard to miss.

Oh wow, no wonder you say you're wife is hot, CDD.

Tell me, how did you get her out of Gotham?


Been trying to be a little bit more feminine lately. I just bought a big plushie of a My Little Pony character.*

I regret nothing.

Regret is for those who don't fall asleep on a Fluttershy. :smallsmile:


Eh, I guess it's technically a little girls' show, but the majority of the people you hear about watching MLP:FiM are late-adolescent guys. I guess it's a case of vocal group vs. everyone else not being noticed?

12 year-old girls don't network. You need to be at least 13 to get on MySpace.


I agree that men do not have no concern about sexual violence. *When a group of friends and I were playing a CTF-based game at night, one of the first rules a guy came up with was "scream if you get attacked and we'll all drop what we're doing and find you." *I have another friend from another country who won't even let his girlfriend walk alone in the city at night. *(I live in the USA and he's told us that his country is a third-world country; one of his ten-year-old students once fought off an attempted mugging on the way to class.) *But these are the only instances I can think of where a guy showed explicit concern for a girl's safety. *Otherwise it's always the girls who first bring up rules about buddy systems and staying safe.

These discussions are no fun because I'm always an outlier. I can't stand for a girl who has X response because I grew up male-bodies, but I can't represent boys who have X response because I grew up female-souled. I think we should stop making generalizations about what each gender thinks in general. Especially because boys who grow up worried about prisoners in their area fear rape just as much as "girls do".


And while neither guys nor girls would walk into a shady alley at night, I find that guys overall tend to be less cautious than girls. *If I'm on campus late at night, I lock my bike and take the bus home instead of biking by myself. *And when I do bike home, there's two routes - one alongside a busy street and another that cuts through an empty field - and I always prefer the street route, where I find the guys tend to take the field route.

You mention that you might change your route due to avoiding a group of people who "might" be too strong for you... *But as a woman, I assume by default that if I get attacked my attacker will be too strong for me. *Maybe they won't be if they're also female.

This is, as Asta said of something else, a red herring. If you are ambushed then you're in trouble, gender and build be damned. You are already exercising good martial arts practices - a bad martial artist is capable of fighting off three men in a dark alley. A good one says "bigger this, there's muggers in there" and takes the long way around.

And the difference between a big man and a small man is the same as a inference between a big man and a small woman. Perhaps the fitness of these men is simply superior? Most guys - and I realize I, too, am generalizing. Sorry - who are in the college situation work out frequently for strength and mass, not leanness. They have spent a good part of their lives inoculated by violence. They may be specifically looking for danger and possess a physical swagger that tells off a mugger. If you, a woman, put in that same effort then I doubt you would have more to fear than these guys simply because you are female.

Muggers train for boy reading. Anxiety, nervousness, inattentiveness, bad posture, shambling walk. Most muggers on record prefer overconfident male targets. A man will punch and kick, they say, a woman will claw your eyes out. I think it says a lot that women feel they are most in danger, but convicted felons say this is not the case.


If someone gets close enough or is simply unexpected enough to grope you, it doesn't matter if you beat them to a bloody pulp afterwards; the sexual assault has already happened. *Sexual violence is different from regular violence in that respect.

These are obviously anecdotes and not data as you've requested, but that's my thoughts on the issue.

I find this fallacious and misleading. If a person gets close enough to you to sucker punch you, the physical violence has happened and cannot be undone, either. Violence is by no means a form of restitution (though it can e cathartic). Pointing out that beating or killing your would be rapist doesn't make you feel any less almost raped is a straw man. It makes the implicit assertion that someone who is almost killed will be fine, and thus better of than the almost-rape victim, and thus discountable in this instance. Violence at all is bad. Part of the solution is to not be in a situation where it can happen.


I wouldn't spend $93 on almost anything. Except maybe a car or a computer.

Sometimes that plug toy or new shoes or new book are all that get you through.

My eldest kitten, Scotty, is probably the only reason my ex-room mate is still intact.


I also object to "men don't have concern for sexual violence" being used to mean almost exclusively "men don't have concern for sexual violence against women", and in doing so disregarding the very real fact of sexual violence against men.

You're misreading. It is not that men are uncaring about sexual violence, it is that it generally does not occur to them as a possibility as often as it does to women. Anecdotally, I believe this to be true. I know women who have been warned every week about sexual violence for a decade, and who flip out a the slightest provocation over it. One of them has a brother, who was never given this lecture and so doesn't quite get what the big deal is. Consider that one gender, more than the other, is frequently hit by scare tactics all the time.


Boy it seems like I'm waffling back and forth a lot. This is all internally consistent I swear!



*Hugs* That image is pretty common in a lot of peoples' heads. Have you tried singling out dehumanization itself as 'bad'? I find it a bit easier to work through these sorts of things with some compartmentalization.

Somewhat. It is a complicated morass in that I don't subscribe many positive traits to humanity as an animal, but I understand the word humanity, in the sense of humane, to be a thing which transcends species.

Also I've been unable to sleep for more than two or so hours a night for the past week. This made sense when I typed it but now it sounds bollocks.

I have made progress though. I think I will stick to my making of individual judgements based on merit, an just not mention it in situations where it could be miscon... I'll just not mention it again actually, as even if not misunderstood it reinforces stereotypes I don't like in those who would agree.



You and me both, sister. Between that and... Almost every other popular sexual/romantic concept, I can barely visit a theater without feeling insulted at some point. :smallsigh:

Hotel Transylvania was great! Except for that and the fart jokes.


I actually spent a while being a little ashamed of liking it - in part because I'd internalized a lot of gender baggage that made me uncomfortable to be too closely associated with something branded as "feminine" (boo, gender narratives).

However, I think that whether we like it or not, a primarily female-dominated show that focuses on the relationships of the characters is "feminine" by the western understanding of gender branding.

I believe that is the consensus. I also believe I is better that way; a feminine thing does not need to be decoupled from femininity unordered to make it sanitized and acceptable for masculine consumption. It only has impact as a feminine show that is good. Making it masculine strips it of its intended power.

[Coidzor]

Oh yeah, context is a thing. It was a random webcomic I was reading earlier.
And you're probably right, except it's not supposed to be realistic, it's for humour. Later, two guys get magically turned gay for each other, which is obviously hilarious because homosexuality is edgy?
I need to do better things with my day. I guess it's back to Doctor Who. I'm all the way up to season fifteen.

I'm inventing a banana-vampire persona through improvisation with small children. I think we could all be doing better things with our time, haha. x.x

I'm sorry. That sounds almost as horrible as the excerpts I've seen and things I've heard about the Wotch.

SiuiS: Wait. I have a Dilemma now? :smalleek:

I actually just had to stop and think when I re-read the post to figure out if irrespective actually meant what I was trying to convey and then when I checked the dictionary it didn't seem to so I was kind of embarrassed and annoyed at myself about that. It's not even a word I use commonly, so I have no idea where I pulled it from, haha. x.x

[appending_doom]

I believe that is the consensus. I also believe I is better that way; a feminine thing does not need to be decoupled from femininity unordered to make it sanitized and acceptable for masculine consumption. It only has impact as a feminine show that is good. Making it masculine strips it of its intended power.

If I wasn't entirely clear, my issue wasn't that MLP is feminine, but with the perceived implications of enjoying something of a feminine nature. Both troubling, of course, but I imagine it's slightly worse to have issue with the existence of a popular show aimed at girls than to be uncomfortable with you yourself liking it.

[SiuiS]

Yes, and horns coming out of their backs and wings on each of their fingers. YOU GET WHAT I MEAN

That actually sounds kinda hot.



Yeah, it's just that it seemed more like an attack than a question, but oh well, I guess I just misread.

Coidzor (and myself I guess?) seem to get that a lot. Statements which are meant purely on a logical level get taken to ave emotional meaning, usually judgement. I was letting you know because Coidzor will probably do it again, and it seems Half of what I say upsets you, so it may be easier in the future knowing we aren't trying to upset you, it just happens.

I should note I don't actually speak for Coidzor, and am making assumptions.



First of all: I never said I would never in my life develop romantic feelings towards someone, I just haven't up until now.
Second: I am fine using people for gratification? Where did you get that idea from?

I never said "Gunnar11 uses people". I very specifically said several times that I am speaking of no one here, only people I have met in Meatworld who espouse these values. Assuming I meant you is just going to upset you, and I'm sorry I'd the way I sai it made it seem like you were my target. I am speaking in generalities almost by requirement; individual people merit individual consideration.


Also: I understand you have a hard time understanding this concept, but what I don't understand is why you would call it 'disturbing'.
I don't understand why people eat pineapple on their pizza's, but I certainly do not find it 'disturbing'

I am not sure I can meaningfully describe it. Food cannot compare; I don't eat olives because they don't stay down, not because they create an emotional response.


My biggest problem is I have a desire to be pregnant, yet not even the best plastic surgery in the world can let me achieve that.

We're getting there~

Coidzor: wow, I really am making a plot of myself talking or you. Sorry. I have noticed that your technical writing style seems to belt understanding by people who are more relaxed in speech, and also that brevity seems to compound this issue for you. I can relate, so I seem to have developed a mental history for you that doesn't exist? Sorry. That's kind of weird isn't it?

Doom, I was using your post as much to talk to the general public and to Nope, as you. I realize that was probably not very clear, and I should work on that.

How exactly do you mean, the implications?

[Talya]

Holy hell. 360 posts here in 6 days.

I think I posted in #1, and haven't since.

Hmm. What shall I say?

Ohoh!

My story: http://irishjackie.blogspot.ca/2012/07/bon-appetit.html

[Selpharia]

Been trying to be a little bit more feminine lately. I just bought a big plushie of a My Little Pony character.

I regret nothing.

Why would you? That's fantastic. I'm incredibly fond of my Rarity plushie, and enjoy styling her mane more than is healthy

[Lix Lorn]

My biggest problem is I have a desire to be pregnant, yet not even the best plastic surgery in the world can let me achieve that.
Yeah, I deeply agree.


I guess I would have to live with that, assuming the technology comes soon enough, though I admit to wanting the package deal, even though it sounds incredibly painful. No offence is taken; I know you mean in a biological sense.
Also agreed. I even expressed longing for periods once, just because that's a thing girl's have and I should have them.

[turkishproverb]

Holy hell. 360 posts here in 6 days.

I think I posted in #1, and haven't since.

Hmm. What shall I say?

Ohoh!

My story: http://irishjackie.blogspot.ca/2012/07/bon-appetit.html


Five more and you get an unbirthday party.

Nice story, btw.

[appending_doom]

Yeah, I deeply agree.


Also agreed. I even expressed longing for periods once, just because that's a thing girl's have and I should have them.

Someday the transhumanists will make all our dreams come true (and why does my internet think transhumanist isn't a real word?)

[Saskia]

You've actually been doing a pretty good job at avoiding it, much better than I've seen people do in similar discussions. However, I've gotten a general vibe that men have less to fear from violent crime, which is... not really the case. Ceric's post, in particular, seems to make the assumption that men are safer from violent crime based on size and strength, while disregarding the fact that those aren't actually particularly relevant factors in most predatory crimes. I also object to "men don't have concern for sexual violence" being used to mean almost exclusively "men don't have concern for sexual violence against women", and in doing so disregarding the very real fact of sexual violence against men.

Ah. Well I do feel like it's necessary now to say that I don't hold the issues regarding men and violence in any less esteem. Violence against men does seem to be trivialized in our society, or it's at least not taken as seriously as violence against women; I won't dispute that. The discussion seemed to me to regard specifically women and our perception of danger, not of danger and its perception more generally. I haven't got first-hand experience as a man in a dangerous situation so I don't feel qualified to speak on what men do and don't feel regarding danger. I thought it was obvious from context that when I said "men are not as concerned as women about sexual violence" that I meant only that men are not as concerned about being victims of sexual violence as women are, but apparently that's easier to misunderstand than I thought, and I'm sorry for the misunderstanding because that's not what I meant. When it comes to murder (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0311.pdf) and violent crime in general, (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/vsxtab.cfm) men are at greater risk than women, and it seems that women are only more prominently victims in sexual violence where in every other violent crime the predators are more likely to target men. Because men are generally unwilling to admit to being the victims of violence by their female partners the data for domestic violence is weighted, but given the staggering amount of violence found in lesbian relationships it would be irresponsible to assume that women in straight relationships don't abuse their partners. I would suspect that domestic abuse between men and women is at or near parity, but I haven't got any data to back that up. Also I'm certainly not ignorant of the woefully inadequate legal definition of rape used in the United states where "rape" is only a crime that can be committed by a man against a woman while everything else is varying degrees of "sexual assault". Anybody can be a victim of rape, and rapists can be of any sex or sexual preference; it's just as awful for a woman to be raped by a man as for a man to be raped by a woman or any other permutation of victim and assailant. It's always evil somebody regardless of sex or sexual orientation after all; it would be nice for the law to agree.

Still I cannot count the number of times I've seen grown men who are otherwise reasonable and intelligent get into fights over flatly stupid things, often (but not always) some minor insult to a woman; the kind of thing you read about in chivalric stories, where a man places himself in serious physical danger because somebody had the audacity not to believe that his lady was the most beautiful and virtuous lady of all! I've been witness to men committing and subjecting themselves to truly brutal facial rearrangements with all manner of implements inflicting and sustaining severe injuries over comments about their favored women that weren't even terribly insulting, and even had they been would be no justification for violence and particularly not to that degree. Most of that was in the backwoods hillbilly town I spent too much of my childhood. It's clearly not most men who engage in that sort of meth-fueled barbarism (even in podunk hillbilly towns), nor is it limited to men, but regardless of whatever else it may be it's fuel for confirmation bias for those who use excuses like "boys will be boys" to trivialize male on male violence (though again, that's not the only sort of violence men face), pretending that because some men put themselves in ridiculously dangerous positions for no good reason, that must be how it works for all men who are victims of violence.

The same perception seems to be prominent regarding violence in same-sex male relationships if it's even thought about at all, that violence as a means of establishing and maintaining dominance is somehow a mainstay of male interpersonal interaction and that it extends to same-sex male romance. Obviously that's absurd and damaging to men in bad relationships who need help, and the assumption that women can only be victims of violence rather than perpetrators doesn't help lesbians in abusive relationships either. Violence is a significant threat for all people, and I would absolutely agree that trivializing violence against anybody is dangerous and irresponsible. I'm not a sociologist; I'm not really sure how we square that circle when it's so ingrained into our culture. We're very much a species bent on conformity and that makes awareness of things that most people don't accept or don't want to accept very difficult, particularly when the tribalism kicks in between groups like feminism and MRM who seem too often more interested in cutting each others throats than fixing even mutual problems.

[Kindablue]

I very specifically said several times that I am speaking of no one here, only people I have met in Meatworld who espouse these values.

"Hi, I'm Chad; I like football, the color red, and am incapable of feeling love. What's your name?"

[Coidzor]

Wait. Wait. Did ya'll think my attempt at clarification and providing an alternative phrasing was espousing my own personal views on the matter?

Or did too much get read into my admitting my limited knowledge base and understanding despite my disclaimers that I didn't care and was actively not speaking in terms of value judgments and the like?

At least as far as I can recall the only thing I've said of my personal beliefs in the matter was that my personal beliefs didn't know what to make of it just yet. :smallconfused:

At any rate, I think I neglected to apologize for my testiness in the face of the asexual label question looping back up in the conversation. Sorry about that, especially since none of that was intended to reflect back upon you, gunnar11.

[Mystic Muse]

Regret is for those who don't fall asleep on a Fluttershy. :smallsmile:



I was considering her, but nah. Princess Luna. :smallbiggrin:


Why would you? That's fantastic. I'm incredibly fond of my Rarity plushie, and enjoy styling her mane more than is healthy

Well, the price tag was higher than I'd have liked, but eh.

[Saposhiente]

Also I'm certainly not ignorant of the woefully inadequate legal definition of rape used in the United states where "rape" is only a crime that can be committed by a man against a woman while everything else is varying degrees of "sexual assault".

Actually in Oregon we've got a proper definition of rape #BestCoastBenefits

[Serpentine]

I very specifically said several times that I am speaking of no one here, only people I have met in Meatworld who espouse these values. Assuming I meant you is just going to upset you, and I'm sorry I'd the way I sai it made it seem like you were my target. I am speaking in generalities almost by requirement; individual people merit individual consideration.That's fine, I suppose, but considering the context you can't really be surprised that he took it personally, considering you were directly responding to something he said. It's like coming into a conversation where someone said they enjoyed sparring as part of their martial arts training, and declaring that "people in fight clubs are psychopaths", and getting confused when people take offence. Maybe you didn't mean to, but you're equating the extreme, (still arguably) unhealthy out-there example to slightly less extreme, healthy - or at least unavoidable - stuff (albeit possibly out of your experience).
Talking about your discomfort with that heartless, using and abusive 0.0001 is fine, but if you fail to effectively distinguish between that and the still-feeling, still-caring, and honest 0.5 that was the original subject of discussion, the misunderstanding is on you, not the offended party. You're effectively changing the subject, and need to make that clear. You didn't say "people who trick the people they're in relationships with into thinking they're in love with them disturb me", you said (and this is a direct quote) "sexually active aromantics disturb me." It doesn't matter if the former is what you meant, the latter is what you said.

edit: I know I'm browbeating you over this, and I'm sorry. Heaven knows I'm guilty of generalisations and misspeaking and a chronic sufferer of foot-in-mouth disease (quiet you sniggerers in the audience! :smalltongue:). I think that just answering Gunnar's question from way back at the start could help (although it's entirely possible you did and I just missed it):
I'm what classifies as a 'sexually active aromantic', and as such, I disturb you, SiuiS?

As for the Coidzor bit, my understanding of it is that it simply should have ended after about the first 2 posts. It went like this:

Gunnar: So I'm aromantic...
Coidzor: Didn't you say you were asexual?
Gunnar: Yeah, because I didn't know about aromantic.

And that's where it should have ended: question asked, question answered. But instead it kept going, with:

Coidzor: But if you're actually aromantic, why did you say you were asexual?
Gunnar: ...because I didn't know about aromantic, and also no one else knows about it either so it's easier to just say asexual.
Coidzor: Well that's stupid, there's already perfectly good terms and if you don't know them then you can just list the definitions anyway...
etc etc so on and so forth.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. I could have been reading it wrong, though, I suppose.

[Coidzor]

And that's where it should have ended: question asked, question answered.

Now this kind of sentiment just confuses me, especially since the natural segue of such conversation is to ask for some additional context in order to digest such things. Given that there was no expressed desire to drop the subject until after he had started responding to posts I made in response to other people trying to dogpile me for pursuing clarity and then I did.

edit: Though, yes, I did bemoan what is admittedly an incredibly observational biased view of an increasingly popular trend towards being unwilling to enter into dialogue and instead feeling that everything is served by throwing incredibly finely tuned terms at one another when there's so many different definitions and connotations to them that you have to enter into dialogue in order to clarify anyway. That's hardly something unique to this situation, as I'm confident anyone who recalls the discussions that have occurred over the nuances of bisexuality and pansexuality should be aware.

I suppose I do need to remember to be more proactive about disclaimers for my tangential rants, given my proclivity for them.

Which reminds me. Someone responded to that by reiterating the importance of having an established identity in the cultural lexicon. I apologize for not remembering who it was that said so immediately offhand, but that was the thrust of my bellyaching. I do not object to identity, I object to the decline of or lack of communication, especially when buzzwords or trendy jargon are being assumed to be a complete and whole substitute for actually talking to someone.

Call me old fashioned, but it creeps me out when I run into it in meatspace, regardless of greater context. Actually, thankfully, LGBTA matters have been the distinct minority of instances where I've run into it in meatspace.

Perhaps I am still being too vague though. This still feels a bit too easily construable in a direction not of my choosing.

Can't really think of anything at the moment, which goes to show about posting after one's bed time I suppose....haha x.x

edit2: Certainly I don't think it's a conscious decision or trend if anything exists outside of my fevered imaginings.

[Serpentine]

So would you disagree with my summary of that discussion, then?

[Coidzor]

So would you disagree with my summary of that discussion, then?

Well, the skeleton's mostly right. Just got to take out most of the vitriol, direct the peevishness at the room at large, add in a bit more soapbox and talking to the coat stand towards the end.

In retrospect I see that I'm not as on top of kicking that habit as I had hoped. And it does look worse than I would have liked. x.x

[Serpentine]

There was no vitriol.
edit: Oh, or do you mean on your part? Well, only you can know that. I just called it like I seed it :smalltongue:

[Socratov]

There was no vitriol.
edit: Oh, or do you mean on your part? Well, only you can know that. I just called it like I seed it :smalltongue:

that's becuase curare and arsenic are way more fun :smallamused:

jokes aside (holy mackerel, i rear my back end just for one night and 3 pages have been added :smalleek:)

on sexual violence against men:

If I ever gave the impression that rape (or to be more exact: sexual violence) against men didn't exist, that's not what I meant to do. However, one of those problems is the fact that men are less likely to go to the local police to say they've been raped. So the figures that are available are most likely (and this is conjecture, and I don't know where, but I read in some newspaper a few years ago) not representative for the actual figures indicating a far worse problem then people think exists. the reason this is not going to change is (thougth of as) a simple one: men are taught by society that they much be much/manly/whathaveyou and being sexually assaulted does not fit in that picture leading men to keep it quiet. (wow, and that before my first coffee of the day... I must be on fire)

on to more lighthearted subjects: Matthew, I really envy you for having a redhead for a partner. I think next year I should go to this redhead day in Breda, shoudl be fun :smallamused:

[Heliomance]

I agree that men do not have no concern about sexual violence. When a group of friends and I were playing a CTF-based game at night, one of the first rules a guy came up with was "scream if you get attacked and we'll all drop what we're doing and find you." I have another friend from another country who won't even let his girlfriend walk alone in the city at night. (I live in the USA and he's told us that his country is a third-world country; one of his ten-year-old students once fought off an attempted mugging on the way to class.) But these are the only instances I can think of where a guy showed explicit concern for a girl's safety. Otherwise it's always the girls who first bring up rules about buddy systems and staying safe.

And while neither guys nor girls would walk into a shady alley at night, I find that guys overall tend to be less cautious than girls. If I'm on campus late at night, I lock my bike and take the bus home instead of biking by myself. And when I do bike home, there's two routes - one alongside a busy street and another that cuts through an empty field - and I always prefer the street route, where I find the guys tend to take the field route.

Interestingly, I find I'm a LOT more paranoid about such things when I'm out in girl mode than as a guy. As a guy, I'll keep an eye on the shadows, but otherwise generally not worry. As a girl, I discovered that I was keeping my ears strained, inspecting every shadow carefully, glancing behind me occasionally, and getting really quite uncomfortable about using the (lit) shortcut through the woods that I use without a second thought as a guy.

[Arachu]

My biggest problem is I have a desire to be pregnant, yet not even the best plastic surgery in the world can let me achieve that.

*Hugs*


I hear budgie smuggler and I see Kneen in a speedo. It is neon yellow, he is wearing like, a fez or toureg hat, and somehow looks fabulous. I do not brain.

That makes at least two of us. :smalltongue:


I think irrespective is a perfectly fine word!

I had trouble with this once though. I was on the Xbox live-a-majig, and came across some folks who were, um, "critiquing" the equipment of other players. So I put on my headset and explained my load out, as they were pretty reasonable... Up until I said "m'lee" instead of "may-lay". My response was that I would pronounce it French if I were speaking French, and that I don't think there's a definitive American English pronunciation for the word. I got a lecture about trying to sound smart (:smallcurious:), and how I was homosexual and then a slew of what I understand to be big-standard harassment via threats of sexual violence.

So I suppose I can see why one would decide that using words which come naturally is maybe not the best idea, but if that is the alternative then I'd rather remain salubriously verbose.*

o.o *Hugs*


That is not to say that you are over exaggerating. It is also not to say that the hurt anyone has felt is superficial or should be discounted. It is to say that both the hurt and the misunderstanding should be fixed, and because of other factors, not the least I which is I sincerely doubt anyone I've offended would accept an apology if they did not believe I had made progress towards correcting my faulty understanding, we needs must redress my lack of capacity for insight before addressing the harm the discussion Has done. Doing otherwise would mean the harm was still caused but nothing good came of it, and I would be upset at that. Needless harm is terrible.

*More hugs* I would try to clarify that I didn't agree with the idea and was trying to work on it from early on, but in all fairness I haven't actually gotten in a conversation where I could since I calmed down enough to want to. So, not sure if it tends to work. >.>


These discussions are no fun because I'm always an outlier. I can't stand for a girl who has X response because I grew up male-bodies, but I can't represent boys who have X response because I grew up female-souled. I think we should stop making generalizations about what each gender thinks in general. Especially because boys who grow up worried about prisoners in their area fear rape just as much as "girls do".

It is worth noting that rape threats are used to keep boys from breaking laws pretty often (honestly, the way some people go about it's almost like they think that's the whole point of having prisons)...


Also I've been unable to sleep for more than two or so hours a night for the past week. This made sense when I typed it but now it sounds bollocks.

Hate weeks like that. *Even more hugs* :<


Holy hell. 360 posts here in 6 days.

I think I posted in #1, and haven't since.

Hmm. What shall I say?

Ohoh!

My story: http://irishjackie.blogspot.ca/2012/07/bon-appetit.html

Hey, welcome ba - oh my. X3


Well, the skeleton's mostly right. Just got to take out most of the vitriol, direct the peevishness at the room at large, add in a bit more soapbox and talking to the coat stand towards the end.

In retrospect I see that I'm not as on top of kicking that habit as I had hoped. And it does look worse than I would have liked. x.x

*Hugs*


~Bianca

[Lentrax]

Holy hell. 360 posts here in 6 days.

I think I posted in #1, and haven't since.

Hmm. What shall I say?

Ohoh!

My story: http://irishjackie.blogspot.ca/2012/07/bon-appetit.html

Wow. Now that is quite a story.

Welcome back. :smallsmile:

[Ravens_cry]

Thanks for all the support from everyone on the pregnancy issue.:smallsmile:
You are all very awesome.

[Mono Vertigo]

Egads. 5 more pages. I don't know what I expected, not checking the forum for a couple days.

My 2 cents concerning that one subject that's not even being discussed anymore anyway:
- If I hear one more person speaking seriously of "feminazis", I'm going to have to summarily choke them. (Or Grammar Nazis or any sort of "[adjective] Nazi" who's not, as a matter of fact, fascist.) Because the lone but loud feminists having aberrant ideas about how to fix privilege, and the uppity feminists, too, are totally Nazis. Yeah. That's a reasonable comparison. Anyone whose opinions are merely angering you, as opposite to being directly dangerous, is a Nazi. :smallannoyed:
- That being said, I cannot believe there are feminists who seriously suggest to have fewer males be born, as a solution to sexism.
I mean, I don't think you're lying when you're saying that, but my brain can't fully register that either.
Fewer males what the frack.
- I'm feminist, and that's the label I use among savvy people like you, but goddamn, I swear I'm not going to use it anywhere else. Egalitarian sounds good, I think? Well, look, that's like telling savvy people I'm demisexual, less savvy ones that I'm asexual, and unsavvy ones that I'm in a straight relationship. Except it's more because demisexuality/asexuality is obscure and hard to explain, and less because there is no demisexual/asexual to "give us a bad name". Or, instead, it's hard to say "huh, no, I don't hate men, and I think these women are grossly irrational too, but they're still feminists because there's no membership card to take away, beside, if you're egalitarian like me, you're technically also feminist, I swear".

@Ravens_cry: *hugs*
I wish medicine and ethics progressed fast enough to soon allow me to give those bits I'm not going to use anyway, to people like you who need them more than I do. We're already doing it with blood, bone marrow, and some organs in specific cases. It's mostly a matter of time.

[Talya]

If you want my opinion on classical feminism, i posted a bit on the same blog that my story links to above. The blog post was called "I am Woman, hear me moan." I'm not linking that particular post though, it's definitely not PG-13.

[noparlpf]

Egads. 5 more pages. I don't know what I expected, not checking the forum for a couple days.

My 2 cents concerning that one subject that's not even being discussed anymore anyway:
- If I hear one more person speaking seriously of "feminazis", I'm going to have to summarily choke them. (Or Grammar Nazis or any sort of "[adjective] Nazi" who's not, as a matter of fact, fascist.) Because the lone but loud feminists having aberrant ideas about how to fix privilege, and the uppity feminists, too, are totally Nazis. Yeah. That's a reasonable comparison. Anyone whose opinions are merely angering you, as opposite to being directly dangerous, is a Nazi. :smallannoyed:
- That being said, I cannot believe there are feminists who seriously suggest to have fewer males be born, as a solution to sexism.
I mean, I don't think you're lying when you're saying that, but my brain can't fully register that either.
Fewer males what the frack.
- I'm feminist, and that's the label I use among savvy people like you, but goddamn, I swear I'm not going to use it anywhere else. Egalitarian sounds good, I think? Well, look, that's like telling savvy people I'm demisexual, less savvy ones that I'm asexual, and unsavvy ones that I'm in a straight relationship. Except it's more because demisexuality/asexuality is obscure and hard to explain, and less because there is no demisexual/asexual to "give us a bad name". Or, instead, it's hard to say "huh, no, I don't hate men, and I think these women are grossly irrational too, but they're still feminists because there's no membership card to take away, beside, if you're egalitarian like me, you're technically also feminist, I swear".

Yup, that's how I usually feel about the word "feminism" and about people adding "Nazi" to everything.

[Irish Musician]

-snip-
Geeze Musashi, you're such an Opinion-Nazi :smallamused:

(I kid I kid :smallbiggrin:)

[Mina Kobold]

Egads. 5 more pages. I don't know what I expected, not checking the forum for a couple days.

My 2 cents concerning that one subject that's not even being discussed anymore anyway:
- If I hear one more person speaking seriously of "feminazis", I'm going to have to summarily choke them. (Or Grammar Nazis or any sort of "[adjective] Nazi" who's not, as a matter of fact, fascist.) Because the lone but loud feminists having aberrant ideas about how to fix privilege, and the uppity feminists, too, are totally Nazis. Yeah. That's a reasonable comparison. Anyone whose opinions are merely angering you, as opposite to being directly dangerous, is a Nazi. :smallannoyed:
- That being said, I cannot believe there are feminists who seriously suggest to have fewer males be born, as a solution to sexism.
I mean, I don't think you're lying when you're saying that, but my brain can't fully register that either.
Fewer males what the frack.
- I'm feminist, and that's the label I use among savvy people like you, but goddamn, I swear I'm not going to use it anywhere else. Egalitarian sounds good, I think? Well, look, that's like telling savvy people I'm demisexual, less savvy ones that I'm asexual, and unsavvy ones that I'm in a straight relationship. Except it's more because demisexuality/asexuality is obscure and hard to explain, and less because there is no demisexual/asexual to "give us a bad name". Or, instead, it's hard to say "huh, no, I don't hate men, and I think these women are grossly irrational too, but they're still feminists because there's no membership card to take away, beside, if you're egalitarian like me, you're technically also feminist, I swear".

I would do that too if I had more subtlety than a thrown raspberry pudding. Explaining labels for half the conversation is definitively a good thing to avoid. :smallsmile:

And for some reason, the ridiculousness of the Feminazi label makes me want to either do a set of WWII era maps showing the world of those who use that label (seeing themselves as the noble Equallies fighting evil Feminazis and the Gay Agenda Union) and as seen from the equalitarian/feminist side. That, or a really silly version of Axis Powers Hetalia. X3

[Astrella]

Thanks everyone for the kind words. :smallsmile:

So, I chickened out Tuesday about getting clothes. I wanted to go Wednesday then, but I got back really late from my therapist appointment. When I got back I waddled forward and back a bunch about going to the trans youth group Halloween thingie and decided to go in the end which meant I didn't have time for shopping. I'm really glad I went to cause I had a good time. :smallsmile:

It was pretty relaxed with mostly talking and silly games but people were really fun and it was neat being around people going through the same thing and being Lena offline and not having to fret about it and feel self-conscious.

Several people also complimented me on my top. (the only one I have. :smalltongue: I posted a picture of it a few threads back.)

So in the end I'm glad I just went and didn't fuss about it. n.n

-----


Are you afraid of bad reactions of the shop assistants or other customers? Then you could just say that the tops are a present for your sister/friend/whatever. That might be terrible advise, if it is, just ignore it. :smallredface: *hugs*

It's mostly reactions I'm afraid of, yes. I just feel really self-conscious when doing it and scared that people will react badly. :/


Good morning my Beautiful people of this thread, hope you all had a good night.

I didn't. MY wife is out of town because her gpa died, which wasn't a good thing, but we are glad that he did due to the fact that he had lymphoma and was in a lot of pain. And when she isn't sleeping next to me in the bed, I can't sleep. Not to mention the fact that I have second hand poison oak from her (not really her fault, she was just the source), and all in all I got it worse than she did and she was the one who was all up in it. Well, went last night to get some steroids (shot and 15 regiment of pills) from the Dr's office, and it helped quite a bit, however the shot kept me up all night as well.

On the brighter side, I got my new TV stand all set up with my surround sound, game consoles, and the like last night while I couldn't sleep.....so that was at least some silver lining.

I know there aren't strictly LGBTA related, really, I just needed a little venting time, so thank you for that. Now, for coffee..........lots of coffee.....

~Matthew~

Aww, that sucks. * condolences and hugs*


Been trying to be a little bit more feminine lately. I just bought a big plushie of a My Little Pony character.

I regret nothing.

Hehe, neat! n.n


Oh, luv, I'm sorry. But like they said, friendship heals.

We're you unable to buy appropriate clothes, like you couldn't muster the will? Or we're you unable to get to the store in time?

Couldn't muster the will. :/


Holy hell. 360 posts here in 6 days.

I think I posted in #1, and haven't since.

Hmm. What shall I say?

Ohoh!

My story: http://irishjackie.blogspot.ca/2012/07/bon-appetit.html

Oh, hai! I think I might have seen you when I archive-binged all the LGBT threads ages back when trying to figure stuff out.


Yup, that's how I usually feel about the word "feminism" and about people adding "Nazi" to everything.

It's a common tactic. Demonize and other a group of people and then you don't even need to react to their opinions anymore, they just won't be listened to.

(Also one things that annoys me when people pull up notorious feminists to discredit feminism it's always people from several decades ago; that really doesn't lend much strength to an argument about feminism at this moment.)

[Castaras]

If you want my opinion on classical feminism, i posted a bit on the same blog that my story links to above. The blog post was called "I am Woman, hear me moan." I'm not linking that particular post though, it's definitely not PG-13.

I read that when I saw your blog posted here. Put into words exactly how I feel with regards to Feminism, but in a way I couldn't. Thank you. :smallsmile:

[Zorg]

@ Astrella - great to hear you went and that it was a good night for you.


Depressed rambling:

So the frequent discussions about trans-pregnancy have got me thinking... 'cause I have zero interest in becoming pregnant, and a low interest in (more) children as is anyway.
But it bothers me, perhaps due to social conditioning, that I don't. I know logically that there are many ciswomen who voluntarily remain childless, yet I feel a total lack of maternal instinct or desire. It makes me wonder about my own self and my identity as female.

I've found myself questioning "am I really Trans" at the moment, and wondering things like if my obsession with clothes means I'm just a particularly effeminate transvestite (I blame Phoenix's parents for that one >_> ), or if I'm making a mistake or what have you.

I think this is partly due to the breakup, since I know that transness is what split us up so I'm perhaps second guessing myself over it.
I've also recently been given the go-ahead to see an endo about HRT - which is good - but I'm putting it off until next year once electrolysis is done and my hair's longer. This has also got me thinking about having kids. My GF and I were planning to have kids before this, it's something she wanted so badly. When we were still together I was 100% going to bank some genetic material so we could have kids that were ours, no problem.

Now we're not I don't know if that's something I want to do. Part of me hopes that we'll somehow get back together, that love will conquer all and so on, which means I'll need to bank still. But the other part of me knows we won't, but I can't not bank, as doing so and going on HRT would feel like I'm betraying my GF.
I just feel so much guilt for letting her down, for all the hopes and dreams we had that are now gone. What's worse is that for me our future was always a bit murky, and then when I came out it all became clear and I was so certain like she was... but I took us away from her.

I miss her so much.


on a more positive note I had a chat with a very lovely transwoman the other day about transitioning and other things, which made me feel great for a while. She said I seemed to be doing things far better than most people, and was lucky living in the 'burbs as it means I won't be in a fantasy bubble like she was living in The Cross.

[Mono Vertigo]

@Zorg:
Don't let a lack of maternal instincts make you doubt. I'm as maternal as the Ork army I'm currently painting, yet I'm female. BF is much more maternal, yet he's male. If a desire for maternity was necessary for identification as female, then we could put it on the list of "What being female is".
That list doesn't exist, though. And maternity's certainly not part of it.
So you shouldn't worry about that at all.

I never was a male transvestite nor a transwoman, therefore my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt, but here it is anyway. Transvestites don't wish their body matched the gender they're disguising as, as far as I know. If your sex causes you that much grief (or, hell, any grief at all), then I'll hazard a guess and say changing it to your desired one will help more than merely wearing clothes stereotypical to the opposite gender.
What I mean is that I think that if someone is seriously considering changing sex, then they're transgender. Not crazy or mistaken, just transgender. In fact, the only error you might be making would be to think you're a woman when you're actually genderqueer, agendered, or something else along these lines, but since you've been exposed to all these concepts here and still consider yourself a woman, then you're a woman.

For the rest, I don't know what I can say that would comfort you. Would hugs help? Have hugs, if you want. :smallfrown:

[Lix Lorn]

(Hugs for... pretty much everyone)

And go look up today's SMBC!

[Lentrax]

@Zorg: For a long time, I considered myself trans. I began speaking to therapists to try and undergo HRT. I wanted so desperately to be someone else, to forget the person I was. I hurt every day (still do, but for different reasons). To say that the process willmake everything better would be telling a lie. I won't do that to you.

I will tell you, that you deserve to be who you want to be, not what others wish you to be. Will it make you better? No. Will it help you feel better? Heck yes.

I am still male because of one person. She gave me everything back that was taken from me. I am one of the few for whom love won out, no matter how briefly my time with her may have been. She understood what I was, what I was doing, and loved me for it. Sadly our love was not meant to be, but that is a whole other story, and not what I am trying to do here.

All I am trying to say, is that, if you believe that you will be with someone, and want your children to be your biological offspring, then you should seriously consider banking something. But before you do anything, you need to believe in yourself, in your spirit and soul, that you are who you wish to be.

Do that, sweetie, and everything else will sort itself out.

I hope I didn't just make things worse rambling like that. :smalleek:

[Mono Vertigo]

(Hugs for... pretty much everyone)

And go look up today's SMBC!
It was funny enough the way it started, but for some reason, I did not expect the quite expectable punchline, and now I'm laughing a lot more than I should.
Thanks. :smallbiggrin:

[Castaras]

I wish there was a gay zeppelin. :smallfrown:

[Absol197]

@ Astrella - great to hear you went and that it was a good night for you.


Depressed rambling:

So the frequent discussions about trans-pregnancy have got me thinking... 'cause I have zero interest in becoming pregnant, and a low interest in (more) children as is anyway.
But it bothers me, perhaps due to social conditioning, that I don't. I know logically that there are many ciswomen who voluntarily remain childless, yet I feel a total lack of maternal instinct or desire. It makes me wonder about my own self and my identity as female.

I've found myself questioning "am I really Trans" at the moment, and wondering things like if my obsession with clothes means I'm just a particularly effeminate transvestite (I blame Phoenix's parents for that one >_> ), or if I'm making a mistake or what have you.

I think this is partly due to the breakup, since I know that transness is what split us up so I'm perhaps second guessing myself over it.
I've also recently been given the go-ahead to see an endo about HRT - which is good - but I'm putting it off until next year once electrolysis is done and my hair's longer. This has also got me thinking about having kids. My GF and I were planning to have kids before this, it's something she wanted so badly. When we were still together I was 100% going to bank some genetic material so we could have kids that were ours, no problem.

Now we're not I don't know if that's something I want to do. Part of me hopes that we'll somehow get back together, that love will conquer all and so on, which means I'll need to bank still. But the other part of me knows we won't, but I can't not bank, as doing so and going on HRT would feel like I'm betraying my GF.
I just feel so much guilt for letting her down, for all the hopes and dreams we had that are now gone. What's worse is that for me our future was always a bit murky, and then when I came out it all became clear and I was so certain like she was... but I took us away from her.

I miss her so much.


on a more positive note I had a chat with a very lovely transwoman the other day about transitioning and other things, which made me feel great for a while. She said I seemed to be doing things far better than most people, and was lucky living in the 'burbs as it means I won't be in a fantasy bubble like she was living in The Cross.

Oh Zorg, I'm so sorry my parent's denial has rubbed off on you!

I don't really know what to tell you; you're the only one who can decide who and what you are, but I want to tell you something: back when I first started questioning myself (all those three months ago <_< >_> ), I was reading through a LGBTAitP thread for the first time, and I read the posts you were making when you were just feeling things out for yourself. And do you know what I saw?

I saw someone who knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she had found who she was truly meant to be, and couldn't be happier about it. I remember reading those first posts of yours and saying to myself, "Wow, I wish I could be that sure of myself."

You're in a dark place right now, and it's hard. Believe me honey, I know it's hard; losing a love like that is never easy, and I can only guess that losign one in a situation like yours is a hundred-fold more difficult. The only thing I ask is that you not let that darkness tear apart the beautiful person that emerged in the light. I think you're on the right path - grieve now; everyone needs to grieve for what they lose. But save the other big decisions until afterward. If you make the wrong choice while overwhelmed with sadness and guilt, it will make things all the worse afterwards.

P.S. I'm sorry if I'm a bit too poetic or pushy in my writing. I'm trying to express the emotions I feeling, and it's not exactly that easy...


I wish there was a gay zeppelin. :smallfrown:

:smallconfused: I'm very confused. Where did that come from?


~Phoenix~

[Lentrax]

I wish there was a gay zeppelin. :smallfrown:

You mean, like all done up in rainbow colors?

[Castaras]

:smallconfused: I'm very confused. Where did that come from?

The SMBC that was spoken about slightly earlier in the thread.

[Mina Kobold]

@ Astrella - great to hear you went and that it was a good night for you.


Depressed rambling:

So the frequent discussions about trans-pregnancy have got me thinking... 'cause I have zero interest in becoming pregnant, and a low interest in (more) children as is anyway.
But it bothers me, perhaps due to social conditioning, that I don't. I know logically that there are many ciswomen who voluntarily remain childless, yet I feel a total lack of maternal instinct or desire. It makes me wonder about my own self and my identity as female.

I've found myself questioning "am I really Trans" at the moment, and wondering things like if my obsession with clothes means I'm just a particularly effeminate transvestite (I blame Phoenix's parents for that one >_> ), or if I'm making a mistake or what have you.

I think this is partly due to the breakup, since I know that transness is what split us up so I'm perhaps second guessing myself over it.
I've also recently been given the go-ahead to see an endo about HRT - which is good - but I'm putting it off until next year once electrolysis is done and my hair's longer. This has also got me thinking about having kids. My GF and I were planning to have kids before this, it's something she wanted so badly. When we were still together I was 100% going to bank some genetic material so we could have kids that were ours, no problem.

Now we're not I don't know if that's something I want to do. Part of me hopes that we'll somehow get back together, that love will conquer all and so on, which means I'll need to bank still. But the other part of me knows we won't, but I can't not bank, as doing so and going on HRT would feel like I'm betraying my GF.
I just feel so much guilt for letting her down, for all the hopes and dreams we had that are now gone. What's worse is that for me our future was always a bit murky, and then when I came out it all became clear and I was so certain like she was... but I took us away from her.

I miss her so much.


on a more positive note I had a chat with a very lovely transwoman the other day about transitioning and other things, which made me feel great for a while. She said I seemed to be doing things far better than most people, and was lucky living in the 'burbs as it means I won't be in a fantasy bubble like she was living in The Cross.

*Hugs*

I know I am barely sure about my own identity (Not-cis is prettyy much it at this point. ^_^'), but I agree with everything that has been said so far. Though lost love is a miserable place to be, you are who you are. You could not change your identity any more than you could change the colour of the sky, so it certainly seems you have no reason to doubt.
Your focus on clothing merely indicate that you are using coping mechanism to get as close to your true self as possible, as well as doing the only thing you can to have others accept you as you. Psychologically, that is exactly what you would do, but not likely to be what one identified as transvestite would do. Hold on hope for a better future, but do not forget who you are. :smallsmile:


(Hugs for... pretty much everyone)

And go look up today's SMBC!

*Looks*

That was quite amusing. ^_^


I wish there was a gay zeppelin. :smallfrown:

Ooh! Ooh! Can we get an Ace hot air balloon too? :3



:smallconfused: I'm very confused. Where did that come from?


~Phoenix~

Aforementioned SMBC comic. :smallsmile:

[Arachu]

*So many hugs for Zorg, Lentrax and everyone else*


Thanks everyone for the kind words. :smallsmile:

So, I chickened out Tuesday about getting clothes. I wanted to go Wednesday then, but I got back really late from my therapist appointment. When I got back I waddled forward and back a bunch about going to the trans youth group Halloween thingie and decided to go in the end which meant I didn't have time for shopping. I'm really glad I went to cause I had a good time. :smallsmile:

It was pretty relaxed with mostly talking and silly games but people were really fun and it was neat being around people going through the same thing and being Lena offline and not having to fret about it and feel self-conscious.

Several people also complimented me on my top. (the only one I have. :smalltongue: I posted a picture of it a few threads back.)

So in the end I'm glad I just went and didn't fuss about it. n.n

n.n


~Bianca

[Ravens_cry]

Again, thanks everyone for the support, but I am pretty sure I am not a transsexual. Not full time anyway, which further complicates things.
It's not like you can chop stuff off and put it back on.

[Irish Musician]

@Zorg - I am so sorry you are feeling like this. I don't know what to say but stay true to yourself and a few other cliche'd phrases come to mind, none of which would most likely help right now.

So what I will end this with is a big 'ol *HUG* and to say don't give up on yourself, your true self. Hope things her much better real soon. :smallfrown:

~Matthew~

[Astrella]

@ Astrella - great to hear you went and that it was a good night for you.

Depressed rambling:

So the frequent discussions about trans-pregnancy have got me thinking... 'cause I have zero interest in becoming pregnant, and a low interest in (more) children as is anyway.
But it bothers me, perhaps due to social conditioning, that I don't. I know logically that there are many ciswomen who voluntarily remain childless, yet I feel a total lack of maternal instinct or desire. It makes me wonder about my own self and my identity as female.

I've found myself questioning "am I really Trans" at the moment, and wondering things like if my obsession with clothes means I'm just a particularly effeminate transvestite (I blame Phoenix's parents for that one >_> ), or if I'm making a mistake or what have you.

I think this is partly due to the breakup, since I know that transness is what split us up so I'm perhaps second guessing myself over it.
I've also recently been given the go-ahead to see an endo about HRT - which is good - but I'm putting it off until next year once electrolysis is done and my hair's longer. This has also got me thinking about having kids. My GF and I were planning to have kids before this, it's something she wanted so badly. When we were still together I was 100% going to bank some genetic material so we could have kids that were ours, no problem.

Now we're not I don't know if that's something I want to do. Part of me hopes that we'll somehow get back together, that love will conquer all and so on, which means I'll need to bank still. But the other part of me knows we won't, but I can't not bank, as doing so and going on HRT would feel like I'm betraying my GF.
I just feel so much guilt for letting her down, for all the hopes and dreams we had that are now gone. What's worse is that for me our future was always a bit murky, and then when I came out it all became clear and I was so certain like she was... but I took us away from her.

I miss her so much.


on a more positive note I had a chat with a very lovely transwoman the other day about transitioning and other things, which made me feel great for a while. She said I seemed to be doing things far better than most people, and was lucky living in the 'burbs as it means I won't be in a fantasy bubble like she was living in The Cross.

*hugs*

I think Keveak has a point; you being focused on clothes could probably just be cause clothes are one of the things expression wise that are the easiest to switch around, so it's one of the 'easiest' changes to make?

You're also not betraying your girlfriend. Trying to be comfortable with yourself is not a betrayal; your comfort is your own. And about the pregnancy thing; every woman, every person is different. Whether or not you want to get pregnant has nothing to do with how valid your identity is. Like, for me being able to get pregnant would be really neat but I don't really attach that much importance to my kids being biologically mine.

I'm not really sure what to say aside from giving yourself enough time to process all this and taking care of yourself. I don't think anyone (trans or not trans) doesn't have huge doubts about their identity sometime (I still have doubts sometime but then I try to remember how good and comfortable it all feels you know?) and I really hope you can get through it. And don't forget that all of us here care a ton about you and wish for the very best and don't hesitate to vent / talk / whatever here.

*hugs tightly*

Edit: Am happy you had a pleasant conversation though. :smallsmile:

[Lentrax]

*hugs for everyone*

Thanks for the hugs, everone. But please. We have folks here who need more attention than I. My pain is naught but a dull ache in the back of my heart now.

[Zorg]

Thanks all, I wish I could give back even half of the support you all give to me.

Transitioning is what I want, but I wish I didn't want it (need it) as what it's cost me feels like it's outweighing all the positives. I mean I've lived this long unhappy with myself why not a bit longer if I can spend it with my GF..? That sort of thinking is in my head and I can't get it out.

I know it doesn't work like that and there's no going back, but as you can all probably agree it isn't an entirely logical process. For perverse irony everything I've lost is what gave me the strength to face up to myself.

The betrayal and guilt is that I made these promises of a life together which was everything she wanted, and then I took it away. Logically I know I shouldn't, but I don't know how I'll ever forgive myself for hurting her so much.

It's a bit of a downward spiral at the moment - I'm upset, and normally my GF would comfort me, but obviously can't now so that makes me more upset etc etc... hugs would be good as all I want to do is curl up in someone's arms and cry and cry and cry.

I was going to hold off on HRT until after electolysis was done anyway, so nothing will be happening on that front for a few months (and I'm aware I'm not in a good space to be messing with my brain at the moment regardless). Will also try and see a psychotrickarist around the same time for more support.


And the clothes obsession might just be because I'm incredibly vain...

[Lentrax]

*Hugs Zorg for all I'm worth*

Words on a page can never be as comforting as the feel of a pair of arms wrapped around you. But for all they are worth, they are yours.

I do not have the words right now to express how deeply you have moved me, Zorg. I read about your life here, and I want to cry with you. I hope you find the strength and courage to pick yourself back up.

I know you will. It will just take time. But until then I give my electronic hugs.

[Talya]

As much as I can empathize, given my strong maternal instincts, am I a bad person for having this stuck in my head?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c

*lots of hugs to Zorg*

[Lix Lorn]

*hugs for everyone*

Thanks for the hugs, everone. But please. We have folks here who need more attention than I. My pain is naught but a dull ache in the back of my heart now.
(Baps gently on the head)
We don't have only 90 millicuddles of comfort a day. We have enough for everyone. If something is hurting you, it is hurting you. If it hurts, then it is worth dealing with, and it is a problem.

Incidentally, this is why I dislike 'first world problems'.

[Arachu]

Again, thanks everyone for the support, but I am pretty sure I am not a transsexual. Not full time anyway, which further complicates things.
It's not like you can chop stuff off and put it back on.

It's not exactly "chopped off" for the most part - yeah, though, I'm totally female and kinda wish it were detachable or something. >.>


*hugs for everyone*

Thanks for the hugs, everone. But please. We have folks here who need more attention than I. My pain is naught but a dull ache in the back of my heart now.

Now now, you're no more unimportant than anyone else. :smalltongue: *More hugs~*

*Also, completely agrees with Lixie*


And the clothes obsession might just be because I'm incredibly vain...

Maybe. I know it's why I am. :smalltongue:

*Even more hugs* I hope everything turns out okay~


~Bianca

[Absol197]

Thanks all, I wish I could give back even half of the support you all give to me.

Transitioning is what I want, but I wish I didn't want it (need it) as what it's cost me feels like it's outweighing all the positives. I mean I've lived this long unhappy with myself why not a bit longer if I can spend it with my GF..? That sort of thinking is in my head and I can't get it out.

I know it doesn't work like that and there's no going back, but as you can all probably agree it isn't an entirely logical process. For perverse irony everything I've lost is what gave me the strength to face up to myself.

The betrayal and guilt is that I made these promises of a life together which was everything she wanted, and then I took it away. Logically I know I shouldn't, but I don't know how I'll ever forgive myself for hurting her so much.

It's a bit of a downward spiral at the moment - I'm upset, and normally my GF would comfort me, but obviously can't now so that makes me more upset etc etc... hugs would be good as all I want to do is curl up in someone's arms and cry and cry and cry.

I was going to hold off on HRT until after electolysis was done anyway, so nothing will be happening on that front for a few months (and I'm aware I'm not in a good space to be messing with my brain at the moment regardless). Will also try and see a psychotrickarist around the same time for more support.

And the clothes obsession might just be because I'm incredibly vain...

I hate how incredibly worthless this is, but all I can do is *HUGS*.

Why do you have to be so far away? My arms can't reach to Australia :smallfrown: ...

Let us know if you ever need anything. I'm sure most everybody here would be willing to talk if you need it.

And this is why, when a couple of days ago my parents suggested I try to find someone to date to explore "adult relationships," I got angry when they didn't understand why I didn't want to because of how "complicated" it could be.


~Phoenix~

[Lentrax]

:smallredface:

Gawsh, people, I never said my hurts were unimportant, just that some folks here need the hugs more than I do right now.

Besides, my pain is a constant reminder to me that I am still alive. That I have to keep going.

For her.

But thank you all for your hugs.

*hugs back*

[Ravens_cry]

It's not exactly "chopped off" for the most part - yeah, though, I'm totally female and kinda wish it were detachable or something. >.>

Yeah, I know. From my research, it is more inverted, basically.

[Absol197]

It's not exactly "chopped off" for the most part - yeah, though, I'm totally female and kinda wish it were detachable or something. >.>

~Bianca

I've had dreams about that. Quite often, actually, although not recently.
And then I put it back on and realize that another one grew back in the meantime, and now I'm freaking out because I've got two >_< .
~Phoenix~

[Zorg]

It's not exactly "chopped off" for the most part - yeah, though, I'm totally female and kinda wish it were detachable or something. >.>


I've had dreams about that. Quite often, actually, although not recently.


Detachable penis? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDss8V2OME4)




And this is why, when a couple of days ago my parents suggested I try to find someone to date to explore "adult relationships," I got angry when they didn't understand why I didn't want to because of how "complicated" it could be.

Feel free to reference my life if it ever helps.


@ Lentrax - I will persevere and keep going. *Gloria Gaynor joke here*

[appending_doom]

Man, sometimes I get so depressed that the world can't allow people to be who they need to be (whether that involves hormones, surgeries, or feeling or acting the way that's right for them). Obviously, some of it's science we don't have yet, but so much is the world just refusing to allow it.

So hugs to those who want them, kitten pictures to those who need them, and zeppelins for everybody.

[Selpharia]

Thanks all, I wish I could give back even half of the support you all give to me.

Transitioning is what I want, but I wish I didn't want it (need it) as what it's cost me feels like it's outweighing all the positives. I mean I've lived this long unhappy with myself why not a bit longer if I can spend it with my GF..? That sort of thinking is in my head and I can't get it out.

I know it doesn't work like that and there's no going back, but as you can all probably agree it isn't an entirely logical process. For perverse irony everything I've lost is what gave me the strength to face up to myself.

The betrayal and guilt is that I made these promises of a life together which was everything she wanted, and then I took it away. Logically I know I shouldn't, but I don't know how I'll ever forgive myself for hurting her so much.

It's a bit of a downward spiral at the moment - I'm upset, and normally my GF would comfort me, but obviously can't now so that makes me more upset etc etc... hugs would be good as all I want to do is curl up in someone's arms and cry and cry and cry.

I was going to hold off on HRT until after electolysis was done anyway, so nothing will be happening on that front for a few months (and I'm aware I'm not in a good space to be messing with my brain at the moment regardless). Will also try and see a psychotrickarist around the same time for more support.


And the clothes obsession might just be because I'm incredibly vain...

Incredible vanity? Why that's my stock in trade!

I can't really offer anything but *hugs* and a hope that things get better, and saying that I totally understand all the painful things being the things that move you forward. When I have doubts, I think back to the times where I felt like without doing this nothing would have any meaning anymore, and resolve to go on with the whole process despite the doubt.

@Phoenix- Yeah, i can't say that I've never had that doubt about "serious adult relationships" before, and wondered if the horrible awkwardness that accompanies the thought of being the male in one of those is being trans, or just inexperience. Would it probably be physically pleasant? Yes, but the dissembling and falsehood would be too much, even for me.

*Hugs* for all

~Laura

[Socratov]

Vanity? join the club sister. (though it's kind of hard to be able of being accused of vanity while having no fashionsense whatsoever)

and hugs for those in want (there is enough hug for the thread in stock, just make sure you apporach me in an orderly fashion)

[Socratov]

Vanity? join the club sister. (though it's kind of hard to be able of being accused of vanity while having no fashionsense whatsoever)

and hugs for those in want (there is enough hug for the thread in stock, just make sure you apporach me in an orderly fashion)

[gunnar11]

Coidzor (and myself I guess?) seem to get that a lot. Statements which are meant purely on a logical level get taken to ave emotional meaning, usually judgement. I was letting you know because Coidzor will probably do it again, and it seems Half of what I say upsets you, so it may be easier in the future knowing we aren't trying to upset you, it just happens.

I should note I don't actually speak for Coidzor, and am making assumptions.

Acknowledging you made a mistake.



I never said "Gunnar11 uses people". I very specifically said several times that I am speaking of no one here, only people I have met in Meatworld who espouse these values. Assuming I meant you is just going to upset you, and I'm sorry I'd the way I sai it made it seem like you were my target. I am speaking in generalities almost by requirement; individual people merit individual consideration.

that being out of the way...
Let's continue with the subject, now not focused on me!

You did it again.


Now for the real issue:
I haven't been on the forum for 2 days, so I haven't been able to reply, and now I feel I need to answer every false assumption being made.

First: As serpentine said, the reply SiuiS gave seemed like a direct reply to me.
Furthermore: I don't feel insulted at all. Sius made it clear there was no harm in those words. The problem doesn't lie in if you want to have a discussion or not, I'll gladly talk with anyone who wants to discuss something, anything. It's for this reason that I didn't "Defend" myself, on Coidzor's side of the discussion.

If you, Sius, had approached me like: "Huh? I don't understand that...
or even:
"that's weird, how come?"
I would gladly try to explain it, instead of building a wall.
Instead, you approached the matter with: It DISTURBS me.
Now, using the word disturb, to me it seems like you're taking the offensive. When you don't understand something you're open to new suggestions. When something disturbs you, you're not.

It's not what you meant to say, but it's the words you chose.

P.S. Really no hard feelings at all, and you certainly didn't insult me with half the things you said, just that one phrase.
P.P.S. I have been trained for martial arts and jungle survival too, but I don't find it a relevant point in your 'case', Sius.
P.P.P.S. Do you still want to continue the discussion, now on neutral terms?
I'm not one to hold grudches :smallwink:

[Serpentine]

Another episode of My Transexual Summer's on. There's a distressing theme of people going "well I'm okay with it, obviously, but I have to worry about what the customers' comfort, you know?" and the like :smallsigh:

I want to be in the position where I can fill a whole business with transexuals, flaming homosexuals, dwarves/little people, disabled people, different races and other visibly "different" people that get othered and left out and discriminated against and the like in prominent customer service positions and tear into anyone who dares to say a derogatory word about any of them, and encourage all of my awesome to do the same.*


*Positive intent may well be deeply offensive. If so, sorry about that. I'm just so full of feels.

[Socratov]

Another episode of My Transexual Summer's on. There's a distressing theme of people going "well I'm okay with it, obviously, but I have to worry about what the customers' comfort, you know?" and the like :smallsigh:

I want to be in the position where I can fill a whole business with transexuals, flaming homosexuals, dwarves/little people, disabled people, different races and other visibly "different" people that get othered and left out and discriminated against and the like in prominent customer service positions and tear into anyone who dares to say a derogatory word about any of them, and encourage all of my awesome to do the same.*


*Positive intent may well be deeply offensive. If so, sorry about that. I'm just so full of feels.

I partly agree with you, however, as a (small) businessowner you are at the mercy of your clients. If they stop coming because of the precence of a LGBT person then I can hardly blame the businessowner (I do blame the clients for the bigoted *******s they are, but that's a different story). At the end of the day the clients spend money, which you need to pay off bills, eat, live etc. if 1 person's identity is interfering with that I can understand the position. (this is not limited to LGBT, but tattoos, piercings, other (easthetic) choices, gender, race, age or appearances as well as religious political beliefs and so on). Ofcourse, the employment of a LGBT person could also mean a source of new clients. but I wouldn't judge the businessowner for trying to make a living when his clients are the bigots and not him.

[Serpentine]

Oh yeah, people of "alternate" appearance, too - as long as they, their clothes, hair style, piercings etc. are neat, safe and hygienic, of course.

[noparlpf]

I suppose I was lucky last summer to have a fairly casual office environment because I decided to start growing mutton chops about a week before the interview, so when I went in I just hadn't shaved in a week.

[Talya]

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

He beat every single accusation against him. The only reason he was stripped of his wins was they kept trying until he couldn't afford the time, money or emotional investment to keep fighting considering all the other things he went through.

Witch hunt.

If you can't prove it the first time, you really need to give up.

The facts do not matter. What matters is it was never, ever proven.

You always side with the accused and against the authority until there's no other choice. Anything else is immoral. All authority is, by nature, completely irredeemably evil.

[Serpentine]

Erm... Wrong thread?

[Arachu]

Good read, though. @.@


~Bianca

[Socratov]

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

He beat every single accusation against him. The only reason he was stripped of his wins was they kept trying until he couldn't afford the time, money or emotional investment to keep fighting considering all the other things he went through.

Witch hunt.

If you can't prove it the first time, you really need to give up.

The facts do not matter. What matters is it was never, ever proven.

You always side with the accused and against the authority until there's no other choice. Anything else is immoral. All authority is, by nature, completely irredeemably evil.

You are ofcourse completely right. That's why in the Dutch justice system you can only be convicted or aquitted of a crime once (though some exceptions exist).

anyway, onto the order of the day

*kidnaps lixie and brings her to Celtic's secret volcano base*

[Lix Lorn]

I want to be in the position where I can fill a whole business with transexuals, flaming homosexuals, dwarves/little people, disabled people, different races and other visibly "different" people that get othered and left out and discriminated against and the like in prominent customer service positions and tear into anyone who dares to say a derogatory word about any of them, and encourage all of my awesome to do the same.
I love you, Serps. xD


*kidnaps lixie and brings her to Celtic's secret volcano base*
Mrr?
Must be friday.

[Lentrax]

Mrr?
Must be friday.

Friday? I thought that was just a spur of the moment thing, but hey, if you're going to be tied up for the weekend, I'll join in.

[appending_doom]

Yay weekend! I'm going to quietly enjoy having no homework and ignore the election (a little difficult, given that the early voting is two blocks from my apartment).

[Lix Lorn]

Friday? I thought that was just a spur of the moment thing, but hey, if you're going to be tied up for the weekend, I'll join in.
Well, this thread seems to have it as closer to a daily event, but that was the joke I went for and I stand by it.

[SiuiS]

Happy new year, friends! I am back from semi-holiday hiatus!


"Hi, I'm Chad; I like football, the color red, and am incapable of feeling love. What's your name?"

No, they are never mindful of the fact they could be in the wrong. The last one spent twenty minutes haranguing me for not describing an ex-girlfriend's parts to him ("she's your ex, man, so you don't even have a claim, stop being such a [genitals] and spill!"), refused to stop asking, insisted that I should help him out because we were both "guys", and women are like trading cards anyway, ya gotta catch em all. He then took my current girlfriend standing up in a huff as an affront, got in her face and tried to start a fist fight.

So while the implication is that I'm over reacting, I would like to think a guy who espouses love just being letting your mind block signals from your junk and letting societal conditioning keep you from being a real man (whose description sounds like a sociopath) is actually what he says he is. Creepy and predatory.


Wait. *Wait. Did ya'll think my attempt at clarification and providing an alternative phrasing was espousing my own personal views on the matter?

Or did too much get read into my admitting my limited knowledge base and understanding despite my disclaimers that I didn't care and was actively not speaking in terms of value judgments and the like?

At least as far as I can recall the only thing I've said of my personal beliefs in the matter was that my personal beliefs didn't know what to make of it just yet. :smallconfused:

At any rate, I think I neglected to apologize for my testiness in the face of the asexual label question looping back up in the conversation. *Sorry about that, especially since none of that was intended to reflect back upon you, gunnar11.

My bad. I seem to have assumed something from disparate statements on your part. I led myself to believe that your wording comes across to others as arcane, and that the difficulty communicating frustrates you. I made a set of assumptions, and you know what they say about those.



edit: I know I'm browbeating you over this, and I'm sorry. Heaven knows I'm guilty of generalisations and misspeaking and a chronic sufferer of foot-in-mouth disease (quiet you sniggerers in the audience! :smalltongue:). I think that just answering Gunnar's question from way back at the start could help (although it's entirely possible you did and I just missed it)

I appreciate the apology. I did answer his question, actually.*
As for the original, progenitor comments;


I've found that sex and romance are real tight connected. As such, having a great gap between the two subjects makes me doubt.



In the vein of complete disclosure, sexually active aromantics disturb me.

I am sure you can see how, where I agree with him (it 'makes me Doubt' to the degree that I am uncomfortable) I would be shocked to see that now I am being attacked?



Geeze Musashi, you're such an Opinion-Nazi *:smallamused:

(I kid I kid :smallbiggrin:)

Not until after she Vader-chokes a fool.

Until then she is an opinion activist u.u



Aforementioned SMBC comic. :smallsmile:

You guys are terrible at linking things :smallwink: :smalltongue:
I'll have to fun it later. Sounds like a blast.


Vanity? join the club sister. (though it's kind of hard to be able of being accused of vanity while having no fashionsense whatsoever)

Some of us are beautiful enough that clothes just get in the way, really. /narcissism



You did it again.


Got shot through the heart, oh baby baby?


Now for the real issue:
I haven't been on the forum for 2 days, so I haven't been able to reply, and now I feel I need to answer every false assumption being made.

First: As serpentine said, the reply SiuiS gave seemed like a direct reply to me.
[...] The problem doesn't lie in if you want to have a discussion or not, I'll gladly talk with anyone who wants to discuss something, anything. It's for this reason that I didn't "Defend" myself, on Coidzor's side of the discussion.

If you, Sius, had approached me like: "Huh? I don't understand that...
or even:
"that's weird, how come?"
I would gladly try to explain it, instead of building a wall.
Instead, you approached the matter with: It DISTURBS me.
[...]
It's not what you meant to say, but it's the words you chose.

I am allowed to feel about things however I darn well please, and someone misunderstanding the target of a statement is a problem with their reading skills, not with my writing, especially after clarifying so sister-forsaken often.

If I feel an emotion over which I have no control, and it bothers anyone? TOUGH. five iterations of explanation is unnecessary, and all this focusing on the first post ignores the fact that the second clarified my point. You don't like that I feel this way? Then boy, it's too bad there's not a forum I helpful people to allow me to get over it, instead of harassing me over how slighted they feel that I can't overcome something without help.

I understand the concept behind no hard feelings, but five times is too many. One instance of "I know you can't help it but you're still a butt" is fine. ignoring apologies, corrections, and clarifications in order to continue using falsehoods is rather crude. Especially since Coidzor got what I meant immediately, proof that I didn't type or choose my words that poorly.



P.P.S. I have been trained for martial arts and jungle survival too, but I don't find it a relevant point in your 'case', Sius.

The relevance is encoded in the post and context thereof.

[noparlpf]

Weird stuff I think about while unable to fall asleep:
As this is the internet I have little doubt that lots of people follow Homestuck. For people who don't follow it, they're generally basically pansexual in that they don't discriminate based on sex/gender. But, they have this weird complicated system (http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Quadrants) beyond the boring human love thing.
Due to a dream the other day I have been contemplating troll sexuality and wondering whether they could be straight, gay, or bi in different quadrants, or have asexual [X]-romantic variations on quadrants, or whatever. This is the kind of random stuff I would talk to the artist about at a con instead of dressing up as his characters and trying to obtain tissue samples his autograph.

[Lix Lorn]

Yeah, he'd just reply that you're weird for thinking it through that much. :smallsigh:

Personally, fictional my left NOSTRIL. The only quadrant I haven't been in is black. I basically live in the concilatory...

[noparlpf]

Yeah, he'd just reply that you're weird for thinking it through that much. :smallsigh:

Personally, fictional my left NOSTRIL. The only quadrant I haven't been in is black. I basically live in the concilatory...

Oh yeah he would definitely think I'm even weirder than his normal fans.

Well, not all four are involved in human procreation, but it's definitely interesting to consider all four being necessary to reproduce.

I get hate-sex even less than I get love-sex, and that probably isn't even a part of it, but I don't know how else it would work for humans. But anyway aside from that stuff I can understand kismesissitude more than auspisticism or moirallegiance.

[Lix Lorn]

I would be... not dead, but broken if it weren't for my moirail, and my ex moirails. I find myself being a moirail or an auspistice pretty darn often, and matespritship is what I long for. (Generally with moirails, which tends to end badly).
Kismessissitude I have never seriously felt.

[Kindablue]

No, they are never mindful of the fact they could be in the wrong. The last one spent twenty minutes haranguing me for not describing an ex-girlfriend's parts to him ("she's your ex, man, so you don't even have a claim, stop being such a [genitals] and spill!"), refused to stop asking, insisted that I should help him out because we were both "guys", and women are like trading cards anyway, ya gotta catch em all. He then took my current girlfriend standing up in a huff as an affront, got in her face and tried to start a fist fight.

So while the implication is that I'm over reacting, I would like to think a guy who espouses love just being letting your mind block signals from your junk and letting societal conditioning keep you from being a real man (whose description sounds like a sociopath) is actually what he says he is. Creepy and predatory.
No, "espousing those values" just struck me as funny, like you were having a polite chat with Jeffery Dahmer over coffee. I don't really care about any of this at all.

Oh yeah he would definitely think I'm even weirder than his normal fans.
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6009/5939878514_5d87a5bc58_z.jpg

[noparlpf]

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6009/5939878514_5d87a5bc58_z.jpg

Hahaha oh man that is a great picture.

[SiuiS]

No, "espousing those values" just struck me as funny, like you were having a polite chat with Jeffery Dahmer over coffee. I don't really care about any of this at all.

my holiday has left me testy.

[Randomguy]

Due to a dream the other day I have been contemplating troll sexuality and wondering whether they could be straight, gay, or bi in different quadrants, or have asexual [X]-romantic variations on quadrants, or whatever. This is the kind of random stuff I would talk to the artist about at a con instead of dressing up as his characters and trying to obtain tissue samples his autograph.

I think they can be: I read that Word of God said Kanaya was lesbian, or that she found male-ness to be a turn off, or something (but I didn't see the actual post where this was said). But this is only in the flushed quadrant (and possibly the caliginous quadrant but recent evidence points to maybe not), since she's considered being in/been the auspistice for ashen relationships with males in it.

And I have no clue about the pale quadrant since she doesn't have a moiral, but I'd assume gender doesn't really matter in that quadrant since it's platonic.

EDIT: Oh, and I don't think asexual trolls exist in Alternia, but only because they get killed off for not reproducing by a certain time. They probably survived in Beforus, though.

[appending_doom]

I think they can be: I read that Word of God said Kanaya was lesbian, or that she found male-ness to be a turn off, or something (but I didn't see the actual post where this was said). But this is only in the flushed quadrant (and possibly the caliginous quadrant but recent evidence points to maybe not), since she's considered being in/been the auspistice for ashen relationships with males in it.

And I have no clue about the pale quadrant since she doesn't have a moiral, but I'd assume gender doesn't really matter in that quadrant since it's platonic.

EDIT: Oh, and I don't think asexual trolls exist in Alternia, but only because they get killed off for not reproducing by a certain time. They probably survived in Beforus, though.

Well, they can be asexual, but would face the necessary pressure of being forced to ignore those feelings for their own survival. Although, I would presume the X years of the enforced mating system would make it much more difficult for asexual trolls to notice, understand, or vocalize those feelings. It's like any of us with identities or preferences out of the norm - until we're in a culture where that language is clearly identified, we might not be able to accurately identify our feelings.

The troll romance thing is a really interesting aspect of that story to read: we (at least the West) don't have values that match anything like the troll system, and trying to understand it is a great exercise in cultural learning and open-mindedness.

For me, kismessitude has been the hardest to understand, but...it's sort of like having someone that you hate, but who you need around in order to validate some aspect of yourself. A person you can't get rid of, because despite the conflict, you're lost without them to compare to.

[Socratov]

my holiday has left me testy.
Please refain from that kind jokes. It maes it too easy to make bad jokes about that. :smallwink:

Anyway, what happened during halloween that left you unamused?

*tickles lixie* yep it was, and now it is saturday :smallamused:

[Kindablue]

my holiday has left me testy.

Aww, I'm sorry to hear that. :smallfrown:

*hug*

[Mystic Muse]

Aww, I'm sorry to hear that. :smallfrown:

*hug*

I'm sorry to hear that too, SiuiS. *Hug* Hope things get better soon.

[Serpentine]

On my phone so quoting is hard. Sius, could you please point out where you answered Gunnar's question? Couldn't find it last time I looked.

[Mina Kobold]

Another episode of My Transexual Summer's on. There's a distressing theme of people going "well I'm okay with it, obviously, but I have to worry about what the customers' comfort, you know?" and the like :smallsigh:

I want to be in the position where I can fill a whole business with transexuals, flaming homosexuals, dwarves/little people, disabled people, different races and other visibly "different" people that get othered and left out and discriminated against and the like in prominent customer service positions and tear into anyone who dares to say a derogatory word about any of them, and encourage all of my awesome to do the same.*


*Positive intent may well be deeply offensive. If so, sorry about that. I'm just so full of feels.

That is a very nice idea, any thoughts on what you would have the business do if you could make it? :smallsmile:


my holiday has left me testy.

*Hugs*

That is no fun, hope it is just a temporary testiness. :smallsmile:

On the topic of Troll sexuality, I have no idea what Homestuck is, so I shall just sit back and smile at how funny all the strange terminology sounds. ^_^'

[golentan]

So, been making Eclipse Phase characters. A lot of them, I've put "Gender Identity" as "Other" or "N/A."

[Asta Kask]

Eclipse Phase is an incredibly cool idea, but I don't think I could play a campaign there. Maybe it's a lack of imagination.

[golentan]

Eclipse Phase is an incredibly cool idea, but I don't think I could play a campaign there. Maybe it's a lack of imagination.

Did you ever read the Ophiuchi Hotline, Steel Beach, or The Golden Globe by John Varley? Cause they're all in a similar sort of setting, and I think do a good job highlighting how much capacity there is for adventure and/or espionage even over some of the silliest things. The Golden Globe, for example, is my favorite book of all time and is all about a shapeshifting actor trying to get to the moon in time for a production of king lear by his childhood friend, all while being chased by Satanist Mafia from the Prison Planet set up by a Prison Planet.

There is much humor, action, tragedy, and assault-with-a-musical-instrument along the way.

[Mina Kobold]

Did you ever read the Ophiuchi Hotline, Steel Beach, or The Golden Globe by John Varley? Cause they're all in a similar sort of setting, and I think do a good job highlighting how much capacity there is for adventure and/or espionage even over some of the silliest things. The Golden Globe, for example, is my favorite book of all time and is all about a shapeshifting actor trying to get to the moon in time for a production of king lear by his childhood friend, all while being chased by Satanist Mafia from the Prison Planet set up by a Prison Planet.

There is much humor, action, tragedy, and assault-with-a-musical-instrument along the way.

... Must read. I know nothing about Varley as an author or person, but you have caught me with that description. ^_^

I also had never heard of Eclipse Phase, despite being a huge transhumanism fan. I am such a poor geek. u_u

[Arachu]

No, they are never mindful of the fact they could be in the wrong. The last one spent twenty minutes haranguing me for not describing an ex-girlfriend's parts to him ("she's your ex, man, so you don't even have a claim, stop being such a [genitals] and spill!"), refused to stop asking, insisted that I should help him out because we were both "guys", and women are like trading cards anyway, ya gotta catch em all. He then took my current girlfriend standing up in a huff as an affront, got in her face and tried to start a fist fight.

So while the implication is that I'm over reacting, I would like to think a guy who espouses love just being letting your mind block signals from your junk and letting societal conditioning keep you from being a real man (whose description sounds like a sociopath) is actually what he says he is. Creepy and predatory.

... What the ******* ****. *Hugs!*


I would be... not dead, but broken if it weren't for my moirail, and my ex moirails. I find myself being a moirail or an auspistice pretty darn often, and matespritship is what I long for. (Generally with moirails, which tends to end badly).
Kismessissitude I have never seriously felt.

*Didn't quite get all of that, but hugs*


~Bianca

[gunnar11]

If I feel an emotion over which I have no control, and it bothers anyone? TOUGH. five iterations of explanation is unnecessary, and all this focusing on the first post ignores the fact that the second clarified my point. You don't like that I feel this way? Then boy, it's too bad there's not a forum I helpful people to allow me to get over it, instead of harassing me over how slighted they feel that I can't overcome something without help.

I understand the concept behind no hard feelings, but five times is too many. One instance of "I know you can't help it but you're still a butt" is fine. ignoring apologies, corrections, and clarifications in order to continue using falsehoods is rather crude. Especially since Coidzor got what I meant immediately, proof that I didn't type or choose my words that poorly.


Ok.
You're right.
I'm wrong.
Good day to you.

[ArlEammon]

if Theres Anyone Who Wants To Help Someone In Distress, Please Pm Me Soon As Possible

[SiuiS]

if Theres Anyone Who Wants To Help Someone In Distress, Please Pm Me Soon As Possible

Oh dear. This looks important enough to not get caught in the page rollover ... :smallfrown:



Anyway, what happened during halloween that left you unamused?

Adulthood, I think. Got all geared up, had a surprise shift at work and a rainstorm, so I delayed festivities until the next day... When my other half had to work and I didn't know about it. Holiday dinner became ramen and grumbling.


Aww, I'm sorry to hear that. :smallfrown:*

*hug*


I'm sorry to hear that too, SiuiS. *Hug* Hope things get better soon.

I am... Surprised. Thank you.


On my phone so quoting is hard. Sius, could you please point out where you answered Gunnar's question? Couldn't find it last time I looked.

... You... You do know I'm on my phone as well, right? :smalltongue:



I never said "Gunnar11 uses people". *I very specifically said several times that I am speaking of no one here,

Only took about half an hour.

[Mystic Muse]

I am... Surprised. Thank you.



May I ask why, if you don't mind?

[Serpentine]

Ok.
You're right.
I'm wrong.
Good day to you.No, you're not wrong. I want you to know that at least one person believes that.

[Kaworu]

Hi guys!

I just poke my head to share an amazing story about love and „social norms”.

"There she is!" (http://www.sambakza.net/works_tsi/tsi_main.html) is a Korean series of flash animations created between 2003 and 2008 about Cat Nabi, Bunny Doki and their love. In 5 short videos we can observe the first meeting of the couple, growing love, social repressions [a reminder of modern neo-nazi in Poland, if you would ask me] and... I won't tell ;-)

Originally, the story was a metaphor about Korean-Japanese couples, but I am sure that people of the topic will find another intepretation.

[noparlpf]

Hi guys!

I just poke my head to share an amazing story about love and „social norms”.

"There she is!" (http://www.sambakza.net/works_tsi/tsi_main.html) is a Korean series of flash animations created between 2003 and 2008 about Cat Nabi, Bunny Doki and their love. In 5 short videos we can observe the first meeting of the couple, growing love, social repressions [a reminder of modern neo-nazi in Poland, if you would ask me] and... I won't tell ;-)

Originally, the story was a metaphor about Korean-Japanese couples, but I am sure that people of the topic will find another intepretation.

Hey, I remember that. It was pretty cute, I guess.

[Coidzor]

Originally, the story was a metaphor about Korean-Japanese couples, but I am sure that people of the topic will find another intepretation.

So that's what it was. I had always wondered about that.

[SiuiS]

So that's what it was. I had always wondered about that.

I love that story. Pity iPhones do't do flash :smallfrown:

[Lentrax]

*sigh*

How can I feel so alone, even when I am with my friends and family?

Hugs for all.

[turkishproverb]

*sigh*

How can I feel so alone, even when I am with my friends and family?

Hugs for all.

*hugs*


...


*HUUUUUGS*


I feel for you.

[Heliomance]

The results of my attempted half-and-half makeup for hallowe'en. It turned out far more subtle than I hoped, sadly. Still, you can see the effect if you cover half my face at a time.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/148136_481363841883909_1347951400_n.jpg

[The Succubus]

I think that effect works better than the one you linked *because* it is subtle. There's a very definite difference between the two sides but the way it gradually changes makes for a more aesthetically interesting expereince. Good stuff. :smallsmile:

[Astrella]

So my family and I went over to my grandparents for a visit. My godchild and niece were there as well; which was neat cause I hadn't seen them in a while. (My aunt/uncle and grandparents live in two houses that share a hallway and garage.) My niece was especially clingy and adorable even this time around. :smalltongue:

At some point my uncle decided to dig up a bunch of old slides. My grandfather used to be a pretty big amateur photographer and has tons of old slides still lying around. So we turned on the projector and started looking at old pictures of my mum's and two uncle's teens. (You might already figured out where this is going...) Now, my mum and I look quite alike. So...I got quite upset seeing those pictures cause my head was getting flooded with pictures of "what could've been" and stuff like that and I had to try hard to hide being upset cause explaining why some old pictures upset me wouldn't have been easy... >.>


So, been making Eclipse Phase characters. A lot of them, I've put "Gender Identity" as "Other" or "N/A."

Eclipse Phase?


The results of my attempted half-and-half makeup for hallowe'en. It turned out far more subtle than I hoped, sadly. Still, you can see the effect if you cover half my face at a time.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/148136_481363841883909_1347951400_n.jpg

Pretty~ And you do see it with covering.

[Asta Kask]

Eclipse Phase?

Ultra-tech role-playing game. People change bodies like we change clothes.

[Absol197]

*sigh*

How can I feel so alone, even when I am with my friends and family?

Hugs for all.

*Hugs* I know that feeling, I've been getting it a lot lately. Hopefully you can pull out of it!


The results of my attempted half-and-half makeup for hallowe'en. It turned out far more subtle than I hoped, sadly. Still, you can see the effect if you cover half my face at a time.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/148136_481363841883909_1347951400_n.jpg

Eee! I love it! You're really pretty~ Both yous!


So my family and I went over to my grandparents for a visit. My godchild and niece were there as well; which was neat cause I hadn't seen them in a while. (My aunt/uncle and grandparents live in two houses that share a hallway and garage.) My niece was especially clingy and adorable even this time around. :smalltongue:

At some point my uncle decided to dig up a bunch of old slides. My grandfather used to be a pretty big amateur photographer and has tons of old slides still lying around. So we turned on the projector and started looking at old pictures of my mum's and two uncle's teens. (You might already figured out where this is going...) Now, my mum and I look quite alike. So...I got quite upset seeing those pictures cause my head was getting flooded with pictures of "what could've been" and stuff like that and I had to try hard to hide being upset cause explaining why some old pictures upset me wouldn't have been easy... >.>

Ooh, that sounds difficult. I'm sorry, Lena! *Hugs* However, another way you can think of it is what could be :smallsmile: .

Also, I love your new avatar!

And now for the un-fun stuff. The past couple days I've been feeling the worst dysphoria I've ever felt. There was even a brief (thankfully) moment yesterday when I was seriously considering chopping...certain things...off. Thankfully my senses reassertedd themselves, but I'm really, really unhappy right now :smallfrown: . And I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to about it.

However, apparently there's a really big center for this kind of stuff nearby. I typed in "Gender" in Google, and the fifth recommendation was the Gender Center of Colorado, which is less than half an hour away. I'm going to check it out sometime this week.

And leaving off with some better news: shaved legs feel delicious :smallsmile: !


~Phoenix~

[Astrella]

Ooh, that sounds difficult. I'm sorry, Lena! *Hugs* However, another way you can think of it is what could be :smallsmile: .

Hm hm. :smallsmile: From one end I'm glad I got to see pictures.


Also, I love your new avatar!

Thank you! It's my Halloween avatar a week late. :smalltongue:


And now for the un-fun stuff. The past couple days I've been feeling the worst dysphoria I've ever felt. There was even a brief (thankfully) moment yesterday when I was seriously considering chopping...certain things...off. Thankfully my senses reassertedd themselves, but I'm really, really unhappy right now :smallfrown: . And I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to about it.

However, apparently there's a really big center for this kind of stuff nearby. I typed in "Gender" in Google, and the fifth recommendation was the Gender Center of Colorado, which is less than half an hour away. I'm going to check it out sometime this week.

And leaving off with some better news: shaved legs feel delicious :smallsmile: !


~Phoenix~

*all of the hugs and sympathies*

Oh, Phee, I'm really sorry to hear that. :smallfrown: Definitely check out that Gender Center! It'll be good to hopefully meet some people in comparable situations. :smallsmile:

And for having no-one to talk to, I'm repeating that I'm always up for im'ing / skyping / whatevering about this so just pm me if you feel the need to, okay?

*hugs*

And yes, smooth legs are divine.

[Asta Kask]

And now for the un-fun stuff. The past couple days I've been feeling the worst dysphoria I've ever felt. There was even a brief (thankfully) moment yesterday when I was seriously considering chopping...certain things...off. Thankfully my senses reassertedd themselves, but I'm really, really unhappy right now :smallfrown: . And I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to about it.

My PM box is open, but I don't know anything about gender dysphoria of course. Toughts of self-harm and suicide OTOH... :smallfrown: And don't chop things off, because you'll need them for your SRS. Which you will get if you want to.

[Absol197]

Hm hm. :smallsmile: From one end I'm glad I got to see pictures.

I don't take enough pictures. I tihnk I have a grand total of five from the entirety of my life. But they can be a nice way to remember what is past.


*all of the hugs and sympathies*

Oh, Phee, I'm really sorry to hear that. :smallfrown: Definitely check out that Gender Center! It'll be good to hopefully meet some people in comparable situations. :smallsmile:

And for having no-one to talk to, I'm repeating that I'm always up for im'ing / skyping / whatevering about this so just pm me if you feel the need to, okay?

*hugs*

And yes, smooth legs are divine.

The center isn't open on Sundays, otherwise I would have gone yesterday. And I know you're up for those things, but I still don't have the capability to use them. I'm one of those troglodytes that doesn't start making use of a technology until it's at least 10 years old. Maybe I'll change that, though...


My PM box is open, but I don't know anything about gender dysphoria of course. Toughts of self-harm and suicide OTOH... :smallfrown: And don't chop things off, because you'll need them for your SRS. Which you will get if you want to.

That's basically the thought process that told me it wasn't a good idea:

1. You know, that would really hurt;
2. And there's a big possibility of bleeding out, which I definitely don't want to do;
3. Plus, I'll need that tissue for SRS.

Like I said, it was brief. I'm not suicidal; that's the last thing I'd want to do. I'm just very angry at Fate.


~Phoenix~

[Lycunadari]

*sigh*

How can I feel so alone, even when I am with my friends and family?

Hugs for all.
*hugs* I know that feeling. :smallfrown: *hugs*


The results of my attempted half-and-half makeup for hallowe'en. It turned out far more subtle than I hoped, sadly. Still, you can see the effect if you cover half my face at a time.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/148136_481363841883909_1347951400_n.jpg
You look great! (As always :smallsmile: )


So my family and I went over to my grandparents for a visit. My godchild and niece were there as well; which was neat cause I hadn't seen them in a while. (My aunt/uncle and grandparents live in two houses that share a hallway and garage.) My niece was especially clingy and adorable even this time around. :smalltongue:

At some point my uncle decided to dig up a bunch of old slides. My grandfather used to be a pretty big amateur photographer and has tons of old slides still lying around. So we turned on the projector and started looking at old pictures of my mum's and two uncle's teens. (You might already figured out where this is going...) Now, my mum and I look quite alike. So...I got quite upset seeing those pictures cause my head was getting flooded with pictures of "what could've been" and stuff like that and I had to try hard to hide being upset cause explaining why some old pictures upset me wouldn't have been easy... >.>


*hugs!*


And now for the un-fun stuff. The past couple days I've been feeling the worst dysphoria I've ever felt. There was even a brief (thankfully) moment yesterday when I was seriously considering chopping...certain things...off. Thankfully my senses reassertedd themselves, but I'm really, really unhappy right now :smallfrown: . And I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to about it.

However, apparently there's a really big center for this kind of stuff nearby. I typed in "Gender" in Google, and the fifth recommendation was the Gender Center of Colorado, which is less than half an hour away. I'm going to check it out sometime this week.

And leaving off with some better news: shaved legs feel delicious :smallsmile: !


~Phoenix~

*hugs* I'm sad to hear that you're having such a hard time. You can always PM/Email/Skype me if you want to talk- I might not be able to give advise, but I'm always here to listen. *hugs again*

[Zorg]

I'm one of those troglodytes that doesn't start making use of a technology until it's at least 10 years old. Maybe I'll change that, though...

I was using IM programs when I was in highschool, so you can use those now :smalltongue:

Sorry to hear you've had a rough patch but that's great news about the location of the centre! If your parentals are still getting up in your therapist's grill it could prove a safe haven (or a second if they're not). I've still got to find time to get to my local one (local being about an hour and a half away).


Went out with a friend today to look at clothes, which was really great to be able to browse and it not be too stressful and talk fashion with someone at length.

[Arachu]

*sigh*

How can I feel so alone, even when I am with my friends and family?

Hugs for all.

*So many hugs*


The results of my attempted half-and-half makeup for hallowe'en. It turned out far more subtle than I hoped, sadly. Still, you can see the effect if you cover half my face at a time.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/148136_481363841883909_1347951400_n.jpg

X3
... :smallconfused:
@.@ You look like fraternal twins. Really attractive ones. :smalltongue: :smallbiggrin:


So my family and I went over to my grandparents for a visit. My godchild and niece were there as well; which was neat cause I hadn't seen them in a while. (My aunt/uncle and grandparents live in two houses that share a hallway and garage.) My niece was especially clingy and adorable even this time around. :smalltongue:

:3


At some point my uncle decided to dig up a bunch of old slides. My grandfather used to be a pretty big amateur photographer and has tons of old slides still lying around. So we turned on the projector and started looking at old pictures of my mum's and two uncle's teens. (You might already figured out where this is going...) Now, my mum and I look quite alike. So...I got quite upset seeing those pictures cause my head was getting flooded with pictures of "what could've been" and stuff like that and I had to try hard to hide being upset cause explaining why some old pictures upset me wouldn't have been easy... >.>

What Phoenix said. *So many hugs*
You already are beautiful, you know~ ^_^

Also your new avvie is awesome. X3


And now for the un-fun stuff. The past couple days I've been feeling the worst dysphoria I've ever felt. There was even a brief (thankfully) moment yesterday when I was seriously considering chopping...certain things...off. Thankfully my senses reassertedd themselves, but I'm really, really unhappy right now :smallfrown: . And I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to about it.

*Hugs!*


However, apparently there's a really big center for this kind of stuff nearby. I typed in "Gender" in Google, and the fifth recommendation was the Gender Center of Colorado, which is less than half an hour away. I'm going to check it out sometime this week.

:smallsmile:


And leaving off with some better news: shaved legs feel delicious :smallsmile: !


~Phoenix~

They do~ n.n


~Bianca

[Lentrax]

Lena, Lucy, Phee, Bianca and all the others who sent me hugs:

Thank you. I may like to trivialize all the help I give out, and the help I ask for in return, but I want you all to know that it is appreciated, and doesn't go unnoticed. I may not know you IRL, but here, you are some of the best riends, a genderfluid like me could ask for, so again, thanks for the hugs.


basically the thought process that told me it wasn't a good idea:

1. You know, that would really hurt;
2. And there's a big possibility of bleeding out, which I definitely don't want to do;
3. Plus, I'll need that tissue for SRS.


That I think, is one of the best thought processes I have seen for some time now. It may not have been your intent to make me laugh so hard, but now I have to go get my canned air to get chocolate cupcake out of my keyboard. :smallwink:

[Absol197]

*hugs* I'm sad to hear that you're having such a hard time. You can always PM/Email/Skype me if you want to talk- I might not be able to give advise, but I'm always here to listen. *hugs again*


I was using IM programs when I was in highschool, so you can use those now :smalltongue:

Sorry to hear you've had a rough patch but that's great news about the location of the centre! If your parentals are still getting up in your therapist's grill it could prove a safe haven (or a second if they're not). I've still got to find time to get to my local one (local being about an hour and a half away).

I don't know how I missed your reply on my first read through, Lucy! I've done the absolutely crazy thing and gone and signed up for a Skype account. My dad's been bugging me to do so for a while, so I can chat with my sister at college anyways, and everybody saying that they'd be willing to talk there has convinced me.

Now I just need to figure out how this new-fangled gizmo works...


Went out with a friend today to look at clothes, which was really great to be able to browse and it not be too stressful and talk fashion with someone at length.

Ooh, that must have been fun! I'm a little jealous; the only friend I have who'd want to do that with me lives a ways away and is very busy. My wardrobe is very lacking, but I don't have anyone to go shopping with. I hope you had a lot of fun!


Lena, Lucy, Phee, Bianca and all the others who sent me hugs:

Thank you. I may like to trivialize all the help I give out, and the help I ask for in return, but I want you all to know that it is appreciated, and doesn't go unnoticed. I may not know you IRL, but here, you are some of the best riends, a genderfluid like me could ask for, so again, thanks for the hugs.

That's what is so great about this place; we're all here to help, no matter how much or little it might be.


That I think, is one of the best thought processes I have seen for some time now. It may not have been your intent to make me laugh so hard, but now I have to go get my canned air to get chocolate cupcake out of my keyboard. :smallwink:

I'm glad my existential crisis could be so amusing :smallsmile: . I also wonder how well canned air will work for that. Hopefully it's just the crumbs, not the frosting!


~Phoenix~

[Coidzor]

The results of my attempted half-and-half makeup for hallowe'en. It turned out far more subtle than I hoped, sadly. Still, you can see the effect if you cover half my face at a time.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/148136_481363841883909_1347951400_n.jpg

I shudder to think of what you must be planning to do to the cameraman in this picture. :smalleek:

All in all, a quite interesting look, though there's some kind of je ne sais quoi going on here that I can't quite put my finger on.

[Lentrax]

You're worried about she's gonna do? I'm more concerned with the Reaver standing behind them!

[Astrella]

Lena, Lucy, Phee, Bianca and all the others who sent me hugs:

*hugs*

I actually read over your last post by accident so I'm sure if I'm deserving of hugs. Feeling isolated really sucks though. (Can I ask if you mean in general or with regards to gender / sexuality and all that?) I'm glad you've found a supportive place here though. :smallsmile:


I don't know how I missed your reply on my first read through, Lucy! I've done the absolutely crazy thing and gone and signed up for a Skype account. My dad's been bugging me to do so for a while, so I can chat with my sister at college anyways, and everybody saying that they'd be willing to talk there has convinced me.

Now I just need to figure out how this new-fangled gizmo works...

~Phoenix~

Skype isn't that hard to get working luckily. :smallsmile:


What Phoenix said. *So many hugs*
You already are beautiful, you know~ ^_^

Also your new avvie is awesome. X3

~Bianca

Thank you. :smallsmile:


Went out with a friend today to look at clothes, which was really great to be able to browse and it not be too stressful and talk fashion with someone at length.

That sounds lovely.

[Absol197]

You're worried about she's gonna do? I'm more concerned with the Reaver standing behind them!

I do believe Helio is a "he"* right now, but you're right - the zombie/reaver is the most worrying thing in that picture!


~Phoenix~

* It's hard for me too, because the first time I encountered Helio, he was a she, so that's the gender that sticks in my mind. Sorry, Helio! I'm trying!

EDIT: Lena: Yeah, I know it's probably not that complicated. I just like to make it seem like I'm struggling with new technology more than I actually am!

[Lentrax]

I actually read over your last post by accident so I'm sure if I'm deserving of hugs. Feeling isolated really sucks though. (Can I ask if you mean in general or with regards to gender / sexuality and all that?) I'm glad you've found a supportive place here though. :smallsmile:


Both and neither, I suppose. Working overnights has really just reinforced the feeling. As my nights go on, I end to find myself drifting between where I am and where I want to be. Who I am and was. Who I wanted to be, and who I thought I was.

It is a very disconcerting feeling. Like being smothered in despondency.

(And Phee: It was just crumbs. I'm wierd and eat cupcakes without frosting at all.)

[Coidzor]

I do believe Helio is a "he"* right now, but you're right - the zombie/reaver is the most worrying thing in that picture!


Zombies are never the biggest threat, that, my friends is your fellow survivors. :smalltongue:

[Lentrax]

It dawns on me that in that picture, Helio presents as both, making it even harder to choose a pronoun. Therefore I choose to exercise my perogative and use whichever one comes to mind.

Or something like that.

[Asta Kask]

*drags in enormous teapot*

*removes the lid*

*looks around*

What? I haven't seen the Kenderwizard for a while so I thought I'd summon her.

[Lix Lorn]

The results of my attempted half-and-half makeup for hallowe'en. It turned out far more subtle than I hoped, sadly. Still, you can see the effect if you cover half my face at a time.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/148136_481363841883909_1347951400_n.jpg
Oh wow, you can totally see it. And yes, you're totally hot.
...although now I can't shake the feeling that one terrible accident later, you're going to become Two-Face.

[Asta Kask]

Oh wow, you can totally see it. And yes, you're totally hot.
...although now I can't shake the feeling that one terrible accident later, you're going to become Two-Face.

I took the forum's white knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn't hard. You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push!

*laughs hysterically*

[Mystic Muse]

I believe in Harvey Dent.

[Lix Lorn]

I took the forum's white knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn't hard. You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push!

*laughs hysterically*
Hold on, let me dive into my sig...



Roland just endorsed a crack pairing?
Did... did we break the universe?
In the words of the Joker -"We took the forum's White Knight and we brought him down to our level."

[The Succubus]

Good lord, that's going back a bit, when I used to have a silly user name.

[Lix Lorn]

...oh hey, that was you?
No wonder your username has a shorter memory than your join date...

[Asta Kask]

Hey Lix, did you ever wonder how I got these scars?

[Lix Lorn]

No... but I know how you got these.
(Hypertackleglomp)

[The Succubus]

Hey Lix, did you ever wonder how I got these scars?

Ooo, ooo, I know this one. You got them by trying to eat a frozen pizza with very sharp edges?

[noparlpf]

*drags in enormous teapot*

*removes the lid*

*looks around*

What? I haven't seen the Kenderwizard for a while so I thought I'd summon her.

Is that a real ritual? I like tea. Although I like tea that's super-dark and might scare her off. It scares away most people.


The results of my attempted half-and-half makeup for hallowe'en. It turned out far more subtle than I hoped, sadly. Still, you can see the effect if you cover half my face at a time.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/148136_481363841883909_1347951400_n.jpg

That it's subtle is definitely an interesting variation.


Oh wow, you can totally see it. And yes, you're totally hot.
...although now I can't shake the feeling that one terrible accident later, you're going to become Two-Face.

Oh dear. Although that might be an interesting development.

[Mina Kobold]

*sigh*

How can I feel so alone, even when I am with my friends and family?

Hugs for all.

*BIG HUGS*

Feeling alone is terrible, especially when friends and family do nothing to alleviate it. ;_;


The results of my attempted half-and-half makeup for hallowe'en. It turned out far more subtle than I hoped, sadly. Still, you can see the effect if you cover half my face at a time.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/148136_481363841883909_1347951400_n.jpg

Yarr, yar mateys be great at the costumin' trade, but thar be no greater than ya!

Or, to be serious, you look amazing and I am jealous of you and your friends. :smallsmile:

And to be silly again, picture the pirate talk in a Kobold voice. :3


And now for the un-fun stuff. The past couple days I've been feeling the worst dysphoria I've ever felt. There was even a brief (thankfully) moment yesterday when I was seriously considering chopping...certain things...off. Thankfully my senses reassertedd themselves, but I'm really, really unhappy right now :smallfrown: . And I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to about it.

However, apparently there's a really big center for this kind of stuff nearby. I typed in "Gender" in Google, and the fifth recommendation was the Gender Center of Colorado, which is less than half an hour away. I'm going to check it out sometime this week.

And leaving off with some better news: shaved legs feel delicious :smallsmile: !


~Phoenix~

*More BIG HUGS*

That sounds really really terrible. Great hopes that the centre will be at least a small positive to outbalance it. :smalleek:

... Delicious? *w*

*Starts peppering and salting Phoenix' legs*


I do believe Helio is a "he"* right now, but you're right - the zombie/reaver is the most worrying thing in that picture!


~Phoenix~

* It's hard for me too, because the first time I encountered Helio, he was a she, so that's the gender that sticks in my mind. Sorry, Helio! I'm trying!

EDIT: Lena: Yeah, I know it's probably not that complicated. I just like to make it seem like I'm struggling with new technology more than I actually am!

I find the best way to avoid that is to think of Helio as a Helio. Unique, wonderful and with the potential to be anything else as well. :smallsmile:


It dawns on me that in that picture, Helio presents as both, making it even harder to choose a pronoun. Therefore I choose to exercise my perogative and use whichever one comes to mind.

Or something like that.

I just disregard linguistic evolution and use "they". I wish we had an equivalent to the Swedish "hen", but nooo. Neither Danish nor English are that nice. Meanies. :smallmad::smalltongue:


Good lord, that's going back a bit, when I used to have a silly user name.

Ooh, did you have an avatar involving school uniforms and cephalopod limbs? I think I recall seeing you around back then! ^_^

... I am reminiscent of the Olden Days. By Polly's thirteenth cracker, soon I will be yelling at people to get off my fifth-dimensional lawn! Eepers! ._.

[Astrella]

Talking about Skype; we never did get around to doing that voice group, did we now?

[noparlpf]

Talking about Skype; we never did get around to doing that voice group, did we now?

I think everybody forgot? I don't think it's even been mentioned in a bunch of threads.

[Asta Kask]

No... but I know how you got these.
(Hypertackleglomp)

*ooof*

Hey... look... ceiling... *faints*

[Lix Lorn]

D=
(Elixian healing charms)

[Absol197]

*More BIG HUGS*

That sounds really really terrible. Great hopes that the centre will be at least a small positive to outbalance it. :smalleek:

Here's hoping. My therapist actually recommended I visit a while ago, but I never tried to find the time. Now, I'm definitely going to, because my parents are hogging my therapist time!


... Delicious? *w*

*Starts peppering and salting Phoenix' legs*

nnnooOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!![/darth vader]

I promise, I don't taste like really spicy chicken!
...I taste like really, really spicy chicken...

I find the best way to avoid that is to think of Helio as a Helio. Unique, wonderful and with the potential to be anything else as well. :smallsmile:

I just disregard linguistic evolution and use "they". I wish we had an equivalent to the Swedish "hen", but nooo. Neither Danish nor English are that nice. Meanies. :smallmad::smalltongue:

True, but calling him a Helio doesn't offer a useful pronoun, and sometimes pronouns are needed. A nice, neutral pronoun would be great. Unfortunately English doesn't provide one, as you mentioned.


... I am reminiscent of the Olden Days. By Polly's thirteenth cracker, soon I will be yelling at people to get off my fifth-dimensional lawn! Eepers! ._.

"Ia! Ia! Keveak ftagn!"


Talking about Skype; we never did get around to doing that voice group, did we now?

Hm? This sounds interesting, although I haven't heard anything of the sort I can recall...


I think everybody forgot? I don't think it's even been mentioned in a bunch of threads.

Ah, and here's why :smallsmile: ! I would be all for it. Now that this mysterious arcane power is mine, I would not be opposed to joining such a mystical society.


~Phoenix~

[Astrella]

Hm? This sounds interesting, although I haven't heard anything of the sort I can recall...

~Phoenix~

Yeah, I think Nix Nihila originally came up with a group to help people with voice training.

(Also pretty sure Helio just goes with the pronoun that matches his gender icon.)

[Lea Plath]

Next Halloween, I've got my costume sorted. A cloak that I've sewn some black gauze over and put on glow in the dark spots for eyes and a crescent moon for a mouth. Should be fun

Anyway, I'm starting to lose some weight, half a stone already, and I'm trying to get my features more...andro. That means sorting out the eyebrow of evil.

[Lady Serpentine]

*Glomps Lea*

Hey! I haven't seen you around recently, so... How have you been? Good, I hope? :smallsmile:

[gunnar11]

does anyone know this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWRX6ihc_jY#!) perhaps?
I found it good :smallsmile: