So I’ve got this friend whose nervous because she’s trans and dating this guy who she hasn’t told yet because they’ve only been on a two dates. For this story let’s call the friend Jane and the guy she was dating Jason. Happy ending don’t worry.
So I tell Jane to bring her boy over to a bbq I’m having and she can tell him she’s trans at my place surrounded by queer and trans people who love her and will support her if he ends up being awful.
She waits till the end of the bbq to tell him the news, by which point the rest of us have learned that Jason is a kind, friendly, empathetic, hard working, dummy. So we sit down, all of us a little worried about this gym bro’s reaction when she tells him she’s trans, and that she understands if he doesn’t want to keep dating her it’s no big deal.
He’s baffled, so we explain what trans is, and after the disclosure that she hasn’t had bottom surgery yet…
“Oh you have a dick?”
“… yeah.”
He look’s around at the room full of people with baited breath, his clearly a little afraid girl friend says
“Oooohhhh! I get it! You think- don’t worry Babe! Watch this!”
And ya’ll this man jumps up, runs into the kitchen and returns with one of the bratwurst we had for grilling and proceeds to tilt his head back, put it down his throat, hold it in his mouth for a moment, and spit it up without even a whisper of a gag and then looks around at the group absolutely beaming with pride.
My mans saw his worried girlfriend and her support network and thought to him self “Oh they don’t think I can’t please my girl, but I’ll show them!”
I do feel the need to add that later he excitedly tell the group that as a straight guy, he never thought that skill would be useful outside hotdog eating contests.
“Man its too bad that im straight since I’ve got like no gag reflex and all.”
“Honey, I must tell you, i am in fact trans and I have not had bottom surgery.”
Reasonable leftists turn into raging social conservatives as soon as a right to die is mentioned.
There’s no argument against it that doesn’t apply to letting women get voluntary hysterectomies, or renting apartments to people with down syndrome, or banning sex work.
Every discussion on it treats MAID as if you walk in the doctor’s office to request it and he shoots you a minute later. There’s a process to it! They really do check if you’re sure!
I make this post and immediately attract a dozen people it describes.
People. Please consider how your arguments are 1:1 with arguments for other conservative positions.
What if people are only doing sex work because they’re disabled and don’t have support from the government? Better ban it, just to be safe. Don’t worry about how that still leaves them in a bad position.
What if a young woman is pressured into having an abortion? Better ban it, just to be safe.
What if having hysterectomies available on demand makes doctors more likely to just force you to get surgery during healthcare? Better ban it to be safe.
Did you hear that there are cases of doctors putting DNRs on disabled patients charts without their consent? Better ban all DNRs, just to be safe.
What if doctors, knowing heart replacement surgeries are available, decide to just give up on telling patients to watch their heart health? Better ban heart transplants, just to be safe
I do support the right to suicide, but doctors don’t pressure people to have hysterectomies, whereas they do pressure people into killing themselves.
This is because they have the standard views of:
- women sometimes don’t want children and then change their mind into wanting children, and preserving this option for future them outweighs any present discomfort
- old people who are costing their family a ton of money for medical treatments should just die and decrease the surplus population, as they say
There is a very distinct and well-known history of doctors sterilizing women with dubious or no consent, in the US and in Canada. I am not bringing this up as some hypothetical, it was and is a very real problem in the real world. That does not mean it should be illegal to provide hysterectomies, it just means it should be illegal to do them without informed consent.
That doctors will in other cases override their patients’ bodily autonomy and refuse to let them get a hysterectomy does not contradict this; in fact both stem from a refusal to treat a person’s body as their own and not someone, or something, else’s.
(As to your second point, do you think patients should be required to go through all possible treatments before receiving hospice care, to prevent any possible cases of the elderly or terminally ill being encouraged to die sooner, or should people be allowed to decide they don’t want to go through another round of Chemo for another 3 months of pain?)
hey it’s ok if you lost your ai virginity back when you were uneducated. a lot of posts go like “reblog if you have never ever used generative ai and never ever will!!!” but it’s ok if you have used gen ai before and it’s even ok if you used to think it was cool, back before you understood what it really was and how it worked, either because no one had taught you about it and you discovered it on your own or because the only education you had received about it was from the tech bros. you’re not a burger with a bite out of it for having used ai. ok
It is 100 percent okay to stop using it today and join the “boo AI” club.
This isn’t a purity thing. This is a “everyone stand with us against destroying the environment and giving asthma to poor people” thing.
Did you know that when one community says no to an AI data center, they specifically search out communities with fewer resources? Communities that can’t defend themselves? And the pollution 100 percent affects their health and wellbeing, in addition to burning through our already scarce drinking water.
You can stop using character.ai today. You can say “I listened to the facts and stopped.” And another thing: don’t you think it’s a bit more impactful to have used it, stopped, and then you’re in a position to say how little it helped? How doing things for yourself improved your life?
also posts in the spirit of “if you’ve used AI even ONCE your soul is tainted!!!!” can’t be great to those with OCD
In hindsight being a “gifted kid” is so funny. You have substantial difficulties with socializing and fine motor skills but we’re going to ignore that because you’re really good at reading chapter books
We don’t need to raise this one because it can read novels.
My absolute favourite comic journal by Stevenson. Made me cry my eyes out. Even when I can’t articulate it, it gets to the core of what I think love is.
“The image of young people reading “dangerous” books alone, in secret, and in distress, was neither what we observed nor what the students described.”
“Students reported becoming better people, a change also noticed by their parents and peers. Reading engaging narratives about characters with complicated lives, they reported, helped them become more empathetic, less judgmental, more likely to seek multiple viewpoints, morally stronger, and happier. Yes, happier. They reported improved self-control, and building more and stronger friendships and family relationships.”
“Initially, we too were cautious about some books until we learned how off-base adults can be in their hypotheses about what young adults take away from them. Students described characters’ questionable decisions as cautionary tales, not narratives to live into, a concept they found laughable, plausible only to someone who hadn’t read the book. […] The books reduced their own self-absorption, diminishing personal concerns that might otherwise overwhelm them. Bad words and disturbing scenes simply fed bigger conversations about life and relationships.”
the wolf started running backwards in circles trying to get out of Uncle Urg’s shirt and everyone is laughing so hard that the sleeping children and young mothers and old folk wake and come out of their hide huts and observe First Funny Dog galloping around in the moonlight, and a tradition is born
like were dogs even dogs yet or did someone manage to squeeze a particularly patient tamed wolf into a leather shirt and then howl with laughter as it trotted around the cooking fires dressed like Uncle Urg begging for food scraps
I’d like to know what the first person to put human clothing on a dog was thinking
“Will you flush game for me, Wolf, when I go hunting the wild things beneath the trees?” asked Human.
“I will,” said Wolf, “If only you leave me the bones and scraps of meat from your kills.”
“That is well,” said Human. “And will you use your ears and eyes and nose to guard me while I rest, and warn me when lions prowl too near?”
“I will,” said Wolf, “If only you let me lie in the warmth of your cooking-fires.”
“But of course,” said Human. “And will you do as I command, and follow me wherever I go, and love my children and grandchildren as you would love your own?”
“I will,” said Wolf, “If only you scratch me where my claws cannot reach, and pet me, and heal my injuries when I am wounded.”
“Always,” said Human. “And will you let me dress you up in funny clothes, and dance around, and do little tricks for me to laugh at?”
Wolf hesitated, and eyed Human warily for some time, weighing its choices. “That depends,” it said. “Will you tell me I’m a good boy?”
Human smiled. “The goodest boy,” it said.
Dog wagged its tail, and Wolf was no more.
I’ve reblogged it before, and I’ll say it again: this prose is right up there with Kipling’s Just So Stories. A modern literary masterpiece. I feel compelled to make an illuminated manuscript of it.
Just the random ramblings and interests of a random girl.
