Random Thought of the Day

[Nyctophilia]

This seems alarmist from the World Health Organisation. And I say this as someone who thinks there are various illegal drugs that are less damaging than alcohol and people downplay the risks of alcohol based on tradition.

[Otherside]

This seems alarmist from the World Health Organisation. And I say this as someone who thinks there are various illegal drugs that are less damaging than alcohol and people downplay the risks of alcohol based on tradition.

Most things in life have risk. If you leave the house, you may get hit by a car and die. If you don't leave the house the boiler could be seeping out toxic Carbon Monoxide and you could die. Eating burnt toast is a carcinogen.

But, life is not without risk. We can't insulate ourselves from everything. Life is for living.

[Otherside]

Every single year, there is one country that manages to send an entry that just makes you think "WTF". Bonus points if the lyrics are not in English and you have no clue what they are singing about.

Last year, Norway got the prize, though you could understand that they were singing about giving a wolf a banana even if it made little sense why you'd do that.

This year, the award for Eurovision WTF goes to Croatia, who appear to have sent a bunch of old men wearing underwear and an army hat, alongside a man carrying two fame rockets. They are singing in Croatian, and I don't actually speak Croatian, so I have no idea what the song is about, and the only word I can pick out is "mama", which is repeated every now and then.

There needs to be a separate award here. One which is actually "Eurovision winner". Another which is "Eurovision WTF of the year."

Edit - Finland gets second place.

[Nyctophilia]

Most things in life have risk. If you leave the house, you may get hit by a car and die. If you don't leave the house the boiler could be seeping out toxic Carbon Monoxide and you could die. Eating burnt toast is a carcinogen.

But, life is not without risk. We can't insulate ourselves from everything. Life is for living.

Yeah I had to check it was their official twitter account. It just seemed so dramatic. I feel like someone should have pointed that out because they probably have some kind of screening process but obviously not. And there are enough people who don't take them seriously already. That isn't going to do them any favours.

[Nyctophilia]

"I can count on one hand the number of people who have seen me shirtless," Langly deadpanned. "More people have seen my thighs, and that is ... ninety percent the fault of this particular cocktail dress I will never speak of again, and that is the last time Frohike got to pick what I was going undercover in."

"That was the theory, and let me tell you, looking back, I wish we'd gotten a grip on that theory sooner. I'd have been spared at least three excursions dressed up like an expensive hooker."

"I'm sorry, did you just say you were dressed up like a hooker?" Reid recoiled, trying to get a look at Langly's face.

"Hey, I have great legs," Langly protested. "And it works better from the back. Nice hair, nice legs, nobody looks too close."

"Now do you believe I had to dress up like a hooker?" Langly teased, taking a small box out of his purse and sliding it across the table. "God, I love the future. I walk into a middle-of-the-road coffee shop like this, and nobody even blinks." He paused. "I still want to go back home and put on pants. It's really unnerving."

"For what it's worth, you look good." Reid slid the package into a pocket. "Not that you don't usually look good, but I mean..."

"I don't look like a fucking clown?" Langly drawled.

"That too, but more than that. You don't look more nervous than a woman alone in an unfamiliar neighbourhood. And it's not a bad look on you." Reid wondered if he was still digging the hole he had a terrible sense had just gaped open under him.

"Don't get used to it. It's convenient, but it's not me. I'm not coming with you to the company Christmas party dressed like this, if that's what you're not asking."

"It's not," Reid assured him. "What I'm not asking is what I'm holding and why it was so important."

A small sound of amusement slipped out of Reid. "Yeah, that's you."

"I look like a fucking secretary!" Langly complained, rotating the view.

"It's why you wear dresses so well. Enough of your mannerisms are feminine that no one looks twice." Reid shifted to get the arm he wasn't leaning on past Langly's back and traced the motion of one arm. "And it's a really specific subset, too, a lot of the time. What you said before about getting punched in the face? More than half of the ones I've seen on you are related to the long-term expectation of violence. Not what usually reads as fear -- that's short-term. You take up as little space as possible [...] It's what you see in people who are regularly harassed on public transit, and statistically, those people are mostly women, so it comes off as a feminine behaviour."

[...]

"That's really fucked up," Langly decided, still hung up on the previous revelation, as he pulled the conversation back toward it, without taking his eyes off the screen. "Are you telling me every time somebody called me girly, it's because I looked like I was trying not to get punched?"

"A lot of the time, probably." Reid shrugged with his free shoulder. "Not all of them are that. Some of them are how you handle your hair. You have a few others that won't show here, because you're sitting, but the not getting punched ones are the ones that stand out. It took me until that day in the coffee shop to figure out those had nothing to do with me."

"So, what you're saying is ..." Langly shook his head, chasing off the broader implications, for the moment. "That's fucked up. That's not okay at all."

"I would tend to agree."

There's so many references to Langly wearing a dress/crossdressing in these fanfics for work that I'm like 'did he wear a dress?' I haven't watched most of the x-files just watched The Lone Gunmen and like 3 episodes of the X-files. I know it's fanfiction but still. Also I guess because I don't remember the show 100% and I know they joked about him looking like a girl several times on the show. I think he probably didn't though.



Also reoccurring preoccupation with stranger violence. And that goes back to thinking about this recent tweet Contrapoint's tweeted:

I have felt threatened by unwell people on public transit, I have been verbally abused, I have been masturbated at. But you know what I didn't do to any of those people? Murder them.

So many Americans seem to have several stories like this. It seems much rarer here on public transport. Americans make me think they're constantly being harassed by strangers on public transit (not just harassed even like there's a lot of mentally ill violently aggressive people,) and getting catcalled while walking down the street is another thing I've never experienced here. Perhaps that explains why I can't relate to how scared people on social media feel about violence (and I guess I struggle with feeling sympathy for people on social media who bring it up a lot because they often seem to be weaponising it or they only bring it up as an excuse for why it's OK to be misandric and/or transphobic.)

I wouldn't say it's a matter of being feminine presenting either (as an explanation for why I've not had this experience from strangers often,) as the one time I recall seeing someone being harassed by a drunk person on a train (can't really remember the details now, but this guy who was drunk kept trying to get this person to go to a pub or something with him when they got off the train? Maybe? And they were very androgynous looking, very short hair. He really wasn't getting that they weren't interested. I kind of wanted to say something because it was painful but the train was really packed and I was too far away.) I also had a drunk woman sit down and try to talk with me on a train once but she wasn't threatening. Was just uncomfortable. I really don't remember that at all so I thought it would be useful to go back and I think it was worse than I remember haha (I have this great ability to just black out uncomfortable stuff. I did it with most of the bullying I got from that one girl too.) All I remembered is that she was drunk and spilled her drink on herself and was awkwardly talking to me.

On the train today I ended up sitting next to this woman who had been drinking a bit, but not too drunk. It was 12:30-1:00pm. She spoke a few times, talking about stuff like animals she wanted to see outside the window. It was obvious she took that journey quite often. I think she was having a bad day. Then a bit later ended up spilling her drink on herself. She also started touching my arm at one point not long after that while talking to me and was like 'sorry I keep touching you is this alright?' (no... Not exactly, but I guess I'll just ignore that to avoid awkwardness since I'm leaving the train soon) then started complaining about how people are 'so weird about that these days.' 'Technology has made everyone unable to connect.'

Then she started talking about how the name of the place we were getting off at used to be called something else and then started off on a rant about how men there killed women (I have no idea what historically specifically she was referring to as it seemed to be a specific thing,) and finished with 'men are *******s.'

Pretty sure she assumed I was a teenager and pointed out that I was small at one point. It was probably for the best that she thought that because she clearly thought my very noticeable anxiety was less weird as a result. Initially I was surprised enough I guess that I started breathing weirdly and then started panicking about my breathing so that took about ten minutes to get under control. As we were getting off at the stop she turned to someone behind her and joked that I chucked a drink at her which she also said before is what she'd tell her (25 year old) daughter who she was meeting. And who was apparently big and could beat me up. She was joking though.

Anyway that was the most awkward thing I've experienced on public transport here. Of course it happened the second time I was on a train in the North ever lol. This was pretty much me (not from London though.)

Also I spent like 7 hours in train stations/on trains today. Not because this journey should have taken more than 4 hours even with the changes, but because trains were constantly delayed/cancelled because of missing people. Not technical fault, not engineering work. Just to the extent that they ever explained any of that 'a bunch of people who were supposed to be here disappeared.' lol. Then there was like a train to Manchester Airport I was going to catch except it only had four coaches and was so packed I couldn't even fit on it standing so went to Birmingham new street instead (which tbh was more convenient anyway,) but had to wait a while.

Damn. I forgot all of this man. I also forgot that she just started ranting about men haha. Why is everyone like this now? (No but this could only happen to me.)

This is my account of the other train incident:

So I was on the train, and it was really packed right so I was sat on the floor because I couldn't be bothered with standing up the whole way back. Behind me there were two people but I didn't get a look at them because I was facing the other way.

There was this guy and a woman(?) and they were having a pretty loud conversation. She was from Poland and talking about a bunch of stuff like how she'd moved and how she had depression. She got a call from a female friend at this point briefly. Then after he invited her to get a drink when they reached the stop (they were getting off at the same place.) She turned him down saying she had to meet her friend. At this point you'd think he'd maybe ask for her number, and let it go but lol oh no.

He continued to nag them about getting a drink saying things like 'you're hard work' and **** like that. And they were like 'I'm pretty antisocial' and 'you don't know me I'm OK today because I've taken my medication' literally talking about mental illness but the guy persisted. At one point he called them a lady and they were like 'I'm not a lady where I come from ladies have money' then a bit more talking and then 'I'm not really a woman, I have bigger balls than most guys' and at this point, it'd been going on so long I really wanted to intervene because it's like dude... This is painful now. But they sounded OK with the 'conversation,' so it continued on until we got to the station.

But that was ****ing special lol.

Someone just (I think) sarcastically responded to that with 'OK thanks for sharing this'

Lol [BEEP] you. 😂

That's kind of why my constant rambling about stuff is probably important (for me.) Because my memory is seriously shit. I read back old posts sometimes and I'm like 'oh wow I didn't know I felt like that at that time' and stuff like that. Sometimes I kind of predict the future especially my own future too.

There were a couple of instances while walking around too (not on public transport,) like a drunk guy trying to talk to me during the day and then getting mildly irritated when I just walked past him, and someone I didn't see groped me in a nightclub once. One guy asked me for a cigarette and then when I said I didn't have one he started yelling after me but it wasn't really insulting more like trying to get my attention again possibly because he didn't hear my answer in the first place, but I just kept walking. For the most part though everyone who has sexually harassed me, verbally abused me, or even attempt to physically assault me has been someone I've known personally for a while.

The responses to Contrapoints tweet were even more insane. Like a bunch of people talking about their encounters and then people insisting that not killing people makes you weak and other fucked up stuff:

Because you're weak.

how many people have you murdered lol

That's because you're a useless coward.

So what you're saying is you won't kill me if I masturbate at you?

This one was weirdly robotic:

It is entirely possible that you lack the raw physical strength, in the absence of extensive martial arts training, to kill anyone with your bare hands.

3 days ago in LA I literally got punched in the back the head by someone who was having mental issues. I extracted myself from the situation w/my friend and didn?t hit her back or escalate the situation. Yeah it was scary and sucked, but it wasn't hard to avoid murdering her.

My friend and I discussed calling then police then immediately decided against since you know, they don?t exactly have a great track record of either supporting or not killing people who are having a mental breakdown either.

I have had men push me against the wall to press against my body unexpectedly. I had several drunk men dance all over me. I had several women kiss and feel all over me when they were drunk. i was threatened the entire time. Didn't kill anyone of them

"People who DON'T murder others yelling at them are soft" is quite the take.

lol.

This was the guy Contrapoints was responding to:

Contra's response is so much worse than my initial wrong-headed assumption.

He assumed she hadn't actually experienced any fucked up stuff.

He choked him for 15 minutes straight. It's not Mortal Kombat where you get to kill someone after they've been incapacitated.

True I don't get why that happened and he was an ex-marine but I assume they aren't really trained to restrain people, only to kill them.

There's one of those insecure GAY guys who calls themselves 'an androphile not gay' in her mentions as well haha. I really hate a lot of male autoandrophiles (one theory for what the [BEEP] is going on with these guys,) cause they usually start out life feminine, develop a 'thing' for being the absolute worst hegemonically masculine man imaginable. (It just seems less common with afab autoandrophiles honestly. They mostly seem to want to be femboys lol I'm somewhere in between.) And then have a major issue with trans women, feminine gay men etc.

Androphile not gay. Distrusting the appropriative and assimilationist LGBTQQIP2SAA monolith. My tribe has its own dreams. Testo-brained. Gender-critical.

What is best in life?
- To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the men who say they're women.

(I had a look and he has a bunch of other tweets that are very performative and larpy too but not quoting them all. At one point he told someone to 'leave the scolding to the chicks because men will have sex how they want' in response to a guy tweeting about how sexually active gay men should take prep you know so they don't get AIDS...)

It's hard to decide if they're more annoying than the straight guys they imitate or not. Maybe more because they're not usually 'wired that way.' So get better taste. But I guess that's unfair. They can't control that they were taught to hate themselves because they are usually feminine (to varying degrees,) and were raised male, and have terrible taste in men. And they can't even control the urge to resemble (to varying degrees,) the men they find attractive. If you could just. Oh I don't know, not join the far right and demonise other effeminate men and trans women because you hate yourself because of the West's homophobia and transphobia and general disgust of femininity that would be uh great.

edit: Watch Fight Club? I know the author of the book is gay but I promise it's a very straight boy thing to do. And then miss the entire point I guess and try to be the edgelord Tyler character. 😂 American Psycho also works but the film adaptation was written by a lesbian and he won't like that.

Imagine having this taste in men though. It couldn't be me. Kink shaming I guess.

I don't think I'm attracted to them (in the below video,) but usually I am attracted to the people I want to imitate (maybe it's repressed sometimes? I don't know. Nobody actually knows how any of this works and there's minimal work on the sexuality of genetic female people):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5411duvNeE

If you're not [BEEP] or a 'disgusting heterosexual fetishist' (you have to pick one of these in current society, and technically both are equated regardless it's just a question of whether you want everyone to think you're a disgusting fetishist or just some people,) this might be confusing. So. Timestamp Or no you don't have to watch that lol. Some people just want to be like the people they find attractive (or some of them)and then sometimes have confusion over whether they want to be people they find attractive or see them as aspirational.

I'm [BEEP] and a disgusting heterosexual fetishist. I'm reclaiming everything. *Insert corny Tyrion Lanister quote or something* and from so many directions depending on your lens/view of gender. Who hasn't had a sex dream wearing women's clothing while being genetically female? I've watched a yaoi series before. (I'm a bit too Western to be into it hardcore obviously most people will talk about fujoshi and always talk about anime but you know we have Western stuff.) Also quite want to be men I've been sexually attracted to. But so do lots of gay men. And so do lots of gay women. Yes the gay women who watch gay male porn is a thing too. But also the gay women who want to be other women. And the straight women watching lesbian porn.

Only Blur can understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDswiT87oo8

Back to the gay fascists though (not sure if this is the guy who started using androphile in this context, maybe just popularised it I don't know. I've mentioned him before but he's the go to example because a significant portion of his life is laid out on wikipedia for comparison. Obviously a lot of gay men were feminine in childhood to varying degrees and then become less so with age, sometimes they want to be more masculine, but in Western culture they're not given a choice):

Donovan was born in 1974 and grew up in a blue-collar household in rural Pennsylvania.[6]: 243  He moved to New York in the 1990s to study fine art. During this period, he says that he attended and worked as a dancer at gay clubs, marched in gay pride parades, and associated with drag queens.[5][7] He later dropped out of college and became a manual laborer.[5] Donovan has also lived in California and Portland, Oregon. He has worked as a club dancer, truck driver, and tattoo artist.[6]: 243 

Donovan has been described as gay,[4] though he does not use the label for himself and has criticized gay culture as effeminate.[8]: 173  He has described himself as an "androphile", a term he uses to describe romance and sex between masculine men.[8]: 113  In his 2006 book Androphilia: A Manifesto, he wrote, "I am not gay because the word gay connotes so much more than same-sex desire... The word gay describes a whole cultural and political movement that promotes anti-male feminism, victim mentality, and leftist politics."[5] He removed the book from print in 2017, and has said he has "transcended both that identity and that sexuality".[9]

So when people accuse straight guys like this of being gay... I totally get where it's coming from. Perhaps they're not even consciously aware but good noticing. (Obviously they're not all gay but yeah some are.)

No you can't hide your [BEEP] that you may not even be aware of yourself from me. I see a lot of things. It's my special interest haha.

Edit: I want to be really clear here that I'm not just pulling insulting [BEEP] out of my ass. He fits a 'type' and since he's decided to go after trans women. I see no problem with what I'm writing.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11991561/

Contemporary research has shown that a significant portion of gay men have traits, interests, occupations, and behaviors that are consistent with the stereotype of gay men as effeminate, androgynous, or unmasculine. A great number of gay men exhibit gender nonconformity during childhood; most, however, "defeminize" during adolescence, possibly in response to stigmatization and society's gender-role prescription. Only a relatively small percentage of gay men continue to be gender-nonconforming in their adulthood, often at a price, as they also tend to have lower psychological well-being. Although gay culture historically appreciated camp and drag, which subvert the gender-based power hierarchy and celebrate gender nonconformity, anti-effeminacy prejudice is widespread among gay men. Ironically, gender-nonconforming gay men may suffer from discrimination not only from society at large, but from other gay men, who are most likely to have experienced stigmatization and may have been effeminate earlier in their lives. Drawing from anecdotes and findings from various sources, this article suggests that beyond many gay men's erotic preference for masculinity lies contempt and hostility toward effeminacy and effeminate men on sociopolitical and personal levels. Two correlates of gay men's anti-effeminacy attitudes are proposed: (a) hegemonic masculinity ideology, or the degree to which one subscribes to the value system in which masculinity is an asset, and men and masculinity are considered superior to women and femininity; and (b) masculinity consciousness, or the saliency of masculinity in one's self-monitoring, public self-consciousness, and self-concept. These two variables are hypothesized to interact with gay men's self-perceived masculinity-femininity and their history of defeminization in predicting attitudes toward effeminacy. Research is underway to measure levels of anti-effeminacy attitudes and explore hypothesized correlates.

There's no issue with becoming less feminine with age. I'm not as feminine as I was at 6 years old now. But there's a lot of baggage they drag with them. Radical feminists are a bit like this too though and sometimes for similar reasons (often not for similar reasons though, there are several different things going on there.) I know of at least one on YouTube who spent all her time criticising makeup etc calling it 'slave paint' and after listening to a bunch of stuff she'd said it became obvious her dad had taught her that femininity was wrong.

A lot of trans men and non-binary people do the opposite especially younger people. As I suggested in a previous recent post. You'll notice also they found that the [BEEP] women answering were more feminine than the general 'female' category. Going against pretty much all other research on [BEEP] women. So a lot of people become obnoxiously opposed to men and masculinity kind of like ftmtf (if they're trans.) Someone's analysis of that:

It's interesting that you can see bio_males and bio_females are a bit different (-0.21), but queerbiofemale is basically the opposite of bio_male (-0.9). As if the identity is to be what straight males are not.

My intuition would be that these results are dominated by gender progressivism, as women are more progressive than men and trans people are more progressive than cis people.

https://aella.substack.com/p/which-g...e-more-similar

So you know I find everyone annoying now lol.

And so no I don't recommend anyone 'become non-binary' that's just a label but your psychological profile will remain the same regardless and I wouldn't recommend that. I don't want to 'confuse people' lol. By making them aware non-binary people exist or even androgynous people they're having a meltdown right now about Kristen Stewart and 'her woke/ugly style' she's not even trans or non-binary. I mean to a certain extent I think it's a common Human trait that almost everyone engages in at some point where you prefer people to be more like you and if they're very different you can't relate and might find them annoying but no I don't think that's a good tendency. I wouldn't recommend being non-binary because the sexes are in a constant state of war. So consider how insane men and women often are and why and then imagine you're somehow supposed to integrate the two and everything that annoys other people you have it x2 (and you know it's a diverse umbrella term label so this won't describe everyone but yeah I wouldn't recommend this.) It seems like it shouldn't be worse now but every generation thinks it is worse. And there's always complaining that men are becoming more feminine in the press for like at least 120 years. Virginia Woolf seemed to think it was terrible back in her day 'the worst and most sex conscious time of all.' Similar for bisexual people they also don't seem to be doing well. (Homosexual people are more well adjusted comparatively.) I think because there is some level of security in a static binary existence and identity the Human mind kind of favours that and so do groups and organisations etc. Fluidity is messy and a threat to boundaries. But you don't get to choose this. Nor do you get to choose your level of neuroticism (which is the big thing for everyone online lol.) So.

There might have been a culture where it worked better I don't know. It's definitely not working now right and that's not surprising at all because look at everything. I don't think this is the best culture that could exist genderwise (or in many other areas lol.)

In saying that. I hate being controlled. I avoid people partly to avoid being controlled. So in that sense I'm a bit schizoid. So I definitely wouldn't be interested in conversion therapy. And I am quite happy being non-binary. In spite of everything.

To reify what I constantly say about the dividing gender line actually being your willingness to violently assault other Humans (in the fascist/far right/masculinist mind at least it seems,) a mass load of right wingers who I'm sure are transphobic in every other context, are responding to this Contrapoints tweet knowing she's a trans woman calling her a woman and talking about 'repealing the 19th' which I believe allows women to vote.

The two genders: Murderer and woman.

Anyways:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY

Lol this became a rant about everything. Initially I was just going to post those fanfic quotes and make a brief comment. But I never manage that. Ever.

'Why are video essay so long in this attention economy?'

I get how this can happen lol.

[Nyctophilia]

On the island of Samoa, there are four recognized cultural genders: female, male, fa'afafine, and fa'afatama. Fa'afafine and fa'afatama are fluid gender roles that move between male and female worlds. These third and fourth gender groups tend to care for elders in the community and educate others about sex, a topic considered taboo in public conversations for male and female genders.

Meanwhile in the West:



lol.

Honestly everyone in that video with maybe one or two exceptions seems incredibly fucked up you know? edit: really can't get over it I could understand if anyone thought it was fake and scripted it's so perfect. Like I'm watching season 8 of Parks and Rec (the uncensored 18+ reboot.) Just complete political chaos. Twitter irl.

The West has never really managed to pull off a healthy relationship with gender and sexuality as far as I can tell. Not to say that anyone else has either necessarily.

"It is the norm that they (fa'afatama) generally ignore each other and avoid any interactions."

That's closer to the West hah.

"For instance, they were approached by us individually to participate but it is the first time most of them have met each other or in this case forced to meet each other."

😂

You know according to census data I live somewhere with a large number of trans men and I saw someone on twitter like 'where are all the trans people in this town?' When someone posted a map and I'm just a hermit. I'm non-binary through. I don't think there's really a visible community of LGBT+ people in general outside of London and Brighton. I don't know if the census data is accurate though because the media were discussing that. It seemed like a lot of ethnic minority groups may have been confused about questions relating to gender and it's also a very diverse town.

"Most associate with other men through sports, friends and bands but rarely with other fa'afatama/transmen," said So'oalo.

He also pointed out that as biological women; the associated cultural significance of the Samoa "woman" was a designation that was difficult to escape, particularly the expectations and demands by society of what was normal.

The S.F.A. said the Fa'afatama participants' admitted the discrete and invisible nature of their existence was not helpful "It is common knowledge that most of the fa'afatama community are unemployed, living with family and heavily dependent on family members for support."

"In a way it is also one of the main reasons for being oppressed because of their obligation to the hands that feed them and the fear of being ostracized from this support system."

It is interesting that this is somehow just universal (with the exception of that one Balkan group that seemed to be well integrated and was fairly different not a gender/sexuality thing. More a cultural role often adopted out of necessity)

Sworn virgins have existed for centuries. According to tradition dating back to the 15th century developed out of the Kanun, a tribal code of law, tribal clans from the Balkans considered families without a male presence as pariahs. When blood feuds decimated all the men in a family, the only way to salvage their honor was for a woman to become the patriarch of the clan and start acting like a man.

That second person is really masculine. They say they always compared themselves to men though so maybe they were always like that. This video is kind of ruined by the need to insert a feminist morality and the fact it's 13 minutes long and really uninformative about the history in general. Someone left this comment:

I am not sure if "sworn virgins" encompasses the correct translation of the word "burrnesha" in English. OF course, that is not a wrong translation but somehow it captures only some superficial parts of the psycho-social catharsis these women went through in their lives, surely not even an Albanologue could create a perfect translation but the issue I have with "sworn virgins" is that it somehow still retains a feministic sense in regard to the transformation, the sexual aspect is only a small part of it that is why the "virginity", sworn or otherwise, is to me irrelevant here, you can be a sworn virgin and still be a woman in the social connotation of the word (because biologically speaking they are and will always be women of course), if I would have to invent a word in English (as there is no current literal translation in the English language) that would be something akin to "manwoman", although I fear that in the English-speaking world it might be mistaken for some kind of transgender-related expression (which it's not), but as a native Albanian speaker but also an English speaker since early childhood, that would be to me a better translation than the "sworn virgin".

Burre = Man, the (e) at the end falls during the connection with "nesha" which is the appendix for the "woman" part of the entire expression. Burrnesha - Manwomen.

They became men, they dressed as men, they lived as men, they were fiercer than men, they could kill men in the ways men killed, and they sacrificed their feminism for the possibility to live in a harsh world where women could not survive as such by themselves, but it goes beyond even this, it takes a meaning that is connected to honor, it is as though they did not just become men, they became men of honor. They had to be honored as men of honor would have had to have been honored.

I'm sure I am going into a linguistical rabbit hole here, but being an Albanian myself and knowing what it means, I struggle to find a better word or expression that could relate that human concept to the rest of the world. I live in a part of Albania (Tirana) where this social catharsis was unknown as this happened mostly in the North (but not only) where the concept of honor and that of "kanun" existed as legal constructions in relations between individuals, and it still does in some parts.

It is a harsh environment, if I would have to compare it to some other parts of the world with a similar social environment, would probably be the Scottish Highlands, that harshness is something that only those who have lived deep in the mountains know.

But anyway I don't think trans masc people do themselves any favours. There are definitely small communities of people and a few YouTubers or whatever, but a lot just aren't interested. So there's less 'culture' or whatever.

The only trans guy I talked to regularly had weird ideological positions (along with everyone in that discord chat) he was a lot younger (as most trans masc people are,) and he'd spent most of his teen years online talking to trans women (so like me he'd spoken to more trans women than trans men.) Specifically lesbian trans women so he saw them as 'masculine but in a weird/autistic way' similar to himself unlike more feminine trans men (I'm sure trans women would love that haha.) He was stealth irl and so avoided talking to trans people etc. Obsessed a lot about details of his body that might give him away to other people but that most people realistically wouldn't notice. Like the angle of his elbow etc.

He also had issues with trans guys who have my etiological background and was sort of misogynistic. He was straight. There there were a bunch of similarities between us but a bunch of issues and we never got that close. I don't think he actually disliked me though. I don't know it was a weird chat anyway lol. Like a bunch of dissident outcasts of the trans/trans-adj community had been thrown together like some kind of sitcom. Everyone was mentally ill to varying degrees. One person was having an obvious breakdown every single day. They worked as a researcher so did a lot of experiments on mice and so were always feeling guilty about that too. They also refused to transition as they didn't think they'd ever pass as a woman but they definitely would have because they had very feminine bone structure so also BDD. Apologising constantly but people basically never cared about what they were apologising for. Literally like this fictional character from the Fruits Basket anime. I think they had BPD diagnosed as well. Oh that's a whole other topic though lol (like everyone in that chat was really unique and weird in different ways so I'd be here all day.) It was such a weird time. I was in it for 2ish years.

But he didn't view us as part of the same group in fact he would have been horrified by the implication in general lol. Not related so much to the fact that I'm non-binary but that I'm fairly feminine because of my etiological background. The easiest way to sum this up in a way that might make sense is to just say that he was homophobic lol which I think is how he framed it as well at one point (oh he was quite self aware as well too lol.) Except it's a form of homophobia that only extends to trans guys. Probably because he saw effeminate cisgender homosexual men as being closer to identifying as/being straight women but [BEEP] trans guys/non-binary people do weird things with gender. There was other stuff too in his complicated model of which groups of [BEEP] women and/or trans guys bothered him but I can't remember all the details now.

To be honest I don't relate to most young American trans men and non-binary people I come across online either.

Irl every trans person I know has been amab, same for my brother who has known some trans women. Mostly trans women but someone I used to have a crush on irl is non-binary (they weren't out then.) I stumbled on their twitter profile recently and their style is sort of similar to some clothes I have (since about 2015,) and how I'd probably present if I put in more effort. Like this sort of thing:





This is probably stereotypical really.

They have short hair now well they did during some of the time I knew them as well (they had long hair when I was attracted to them. I'm very shallow about hair. There were some guys in school I was attracted to with short hair though but as a general rule.)



I have these biscuits that taste kind of like incense and it's really great. I like incense because it makes me kind of nostalgic and reminds me of certain areas of London I used to visit a lot and other weird occult shops etc. They're not supposed to taste like incense I don't think they just do.

[Nyctophilia]

YouTube has generated a playlist for me and I love how much of a random mix of things the first 4 videos/tracks are:



Drab Majesty, Rush, Katatonia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjBo...ndex=2&pp=8AUB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wziJ...ndex=3&pp=8AUB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3y0TsZe7IY

If I scroll down a bit more there's some Nicki Minaj in there too lol. Enya, Fleetwood Mac, Porcupine Tree + Steven Wilson, Childish Gambino, Patrick Wolf, Talking Heads, Budgie, Lizzo, Black Sabbath, R.E.M and Daft Punk. And Darude - Sandstorm (not joking.)

There's also a song by Heart (Barracuda) which I've never listened to afaik so taking a risk. Oh no this is good.

Her vocals are seriously something you don't really hear anymore. Just her natural vocal tone is amazing!

She uses her full voice women simply don't do that anymore nowadays 😞

If "WAP" by Cardi B hadn't just induced my headache after I heard it playing at the supermarket, I might have agreed with you... but then you also used the term "boomer", which is totally lame and lazy.

Yeah, well, she's pretty much the best female rock singer in history. Only Janis Joplin was competition and they're very different singers. I personally think Ann has a more pleasant tone, but Janis was a wild phenomenon. Regardless, Ann WIlson is the bomb. You found the best.

This is more accurate because rock is mostly dead. There are plenty of female vocalists who are talented who have existed since the 70s though everyone just ignores them because they weren't around when they were young lol.

Always doing this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff0oWESdmH0

(ironically this song did come out when I was young/15 years old lol.)

Being a teenager listening to this and thinking when I was young as in 8 years old. And now being 30 years old listening to this and thinking when I was 16. And knowing in my heart that one day I will be 50 listening to this and thinking of where I am right now. Enjoy the right now as much as you can! It's gone in a blink of an eye.

Oh my God stop lol. I can't think about that.

Have you heard of Adele? There are incredible female vocalists now, it might not be your taste as far as genre, but the talent is there. Lady Gaga is another, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande...

Exactly it's really stupid. They're not (usually) rock musicians because rock is dead still good vocalists. Be serious:



I heard this live and probably at that venue since I've seen him live twice at that venue in particular (this might be a soundcheck for a concert I went to actually lol) specifically the screaming part is so good:



It's funny when she talks during the performance because as with most British people she sings in an American accent then you get the juxtaposition with her actual accent lol:



Lady Gaga is really great:





There's this one live piano track I remember listening to years ago and maybe it was one of these songs but I can't remember the song and I feel like it's not one of those but I don't have it bookmarked anyway regardless.

She changed the genre for the live performance lol:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujp1Hign6_0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG6jY4rRzZ0

Christina Aguilera also had a good voice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmR2OTC0gfA

There was this brief period in the early 2000s where pop rock was more popular so you had a lot of heavy singers. Was pretty great (impressive range too):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzR5jM9UeJA

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

This band seem seriously underrated but also great:



Someone brought up Fergie and Miley Cyrus too yeah they both are pretty good/interesting vocalists. A lot of idiots who post things like 'omg bbq snowflakes sjw woke pronouns REEE' are going to miss out on miley lol. Serves you right. If you can't tolerate her at her Wrecking Ball era your don't- lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAX2g_t-kkY

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

This band also really underrated not related to the above since not a female vocalist but they seemed to just drop this one album I found through tumblr several years ago and then vanished lol. They only have 47 subscribers on YouTube, and all social media profiles are long abandoned with barely any followers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SO6kbDLLDU

[Nyctophilia]

Stumbled on the 4thwavefeminism subreddit. I do not see why conservative women feel the need to rebrand themselves as a new version of feminism. I guess because they were raised in a liberal environment so they feel like they need to maintain the superficial exoskeleton of liberalism? This point has been brought up for several years at least. I always cite the blogpost 'I see trad people' lol. The sixth Sense metaphor works on another level too. There's something sort of horrifying about it to me.

"I see trad people, walking around like regular people. They don?t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're trad."


Of course some women going the opposite way in the 70s and 80s did the same thing. Like Mary Daly and Janice Raymond. In fact it's really just radical feminism (a form of conservatism with the exception of a few writers like Solanas who never called herself a feminist and wrote a post-ironic nihilistic text with mirrored fascism.) Radical feminism has existed through I think the 2nd and 3rd wave so not sure why they're calling it 4thwave.

I find all these groups very irritating because they have a need to force their idealised lifestyle on other people and come up with a one size fits all cultural viewpoint. Which will never work. They are incredibly patronising to women who disagree with them too. Women tend to be sociosexually restricted so it's not surprising that most wouldn't enjoy casual sex, however some do and find it empowering. Shaming them is pretty disgusting.

I will shame Andrew Tate though, because he has no ability to shame himself as a narcissist and he's a complete hypocrite who expects women to be faithful to him lol.

Also there's just something deeply irritating about a bunch of people who think they're doing something new ideologically when they've literally just reinvented the wheel.

Have you read the Virginity chapter of Dworkin's Intercourse? It's about Joan of Arc's virginity, it's connection to her masculine presentation, the ways it protected her and how being forced to lose both her virginity (rape by prison guards) and masculine presentation (forced to wear a dress after her sentencing) essentially represents vital ways in which women lose social power.

There's a thread about what drew them to this ideology (I do think a bunch of people posting are from various racial minorities or from conservative cultures so that makes more sense at least):

Living with 'feminist' men and watching them plow through progressive 'feminist' libfem women. Nothing about it was empowering.

The whole Emily Ratakowski "being a naked sex icon is empowering to me" thing. Having millions of men objectify you and want to have sex with you is not empowering or feminist. It's just reinforcing that we're sex objects to men, and the really hot sex objects like her get rewarded by society.

Sounds like envy.

Being breadcrumbed into bdsm, being gaslit by pickmes about the mental load caretakers bear, being pressured into the poly / ENM lifestyle despite vocalizing my need for monogamy, the completely strategic silence on the open secrets by the corn industry, male feminists, gaslighting about the costs of motherhood, the complete disregard of the costs of corn not just to women in the bedroom but men's ability to hold a normal relationship.

First of all this is like 90% just Jordan Peterson talking points yet they'd hate him because he's a man lol.

I grew up in a fairly conservative environment too so I also just don't relate to this sort of thing. A huge issue is in the inability to assert boundaries and then not only to struggle with that (as many do,) but to then blame other people for their inability to assert boundaries. Been noting that for a while this isn't unique to this strand of feminism either.

seeing how males of all gender identities act the same, use the same deflections, the same insults. "(radical) feminists think all men(/tw) want to rape and abuse women. they're crazy. feminism is toxic. it's sad because they don't see men(/amabs) as people. they just are eternal victims. no one actually is sexualizing, abuseing, or hurting them but a few. actually; we go through the same thing, if not more, it's just never reported or taken seriously because (cis) women see themselves as the biggest victims." and i'm not allowed to call out this pattern.

I don't think most trans women would agree with most of the bolded actually lol. Besides that trans women say they go through similar things as cis women (which is sometimes true,) and also that cis women are taken more seriously. I do not disagree much with the bolded, but I'm not genetically male lol. Actually a lot of trans women consider themselves feminists and support feminism. Read feminist books etc. Like Andrew Dworkin.

Many self-claimed liberal/progressive men treat women like nothing but garbage. They use the "feminist allies" identity to get free sexual benefits,

More conservatism. 'Women aren't supposed to give away sex for free, men have to earn it.' Tbf this is built on top of what is probably instinct because of pregnancy risk.

A lot of libfems are suffering from hypersexuality and that is what the feminist men look for... the problem is that instead of libfems seeing hypersexuality as something particularly dangerous, they just tote it as wholly empowering. There is nothing wrong with wanting sex or wanting to be sexual, but this DOES not mean hook up culture, the porn industry, or sleazy feminist men are the answer!! The younger women suffering from hypersexuality internalize that they MUST be these infernal sex machines to please men and show their body to anyone that wants it. This is fine if the PEOPLE ARE SAFE but 99% of the time... its libfem/poly/progressive men that just want to take advantage and your self esteem shouldn't rely on sex.

This one is completely mask off lol. And it's the thing about taking advantage again lol. They're getting something for free/with minimal effort ! lol.

Did you know that the original witch hunts were about eradicating feminism? The stereotypical witch comes from women who chose to live without men and knew that keeping a clean house meant better health so they would have a broom to sweep the floor and a cat to catch rodents. Men at the time couldn't have other women getting ideas so they vilified them and killed them.

Nah lol. That's extending the definition of feminism too far. It was a moral panic and around 20-25% of the people executed were men. In Salem a lot of the victims and accusers were teenage girls and young women. Sometimes the parents of teenage girls would file complaints on behalf of their teenage daughters as well. A bunch of accused girls also had various symptoms of anxiety and stress like twitching and having random outbursts that were being diagnosed as witchcraft/demonic possession.

Their beliefs were very sexist and infantilising. Most moral panics have that component where genetic female people are concerned. They believed that women's souls were more vulnerable to the devil.

In Scotland a lot of the victims were older women. Some women used curses as a form of social power. This still happens in many African countries where they still participate in witch hunts.

The social power aspect is similar to why people present as goth, emo etc. It works for some people to some extent but many face physical and verbal abuse:



They also justified their actions by claiming that witches were cannibalistic baby killers essentially. Sound familiar?

Joan of Arc is probably the most high profile witch who was accused by men after she was captured by opponents during a war. She spoke a lot about visions she had which they took as being Satanic and also insisted on wearing male clothing.

"It was necessary"

Going to start using that as a random excuse for everything.

I believe they would have found some excuse to kill her regardless since she was kind of a mascot/inspirational figure for France. This was later overturned anyway since crossdressing female saints and nuns were already a thing.

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

After ten years of prayer, fasting and worship together, Eugenius died. Now alone, Marina became only more intently ascetic and continued to conceal her sex. One day, the abbot of the monastery sent her with three other monks to attend to some business for the monastery. As the journey was long, they were forced to spend the night at an inn. Also lodging there was a soldier of the eastern Roman front. Upon seeing the beauty of the inn keeper's daughter, who was working there, the soldier seduced her and defiled her virginity, instructing her to say, "that the young monk, Father Marina, did that to me" should she conceive a child.

After some time, it was discovered that the inn keeper's daughter was pregnant and, as was agreed, she told her father that "it was the young monk, abba Marina, who did that to me."[6] On hearing the story, the man went furiously to the abbot of the monastery. The abbot calmed the man and told him that he would see to the matter. He called for Marina and reprimanded her severely. When Marina realized what was happening she fell to her knees and wept, confessing her sinfulness and asking forgiveness. Enraged, the abbot told Marina to leave the monastery. She left at once and remained outside the gates as a beggar for several years. When the inn keeper's daughter gave birth, he took the child and gave him to Marina. So Marina raised the child. She fed the child with sheep's milk, provided by the local shepherds, and remained caring for him outside the monastery for ten years. Finally the monks convinced the abbot to allow Marina to return; he accepted but he also imposed heavy penalties upon Marina, who was to perform hard labour in cooking, cleaning and carrying water in addition to regular monastic duties and caring for the child.[6][7][10]

At the age of forty, Marina became ill. Three days later she died from the illness. The abbot ordered that Marina's body be cleaned, her clothes changed and that she be transferred to the church for funeral prayers. While fulfilling these tasks, the monks discovered that she was, in fact, a woman. This made them very distressed. The monks informed the abbot, who came to Marina's side and wept bitterly for the wrongs done. The abbot then called for the inn keeper and informed him that Marina was a woman. The inn keeper went to where the body lay and also wept for the pain and suffering which he had unjustly brought upon Marina. During the funeral prayers, one of the monks, who was blind in one eye, is said to have received full sight again after he touched the body. It was also believed that God allowed a devil to torment the inn keeper's daughter and the soldier, and that this caused them to travel to where the saint was buried, where they confessed their iniquity in front of everyone and asked for forgiveness.[6][7]

Marina is venerated in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches[12][2][13] and the Coptic Orthodox Church. Today, Coptic Orthodox Christians say that Marina's body is kept at Saint Mary Church and has not decomposed. It is displayed to the public on Marina's feast day, on Mesra 15.[14][15] Catholics believe that her relics have been translated to the Venetian church of her name in 1230, and from Venice some of them further to Parisian church of her name. They celebrate Marina's memorial on June 18, and the translation on July 17.[1]

As far as I know there are no crossdressing male saints, and the polytheistic deities that represented androgynous men were mostly demonised by the Abrahamic religions.

[insert various threads where they all complain about makeup and feminine expression]

They're going to circle around forever until they realise what they actually want is to be sexless masculine people because they have a low sex drive and hate femininity, but they don't just accept that those are their preferences/opinions they have to think of a reason why and it's also unacceptable to believe they might be different from other women which makes other women brainwashed. Therefore these things are themselves a problem and must be changed for everyone.

I'd suggest they talk to women sometime, but it's no good because they're all brainwashed by men haha.

A lot of people like to quote this (it sounds like OCD a bit):

"even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur."


They haven't considered the amount of stuff that men do to be attractive and obsess over. In fact they seem incapable of ever seeing anything from a male pov. Like to a spectacular degree. Don't become a writer I guess.

But a certain amount of the obsessiveness is just having a neurotic personality type. You're going to need to acknowledge the ramifications of that at some point lol.

What a thread title lol:

How to overcome anger at feminine women?

I understand that we as women are all doing what we can do to survive and be happy in our lives, but it bothers me that even women who can admit that performing femininity is not feminist in and of itself, they still do it. Does it not matter to them that even these seemingly small or individual choices keep women in a subservient place?

I am going to scream haha.

and the thing is that im not perfect either. i usually don't wear makeup or shave but SOMETIMES I do, and I still do have long hair, wear dresses, etc.

Have you considered it takes more effort to cut your hair than not?

I'd say my performance of femininity is like 4-5/10. So this also makes me feel ire towards myself -- beat myself up for liking these things or feeling good about myself when i do them because I know it was engrained into me by outside sources and it bothers me that I am acquiescing to them, but i literally do enjoy these things still. but then that just makes me depressed, feel guilty and hate myself.

This is such an unhealthy mindset to have. You have internalised hegemonic masculinity which tells you that femininity is weak. 'No men are right about everything actually.' Honestly at this point a healthier attitude would be for you to force feminise all men. Take the Solanas pill (I've re-written Solanas slightly but only slightly lol.) If you've got to be black/white be on top. This killed me:

Solanas organized "a public forum on SCUM" at which about 40 people, mostly men she characterized as "creeps" and "masochists", showed up.[91] SCUM had no members besides her.[44] According to Greer, "little evidence [existed] that S.C.U.M. ever functioned" other than as Solanas.[92]

Did she expect otherwise? Did she re-read her own writing lol?

I don't WANT to have this bitterness towards myself or other women for these choices, though. I don't WANT to be judgmental or rude towards them or be someone that actually doesn't help anyone because I just make women feel bad about themselves and further alienate them from the true cause of eventual liberation.

Can you articulate what liberation is?

I actually stopped reading but she then actually uses the word weak after that:

I want to be able to take solace in the steps forward that women HAVE made and not feel superior for feeling like I know their choice to perform femininity is weak or selfish (and simultaneously feel inferior for not perfectly rejecting it all myself), and generally be able to find some happiness and grace for myself and others in this still-lopsided world.

I know she means because she believes it's 'giving into men' and that's the actual weak part but eh what's the difference at this point.

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone for your thoughtful comments.
[...]
as far as where I currently land after discussing, I made a sort of breakthrough when I recognized that I don't mind things like long hair or dresses because those things are effectively becoming degendered in todays society, which makes it feel like more of an actual choice to participate in or not. So when you think about things like makeup and shaving, it strikes me that the only way that I would be comfortable with those things in my mindset from this original post is by relying on MEN to start doing themand thus degender them in society. And obviously relying on and taking my cues from what men do is wholly anti feminist. [...]

This isn't to say that "every choice a woman makes is a feminist one," but only that "feminine" traits and activities are not going away (nor is that my goal), rather that over much time they can be degendered so that these behaviors can stop having this symbolism put onto them, and women can feel free to live as they see fit with an underlying mindset of confidence and valuing themselves as a whole above their looks.

That was not clear at all. But at least that's an improvement I guess. (I'm also a bit confused about how they think makeup is more gendered than dresses but OK lol.)

Reading this comment now:

I understood that in the gender hierarchy, masculinity and femininity are both tools of female oppression. Displaying traits branded as feminine is not necessarily bad, but femininity as a concept itself is misogynistic. When I understood what gender truly was, a hierarchy which imposes submission on women and assigns dominance to men, I understood why some feminists criticized femininity so much.

In short, being feminine (in your appearance, demeanor, sexuality etc) signals that you are accepting of the gender hierarchy, that you are okay with performing submission to males.

I don't think you can force everyone to be perfectly androgynous when they don't want to be though.





Appearance is very weak at signalling submission demeanor/body language/personality traits have the biggest influence. so like demeanor > sexuality > presentation probably. I guess if you hate all men this won't help you but straight men (in general) at least hate hard femme/'drag queen' femininity lol. They tend to assume every cis woman who presents that way is a secret transsexual lol. I mean if you define submission as 'appealing to a guy in anyway even if the guy is submissive' then yeah won't work lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xw5VkCpxRg

Some of the comments are pretty fucked up and also reference other fucked up stuff. One person saying (and this obviously inspired by incel posts where they advocate for rape etc,) 'the only big no-no for me is having any empathy for males or doing anything out of love/care for them.' Then said 'there can be no equal society while the strength difference and lack of empathy in males continues to exist.' Not sure what they're planning on doing about the strength difference. Their post history involves a lot of posting on antinatalist subreddits though and having a high disgust sensitivity to the point of finding being Human disgusting, so I guess there's my answer lol.

Men and women wander off blindly into cultural silos where they invent ideologies of gender with little to no cross communication. And it's been going so fantastically well.

I lost my pen that I've been compulsively treating like a cigarette/drum stick. It fell on the ground somewhere. Such were my feelings about this subreddit. Thanks Obama.

It's OK I found it. The emergency is over.



'will you put the pen down?'

Taking a shower is so surreal. Like who are you doing this for? Why do they care? Are you being groomed? imo it's best to never shower to avoid becoming a victim of sex trafficking.

I saw this tweet the other day and it really cracked me up and I feel like it fits in here. (It's a joke. I thought it was based on Aella or something who apparently never showers since that was randomly really controversial but actually-)

[Nyctophilia]

I've actually never really bothered to look into Joan of Arc in detail before besides the things I picked up here and there but it looks like she was never actually in battle. I could be wrong but it sounds like she was essentially a glorified cheerleader. This is a very two wolves inside you situation on the one hand war and killing is bad, on the other hand you were just a mascot in men's clothing. This is not passing the vibe check on this Saturday 13th.

Sort of like Boudica that situation was cooler because at least she was involved beyond being a cheerleader + she was getting revenge for the rape of her daughters etc and this song is really good. It's a really good music track. Also works well as background music for a scene with a serial arsonist on a procedural crime show (quite possibly my least favourite genre of television but I'll watch 9 seasons and then give up before I even get to the episode with Aubrey Plaza if I want to eventually read fanfiction about one of the characters and also watch Aubrey Plaza):



But it seems again she didn't do any fighting herself. Though tbh I haven't done extensive research beyond her wikipedia page. I probably read a comment about her while listening to the track which made me look her up 'a fellow Brit of culture'

You get women who do kill men today (and not even just with poison,) but that's just cause they're psychopathic serial killers. (They're mostly British too of course. Possibly don't move here.) That doesn't win you any awards (besides love letters from the elusive male hybristophiles.) I've been told there's a difference. You can't just go around killing innocent people unless it's during a war.

Looks like we'll all just have to start talking about Emmy Noether instead.

Biographers suggest that she was mostly unconcerned about appearance and manners, focusing on her studies. A distinguished algebraist Olga Taussky-Todd described a luncheon during which Noether, wholly engrossed in a discussion of mathematics, "gesticulated wildly" as she ate and "spilled her food constantly and wiped it off from her dress, completely unperturbed". Appearance-conscious students cringed as she retrieved the handkerchief from her blouse and ignored the increasing disarray of her hair during a lecture. Two female students once approached her during a break in a two-hour class to express their concern, but they were unable to break through the energetic mathematical discussion she was having with other students.

That's just because it's not socially acceptable to wear armour to class.

I do appreciate that Joan of Arc was seeing visions and probably insane though. That gets her a few points I guess. Also obviously all cheerleaders should wear armour unless it's a sexual thing. No notes there.

I feel similarly when I hear about a woman doing something impressive in gaming (by which I mean games, not gambling).

It feels like she's more likely to be trans than cis.

Well I'm technically trans and a woman because I'm bigender but you mean trans women and I'm not.

I'm the only person who has ever done [insert something I did in [game] so I don't dox myself. I really want to say what it is because it's so fucking random hahaha. Actually I did several unique random things that required modding the game. But two of those things are pretty legendary. Some guy did repeat one of the things I did after I did it though but that was the first thing I tried that didn't require messing around in [software package] so now I'm sort of known as the crazy mad scientist of that area of YouTube for these things which is cool because I'm somewhat narcissistic.]

Unless by impressive you mean in game development in which case I graduated from uni and then did [BEEP] all with my degree in that subject area lolololol.

Incel gamers are more likely to be trans identifying males? Yes we knew that. 👍

Well that's rude. I'm going to have to work a lot harder to be the most incel of gamers (afab edition.)

Doing very important things with my life as you can see.

[Nyctophilia]

I miss you. I'm feeling weirdly emotional today like two steps away from writing cringy teenage poetry about someone. Maybe close to getting my period or something.





YouTube video suggestions:

Ancient Therapy for Modern Problems: Stoic Philosophy Explained (Philosophy Tube)

Well this feels ironic. In the Alanis Morissette sense where it's actually a coincidence.

I don't want to jinx it but I think I've been experiencing less generalised anxiety over the past few months or so. Requires some kind of trigger now to be more significant and slightly reduced. Not having panic attacks for a long time now too and less anxiety attacks. I never had a panic attack or even significant generalised anxiety before November 2021 it was always mostly social anxiety, then I had a really bad year with a bunch of anxiety issues.

I think it was partly hormonal there were some other weird things I noticed some months during this time. But possibly also just certain things about the last few years culturally and in the world that caught up with me. I think sometimes I'm not aware of stuff even having any impact on me consciously until I eg: start having a bunch of panic attacks etc lol. Though my lifestyle barely changed in a material sense unlike most people's since I haven't been socially active for years, but it probably did contribute to my increased health anxiety at least.

I don't want to deal with it though it was really awful. Like with social anxiety you can at least escape it somewhat/avoid stuff but there's no escape from generalised anxiety. Many days I'd just have heightened anxiety response/background anxiety that was constant. Freaking out about the sound of planes constantly. I have enough other issues.

I have had other anxiety episodes though like when I was 9? 10? (edit: must have been 9 it was closed in December 2000.) Went to the Millennium Dome and there was a giant body you could explore inside and there was this giant beating heart. That wasn't really age appropriate. I was with a bunch of other kids and most were a bit freaked out. For me though it took weeks to get over that and I'd barely eat during this time. But I got over it after a few weeks. Even before that there was this one level in a video game Medievil with this stained glass demon who has this heart and you have to shoot it in the heart in order to kill it and that always mildly disturbed me as a kid. Some other stuff later on in certain subjects at school. I have weird anxiety responses to certain things certain body parts/or stuff related to the Human body, also the planet Jupiter freaked me out after watching this one documentary as a kid lol. I think the size of it too.

[Nyctophilia]

Lots of people talking about the new video by Janelle Monae.

It seems like nearly every female pop artist out there objectifies herself by catering to the male gaze. She was one who was different. One who made a name for herself with true talent, intelligent lyrics, and hard work. She could address sex in her songs without being a sex object. Is ANYONE even talking about this song anyway? No, just the music video. Because the song is not interesting (I realize that's a subjective opinion).

Comment on the YouTube video I just noticed:

This felt very for the female gaze, and i absolutely loved it! Everything about it feels like summers coming!

lol. So they seem to disagree.

More radfem comments:

Like, if this video is so focused in expressing "queer love," someone needs to tell all the horny dudes that, because they're just seeing porn.

Pretty scary that so many people view utopia as unfettered sexual access to women. And nowhere did it depict safety. If a raper made these visuals would the writer feel the same way?

I can understand why untalented female artists feel the need to lean so heavily into the male gaze, but it is tragic that a genuinely talented, intelligent, well-spoken actress and singer like JM is making soft core porn just to chart now.

There are also a bunch of arguments on YouTube about whether this video is 'female' or 'male gaze.' In a very kind of '[BEEP] women own her' vs 'straight men own her' sense honestly.

It was definitely from the female gaze. Like, men can look if they want, but this was clearly for the girls. 💅🏾

It's for the male gaze for us men to enjoy

actually it's not

gO hOme rOger

That's a great point! There was [BEEP] everywhere but it was different. This wasn't like how the rappers do their videos with naked women.this didn't feel exploitive and I couldn't figure out why😂

because when its something you want, it doesnt count as exploitative

tell this to the men in the comments talking about j/o to it lol. "female gaze oriented" and every man happens to enjoy it just as much as they enjoy content made for the male gaze! 🤔

The gynephiles are once again not OK.


Twitter:

Janelle Monae was clearly sculpted by the female gaze. Men cannot even fathom nor perceive
@JanelleMonae

Sm1 write an essay about the Male gaze in reference to str8 ?men taking sudden interest to Janelle Monae

I figured folks were going to have meltdowns over Janelle Monae's "Lipstick Lover."

How DARE a Black woman not just revel in her sexuality, but feature other Black folks doing the same and being healthy, loving, consent-filled and pan as [BEEP]!!! Obviously the male gaze is upset.

Janelle Monae's target audience is and always has been gay women. gay women dont do anything for the male gaze, and don't care how you sexually repressed heteros feel about our sexual expression. Please worry about y'all lack of orgasms and $200 dates and stay out of our business

it's givinggg male gaze

i think it's inherently backwards to see the female form and immediately think of the male headspace

Little bit of irony here while everyone discusses teams:

reminder that Janelle Monae is non-binary and isn't a woman and shouldn't be grouped in with other women

But she hasn't said anything about being grouped in with women afaik just that she doesn't see herself as a woman solely. Her lyrics are often from a female pov one sidedly.



Anyway song isn't bad but not a huge fan atm. Prefer these:





^ I don't like gender chauvinism/militarism/elitism (however you want to put it,) so some of the lyrics don't necessarily work for me but the vibes and everything else are good. Some of the lines are clever anyway lol.



Prince worked on this album as well though and it had a really cool science-fiction concept movie thing going on visually, and all the synths. So it's going to be hard to top.

[Nyctophilia]

Obviously all YouTube videos should be made with me in mind. Nevermind this 'male' and 'female' gaze nonsense. Everyone should be thinking 'does this weird near a-sexual creepy 32 year old from the UK find me/my hair/my videos hot?' I'm glad Rush realised that 15~ years before I was born.





Thinking about that Tumblr post again. 💀

#god the shameless lesbians are gonna put this in their fanfic huh#because yes there are leftie lesbians who openly thirst over Classically Abby and write fic about her and I hate knowing that#she plays an elf druid

She's not that attractive though. She just fits 'the archetype' lol so it amused me. I mean:









Why? OK I'm stopping.

She spends too much time dissing feminine guys and I don't like conservative mean girl domme energy. I wanted plant lesbian teacher. (I feel like this is something that was mentioned once in a strange aeons video that I won't be able to find now but I also invented it.) Was it this?



Doesn't matter still works. How am I supposed to fetishise you if you don't have the right energy??? (There's one photo floating around of Abby wearing this long coat but it's still not enough.) Also I have no sex drive right now though so there's also that. Oh it's so boring.

I'm 60% very Tumblr but I never did get the bowtie thing.

Oh yeah this was cute too conceptually (I'm not that into her.) I have mummy issues so I like plant people. (Literal plant hybrid people but also people who like/look after plants.)



Wait when did I create and/or post a gif of Is Everything Real from this video on Tumblr? How did someone even find that post lol. (I'm notoriously bad at tagging stuff.)



this is better quality but uploader doesn't allow embedding:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei5itHLY5CY

It's a good song though thanks for reminding me. It's a good song considering it's 70% 'Is Everything Real?'

*A vaguely goth rock/cold wave/dark wave track exists*

Me: "Oh my god it's perfect! 10/10 no notes."

[Nyctophilia]

Going on Pinterest and finding Rush memes obviously made by men in their 50s is so great bc they?ll be like

"This is REAL MUSIC made by REAL MEN in the time when MEN were MEN" over an image like this

I don't actually see that I see a lot of yes exactly what I found in 5 seconds of looking at Pinterest lol:





I actually don't have a favourite band. (No not even them/him.) I did at certain points when I was a teenager I think but back then I hadn't listened to enough music.

But for what it's worth (ironically.) Women are always doing this with their fav female musicians.

I see this in YouTube comment sections always with classic rock. The only people who do this are like female pop stans and middle aged men who listen to classic rock. (and I guess that one guy in the YouTube comment section of a female pop star who seemed to like Nirvana and Guns and Roses and then decided to hit on me the other day after I challenged his viewpoint. Not because I was a fan but because I felt he was incorrect about her vocal ability.) The most iconic duo since the Rorschach and Deadpool buddycop series. Beyonce gets brought up a lot specifically too as a comparison which is weird. Also the WAP song. I don't know if they've listened to any other music post 1992. I was going to say post 1995 but I really wanted to include On the Sunday of Life... And Up the Downstair.



(technically that album is just a compilation of stuff he recorded in 1989 and 1991 but yeah. Some stuff was re-recorded.)





^ that album cover makes me think of Sirius Black in pink smoke for some reason.

HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT STEVEN WILSON/PORCUPINE TREE?

But yeah there is some newer music they might like if they stop fixating on how they don't like modern mainstream music.

Also noticed this video a while ago but finally getting around to watching it:



I find it interesting that he listens to so much music that stood out to me before in other interviews years ago. (Also discovered Throbbing Gristle through him bringing them up in an interview lol. edit: oh he mentioned them in this interview too LOL yeah. Some of their music tracks are really fucked up.) Cause I know some other musicians will rarely listen to music just create it. Also my friend makes music occasionally and basically only likes Muse and Queen and that's all he'll listen to lol.

I know when I was modelling/texturing stuff for video games etc it changed how I viewed games while playing and it was pointed out to me that a lot of people lose interest in playing games after they start focussing on game development. I still played games during this time but it definitely had an impact.

This is a really great interview actually.

"I like a lot of people who have been a musician for a long time have a sort of reputation in the media, in the fanbase, that I make a certain kind of music. I'm not even going to say the word but we know what it is. And I increasingly kick against that."

Haha yeah.

Also just saw this comment:

I went to see Porcupine Tree a couple of weeks ago in London.

I know they got back together again a while ago but wasn't paying that close attention and missed that and looking at the setlist they played Buying New Soul nooo. I've seen Steven Wilson live 4 times and he often plays Porcupine Tree tracks with solo band members but never that track. (It did happen once but it wasn't a date I went to unfortunately. This keeps happening to me 😭 )



I really want to hear this live because it's my favourite track (I dunno how often they play this live though either.) I don't like the idea of seeing them at Wembley Arena though I have to say.

[Nyctophilia]

Hmm maybe it's because I'm a millennial (so in between gen z and his generation,) but I've always been into both music and video games. I also like a lot of game soundtracks lol. I regularly notice the music in games like in films and even downloaded a bunch of game music tracks or took them from the game files to listen to later (I also bought the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack as a teenager lol.) Most kids I knew at school weren't into the same music as me but did like some music. I also knew a few people who were trying to learn guitar and some other people who took music lessons when I was at school. In fact one of my closest friendships started because this girl asked me to teach her to play guitar, and there was this one band in my year (aprox 200 students I guess.) They played at some school thing at one point. I remember one of the guys in that band created a guitar himself and then talked about it in art class.

He brings up gaming channels and how people prefer watching that now even to playing games. I have a gaming channel and it does seem to inspire some people to play the game most of my content is centred around (instead of just watching.) I've gotten a few comments like that. Also seems to inspire how they play it. I think most who watch my videos play the game anyway though because that's how the community is. I'm not like a streamer that's playing for every hour of the day and then people watch me all day though. In fact my upload schedule has been terrible recently lol... The content I make is more experimental or informative and reasonably creative, not really a replacement for watching sports (which a lot of gaming content is,) and since it's not live they're not getting the parasocial chat thing either so that's another thing.

Oh he actually addressed millennials integrating stuff briefly towards the end. Not just as an adult though I mean I grew up playing games in the 90s.

In terms of actually creating music I just think it's hard and a lot of people (myself included,) struggle with attention span and motivation issues on top of it being hard (if it wasn't everyone would be making amazing music but even in the 70s that wasn't happening.) I also tend to just drop things after a while. And I've always been this way even as a young kid. I'd get excited about something then lose interest hours later in some cases. I started playing the cello as a kid but gave that up relatively quickly for a number of reasons, then went to music school for a short while and actually my mum took me out of it without asking me after I missed some weekends. I didn't really want to quit but I was stuck in the group where we just played the recorder and that was a bit boring so I'm sure she picked up on my issues with that. I learnt to play a bunch of chords etc on guitar and taught myself to play some things using guitar tabs as a teen but I was never part of a band and so I eventually drifted away from it plus my friend that I played with (and occasionally this other guy) stopped. Also sometimes played the keyboard and created this one short music thing that I stuck in a YouTube video in 2009. Then much later I started messing around with DAWs and making music using a computer but again only experimented a little before moving on. I have no technical knowledge of music and I'm quite mentally slow so I often don't retain info easily like at one point I was learning to read music and I've forgotten that now. I don't think it's overly intuitive to me how to construct an entire track. I've made OK sounding things when messing around but it's barely music. I didn't get to that point during the period where I started to do that.

I think when creating stuff I tend to do better when there's some kind of collaborative element or an audience (like YouTube.) Because you get feedback from your audience and ideas, so it's somewhat collaborative. I've barely had any opportunities for that irl with anything. I've always wondered if I have undiagnosed ADHD too honestly. Even as a teenager there are old blog posts with me wondering lol. I have issues with continuing stuff but also switching from one activity to another. And if there's a lot of info/steps involved it gets overwhelming breaking it all down and getting from A to B. Often I will avoid stopping doing something when I'm in a flow state because I know how hard it will be to continue later and so I have to keep going for as long as I can.

It's easier when I get into the habit of doing something but it's really hard to start doing things if they're difficult/complicated and have a huge learning curve. Or if I have no idea where to begin.

I feel like there is certain music that kind of almost inspires me to want to make music.

So during the last period I actually tried anything I was listening to Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead. I don't go back to that album now really besides occasionally listening to Burn The Witch and as with all their music a lot of that album is kind of emotionally heavy. But I like the kind of ethereal quality of a lot of it. Lots of 'tinkly sounds' This kind of sounds like glass somehow which is cool:



The Numbers is great too and Daydreaming.



Stuff that's more instrumental (or where the focus is less on vocals,) is probably more inspiring as well because I really can't sing so that in particular is never going to happen lol.

Another thing is I really like the opening of this Cure track (though not the rest of the track really,) and it made me want to do something with chimes (though I haven't)



The Cure have a bunch of tracks with interesting tracks with interesting non musical sounds? (this is a point I'll bring up a bit later) like sounds like smashing glass in some parts:



And this track has an effect that sounds like ice (at about 1:11 in) to fit the lyrics I guess which I always thought was cool:



The Cure have a bunch of cool/variety of sounds in their music though that represent the theme. Like The Caterpillar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxJ5YvYfx4

This Rush song because I love the bassline so it made me kind of want to learn to play it which I probably would have failed at lol but yeah:



I often like basslines a lot. I dunno why but as a teenager I'd often end up teaching myself to play basslines on my regular guitar, initially without even realising because that's how dumb I was lol. This one I posted too many times:



This is really great but I'm drifting away from my point (not a bassline, and also I don't think quite falls into 'made me think about playing this and/or making music')



But if I'm listening to music often I'm not really isolating specific instruments that much I'm just kind of enjoying the music as a whole. I do focus on lyrics and vocals a bunch though but yeah so I like the guitars in this a lot. And this YouTuber includes the rhythm part at 1:36ish not in the above I like that a lot:



This video is really low quality lol but yeah:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdci7LbbjQ0

Some of Coil's music sounds kind of like a more developed better quality form of my experiments from years years ago combined with something I'd hypothetically make. So it makes me think about that too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnWUFWPE4Z0

Sounds like they used a waterphone. Oh but I talked about my water/glass instrument thing before lol. I think waterphones are amazing. They have that science-fiction/creepy sound and they involve water (I have a thing about water too.) Also this instrument is amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGX5eUjP64U

If I try to make anything really I end up going down a creepy route (like anything ends up creepy/surreal my YouTube content is mostly like that too and when I used to make art a lot of it ended up that way.) I guess my brain kind of works like that in general though. Coil are also hard to listen to emotionally sometimes because of the alien/creepy vibes.

Also just like environmental sounds like I had this creepy old oven I've talked about before that made a really weird sound when opening it. I like the idea of using weird things as instruments.

Again only Radiohead really counts because I was actually vaguely trying at that point.

Also I mean gen z are making music lol not everyone will like the results though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z97qLNXeAMQ

Yeah I've linked this one super specific 100 Gecs track too many times lol. The comments still make me laugh:

My dad introduced this song to me as a young child and I will never forget the memories when he would drive me to school in the morning. Putting that cassette in and going. Great memory!

cant believe people in the 50s were jamming to this. goes to show that good music never dies.

My feelings about it are pretty much the way they talk about Twilight in the first couple of minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceP62v1sACI

Nevermind I completely forgot AGAIN that 100 Gecs are actually young millenials. Every damn time. I get confused because of their audience. Why are we all on crack? What's wrong with 'my generation' 😂 (generations are still mostly bs and were popularised 5 years ago. It's just fun like star signs.) I feel like there's a strong divide between younger and older millennial music. And the line is Grimes (34 years old.)



But tbh that 100 gecs music track sounds like something gen z would make.

Ethel Cain is gen z and fairly good though. And Ashnikko. Half her music videos are video games or the lyrics reference video games though I guess lol.

[Heelsbythebridge]

Don't stop before the miracle.

How many miracles are we allowed? Why does every good thing that happens needs to be a miracle? Jesus fucking Christ, why does every step need to be some extraordinary divine intervention?

I'm beat. It's like when you think it can't get worse, then you find new lows you never knew even existed. There's no such thing as hope, you're fucking fooling yourself.

Like [BEEP] what are we here for? Why does every good thing need to be an absolute miracle? Why why why why fucking why?