Random Thought of the Day

[Otherside]

Seeing the comments on sick-note culture and how sick-notes are benefits claims, is very odd.

I've been signed off sick by my GP for two periods in total, both for mental health reasons. On neither occasion, did my GP write the diagnosis on the reason part of it, and it was instead filled as "low mood." This was at my request, I do not want my employer to be aware of my mental health diagnosis. If that was disclosed, it could very well lead to discriminatory behaviour on my employers part. Despite that being illegal, it still happens.

On neither of these occasions was I a benefit claimant, nor was I entitled to claim any. It led to the company paying CSP, after which I would have been on SSP (though thankfully, never gotten to SSP level). Both of which are, nothing to do with the benefits system, and are paid by my employer.

I sure as hell do not trust a "specialist assessor", who is almost certainly not going to be a doctor, and if this parties history is anything to go back - will very likely be outsourced to Capita, who will give assessors a three day training course and targets - to assess when and how my mental health issues affect my ability to work, and when time off is needed.

(Also, you're gone next election. You know, we know it, you're polling very low, there's not going to be a magic turnaround where the numbers suddenly shoot up for you. Stop putting it off.)

[Nyctophilia]

Yup, the rumors are true. I am knocked up big time. To protect the privacy of my family and loved ones, a lot of information has purposefully been omitted from this announcement. Please understand :3 Anyways, very excited to exploit this child for views, and I'm so excited you're gonna help me do it. Love you all!

The fact theres still like a 50% chance this is a psyop is making me go insane

i've been gaslight so much by this channel i don't believe a single thing i see on it

theres videos of her on BFT and hypothetical nonsense from literal days ago where she does not have a belly. she is not pregnant it is okay u can rest

I don't know what BFT even is.

Because of her cynical dark sense of humour it makes it seem fake. [..]

KAROLINE WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?

I think this is one of the videos people are talking about that was filmed/posted recently but she's wearing a kind of baggy hoody and the table is blocking her so not very conclusive. Though skimming through it she makes a joke about being a big swollen blue ball and wanting to make that joke but not having people she can use middle school humour on like 27 minutes in. That sounds like it could be a pregnancy joke because why would she be swollen? Not that that would stop it potentially being a bit as she'd obviously planned this whole thing either way.



Ah nevermind this was uploaded 3 weeks ago so at the very least she's not as far along as in that video thumbnail (assuming this one wasn't filmed ages ago for some reason) At least one of these was filmed recently because someone said that someone brought up seeing the film Civil War in the cinema which came out recently but I don't want to watch all of that I don't think:



"I've thought about burning alive a lot though cause I had this thought like what if I was around like during the pilgrim times if I came here. I would totally be burnt alive. There's not a reality where I wouldn't be burnt for being a witch."

Oh so we all just thinking about this now I see.

"Yeah that's true"

"And so I've thought about it quite a bit."

LOL I love how he just automatically agrees.

I can see why she potentially might want to do this as the topic of deepfakes comes up in that video where she's wearing the blue hoody but at the same time the video is very sincere in a way that is borderline offensive to women who are actually struggling with fertility issues so I have no idea.



This video was uploaded a month ago and they're looking up weird prank stuff and briefly look past a pregnancy test that's obviously fake and she kind of reads it out quickly before they skip on.



There's the fact that this is very topical right now in online discourse. With people freaking out that gen z aren't pregnant yet and half of women aged 30 in the UK don't have kids and things like that. Comedians like to focus on these areas of tension.

And I know how these festivals work first you have bonfire night but then people are busy so there's a 3 week window of fireworks instead. April Fool's day becomes too obvious so people decide to do it later.

I'm not fully convinced.

Anyway it won't top my favourite April fools joke that wasn't an April fools joke:

[Nyctophilia]

That last guy Vlad talks to who says he's into trans people you have to be careful about that especially in Russia because they might end up killing you. Some men will specifically hunt people as well. Like consider the reaction those guys had to the woman who was wearing rainbow frog earings and consider that an indicator. I mean obviously he wasn't going to go further but yeah. I also assume he just doesn't care much but yeah.

"Yo women is this a thing? Why is every guy asking are you alone? Are you alone?"

I'm assuming a lot of these guys either thought Vlad was a prostitute or in some cases he approached them first. One guy just outright asks him where his house is then when he says why he just says 'sex' which is a really weird thing to do. It would be really weird here. He also doesn't just ignore these guys who approach or avoid them like most people would do so this experience isn't entirely accurate he's trying to [BEEP] with them. But he lives in Russia afaik so cultual norms are also probably different there anyway but strangers don't usually approach you like this in the UK ime especially if you're dressed casually.

The only times at night I've been approached have been homeless people asking for money or twice in one night I got asked for a cigarette but otherwise I've never been asked for a cigarette and since I look young for my age it's likely during a significant chunk of my life people assumed I was under age anyway. I would always get id'd and one time I was buying something when I was 25 and I got asked if I was in high school by someone because they had a student discount. I mean first they asked if I was a student I said no then they asked about me being in high school like they thought that was a possibility...

I think as a teenager someone tried to sell me weed but I'm pretty sure I was with someone else at the time so was more like approaching the group I was in.

Also when I used to dye my hair sometimes strangers would compliment that. Not during the night time just in general. I also had a girl compliment my top once during the day. Oh and one guy complimented an IAMX cap I was wearing after a concert. Other people have started conversations or asked questions about band t-shirts I'm wearing. I'm pretty sure that's happened multiple times. I can't really remember now. At least once regarding Steven Wilson band t-shirts etc.

One time some guy started talking to me asking if I was coming from some place then trailed off and was like 'oh no you didn't' I think he was asking about the concert I'd just left (Steven Wilson,) but I dunno. Maybe he thought I was attractive and changed his mind lol.

Also if we're talking in general I once had some drunk guy during the day saying some stuff to me but I can't remember what now. He was mildly annoyed and I just walked past him and continued on. Also the time on a train a drunk woman started talking to me and she was very weird but I spoke about her before lol. She started talking about some killer or something and then said men are assholes and then said she was going to get her daughter to attack me.

Someone several months ago also was trying to get my attention I think from inside their car. I mean they were vaguely yelling, but I just ignored them. They might have been asking for directions or something but it was like the early hours of the morning down a side street, and there was no one else around and you can just use your phone now in most cases.

But I never had someone catcall me or try to hit on me in some obvious way and the encounters I've had were also not exclusively female. I mean the weirdest stranger incident was definitely the woman on the train.

In a bunch of F1nns videos he talks about getting hit on a lot in public and other weird experiences but his girlfriend doesn't. She seems just as if not more cute so I think it's because she dresses a bit differently and has less extroverted energy. He either talks about that in that video or this one:





OK well guess I can't embed that video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGR6wwJN78s

I'm honestly not that surprised that F1nn gets hit on by a lot of straight women. There's a significant proportion of straight women, who only tend to be vocal during their yaoi/fujoshi/BL reading teen phase but then to go silent during adulthood for fear of judgment, who've both A: Often wished they themselves had a penis, and B: Are very into the thought of male/male pairings, both romantically and sexually. It's the equivalent of the old trope of guys who are really into watching lesbians, only with more social shame attached (making it harder to openly admit/discuss). From my observations at least, this population actually seems to be really into prettier guys (making F1nn an ideal candidate). I suspect because on the surface a relationship with a prettier, less classically (and perhaps toxically) masculine guy would seem to provide more flexibility for exploration and power sharing. In our society, there's still a social expectation that women will be sexually submissive and men will be sexually dominant, to the point where you risk being shamed for violating these norms (with both dominant women and submissive men facing that risk), and risk being seen as less womanly or manly (as the case may be) as a result, to the point where even many bi women will identify as being dominant only with other women but still submissive with men. It's why, even though a roughly 50/50 split for dominance/submission should be expected for both genders (as there is no biological motivator towards either), we still see the numbers in our society skewed towards far more sexually submissive women and far more sexually dominant men. For a lot of people, fear of the stigma drives them to the more socially acceptable place, and keeps them there. With a guy like F1nn, there's little expectation of having to conform to such social stereotypes. It gives a bottled-up straight woman the chance to more greatly explore shifting power dynamics without fear of judgment, the opportunity to try out something much closer to the male role from one of their fantasies. It's part of why material written by gay men for gay men tends to have far more classically masculine characters, whereas a lot of BL and shounen ai (which is primarily written by women) feature male characters who are both more likely to be bishonen (pretty boys) and more likely to be more open to their feminine sides.

I see you also notice things lol.

Although it's worth pointing out there's also overlap with trans and non-binary people there.

To me the idea that there are more dominant men than submissive women isn't weird you would probably expect that. The weird part is that there are more submissive guys than dominant women (allegedly.)

And sexologists seem to go out of their way to avoid researching this.

the scare quotes around both "straight" men and "straight" women lmao

Well I still find it very funny. A trans woman had this situation on twitter too. That trans woman was quite insane and psyhcopathic though and I can't be spending the time to go down that rabbit hole. But anyway at one point while reading her myriad of insane tweets I noticed she pointed out that she got hit on mostly by men and women who both identify as straight then was like 'the sexes aren't equivalent' or something as explanation lol.

As a general rule and someone would shoot me for using assigned sex in this situation if this was twitter or whatever but it matches what I see - as a general rule. Amab people tend to label their sexuality based on secondary sex characteristics and afab people based on primary. But there's also the fact that women are more likely to be bi and have more varied preferences anyway I think + fluid sexualties. But you also see the thing where there are lesbian women who basically just date very masculine women and trans guys.

Also of course you have the straight women who are having sex with women in that reddit thread I found days ago (not that it's the first time I've run into that.) And the straight women who watch lesbian porn. And the lesbian women who watch gay male porn. It's funny but also what the [BEEP] are people doing?

I also have a lot of trauma with "straight" women where like a solid 50% of my woman friends who have identified that way have tried to [BEEP] me at some point but then threw me away and I just feel so like tired. It got to a point where I stopped being friends with hetero identifying women lmao because it was THAT bad.

No really what kind of social bubble is this? This even seems weird to me knowing that nobody is using language correctly (especially afab people,) and nothing makes sense.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25808718/

It has been speculated that men's sexual arousal patterns may be related to sexual inhibition (Bailey, Rieger, & Rosen- thal, 2011; Rosenthal, Sylva, Safron, & Bailey, 2012). In short, in contrast to gay men, bisexual men may not be averse to sexual stimuli featuring women. Findings from the current study do not support the sexual inhibitionhypothesis for women. In order for this theory to be confirmed, one would expect (1) lesbians to rate men higher on the negative dimension of the SADI, and (2) heterosexuals to rate women higher on the negative dimension of the SADI.

In the current study, the only observed difference on the negative dimension of the SADI was between bisexuals and heterosexuals for sexual contact with men, suggesting that bisexual women may feel more aversion during sex with men than heterosexual women do. Rather that arguing that bisexuals may be bisexual due to a lack of sexual inhibition, this finding instead raises the possibility that bisexual women define themselves as such because they are more averse to sex with men than heterosexuals are. In sum, male and female bisexuality may be driven by different mechanisms. It is noteworthy that in the current study, bisexual women reported higher sexual arousal and desire but also more aversion. Future studies should further explore which mechanisms may be related to both high positive and high negative sexual arousal.

I want someone to explore this because it does seem interesting and personally relevant to me but I don't know if they have because I've never really stumbled on anyone talking about this specifically.

The findings of this study indicate that a substantial percentage of women defines themselves as mostly heterosexual, bisexual, or as mostly lesbian, and that these women's subjective sexual arousal and desire in partnered sexual activities differ from those of heterosexual and lesbian women, further validating mostly heterosexual and mostly lesbian as distinct sexual orientations (Savin-Williams & Vrangalova, 2012, 2013).

I feel like different studies find subtly different results too regarding personality traits and sexuality etc between orientation categories. Also depending on how you seperate people. This one was interesting because it added mostly heterosexual and mostly lesbian.

This is just... What?

For instance, Chivers et al. (2004) found that heterosexual women's subjective sexual arousal was higher to erotic films featuring female male intercourse than to female female intercourse. However, in another study, they reported higher arousal to female than to male stimuli, indicating lack of category-specificity (Chivers et al., 2007). It is still unclear why heterosexual women would report greater subjective arousal to female than to male stimuli

Do they change their mind after they come out of these studies? Because that study they mention isn't the only one I've stumbled on where they had the same self report results. Are they just lacking in self awareness because they have lower sex drives? Are women who participate in these research studies unusual in some way? What the [BEEP] is happening?

It's like everyone is walking around ignoring this and pretending that this isn't reality. It's hilarious but.

Tbh I feel gaslit by the world.

Don't even get me started on this lol:



Which I've now linked a billion times.

Why are people choosing to argue about the things they are politically instead of acknowleging this? I mean I get that it's Aella and she's a hobbyist but like this seems like a big deal and is anyone going to follow this up? I think more people should research fetishes and sexuality and political alignment among other things.

Jordan Peterson brought it up one time and that was it lol (everyone else is in complete denial or ignoring the topic):

"One thing that may have happened and I don't know this for sure but it's interesting to consider is that since women have been taking the birth control pill their preference for less masculine men has become more pronounced and that could easily be one of the things that's fueling at least some of the tension that's existed and exists now between men and women."

I'm skeptical about it being attributable predominantly to the pill or hormonal birth control as I've said before. I might be weird (and also I don't self id as straight and I'm non-binary so I know people like me don't get included in research like this anyway,) but I've never been on birth control and I'm also not attracted to super masculine guys. My preferences are completly different from my mum who eg: finds Bruce Willis attractive I think she mentioned once.

And it's not even just that. It's also how my sexuality functions that's atypical and breaks various norms. A lot of the time it feels like I'm kind of mentally blocked so it's like there's a kind of distance between me and sexual objects which fits this concept (there's one paper written about this under another name but nothing very explorative atm):

Aegosexual classifies people who experience a disconnect between themselves and the subject of arousal. This enables them to experience sexual attraction, arousal, and desire in response to sexual stimuli, yet they have little or no desire to engage in sexual activity with anyone.

This is slighty incorrect Anthony Bogaert coined another term (autochorisexual,) which basically nobody adopted because they were insulted by that paper and it was too clinical lol...:

As most of you probably know, the psychologist Anthony Bogaert was involved in the coining of aegosexuality. But in his book Understanding Asexuality he also discussed how aegosexuality could be related to other concepts, including issues of identity in trans people:

They [aegosexuals]--as individuals--are disconnected from their sexual responses to others or to sexual stimulation. In other words, they don't "own" those sexual attractions. Their bodies (or aspects of their brain regulating arousal) are responding to sexual stimulation on some level. The missing piece for them is the I or me, or an identity as an individual, in subjective sexual attraction. In other words, the I is missing in the statement "I am attracted to..."

A similar phenomenon may occur in some forms of transgenderism. A transgendered person who was born as a biological male, for example, may not "own" his masculine responses. This individual may behave in a traditional masculine way, he may appear masculine, and his body may respond to stimulation in a traditionally masculine way, even sexually. But if this person does not "own" her responses, and in fact is completely disconnected from them because of an internal sense of self as female, these masculine responses are not part of her identity, or her I or me.

If you take this analogy seriously, one could extend it to say that aegosexuals are kind of like a trans person in the realm of sexuality. It's our mental states that don't match up with our bodies.

If you look at non-libidoist asexual people, they don't have this kind of disconnection because without a libido or sex drive their bodies are in alignment with their minds.

Anyway I just thought would share this analogy because I find it interesting and perhaps illuminating. I also wonder how trans people who are also aegosexual would compare the two?

Also my sense of sexual competition and envy and everything like that is blunted but sometimes there's some kind of connection and seems to be bi-gender essentially... It's so weird inside my brain lol. I once described it I think as someone taking male and female sexual drives and mashing bits together in a way that doesn't work well.

It's also just like not having a map though? Which I guess could be undiagnosed autism or something I don't know. Certainly not everyone is wandering around feeling frustrated in this way clearly. Not even the straight women who are more aroused by women than men.....

Oh I see someone pointed that out in the comment yeah lol:

I think there’s a big overlap of people who are aegosexual, trans and daydreamers, because of their feelings towards sex and gender and wish to divorce themselves (ourselves- I’m definitely one of them) from the way we were born and the lives we have to live.

So yeah I definitely believe there is a correlation between them. One critique of your post, however. Boghart didn’t coin the term aegosexual, he coined autochorissexual which is slightly different and more pathologized. Aegosexual was coined by the a community member and focuses on the absence of the self in sexuality more than the disconnect.

This kind of response below is also irritating because it's like "yeah OK sure, but he's trying to understand and it's not going to always be politically correct..." It's also probably a fair point and people discuss stuff like this all the time anecdotally. I don't think it's insulting to point out a general trend and the implications of that...

I'm trans and I didn't like that passage from his book at all. I found his treatment of gender in general to be very based in stereotypes, especially where he claims elsewhere that asexual women are less likely to enjoy wearing feminine fashion (and claims that wearing feminine fashions is partly about wanting to be seen by men as sexually attractive).

This is litreally a post I just found on another asexual subreddit lol:

Basically, in my personal experience, I feel distanced from "traditional femininity" I guess because I'm ace aro. And idk if it's a [BEEP] thing, an ace aro thing, or just a me thing.

Do you guys think aces are more likely to be gnc or nah? Are you gnc, and is being ace part of why?

Most studies have found that somewhere in 20-25% of aces identify as neither male or female, which is way above what is found in the general population, and higher than the general LGBT+ community. I wouldn't be surprised if you had a large enough sample size and could look at aro/ace people specifically, that percentage would get even higher. I don't think anyone has established an actual causal link, but there is definitely some sort of correlation. If one were to throw in questions to screen for gender detachment, I'm curious what the percentage would get to.

It's all very convinient to be dismissive of the idea of anything that points to anything... Not innate necessarily but like what's the word I'm looking for? I don't know but material maybe works. If you're content and/or you don't give a shit. But then I also understand the lack of trust some people have for researchers based on history and how Humans are.

And it's frustrating without having access to complete knowledge about everything. I can see why that guy Bronze Age Pervert quoted who is gay essentially went insane. I mean that guy believed like every conspiracy theory it seemed and definitely had some other mental health and trust issues - possibly some form of psychosis going on. Also I just disagreed with most of his conclusions and opinions lol...

But I get the emotional reaction:

And so we don’t know ANYTHING about the causes of homosexuality: there is a massive IDENTITY PROBLEM, because 'queers' don't even know why they're '[BEEP]'. The only thing they know it's that it's so wonderful and festive, and such a reason for glowing pride!

Amazingly, [BEEP] academics themselves actually tell us in passing that 'queers' have no real identity. And they hardly seem worried about the implications… '[BEEP]' is, as David Halperin put it, whatever is at odds with the normative; it is an oppositionality vis-a-vis a norm, and fascinatingly, he adds: 'it is an IDENTITY WITHOUT AN ESSENCE'!

[Nyctophilia]

Some of the comments on this are already very interesting lol:

I am literally clipping the first minute of this video as an explanation of the mindset which I oppose the very most among the diverse set of outlooks on life. (writing paused at 01:06)
Never have I ever felt so much cringe build up in my psyche in such a short amount of time, yet in such a smooth upwards buildup fashion with a climax spot at 0:50-0:58.
No one, not even the greatest artists of our time and past, could have created an artwork which would have been capable of vexing me enough, causing existential dread when looking onward at the future of humanity; even if their life depended on it.
I am not appalled, or angry; I am thankful, for it is no new wound inflicted upon me at all, quite the conterary; this is a pain that was present at the core of my soul already.
It is the root of my conflict with the western society that I was born in and even heavily integrated into in my youth, my reason to leave everything behind and start a new.
And now, thanks to you, I can put that feeling in a video frame for reference of a definition if I ever try to explain to people who I grow closer with in life.

This person had more or less the exact same process of thinking as me while watching the video hahaha. Like it seemed very scripted and all things considered seemed like some kind of joke/prank until that part which honestly is pushing it (except I don't know what they mean about abortion being problematic for most women. Guessing they're quite conservative):

don't believe she'd go that deep into the vulnerable fertility issue details, whether real or fake, if this was supposed to be a bit. That would seem in fairly bad taste to me. Like it would look like she's using other people's suffering for clout.
Not making any judgements just saying it's a solid indication for me.

The other reason I think it's real is just that...I'm honestly surprised we haven't had more young YouTubers have kids yet, considering how problematic abortion is for many women.

Edit: Upon revision, seeing the podcast (and some of the topics addressed in the podcast are topical, so it doesn't seem they could have filmed ahead to prepare for the reveal once they found out) I do now think it's a bit.
Still a bit sketched out by the crying stare into the camera as she discusses her supposed fertility issues.

Yeah I'm not that clued into this topic honestly having not been pregnant so I only have a vague idea of the general timeline. So I have no idea really:

I’m a physician but I’m not OBGYN and it’s been a while since I’ve done OB, but her timeline of pregnancy photos makes no sense. Most people do not even begin showing before 20 weeks and they’re not all the way out there at 25 weeks baring multiparity or polyhydraminos or something. Fairly sure this is a bit

There's one on Rooster Teeth shutting down. If they filmed that in advance, this would be a pretty impressive stunt. I guess I'm changing my mind.
So now I'm even more surprised we still haven't seen a significant number of YouTubers becoming young parents. I guess perhaps it's a class thing.

I don't know why this is confusing them. And she dropped out of a degree at Columbia university which I'm assuming is mostly middle class people.

edit: Oh because of the abortion ban in some places in the US? Well people are having less sex and also I think getting better over time at using contraception so risk is going to be low in general if you use it properly. But yeah I think probably class related too. But on the other hand a lot of YouTubers have ADHD and people with ADHD are likely to get pregnant younger on average. But something about YT doesn't seem to result in that (probably all the time spent online.)

The only YouTubers I can think of who are having kids that I'm subscribed to are in their 30s and she's within the demographic where it's highly unusual for her to be pregnant at 20 if she is. Not that it's impossible just very unlikely.

She doesn't upload regularly but seems to have other projects but YouTube also takes a lot of time for some people more than others especially if you're not paying editors. If you're also juggling mental health issues etc you're probably not dating much unless you get really famous/popular. Also a lot of YouTubers and streamers especially the younger ones (who have been doing this since they were teenagers basically,) seem to end up dating other people doing the same thing or looking to get into the same line of work.

That's more true of twitch though because basically some of these people will stream almost all day so whoever they're in a relationship with has to be OK with that. It's actually a pretty insane lifestyle. Even Grimes comments on Hasan streaming for 8 hours a day (which isn't all day,) and she's very online herself:



Some are getting married young though. Like there's a Sims YouTuber I don't really watch who I'm aware of who is about 21 or was and got married around then:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayla_Sims

I didn't realise she was big enough for wikipedia damn lol.

I feel like her name was fate lol. Like her surname is actually 'Sims'

Lol when my dad went to Florida for work one of the few things he talked about was how huge the portion sizes were:

[Nyctophilia]

Also what are some more values of a "traditional husband" I'm curious because social media shows us traditional wives all the time but I don't ever see the equivalent Tik Tok made for "traditional husbands" and quite frankly it might be because none of us doofs really know.

So far I've got chaste until marriage... Oops
Pays for dates ✓
Asks the dad for permission (ngl I've never really ran that by anyone's dad whom I've dated but I guess I could start if I felt so inclined)
Then somebody else said like don't go out late at night a whole bunch I think was the jist.

Is there anything else you can add to this list? Again I'm genuinely curious. Like what about like fixing stuff, lawn care, that kinda thing counts too?
What about driving? Is that supposed to always be on the man?
And obviously the chivalry holding doors open and walking on the inside of the street part for sidewalks. Which are all normally things that come natural to me. These count? Any more?

There's content designed by and for conservative men but I don't know if there's much on tiktok because I'm not on that website. Notably none of it is designed to actually appeal to women and in general it doesn't seem to and instead annoys women. I think most conservative women who might appreciate that aren't online. The right wing women who create content are usually doing it for male attention (I don't mean that in an insulting sense that just seems to be their primary audience,) and half or more of them aren't traditional. The accounts that post tons of political stuff but never really talk about themselves might not be women in some cases when they're anonymous. Even when they are they're I guess 'disagreeable' people, very combative this is on twitter though which is an insane website but tiktok sounds insane too. Also the lifestyle of making content is in itself not traditional but that's an irony many have pointed out before.

That anyone may still be confused about this is sad/funny. There's nothing traditional about social media.