Random Thought of the Day

[Nyctophilia]

I seem to have caved and subscribed to Contrapoints patreon temporarily to watch that male gaze tangent video. Based on the video comments (I haven't watched it yet) it looks like she might eventually do a longer video on her channel on this topic anyway although given she basically never makes videos there now so who knows when that would come out.

It's only about an hour long but some of her descriptions plus the comments sound like it at least touches on some interesting topics:

I'm AMAB non-binary person. I really resonate with your analysis of the 'identification' at around 20 mins.

That?s part of why I believe I resonated with anime as a kid. All the main shonen shows had a more androgynous male character. Often more analytic and cunning rather than brute force oriented. I think I really was yearning to identify with a version of masculinity that blended the hegemonic feminine urges I felt growing up.

Tbf I connect with those kind of characters a lot too despite being afab and non-binary. I do this as well but sometimes (like here,) I don't think assigned sex is that relevant.

"Man has beyond doubt the stronger sexual appetite of the two... Woman, however, if physically and mentally normal, and properly educated, has but little sensual desire... Nevertheless, sexual conciousness is stronger in woman than in man... But her love is more spiritual than sensual." - Richard von Krafft-Ebing.

What does that mean lol ??? I actually haven't read Psychopathia Sexualis though. I should at some point.

OK this guy she's got reading a Freud quote sounds a lot like Werner Herzog.

"I think this conflict arises because men often feel enslaved by their own desire for women and women feel enslaved by men's desire."

"I think it would be fair to say that men have a tendency to look at women and to artistically represent women in ways that many women find uncomfortable and traumatising."

Yeah I think both those sentences are accurate.

"I think that talk of an organic male sexuality vs female sexuality is probably not justified."

Obviously though right because there aren't just 2 sexualities for starters.

Oh my god that show she brought up. I hate when people conflate romance with porn. It reminds me of these guys who were doing a study on what men and women like sexually and the examples they used for women were often romance type books. I think they even brought up fucking Twilight. Maybe women on average can get off to romance? I can't and it seems weird to me. The kind of written stuff I've used for porn is very different to romance fanfiction which I also read. I can't get off to that.

Like I can enjoy reading Pride and Prejudice fanfiction and then go and [redacted] to some woman as a therapist who is supposed to be helping some guy overcome I dunno some personal issues but instead starts to brainwash him into liking dick and [redacted] with a man and then some other audios at the same by her along a kind of similar theme often she has control over the other guy as well basically she controls everyone and then in my head I kind of imagine I'm her and the other guy who is topping the submissive guy a little bit, but mostly focussed on what's happening to the guy voyeuristically. Also some sissy/feminisation stuff by her. Then I also stumbled on this guy talking about wedding vows where he was talking about how he wanted to be turned into a lesbian and some more hardcore stuff that aren't my personal kinks. It was a bit much and I wasn't that into his voice (which is important,) but it still turned me on and I liked the lesbian part and also the part where he talks about getting impregnated by her, and tattoo'd and some things like that and so then I kind of created a fantasy based around that cause I always struggle to find stuff like that tbh. I don't fantasise much now I used to a lot more almost exclusively it doesn't work as well now because my sex drive is lower I imagine than when I was a teenager but it can work rarely if I get inspired.

I didn't want to actually. I often listen to a bunch of stuff but I often end up having to go back to themes like that. Now I'm not saying most women are into that - there's probably a reason that's rare and I'm struggling to find certain things and I'm definitely not the target audio of that woman's audios either they're mostly for submissive guys I think and I'm not self inserting as the submissive guy either, but is it possible your sexuality is terrifying to you and also to men, and so it has to be hidden? Seems like a lot of women enjoy non-consensual or aggressive sex (to varying degrees,) from one pov or another.


Oh my god no she brought up Twilight when talking about female sexuality haha. To illustrate how it's visual because you get a visual description of the characters that appear in your mind's eye (unless you have aphantasia I guess.) We have to move on from Twilight as a society (Western culture (tm.))

This is what terrorists did.



I read those books when I was 19 or so and they were fine. They get unnecessary criticism from people who hate anything teen girls like but I have to say they weren't sexual or hot to me. Like Anne Rice was a bit better at that from time to time, although she could be very boring too lol in her writing.

OK so she's talking about different theories of female sexuality that exist like the reactionary one where it's complimentary to male sexuality and the opposite of that, and then a theory where female sexuality is like a kind of spiritual slow burn thing, and then a third one where she describes female sexuality as castrated but similar to male sexuality just repressed then she quotes Germaine Greer who says women should abandon romance and consume hardcore porn and then wrote a book about teenage boys and used some Swedish guy's photo without permission and he was creeped out about that and I think his sexualisation creeped him out in general from what I've heard. He was also very popular in Japan and I think inspired bishounen aesthetics which if I stop pausing this video I assume Contrapoints will actually get to LOL. Seems like she's going there.

"Obviously each of these theories are problematic though they each could be extended to some extent."

In fairness to Germaine Greer who I disagree with for so many reasons, I do relate to feeling castrated physically, culturally, sexually etc. I don't think the answer to that is for people to consume pornography they're not into though but I do think that there is obviously a constant repression of more aggressive forms of sexuality and this would be even moreso her experience because she's a lot older.

Also lol at some feminists vaguely reinventing Kant.

Kant writes that masturbation makes the agent "an object of enjoyment" and is morally worse than suicide (Lectures, Ak 27:391-92; Metaphysics, Ak 6:425).

Not quite because he's talking about men essentially giving into their desires because you know a lot of men are neurotic about their sexuality as has been established.

Counterpoint:

In several studies, women who experienced more orgasms, and overall greater frequency and satisfaction with sex ? with a partner or not were shown to have greater resistance to coronary heart disease (CHD) and type 2 diabetes."

Or not.

So she was arguing that straight men objectify women as a way to distance themselves and so they don't have to feel guilty about sexualising women. She then says lesbian women tend not to come to this coping mechanism because they also identify with women. I guess it depends on what you mean when you say objectify since I think a lot of my sexuality is objectifying. Possibly especially regarding women over the years. But, she lists some examples like AI girlfriends and sex dolls which I think is a poor example because some people also like the idea of that because they struggle to get into real relationships and I can see the appeal to that even. I also used AI dungeon to test sexual roleplaying years ago but it wasn't that great at it but still not bad.

"All this of course raises the question why do gay men objectify? I think part of it is that objectification isn't so often the trauma for gay men than it is for women. So gay men tend not to have quite the same complex, ambivalent relationship to objectification that women do. I also think that because masculinity is associated with power objectification of men has different implications than objectification of women. In particular a muscular man's body is not passive, soft, flesh to be preyed upon. A muscular male body is power and you see this in the almost quasi-religious attitude to male bodies that's part of gay male culture. I would even argue that gay men's objectification of men is extremely threatening to heteronormativity

Not just gay men's objectification but yeah. There are women doing this sort of thing on tumblr etc (sometimes they're trans men and non-binary too though,) and straight men hate it too. Like:

It's weird that there are so called Rush "fans" that write about fucking the best drummer who ever existed in the ass. I mean i can joke with the best of them but that is just too much. I love many female singers but never once felt the need to think about them in that way nor write about it in a so called blog. Grow up or maybe you are a deviant, whatever bro, get out of my fandom.

#rush #fake rush fans #tired of sex based bullshit

I don't know if they assume the person posting that is male, or if they were, many aren't, but very obviously men have been deeply uncomfortable with yaoi etc for a long time as well. Actually it's this that basically led me to conclude that most people hate being sexualised in this particular way regardless of sex and gender.

Also again I have to reemphasise that the guy complaining about this his entire tumblr blog was just sexualised images of women. I'm still not over the irony. But of course he's operating under a madonna/whore complex system where some things are sacred and some things are sexual.

Oh no she's talking about Jeffrey Dahmer as an extreme form of male objectification 'this man wanted to create sex zombies'

I know. It's disturbingly relatable like if I was a psychopath with no conscience and genetically male I'd be somewhat similar to him. I got freaked out by that years ago.

'I take as a serious challenge to us gender anti-essentialists the question why is there no female Jeffrey Dahmer?'

Uh we've been castrated by nature. Not what people want to hear but at this point I've stumbled on a number of anecdotes regarding trans guys sexuality before vs after where I think this may be the case. One person was really disturbed by their sadistic sexual drive and eventually went off testosterone. You also have to be psychopathic of course but you have to have the combination of being psychopathic, and being very sexually driven, not satisfied with mere fantasy + voyeurism.

'It's not that women are angels and inherently non violent because we know that's not true. There's women domestic abusers, there's women serial killers but female serial killers seem to kill for different motives it's revenge or profit it's not pure dominating lust.'

Johanna Dennehy killed because she wanted to dominate people but I don't think it was overly sexual. She did dress one guy in female clothing and had been having sex with him beforehand I think wanted to humiliate him, also created violent porn in prison I think. I still feel like that wasn't her primary motive. I think the primary motive was still showing people she was powerful so a kind of narcissism + desire to socially dominate, but I think sexuality and compulsion factored in as an additional motivation she described killing as 'moreish' very unusual case study.

Also what's her name? The one Skynd wrote a really good piece of music about.....



Katherine Knight she had multiple weird things going on and had that weird obsession with like animal slaughter etc that seems common to a lot of serial killers. Jeffrey Dahmer had that bone thing at a young age:

From an early age, Dahmer manifested an interest in dead animals. His fascination with dead animals may have begun when, at the age of four, he saw his father removing animal bones from beneath the family home. According to Lionel, Dahmer was "oddly thrilled" by the sound the bones made, and became preoccupied with animal bones, which he initially called his "fiddlesticks". He occasionally searched beneath and around the family home for additional bones, and explored the bodies of live animals to discover where their bones were located.[17]

Katherine Knight worked in a slaughterhouse and people were weirded out by how excited she seemed to be of watching death etc. She described it as her dream job. She hung like knives above her bed and someone who knew her suggested that she saw them as kind of romantic objects. She'd been very abusive to her partners and just crazy in general for years before she killed - honestly it's bizarre that she never ended up in prison before she killed someone. She'd stabbed strangers in the street etc while angry. But I think the fact that she lost her 'outlet' factored into her deterioration over time. It wasn't just that she was mad even before she got really angry with him she'd been planning his death by like walking around and telling people she'd killed him to see their reaction. Like roleplaying it. And then I think that wasn't enough so while mad she was essentially like '[BEEP] it'

Basically it's like they're predators. Ground breaking stuff lol but yeah there are definitely women like that they just tend to be less successful and also often have other emotional things going on often, but like every killer is sort of idiosyncratic in certain ways even if there are overlaps.

That's the part where it's on like another level psychologically and that's the part that's separate from the psychopathy, and the hormonal element, and even objectification and general male sexuality it's like their brains are set at a very primitive kind of level? Something like that. This particular group are just really weird to me. I haven't looked into a lot of serial killers so my knowledge is superficial but I feel like someone like Ted Bundy is pretty different to like the Katherine Knight Dahmer thing where it's almost like they've regressed psychologically to a primitive form of life (I dunno actually I've never bothered to look into him much besides repeatedly hearing he seemed normal to others which certainly a lot of serial killers don't actually and I don't know where that general rumour of supposed normality came from.) Especially when they lose control of their inhibitions eg: like when being angry because Katherine Knight had BPD and had massive anger issues, and Dahmer was an alcoholic I think though he also had BPD it didn't seem as obvious to me reading about him ages ago though but he was diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder and BPD.

When I think about it too much I start to get disturbed despite being an edgelord haha it's like staring into the abyss which is why I don't care for truecrime much generally. You can see mild forms of this all over the place like people who are into taxidermy etc. I was going to post a video of some stuff but then decided that was a bit much despite this entire post lol I dunno. Lots of interests that people have that are tangential so you can kind of see it (like with most things,) as a spectrum but then yeah it's the intersection of several extreme things. Obsessive personality + low empathy + impulse control issues caused by extreme emotional dysregulation or substance abuse + some kind of weird predator/sadism thing.

[Nyctophilia]

So I'm half way through the video and one problem that's come up so far is simply that she's not aware of or missing certain details or framing things in a way to not notice certain details. Like there has been a female Dahmer technically two that I'm aware of. One just wasn't very good at it so only killed once. The earliest serial killers were mostly male and by the time women started to get involved in similar criminal patterns it was already the spree killing era so people were getting caught way quicker, everyone's attention span had started to deteriorate and there's an element of competition between killers going on too so basically they all mimic each other. Right now spree killing is more popular. There's a video about this actually:



There are definitely less though and for reasons I said in my previous post. She brings up that she can't think of a lesbian killer like that though and I can't either. I don't know why she specifically brought up lesbians there lol. Unless she was contemplating homosexuality in relation. There may be someone I'm unaware of too of course. I'm not an expert on all the killers who ever existed.

She's now talking about fetishism and the dimorphism of that and mentions a film that inverts the gender dynamic - a horror film called May which I do remember hearing about before but haven't watched and she describes it as 'About a girl who violently enacts the dynamic of male fetishism. She's only attracted to parts of people but never the whole." Then includes a clip where she laments about how there's "so many pretty parts but no pretty wholes" Uh but I think that describes how my sexuality works. I fetishise glasses, certain hairstyles etc. I find some people's voices attractive but don't know what they look like. I find their voice attractive but I'm not attracted to them. I was literally posting about that recently lol.... It's OK though I'm not going to go on a 'violent killer rampage' to create the perfect person.

She does at least acknowledge that a lot of women are into hands (which to me is the common female equivalent to the foot fetish thing men often have,) but mentions it's not like all encompassing. Yeah I don't think women are as often fixated by just one thing.

I feel like all the parts I really want to hear about don't happen until really late in the video and I want her to address yaoi etc and lots of things I don't think she will lol. It's only an hour long.

NO KEEP TALKING UNTIL YOU TALK ABOUT AND NOTICE EVERYTHING THAT INTERESTS ME SO I CAN PARASOCIALLY SHARE MY INTERESTS.

Lol.

This seems very true:

"Our culture still treats female desire like a joke. Like it's inherently hilarious that a woman would be attracted to men. Which I think has a shaming and inhibiting effect on the psychology of women."

"I actually once went to a Magic Mike live show at a Bachelorette party in Vegas during a very different stage of my life and the one thing about it that really stands out to me still is just the lengths the male strippers had to go to to persuade the female audience that they have permission to enjoy. The level of guilt and repression that binds the average straight women is a force that's hard to contend with."

She also included this letter some woman wrote to Marvel:

There should honestly be a national holiday named after the woman who wrote this

Lol I agree and I don't even find Thor attractive personally.

And the Contrapoints version didn't include the response but it's hilarious that they responded.

At this point Contrapoints mentions that her muscle worship is an exception for women. 'That's not what they're doing on Tumblr' Yeah (and that's probably true anyway,) but Tumblr is like 50% repressed trans guys and bisexual women. And people who just post about Lana Del Rey and the weird trad people who moved in lately. Like Tumblr is a terrible standard because it's not a group of average woman at all. Instagram might be better... But then that's not the point of the website. Instagram is for when you want to be an exhibitionist.

Oh my god there's this hilarious 4chan post. I really need to stop just literally transcribing the video but it's so funny now we've finally got to this part.

So some guy is writing about how he wrote a story about masculine men doing various things hoping to appeal sexually to women, but found that his story ended up being more popular with men in the 14-25 age range and 5% women he wondered where he went wrong. He said 'I used to have a lot of pride in my prowess of understanding women, but I realised that I am probably really off.

The top comment on the 4chan post was this:

You fucked up my n****. Where are the twinks. Bitches love twinks.

I'm bitches. They're not twinks actually lol but everyone seems to have just adopted that word now for slim guys.

And she put YMCA in the background of this part of the video where he's talking about all this manly stuff he wrote about like fire fighters and sailors and guys lifting weights and male locker rooms :')



But Contra you're not going to shame me into getting into masc dudes if that's where we're going. I will start calling myself a bi-lesbian (or whatever the kids are doing now lol,) if you push me. Nobody wants that.

Also as I said before although I think there's something to this the pattern seems less stark here like muscles seem more popular in the US.

Then she talks about WAP and people arguing about whether it's catering to men or an authentic expression of female sexuality uh I didn't really get either of those things from that video and maybe it's because I watched Megan Thee Stallion's video Thot [BEEP] around the same time but they just seem like aggressive, angry [BEEP] you videos to haters essentially. Which is what most hip hop is and to me the aesthetic and how sexual it could be perceived to be is drowned out by that message. I don't see the difference between it and this video even though the aesthetics are different:



On some level this is more sexual than WAP because he's saying these words he shouldn't be tsk.



🤭

He still can't say [BEEP] though but he did say [BEEP] etc.

When you think about it they corrupted him. His producers understand this completely that's why they told him to make a Barbie review where he was 'dragged against his will to the Barbie film'

who's the degenerate now? Still me but even so.

It's also just generally hilarious so even putting that aside it's still the best thing that came out of that track. Maybe that was the secret plan all along. Corrupting Ben Shapiro. I salute you.

Then she starts talking about lesbians who often feel bad for sexualising women, even women they're married to in some cases because 'that's not feminist etc' uh yeah I don't really like a lot of feminism anyway but yeah you want to disregard that.

And then she talks about how men fetishise lesbians and unicorn hunters etc. Yeah the way they approach people on dating apps is pretty bad.

"A gay woman I know told me about an encounter she had where she went home with a woman that she met on a dating app and started to hook up only to have her hookups boyfriend literally come out of the closet mid scene and attempt to join in no consent just full sexual assault."

Yeah that's really fucked.

I definitely think I fetishise the concept of lesbianism to some degree. Not being one but like the idea of a certain kind of idealised sapphic relationship with a 'lesbian.' That's removed from reality. And that's more of a symbolic/archetype thing due to a lack of representation for alternatives to heteronormative and binary gendered material in media, porn, life. But I haven't fully unpacked this yet so I don't know quite how to word what I mean and it's not a fully formed desire anyway. It's also just a language problem which goes back to the binary thing. People view things as straight and gay/lesbian, woman and man. This is not how my self identity nor sexuality works.

[Doseone]

What people think and say is just as much a part of reality as elementary particles.

[Nyctophilia]

And then she talks about how men fetishise lesbians and unicorn hunters etc. Yeah the way they approach people on dating apps is pretty bad.

"A gay woman I know told me about an encounter she had where she went home with a woman that she met on a dating app and started to hook up only to have her hookups boyfriend literally come out of the closet mid scene and attempt to join in no consent just full sexual assault."

Yeah that's really fucked.

I definitely think I fetishise the concept of lesbianism to some degree. Not being one but like the idea of a certain kind of idealised sapphic relationship with a 'lesbian.' That's removed from reality. And that's more of a symbolic/archetype thing due to a lack of representation for alternatives to heteronormative and binary gendered material in media, porn, life. But I haven't fully unpacked this yet so I don't know quite how to word what I mean and it's not a fully formed desire anyway. It's also just a language problem which goes back to the binary thing. People view things as straight and gay/lesbian, woman and man. This is not how my self identity nor sexuality works.

I'm still watching this hour long video which has taken me several hours to watch. This is a serious problem lol. (It also happens everytime I watch a Contrapoints video.) So the part that really interested me right was the genderfluid gaze part that she mentioned in her tweet. Because no one ever talks about non-binary people and I'm always having to force myself into other boxes. It looks like it's only a short section though and right at the end of the video! Haha. I'm still on the lesbian gaze part atm.

There's this comment:

I feel so goddamn seen by part 8 here as a lesbian who tends to fixate on m/m fiction. I think you are right on the money with how it can be an avenue for accessing sexuality while dodging some of the guilt/shame we feel about taking on the role of the "gazer." I enjoy f/f relationships in fiction, but it's so much harder to indulge in them for me than it is with m/m, and it's absolutely a combination of discomfort with being able to sense the "man behind the camera," personal guilt at the thought of over-objectifying women, and just...boredom with the chaste and fluffy uwu content that a lot of f/f tends to feature.

Anyone who believes women can't access that like...visual, body-oriented, "perverted" style of sexuality needs to spend some time around the yaoi girlies imo.

So basically been waiting for this and it's like. It still hasn't happened :') edit: Also that bolded part is a serious issue. It's to the point where I see people say stuff like 'I consume lesbian porn because it's soft and I don't want to consume hardcore porn etc.

Will I ever get there? (to the genderfluid part.)

She then talks about lesbian bed death and the stereotype of lesbians as being less sexual and 'fun' and there's a parody sketch from SNL:




Basically everything Camille Paglia complained about for years on end actually lol.

"This prejudice is something I internally struggle with. I don't rationally endorse this but I sort of feel in my bones that men desire more intensely and I think to some extent I actually envy gay men for what I perceive as their enlarged sexual desire and enjoyment. That's kind of a me problem it's probably an issue for therapy and not for YouTube content."

Oh no that's not just you I feel that way too. Mostly I fixate on hormones like 'because I'm not on testosterone I'm muted.' But I know lots of guys who don't desire much at all as well so I know this is just based on the general stereotype.

And I noticed some [BEEP] women seem to relate to Sylvia Plath for some reason? And she obviously had issues like this too I guess in her case stemming from depression but also had gender related issues. And I also read some of her poems as being sapphic but that's just because I'm weird and read sexual tension into intrasex competiton sometimes. Between men or between women.

To put a different spin on it:



The comments on this video are all really negative about lesbians and women but I thought the second comment here was a particularly dumb way to try and argue his point:

Someone on the internet once wrote "Every straight man is emotionally attracted to other men, but physically attracted to women. Its why we're capable of spending hours upon hours hanging out with our guy friends but can only spend an extremely limited amount of time with the women in our lives" .... As time went by, this has only gotten more and more true!

That is true in a way. Emotionally attracted though, ehhh, it can still fester if it grows into something they never thought would happen.

Women can't stand other woman. I hear bi girls say that can mess with a women, but dating them is off the table. They rather have relationship with the guy.

Because the same is true in reverse for a lot of bisexual men where they have sex with men but romantic relationships with women, and that's really not related and more to do with how sexuality works for a lot of people.

Don't know how accurate that is. I love spending time with my wife. We've spent weeks together, everyday for two and three weeks at a time and it's amazing. She feels the same way and often talks about just going across the country together so we can just hang out all the time xD We're coming up on our 10th year of dating and 9th year of marriage too ^_^

Sorry you're getting in the way of the sea of bitter people lol.

I started dating my childhood friend when she asked me out; we were 15 at the time (in 10th grade). We stayed together through college, married after 7 years, and will soon celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary. We will be 46 this year.

Sometimes I feel like the only guy on the planet who has zero serious complaints about my wife. My biggest problem with her? She doesn't have enough friends of her own. All of her friends are her friends because they are my friends and I introduced her, but with only ONE exception, if I wasn't around, she would have no friends. It makes me worried about how lonely her life would be if I died.

No kidding, that's my own complaint: she's insular and antisocial with other people. She's great with me, though, and we have a beautiful relationship together.

But everyone else? Drama. They tell me it's unfair that I DON'T have drama, like I'M the one doing it wrong!

your doing right keep her friendless and have some children boys and girls they will keep her company at an old age. Trust me. this is the way.

Very creepy/abusive sounding.

W/ this bash women fest going on in here, you're a brave guy to admit you have a good marriage. There are plenty of content married men, but that's not too much the type who hang around in here.

Gay men aren't happier. The cheating rate is off the charts, the STD's are staggering and the drug and alcohol abuse is off the charts as well. But we aren't allowed to talk about that anymore, because that would be homophobic. We're supposed to pretend that it's a true that they are happier and live cleaner lives because a left wing comedian makes jokes about it. A comedian that is actually happily married. But his audience wouldn't be buying tickets to that.

Ah yes I see and that's why the video and most of the comments are talking about lesbians and the domestic abuse rate in sapphic relationships and various negative anecdotes. Because nobody can talk about that lol.

Edit: Yeah so the genderfluid gaze part is interesting and frustrating in that it starts off with her saying that if she could define the female gaze it would not be Magic Mike it would be fanfiction, slash and m/m erotica which makes sense because women are very into those genres yet I've never managed to gage how popular they are since m/m is still a niche and fanfiction was considered weird when I was growing up. I think it's become slightly more normalised and more popular globally but it has that weird nerd reputation you know like anime. So I do think it's weird to define the crux of female sexuality as that. And even moreso for reasons I'll go into in a bit.

She talks about a book called "girls who like boys who like boys." And she mentions that a lot of women find it helpful to 'borrow a male gaze' while fantasising. Then a quote from the book:

"A large proportion of the women I spoke with often identify as male, if not in day-to-day sense, certainly in a sexual sense."

The way this is worded is a little confusing like it's not clear if she's implying some did identify as male in a day to day sense or like that's just my reading comprehension I think makes this a bit confusing. I feel like it might be clear with more context in the book but I haven't read the book.

The author of that book then surveyed women who consume m/m erotica regularly and found 5% id as lesbians. So Contrapoints then questioned why that might be and found a quote:

"Despite the fact that my significant other is female and we've been together for thirty years, f/f is of little interest in my fantasy life. Plus, my significant other and I relate to each other in our shared fantasies as 'male.'"

Contrapoints then brings up how she's done this herself and says in her YouTube videos she leans into a paradoxical presentation as a gay woman who's also a gay man. Then says "in consuming media I'm drawn to relationships like Hannibal and Will, Louis and Lestat. I think part of it has to do with the usual guilt trip. Attraction to women usually makes me feel like a predator." But she says she can guiltlessly enjoy a predatory dynamic if it's as a gay man and then she said she doesn't just identify as the predator but part of the appeal is you can shift identification between predator and prey.

Then she quotes Lucy Neville again where she apparently describes something called 'the gender [BEEP] gaze':

"Many perverse but enjoyable relations of looking the imagined 'self' has the freedom to mutate into alternative manifestations... A shifting gaze, one where they can watch m/m pornography from a number of perspectives."

Then there's some quote from Simone de Beauvoir about lesbians:

"Each one was both man and and woman and was enchanted with the other's androgynous virtues."

She then says "this to me is the genderfluid gaze, the verse gaze. If you'll forgive me for making a value judgment. Clearly the superior gaze."

So this isn't really her fault but the ongoing frustration for me is "what are trans men and non-binary people?" God I don't know why this suddenly came into my head:



"What is democracy"

Why am I still awake? Also that music video is really disturbing btw. Like it was mildly traumatising the first time I watched it as a teenager lol.

And that book is recent from 2018 so it's not just that it's an older book. I feel like feminist analysis essentially works to erase the concept of trans men and non-binary people so everything is just engulfed into womanhood reacting to some patriarchal thing except for cisgender men, and rarely is their acknowledgment of transmasculinity as it's own thing. It bothers me a lot and I think that's why until recently afab people attracted to men didn't really come out as trans much at all.

Cause if you look at research of the few trans guys who were attracted to men and did transition before around the year 2000 (almost all were basically exclusively attracted to women so was an extreme minority at the time,) they found that most of them had a sexual preference for androgynous, feminine and less masculine men and sometimes trans women. But I'm not sure that would still be the case today but that's what they found and it was so frequent that they felt the need to highlight that which is how I know. At one point I think they were questioning if 'that was the primary disturbance' leading to dysphoria lol.

And there are other people from further back in time before the label trans existed who fall into that general category like Rachilde. And amusingly people kept insisting she was a lesbian and she always disagreed. I think she was bisexual. She had one relationship with a woman. But she'd insist she was a gay man to people but then other times talked about herself as a woman so she had a complicated identity. And I think even Oscar Wilde supposedly (according to someone else,) interpreted her book Monsieur Venus as being about lesbians. Which as pointed out by the biographer I was reading was a particularly weird interpretation because in the book itself the character specifically goes on a rant about how they're not a lesbian because the male character they're talking to seems to have no concept of what they are and just defaults to that. It's very dramatic lol:

Also actually that book is very Dahmer esque thinking about it. But that's kind of spoilers.

And I can see this same negotiation happening now with people lol.

I don't think I'm going to go into my own complicated relationship with the variety of stuff I've consumed over the years and it's like every combination and varies depending on whether we're talking about romance fiction or porn as well. It was more m/m stuff as well when I was a teenager the majority of what I read then romantically as well was m/m fiction and fanfiction with some exceptions. Now the romance stuff I consume is more varied I would say. It also got to a point where it was increasingly difficult with more sexual stuff to consume m/m because of feeling bad and dysphoric and stuff. I still mostly consume that though when it comes to porn. I've tried to train myself to consume like stuff with women and strap on sex where they call it a dick etc and it can work but it's still lacking some things due to my specific weird combination of kinks which I end up going back to..

There's actaully a study too from the 1990s called 'Transhomosexuality, or the Dissociation of Orientation and Sex Object Choice' which mentions this anecdote at one point which sounds like the quote about that one couple before:

A final grouping concerns individuals who have experienced some homosexuality with regard to their own sex. This appears to be transposed onto the opposite sex which appears more idealized.

"I paired off with one particular friend at my [girls'] school. We acted out something like the Greek ideal. We took the part of boys and acted out fantasies from films and radio.... in my teens I had sexual feelings also all over the place for males of the delicate type.... I hated it when heterosexual blokes fancied me. I thought of myself masculine-like inside, but I didn't think I was anything else but a woman in reality."

And I do think there's lots of roleplaying type stuff like this going on in certain subcultures especially. But I've never really been directly involved with them esp in real life.

And you know I pointed out I idealise a kind of archetypal sapphic relationship type too so it goes both ways for a lot of people. I don't have an issue with straight stuff though.

Like she points out the power dynamic of heterosexual relationships is offputting to a lot of women so they read m/m etc. But the issue isn't that for me because there's quite a bit of audio porn content I've found anyway which reverses the sexual dynamic considerably. I actually have a harder time finding audio stuff I like that's for a non-binary or trans masc person because often for some reason they always have to be bottoms and such. Very weird universe where I find more stuff with cis women tops than trans men or non-binary people. I could prob put in more effort to find stuff though.

And I have issues with feminist explanations for sexual phenomenon more generally. I feel it's ideological and limiting. And I don't like how it flattens most non-binary and transmasculine experiences. A lot of this is tangential to it but it sort of influences most progressive talking points so.

And I suppose you could argue that this segment erases womanhood in a sense by using the label genderfluid for the whole segment while implying it's the female gaze in it's purest form at the same time. Except that's not how hegemony works lol so that can't really happen.

One small thought, you don't include bisexual people or non binary people in the discussion. I also wonder if theres a way to explore trans experiences of being socialised as a different gender before transition and what that means for them now

It's not a small thought man! I paid money because I saw her write 'the genderfluid gaze'

It was still an interesting video but I'm disappointed. And annoyed with culture. And annoyed with invisibility and erasure. And annoyed with feminism. And tired. Not sleeping still.

Not to be that guy and it's probably just that I just can't relate but to me it just seems like people are inventing these narratives to avoid being non-binary and bisexual a lot of the time.

"Men need to learn to identify with women. Currently men are not socialised to identify with women. And there are numerous social media influencers indoctrinating the next generation of men into never identifying with women for even one second."

"Step one is to put Andrew Tate in a rocket and send him to the moon."

Lol I agree.

"Probably there is an eternal gender war."

Well that sounds fun.

I find this topic very interesting as someone who works in the anime retail industry in Japan. Sometimes the stereotypes you mention are completely reversed - men buy soft fluffy erotic visual novels about slowly romancing and falling for a cute girl. Women buy BL manga with a buff guy with a vibrator up his [BEEP] on the cover, or about grimy nympho yakuza guys. The world is a very complicated place.

I heard more muscular guys were becoming more popular these days like more overlap between yaoi and bara in Japan. Slash fanfiction in the West has also often included more masculine guys as well and always been more masculine relative to yaoi but there's a lot of variety. I mean there are like 782 fanfics with the pairing Thor/Iron Man if I look now. It's not the most popular ship by far but that's still a large amount.

I think there are significant cultural differences going on as well that influence things. Also like - and this is why this video would have really benefited from the inclusion of bisexual people. You'll see questions like this:

Why is it that some gay men are attracted to guys that are extremely feminine? If they were attracted to men, wouldn't their attraction be towards masculine men?

But generally speaking guys like that ID as bisexual and often pursue trans women as well. There are also men who are specifically just into trans women and ID as bisexual because that's politically correct LOL. They don't want to be called chasers. Then there just the guys who don't give a [BEEP] and get called chasers.

The disconnect is so weird. Wanting and objectifying, yet having no idea what women find attractive. I guess because they objectify they distance, and that makes attainment through understanding and actual attraction more difficult. Ironic that pleasure disservices itself if it seeks a partner.

Some later comment by the same person:

My takeaway is women are mostly (not so) secretly gay

Lol.

[Doseone]

What can the human body not experience/do? And what better way to love/understand someone than to be them? All of this because of desire. If you love yourself, that same self is what it is because of the state of the world as a whole. You're only you because everything you hate exists as well.

[Nyctophilia]

Apparently Glinner was dropped by his agent for calling David Tennant an abusive groomer because he wore a t-shirt saying protect trans kids and he has a non-binary kid. He's been harassing trans people online for years and now just going after other people at the same agency so I can't imagine anyone wanting to deal with that. I mean his ex-wife wouldn't put up with it.

[Nyctophilia]

When will it end? Always these two guys lol. The envy is off the charts.

in yalls older/conservative culture, the only reason men wear stuff like this is when they're being gay.
but in younger/progressive culture, men wear stuff like this to show confidence in their masculinity *despite* fem outfits. it's a high status power ploy, extremely masc

If you're into these guys, you might be on the pill

(& should consider getting off of it)

I don't get it are they supposed to be feminine? Also I've never been on birth control and still find androgynous looking guys attractive but I prefer guys with long hair. Cope harder.

The bar is so low now honestly and still they complain. They're not even wearing dresses or whatever. Please consider wearing lace + growing out hair.

Super cute (I mean also facial expression but yeah):



This is also a really great outfit:



I like dark green a lot and also shimmery/glittery stuff but I also like how the fabric on the top is translucent and then cuts off on lower arm so forearm + wrist is exposed.

Very attractive (yeah I used faceapp before photoshop but you can have a more masculine facial structure too):

what does an actual femboy have to do to not get "complimented" on his security with his masculinity

Hah so it's not just me (who finds that irritating.) I don't think they were going for feminine specifically anyway and I try to pick up on the underlying intent/preferences people have where possible. It would be annoying if they were I imagine.

also after the og study several large-scale longitudinal studies came out all concluding there is little to no evidence linking hormones to "masculinity preferences" after actually measuring hormonal levels instead of relying on self-reports. lots of issues w this framing

Yes, exactly.

Be honest, Aella, and just admit you want to destroy European masculine ideals.

I don't think she does lol she once said she was attracted to that gigachad 3D model meme face. That being said:



that person on twitter could be joking too (although most people responding are disagreeing with her so I dunno lol.)

She's confusing "gets laid cuz they're willing to feminize themselves" to show women they're so powerful they can get a man to do what they want with actual masculinity.

I like feminisation as a kink but in terms of like dating someone I wouldn't want them to just do things to try and appeal to me (which has happened before, and then that guy couldn't take no for an answer either.) It's better if they're just oriented that way.

But it is more attractive if they're not trying to be masculine and are trying to be feminine/androgynous or oblivious somehow. Like an impossible alien that doesn't understand gender dynamics. Maybe literally. Aliens can be cute. I wonder what Spock would look like in a dress?

Oh I found someone cosplaying Spock with long hair in a dress that's cute.

I wonder if there are any genderswap fanfics that aren't Spock/Kirk because I don't ship them. Hmm only 4 with Spock/Uhura.

I kind of want a TV show with Spock (male) where he has the same outfit + hair but female Spock with outfit + hair could also be good.

https://ko-fi.com/album/Lady-Spock--...Trek-G2G61AU4I







*thinking about reddit post I saw earlier*

Tangent: the male gaze and "introverted" sexuality

Natalie mentions a handful of times that there is a harmful "introverted" male sexuality that comes into play when women are dehumanised/objectified. I.e. robot waifus uwu.

Could anyone explain what introverted means here? Does it mean inward facing and thus not identifying at all with the fully realised person in front of them?

I don't like the idea that AI might kill Human creativity but I do really want that TV show and also many other TV shows. Just thinking about the endless possibilities because I can't just make my own TV shows right now. Closest thing is just making Sims but still there are limitations.

Plus with AI nobody has to deal with conservative outrage over the choice to genderswap characters. It's apparently necessary because of the hair.

*Thinks about Rings of Power trailer and how all the male elves have short hair but the female characters still mostly have long hair*

I like how I'm just not remotely trying to be normal anymore lol.

[Doseone]

What if we've lived infinite past lives in every possible iteration of the universe? We've been everyone/everything, but the universe is still choosing to be us.

This short story is relevant: http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

[Nyctophilia]

"No one's concerned about your future hybrid goose babies and no one read your journal either so just chill out." - Gene

"Why the heck is there a goose in here?" - Mr Frond

"If you have to ask, then you don't get it." - Louise

[Nyctophilia]

Sorry to bring what I am sure is a newbie question, but exactly what is "non-binary"? What is it like?

First off I want to apologize to anyone I offend with the title of this post. I am a firmly cis straight male looking to understand things better due to both the experiences of my personal friends and those of content creators that I greatly value.

I understand being gay, it is the same as I would be if I was attracted to other men. I am learning about being transgender, and while I've always had a "live and let live" mentality it is only recently that I have been making a somewhat successful effort at understanding what it means to be a trans individual. ContraPoints was the first trans content creator I followed, and with Abigail of PhilosophyTube recently coming out as trans after knowing her as a man for so long I have been educating myself and trying to come to a better understanding of how trans individuals feel.

However what is it like to be non-binary? I was most recently introduced to the concept when Jim Sterling seemingly came out as non-binary. I say seemingly not because I doubt them, but because I do not know what non-binary "looks like" if that makes sense. While I can appreciate an attractive man I feel no attraction towards them and feel firmly regarding both my gender identity and sexuality. Because of these things I feel like I have an inherently difficult time trying to understand both trans individuals and non-binary individuals. In the case of Jim Sterling I am not even sure of the proper nomenclature to talk about what they have presented, other than it would be inappropriate to use gendered pronouns when talking about their experience.

To be honest I am truly not even sure what I am asking. If anyone here is comfortable sharing their experiences personally about being non-binary or if you are close to someone who is non-binary I would be incredibly thankful for an education of the subject.

as someone who is non-binary, being non-binary is very confusing. (especially given the context of 21st century America generally being terrible)

I was assigned male at birth, but as i listened to other people's experiences i realized that i wasn't really a guy and realized i was actually feeling a lot of dysphoria. But trying to be a binary girl is also wrong. I definitively like somethings but its also got the same sort of dysphoria feelings in some areas. This is a semi common experience with enbies.

I really don't think it's confusing it's just that most people explain it in a really annoying way that I personally often don't relate to and that makes it sound like they're reading from some textbook and like they're just talking about gender expression and roles... Drives me up the wall.

But then in order for people to understand they'd have to listen to a bunch of people's stories. The kind of thing that happens with men and women automatically because you hear those stories all the time. Even then often people don't understand each other which is why there's a huge gender war between men and women lol. In this case it's just because it's a minority group (a really tiny one too if you look at UK statistics from the last census.) We're not exposed to those stories. And a lot of people can't be bothered and don't want to learn in the first place. It's like they're being put out by doing that and they wish everyone would just disappear and 'stop talking about this topic,' and also even if you are interested it's harder to find them in the first place. Like I am non-binary and I feel alienated due to the lack of people who I can relate to who talk about this topic.

You can even see it in the comment section where someone who is non-binary says they're non-binary because they don't want people to apply male or female gender expectations/roles to them. That's a common desire for non-binary people but not exclusive to non-binary people, some cis people can also feel that way. They then bring up dysphoria but don't discuss that much.

I think it has more to do with how you see yourself internally and categorise yourself (and the disconnect between that and others' perception,) your perception of your body, and competition (who you're competing with in a gender/sexuality sense.) These contribute to your gender identity. So basically non-binary people are like binary trans people except what they experience is more mild or less exclusively male/female. So they get dysphoric about being categorised as male or female or exclusively male or female and have some conflict about it where neither fits 100% it's about being male or female though not just roles.

So as I aged I realised that most of the time when there was some fictional character etc I 'wanted to be' they were usually male. Like 90% of the time or something. I was also attracted to a lot of them so a bit more confusing. Probably because of that I developed a kind of androgynous self image. Also identify a lot with characters who are written to be androgynous in sex/gender terms like Slaanesh or Loki. As a teenager a lot of characters I wrote about would be male because when it came to romantic and sexual content I was almost exclusively reading m/m erotica and slash fanfiction etc. But I also wrote a lot of female characters especially in non sexual/romantic stories.

Other people seem to have picked up on this occasionally and commented on it as I aged despite presenting mostly femininely and with one of those people who did it was during a period of our lives where we all knew several other women who were tomboyish, nerdy, one cosplayed as Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon and would crossdress for cosplay, one had short hair... He didn't seem to have any opinions about them, actually he started dating the one with short hair. We were sort of dating at one point too but I think my androgyny bothered him (but spoke about that a lot already.) One time he compared our forearm hair as well lol...

My brother also made weird comments before I even came out as non-binary (not in a negative sense more just his perception.)

I think most people interpret my lack of adopting 'female-ness' or a certain kind of femininity especially in a sexual and romantic context as being childish or immature and socially awkward. Which it is technically. I'm very socially anxious and I can't flirt. These things aren't mutually exclusive lol. Where as others perceive some things as 'maleness' I think that's mostly what they're picking up on based on various comments and also conversations people have had about me that I've read on social media etc... I can read what you're saying about me when you tag me yes lol....

Lots of insecurity about being short and neotenous over the years. Don't like being 'cute,' don't like feeling intantlised or protective attitudes from others. Seems to bother most people who are trans masc or non-conforming. I'd guess that's just how afab people who don't fit in neatly are perceived most of the time. I've also noticed a lot of less masculine cis men seem to have similar issues and complexes which they then politicise. *cough* Jordan Peterson *cough*

But this didn't happen when I was a child at all and I think I was a lot more feminine as a child and more female identified overall. Like wanting to be a mermaid very gender typical for a female child. Wanting to be Tomb Raider still fine. Roleplaying as a librarian etc. Favourite colour was pink until I was age 7, then became purple. I liked Beetlejuice a lot and my aunt thought that was weird but that's just because the character was creepy in the film. Any interest I had in male characters was interpreted as being a crush so not a big deal. And I liked playing with dolls. So I also liked video games a lot, and computers but it was the 90s so I think that was seen as fairly normal for kids. I wanted to be a game developer but either I wasn't that vocal about things and/or nobody gave a shit. I played video games with a female cousin I hung out with a lot. Everyone was into Pokemon cards etc. Lots of gender neutral hobbies. Climbing trees wasn't seen as weird. Other active stuff. Skateboarding also fine and so on. I grew up in a reasonably liberal environment so while it can be a huge issue in Brazil if you're hanging out with boys:

"I grew up in the street playing sports all the time. We didn't have computers, no smartphones. All of the kids started skating, so I did too."[6]

"My dad broke my board so I wouldn't skate anymore. I started to skateboard when I was nine years old; I was skating with all the guys in my neighborhood, and he was mad at me because I was the only girl in the middle of 10 guys. He smashed my board in front of me and said; You're not skating anymore, ever again."[7] Her father eventually relented.[6]

It wasn't really for me. Played skateboarding video games, watched TV shows about it. Avril Lavigne existed no big deal. I've gotten more push back as an adult about certain things so I broadly agree with the argument that girls can get away with more when it comes to being gender non-conforming assuming they're in a reasonably liberal environment and that things get worse with age cause that matches my experiences. It wasn't until I was an adult that my dad felt the need to tell me not to get too muscular when he heard I wanted to work out more. Bear in mind there was a period when I was 15 (? or 16 one or the other,) and went to the gym (which I disliked but that's a whole other topic,) and I don't remember him saying anything about that, but it's possible he didn't even know about that lol. He was not overly observant of a lot of things I did outside the house back then.

The issue where other people were concerned I think was during my teen years I didn't wear makeup or try to compete with other girls so there was an occasion where they all forced me into having a makeover lol when I was 14 as I've said before. They wanted me to be more attractive than the other girl who abused me 'for once.' Basically wasted potential from their pov. She got really annoyed about that too lol. But this wasn't a competition I cared about.

I had an interest in fashion etc like alternative stuff. I was just doing my own thing. This was very controversial because alternative fashion was seen a really weird and devil worshiping in my town even though most people had moved on from that image globally by that point I think (based on conversations about this I've heard online.) I mean this was the early-mid 2000s and most people had that perception in the 80s and 90s though there was still a backlash to the whole emo thing so maybe some people are overstating the extent to which people had moved on by that point. But you know this was also the town that created Andrew Tate and he's only a few years older than me so you know. I think the only person who thought I looked cool in school was this one guy who listened to metal music and told me. That's all I remember it was very unpopular.

When I got to sixth form in 2007 I was asked by a teacher if I was studying fashion design and if I was in the right place because I was studying a software development course. It's quite inappropriate for people to say things like that, but also pretty funny. There's a character on Criminal Minds who kind of reminds me of that period of my life:



People think she's on drugs and she has that pink resume paper. I mean that teacher was really deadpan and serious like Hotch's exact personality type too and he was quite old (much older than Hotch.) And I think perplexed by most of his students who were these young guys with a significant cultural and generational gap, and actually didn't want to be there for the most part a lot of them. At one point most of them cheated on some test in a really blatant way which he noticed lol. That was the only class I think I've ever been in where people kept asking me for help. A bunch of them were there to get money because most of them were being paid. I was not. Then when I went to uni he was confused by what I chose to study cause I'm really dumb so I didn't study computer science and instead decided to study games art. I wanted to do something creative and also had my long term love of video games, but that's not really a sensible choice for anyone to make.

I guess it's like Legally Blond a bit too but my personality is not really like either of theirs. Like they're bubbly, friendly, extroverted and popular (in the case of Legally Blonde,) my personality is more like Spencer Reid's I guess (if limiting to the cast of this show lol,) introverted and socially awkward, and I infodump a lot but I had a kooky aesthetic back then.

And to be clear I didn't do things like this to be edgy. Initially it was very much the other way around. I just adopted things because I thought they were cool and then overtime learnt to be edgy and to enjoy other people's reactions for my own entertainment probably as a coping mechanism. Not just their reactions to me I now just in general enjoy things that trigger horror/freaked out/that's weird reactions from people. Sometimes I've posted things online without thinking about it and gotten reactions like that in reference to whatever I posted and then thought 'huh' and enjoyed their reactions. I also started doing that with my YouTube channel. I assume this is something a lot of horror writers enjoy too. A form of sadism I think.

As I said before I think this wasn't controversial really in the wider culture when I was 11/12 in most places but my school was very anti alternative culture so mildly gothish and metalish aesthetics were a huge deal. It wasn't necessary to link this I just really like these live performances lol:





And at the time I liked her first two albums but wasn't a huge fan but I think most people were familiar with her because she was huge so it was a bit like Marilyn Manson. He doesn't represent the entirety of alternative culture really but normies know of him. Also though I think I seemed a lot weirder than her to people I mean I'd get compared to Wednesday Addams and Samara from the horror movie The Ring so.





There was this weird contrast where on the one hand Avril was this huge pop star but on the other hand if I dressed somewhat similarly to her with long brown hair (never wore eyeliner or ties with casual wear though. I mean I had to wear one as part of my school uniform lol but wasn't wearing it on non-uniform days. When I think about it that was kind of an interesting choice because everyone had to wear a tie but in society in general women rarely wear ties lol,) it was a huge deal and a bad thing. Weird.

I dunno I'm trying to find a video with a style that was closest to me. My style was basically mall goth + pop punk type stuff not that close to Avril. Lots of red and black and purple and black stripy stuff though, including knee length striped socks (which have weirdly become a femboy thing now lol but I guess moreso pink ones,) those sweat bands everyone would wear, studded belts, other studded/spiked stuff. Wallet chains with jeans and those 'bondage pants' trousers. Fake knock off converses and similar shoes. Black t-shirts. Nirvana hoody and Green Day hoody + t-shirt. Sometimes wearing this like tartan skirt I had over jeans and also had this black gothish skirt with like metal skull and chains attached. That kind of thing. Blazers + goth-ish skirt. Close enough to her style that the contrast in reactions is weird lol. I look back on some of that stuff and think how mundane and low-level most of what I was wearing was (though I sometimes got more creative,) when you consider how a lot of alternative people dress(ed) with the makeup and contact lenses and everything. I wasn't rocking up like this lol:



I did have some of those fake plastic vampire fangs at one point lol but they were uncomfortable to wear and didn't wear them to school lol.

I should say obviously Marilyn Manson wasn't getting away with it at all lol. But Avril seemed to be as far as I remember. They were all hating on Britney in the media.

Also some stuff I wore was a bit like the video below. It's part of why I find this video hilarious it's like she merged my old wardrobe with some kind of 70s rockstar look (the glasses + hair,) and then the lyrics (because actually everyone in my school was into hip hop and pop music lol):



I don't like the increasing lack of musical diversity (in the mainstream anyway,) but I do appreciate how gradually certain people and messages kind of 'invaded' hip hop tbh.















I don't think most people my age really have this lens with this music so they find it annoying but from my pov hip hop used to be this really normative, hegemonically masculine, homophobic, sexist music genre. And those weren't the roots of hip hop per se but that was most of the mainstream/commodified stuff. Kanye once said 'the opposite of hip hop is gay.'



The only person who had lyrics I could relate to in mainstream hip hop was Eminem and obviously he had a lot of material like that too but he also had other stuff, and now it's still not great (mostly because nothing has materially improved and some things have materially gotten worse for most people over time in Western countries I should say. Right now the mental health of teenagers is worse than it was when I was young so there's that,) but it's full of edgy women and [BEEP] people and feminine aesthetics. Lil Peep was openly bisexual before he died, Kid Cudi wearing a dress and rapping about mental illness etc.

So that's the part that I think most mildly non-conforming people will be able to relate to (minus possibly the wanting to be male characters part.) I actually think really masculine afab people have an even tougher time because people start to perceive them as being male and they get chucked out of and harassed in female spaces from time to time.

This could be coincidental and I've allowed for that possibility but I'm instinctively weirded out by my primary and secondary sex characteristics especially when looking at them in the mirror. Well in the case of primary I can only look at them in the mirror. And it's not just that I find vaginas weird because I've looked at other people's vaginas. I'm not going to look again to see though lol at this point my memory of the first experience will probably colour my perception anyway making it useless.

I'm used to having breasts now obviously because that can't be avoided but I'm pretty much constantly ignoring them and suppressing some kind of negative reaction at their existence/dissociated from them. But I know this isn't good because you're supposed to be observing them consciously for health reasons and such. Not forgetting they exist because you're just a brain in a body.

I also don't think I feel the same way about that all the time. Sometimes I feel dysphoric about them through clothing and suddenly become conscious of their existence and wish they were flatter. Other times I don't care because wearing baggy/loose tops mostly hides them. Also sometimes don't care if wearing bra and in certain state of mind. So it's not fixed. The physical dysphoria might be sometimes tied to social stuff like the last time it happened I was visiting my dad and he called me his daughter and expressed a kind of protective feeling towards me. But it doesn't happen every time he does that. I just noticed that both things occured on that particular evening. I'm not out to him either because I don't think he'd understand at all.

At the same time I don't really care if I'm listening to some porn thing and imagining having sex with someone with a dick (or a strap on that's called a dick which in fantasy amounts to about the same cause I'm not picturing the difference much and the language is the same,) and getting them pregnant or something like that (even if they're a guy, my brain just ignores sex rules entirely lol,) if they use female terms to refer to me that's usually fine? (Or I guess the 'listener.') Might even be preferable sometimes because I sometimes need some way to distinguish myself from binary guys and emphasise the female aspect of my identity as well. But these desires and thoughts etc make me feel disgusting a bit. So I think to some extent that's a way to try and reduce that disgust as well but at the same time it's still there but I don't like to think about myself sexually in general. Like if I do that too long I just get freaked out and it's unpleasant that's why I prefer to focus on other people. There's complicated layers of conflicted thought.

I get pretty envious of cis guys as well so that factors into my avoidance of stuff that's aimed at cis men at this point though I didn't use to avoid it at all (I also still can't avoid it entirely because sexual preferences.) I think it's comforting to have stuff that emphasises that the character is afab because that kind of hegemonically masculine cis man that you get in porn well even like a lot of cis guys struggle with this like RE: black men but for me it's like most cis guys. And then I have some kinks that make it kind of worse like straight to gay conversion fetish which is very ironic I know because I'm afab - why do you have this kink? My sexuality is an argument against intelligent design btw. I've always said.

Also what this video is talking about:



What a time to be alive. Also to be clear I wouldn't want to look really masculine etc that's not my aesthetic ideal at all.

I started consuming more stuff at one point with women that had mindcontrol and transformation themes like bimbofication (which I'd liked for a long time anyway. I go through phases with gendered stuff and then some periods it's been more 50/50,) because even if there was a cis guy in it it made me less envious for some weird reason? Like I could just enjoy it voyeuristically I guess. Maybe it's because I'm less romantically attracted to women? I also think though that the stuff with women focuses on the woman and her body etc more and less on like her attraction to masculinity and male body parts (which I like but also makes me dysphoric and envious.) I also don't think anything I've read with women emphasised a change in sexuality ever (if it did it was towards becoming a lesbian,) and often there would be a bunch of bisexual stuff happening in the stuff I read. So that coupled with the fact that our culture sort of simultaneously does this weird thing where it treats all women as bisexual but also says bisexual women don't exist (I don't know how it's managed this it's quite a spectacular paradox,) like on the one hand 'of course all women want to have sex with women but also no bisexual women are just doing it for attention.' ??? but because of all of that I don't really feel as threatened I think. And also the feelings with male stuff only started happening over the past several years so it's obviously somewhat sociological imo.

There are certain kinds of guys who are easier to identify with I think too. In particular non-Human characters or like they're part human, androgynous guys as well. So there seems to be some weird like balancing act. Hate the terms mummy/daddy though which are common now... But that's because I hate ageplay related stuff.

And if this sounds like some kind of psychological nightmare that is correct lol. On paper it is like that. You kind of get used to it though sort of. "It can't rain all the time." Or something.

Also this post:

Problem is, all I want, all I crave for, all I always daydream about is to be the part who penetrate. It's not because I want to dominate -- I have sweet, caring, romantic fantasies as much as rougher and wilder. [...] I hate the fact that my mind and my sexuality are stuck on this role, but it's always been like that, since I was 6 and I was fond of my Snoopie and I dreamt to date "him" and be "his man" (heh).

I had a decent number of partners, had lots of sex, tried my best to enjoy PIV, always felt like shit. It's not painful, but I gain no pleasure, just a strong sense of dissatisfaction because that it's not what I need sexually and I hate every moment of it. In the long run, I start to develop angry feelings, since my partners never return the favor.

If it was me, pegging would be the center of my sexual activity with an ideal partner. I would give in reversing the roles, sometimes, because it's fair, but the idea of being on the receiving end is not arousing for me (maybe I'd learn to get aroused by it, in this kind of relationship, who knows?).

I don't think I'll ever find such a person. Assuming that there actually are men who like women and like to be pegged 90% of the times, sexual compatibility is not everything. Among this extra tiny pool, I should find someone who I like as a person... and who likes me back! Sounds almost impossible.

I want to add that I'm not lesbian. I've tried with women and... eww. Worst experiences in my life. Speaking of my look, I'm rather feminine, I'm small and thin, I have super extra long hair and usually I receive tons of attention from men. I don't look like a butch, but I'm male in my head, even if I prefer to stay as I am and not transition.

People were saying in the comments 'you can just be dominant and bottom' but that's not what it's relating to. It's related to wanting a dick.

I thought it was clear. I don't (only) want to be in charge. It's not an attitude. I'd be equally enthusiastic if he pinned me down and rode me or if he acted all bossy ordering me what to do and how he want it.

Maybe I used a wrong expression (I'm not a native English speaker, as you can tell). "Being in the receiving end" seemed to me a plain, neutral way to describe the partner who's penetrated, without any implied submissiveness.

It may be like that. Every case is different. For me, it's a gender related issue, since I hate to have a [BEEP] and I need to pretend my clit is a penis in order to get off.

At a certain point you might just consider yourself non-binary. But it's a label so not everyone adopts it obviously. It's possible they're not from a Western country, and so just described it like the above... I also feel reading papers about non-binary dysphoria is probably useful in getting a wider view:

"There Is Nothing to Do About It": Nonbinary Individuals' Experience of Gender Dysphoria

Conclusion: Results of this study suggest that nonbinary trans individuals experience gender dysphoria in unique ways. These findings highlight the need to develop clinical assessments of gender dysphoria that reflect nonbinary experience, and to outline explicit medical protocols for interventions tailored to achieve a desired outcome of physical androgyny.

When I look in the mirror and I'm naked, I notice my broad shoulders, ribcage, and neck. I get depressed by it because I know there is nothing to do about it. (White nonbinary person, 31)

I get depressed because there's no answer. (White man, 26)

I feel uncomfortable and disgusted with (my breasts) and being called a woman, but being a man never sat right either. (Biracial/Multiracial androgyne, 27)

Crying about inability to change my body as I want to (I only desire about half the effects hormones would provide) (White gender nonconforming woman, 28 )

My ideal body is one assigned male at birth i.e., flat chest, penis. I was born AFAB. I always wear baggy shirts/jackets to hide my breasts when possible. I have also had breakdowns over the fact that it is most likely medically impossible for me to obtain a normally functioning penis. (Asian/Asian American agender person, 18 )

It's just really confusing and I feel crazy/fake/whatever because it's frustrating not knowing what I want and constantly thinking I've gotten to what I wanted and then feeling like that's not right either; thinking I should've stuck as something else or trying to find something else new. (Biracial/Multiracial nonbinary woman, 33)

My chest feels wrong, unnatural, like it's not supposed to be there. I feel gross and wrong and if I look in the mirror it makes me even more dysphoric. The pronouns she/her and he/him (the latter less so) feel foreign. I want my primary sex characteristics to be gone, but I don't want a penis, either. (White nonbinary person, 18 )

Wearing very feminine clothes is uncomfortable because I feel like I'm pretending to be someone I'm not and that I'm accentuating things I would rather hide. But wearing very masculine clothes can also be uncomfortable because I become self-conscious about the fact that I don't look like a man despite making these efforts. (White nonbinary person, 29)

Likewise, social or medical transition was presented as a no-win situation where addressing some aspects of gender dysphoria only exacerbated other concerning aspects:

Due to my fluid gender, I have some shifting dysphoria, especially as I progress on testosterone treatment and have to deal with my voice changing--something I did not want but accepted I'd have to deal with in exchange for relief of other dysphorias. (White nonbinary person, 22)

No matter what, it's a reminder of what I have. Thing is, I would hate the opposite even more. (White agender person, 32)

Thematic analysis revealed the unique way gender dysphoria is experienced by nonbinary individuals. When describing their gender dysphoria, the majority of our participants did so by referencing androgyny or fluidity. Sometimes this was articulated as desiring an androgynous body or gender presentation to better reflect their nonbinary identities. To attain the desired androgyny, participants described specific feminine and masculine traits that they either wanted to keep or desired to obtain. This conceptualization stands in contrast to the classic clinical conceptualization of gender dysphoria as based on rejecting one set of (binary) features in favor of the "opposite." These findings also help explain why nonbinary individuals are the least likely among transindividuals to feel that traditional measures of gender dysphoria reflect their experience.11

The majority of our participants described a sense of profound hopelessness surrounding their dysphoria, and expressed that there is no apparent solution to their distress. For many, hormone treatment or other gender affirmative treatments that are traditionally seen as providing necessary and lifesaving treatment for those with gender dysphoria14 were not seen as viable options for our nonbinary participants.

[...]

Our nonbinary participants expressed that while these options may address some aspects of their gender dysphoria, they would necessarily give rise to other troubling aspects of distress.

In addition to their focus on the body, participants' descriptions of their gender dysphoria highlighted aspects of their gender expression or appearance as inducing their gender dysphoria. At times, participants described altering their gender expression and appearance in ways to offset their gender dysphoria. Finally, participants described their gender dysphoria as shifting and often attributed this to the shifting way that nonbinary individuals experience their gender.4

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8363999/

Could also consider a lot of non-binary people to be pessimistic/ambivalent trans people I guess... But I think it's mostly more comparable to bisexuality or asexuality in sex/gender terms.

You're going to get a bunch of different stories too if you ask different people. Some people don't experience dysphoria at all and people experience it to varying degrees.

Here's someone else's (they have a bunch of videos though which go into things. Dunno if this is the best one):





Initially they came out as a trans woman I think years ago, and then felt non-binary fit more. I actually think they went from coming out as a gay man to non-binary person who is mostly into women over a period of several years. From what I remember I also relate to a bunch of things they said but not 100%

And I want people to know this because if I have to read one more person reducing everything down to 'gender roles' I will explode. All over everyone just an explosion of blood, organs, bones and sinew. It will be very graphic. 18+ rated.

It's annoying because no one really does this publically and I don't blame them (I certainly couldn't be open in a non anonymous way. I can't talk about this stuff irl either. I think I would really struggle to open up to a therapist even - especially since some are transphobic,) and if they do on YouTube or whatever they never have many subscribers/not getting any attention. But it just means that most people give the same repetitive sentence long answers to questions that require a autobiography and that's all that most people here. It's like what Contrapoints said about how people repeat 'trans women are women' it's kind of useless.

Of course transphobes want to create this culture where people don't feel comfortable talking about themselves in detail and where people disappear from society (like me though this isn't the only reason why I have it certainly hasn't helped,) because they want people to not exist. If you accuse them of that they'll purposefully start talking about death as though stopping people from being able to medically transition, and forcing them to be closeted and to avoid people in general and ghettoising people isn't a part of genocide. Cultural genocide perhaps. I mean I think at the point where you have a man who grew up in a concentration camp during world war 2 saying 'there is no doubt in my mind that what's happening to trans people [in America I think] is a genocide' it's a tad concerning.

But if someone is genuinely looking for info to understand other people this culture makes it difficult for people to get info. It also makes it difficult - by design - for questioning people to learn about other's experience and psychological reality which ironically is counterproductive as some people will make choices that transphobes would dislike because of the lack of info and because things are so politicised.

In the US LGBT+ rights are a left/right struggle. They're not in the UK, it's kind of a mixed bag. A bunch of the far left here in particular is pretty transphobic. You get conservative politicians who get chucked out of conservative conferences for disagreeing:



^ the weird part of this video is who's idea was it to even chuck him out of that conference? Even Suella Braverman didn't seem to want him to be removed.

There's a conservative guy running for mayor of London who is pro legalisation of weed and self ID for trans people...

And then the general conservative party is transphobic and also homophobic with Suella Braverman etc:

Fearing discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for international refugee protection, the UK home secretary has said.

Do you know what it's like in most of the world Suella? No let's just send the gay men to Rwanda. It could be a lot worse when considering most of Africa but still not a picnic.

Not that you have to look outside the UK to get an idea of what it's like:

"Do you think LGBTQ+ asylum seekers are unsafe even here, in the UK?” I ask. Daly becomes animated as he discusses the accommodation provided by the Home Office. Asylum seekers are often placed in over-crowded housing. Large, multinational groups of traumatised people are forced together, with LGBTQ+ individuals alongside those with homophobic and transphobic views. LGBTQ+ refugees have reported hate crimes and threats: one man reports being chased with a knife, another being told "I'm going to kill you because you are gay."

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/bra...st-be-stopped/

That being said I'd still suggest LGBT+ refugees try go to New Zealand. Like as a first choice lol (not sure which country would actually be best but that one is presumably better than the UK.) On the basis of a trans woman in the UK being granted asylum in New Zealand because of transphobia in the UK. Also the backlash to Posie Parker lol:

Anti-trans activist Posie Parker leaves New Zealand after chaotic protests

She's fascistic and based on things she's said I think she has psychopathic traits. But she's tolerated to some degree here and has more supporters here in the UK.



Whereas the Labour party often tries to avoid the question/acts ambivalent but some labour politicians are transphobic as well. Labour is trying to appeal to a more centre right audience these days in order to attract people back from the conservative party. Need more political parties here. This system is a joke.

At the same time there are just too many disagreements about so many topics and too much is politicised. A lot of people will talk about how some imaginary group behind the scenes are manipulating people to be divided but it's not quite that. People are really different and people who are very different in terms of values and preferences probably can't spend much time together especially if their needs conflict with each others.

What we really need is more control on an individual level and more ability to find like minded people and form small scale cultures that work for people. The internet was a really great experiment and testing ground for that like the early internet had smaller communities where there was more cohesion and now everyone's on the same 5 or so websites and everything is terrible. By doing this people will feel less alienated and find the people who are like them. So to that end we need futuristic transportation technology like the kind where you could hypothetically go on a day trip to Japan or something and cheaply and an economic system that dissuades people from moving for purely economic reasons.

Though even then there's some kind of psychological block in places like the UK where people just never go anywhere lol and feel like there are great distances within just England alone. Like that meme lol:



Tbf if you don't have a car/don't drive public transport here is insanely expensive so goes back to the cost thing.

But so that's another issue in America since we all know how people are with the right/left brain thing and how irrational they get over it. Well done guys lol.

[Doseone]

If brain activity produces consciousness, there is no reason why I have to be a product of this brain and not another or neither. It is perfectly conceivable that my brain produce consciousness, but "me" not be present. Why is there a me that persists through time?

[Nyctophilia]

These bathroom bills are bizarre...



Making it so trans people who have medically transitioned can only go to the toilet in 18+ spaces since I'd imagine it's pretty awkward to go into women's toilets when everyone will think you look like a man but then at the same time risk being arrested for going into the men's...

The people who are creating these laws need to gtfo of politics.

[Doseone]

I have a crush.



I like the way they talk.

[Nyctophilia]

I'm still confused by how the cultural discussion about AI and robot partners has been framed as a men vs women issue. It's really odd. It's like the new version of 'there are no girls on the internet' except there's been tons of women and everyone on the internet for over a decade now. Even in the early 2000s in fact. If there was a group that was smaller it was older people but over time more and more older people got online too. I don't think Jordan Peterson really used the internet in the early 2000s (and it shows lol with his quest against anonymity.)

But anyway back in 2003, a full decade before the film Her, there was a manga series called Zettai Kareshi (or Absolute Boyfriend.) Where a young flat chested woman is rejected by every guy she meets so she mentions wanting a boyfriend to this salesman who directs her to his website and she buys a robot boyfriend. I didn't read this at the time but I did later watch the live action drama based on the manga that was released in Japan in 2008 (I don't know remember if I finished watching it though now lol I definitely watched a bunch of it.)

Now for some reason there's this constant one sided emphasis especially in conservative spaces on male loneliness and how men are going to buy sex robots and have AI girlfriends and collapse society. Maybe because the gender role is that men pursue women so if they can just 'fix men' everything will work out. But nobody cares (or has considered,) about the possibility of women rejecting every man who approaches them (or why,) about women refusing to date men, about women who would prefer an AI or robot partner, or just reading fanfiction etc. Nobody (except furious incels perhaps lol,) have considered women at all in this conversation.

The stereotypes about women are stuck in the 1980s catwomen? Who the [BEEP] are they? [BEEP] they live in rented accommodation where pets aren't allowed (but it's OK because Japan solved that problem and now we have neko/cat cafes in London lol. Now you can rent your home and your pets,) and they're writing and reading creepy sadistic fanfics about AM and Ted from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. No they're really not there's only like 20 or something fanfics and most of them written in recent years since I became intrigued by that pairing. I think there were 4 when I first looked which was I dunno some time in between 2018 and 2020. That was just an aesthetically appropriate example for dramatic effect but they are definitely writing and reading fanfiction in general.

Anyway they do talk about women when they want to complain about the birth rate, women not having kids, and women not having kids and then that causing the collapse of civilisation or at least political issues because 'women without kids don't vote for conservative political parties or positions.' 😏

This is like the reverse of what the left does btw where they only care about men's happiness etc because they want to win them over politically or get votes from them. (Actually they rarely even try in credit to them lol but when they do.) Not just politicians though anyone who discusses politics online has this attitude now. Really toxic.

But conservatives only care to talk about women as mothers they don't care about any other issues women might be dealing with like mental health issues, struggling with employment, substance abuse issues, or even just finding romantic relationships lol... (Unless being unmarried effects their voting patterns of course lol.) They also don't have any advice for women in general. What they do is tell women to have kids and then complain when those kids are born in less than ideal circumstances like to single mothers which is rich coming from them because they have no advice or focus on women ever. They're anti abortion but also anti helping people when they're born. Unless they're men and they can get votes from them lol.

People take conservatives perfectionist attitudes seriously and don't have kids (which is responsible) and then they complain about collapsing birth rates.

You know like how Meg White stopped drumming probably at least partly because everyone kept complaining about how unskilled she was, and now rock music doesn't exist? Lol it's not that direct but it doesn't really exist now does it? It seems part of the reason Jack formed a band with her was because of his own perfectionism and fear of criticism compounding the irony:

This tall, deathly pale white boy could be found after school strumming blues guitar on his parents' porch like a cotton-picker after chores, to the violent derision of his peers. The idea that such a nerdy outsider could be a bluesman despite his mojo not noticeably working would broaden the music's scope when the monomaniac White forced the world to listen.

No. I never thought, "God, I wish Neil Peart was in this band." It's kind of funny: When people critique hip-hop, they're scared to open up, for fear of being called racist. But they're not scared to open up on female musicians, out of pure sexism.

Meg is the best part of this band. It never would have worked with anybody else, because it would have been too complicated. When she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing. There was something in it that opened me up. It was my doorway to playing the blues, without anyone over my shoulder going, "Oh, white-boy blues, white-boy bar band." I could really get down to something

And they just keep complaining about her drumming even 12 years after they broke up. And then 'the journalist is sexist,' and he's 'being cancelled' because people are calling him sexist for saying his 'opinion.' But you're all really missing the interesting point here. Because why was it necessary 12 years after when the ENTIRE GENRE IS DEAD? (But this is old news anyway lol. Happened last March.)

And people rarely form bands at all anymore because they don't socialise because of their crippling anxiety and over reliance on social media. A lot of older bands relied on not only musical ability but also the ability to get along so they could work together. Part of the reason Rush were around for such an insanely long amount of time compared to other bands was because they were also close friends. Also even if someone did find some close friends to make music with today they'll never be Rush. So they form solo projects and it's mostly electronic and they're not playing instruments as often, and they're not making music at all anymore most of the time because there's not much money in it, and their job kills what was left of their soul after the education system killed the rest. (Art and music education in school is also really bad btw, not that that necessarily matters, but it was when I was at school anyway.) They don't have any energy after working and they don't have any energy + hate themselves if they're unemployed. They have no attention span, and they have no motivation, and no one's going to listen to people experimenting or failing anyway - they only want really crisp perfect formulated music that's soulless but effective made by the same few music producers over and over. And then they complain about that too! Haha.

There is no pleasing people in general, but of course conservatives more than anyone. I'd say you used to tolerate punk music. (This isn't exactly Mozart is it?):



But no they didn't tolerate it. They complained about that a lot too! But people actually care now:

When I was in my mid-teens, I wanted to be a writer, and showed my dad something I'd written. He didn't like it very much, and I've struggled to write since. You started at a very young age did you ever have a moment like that?


Bret: I've noticed that millennials have a huge sense of shame, which my generation simply didn?t have. I did not care what my parents thought about my books. I do know that my parents were not happy with some of my books. I found out after my father died that he described Less Than Zero to my mother as ?that dirty little book that our son wrote?. My mother is proud of me, but I don't think I write the kind of books that my mother particularly likes. That's fine. They weren?t written for her.

Wanting to be liked was not part of Gen X. But I do think it's a major -- and crushing -- part of my boyfriend [musician Todd Michael Schultz]'s millennial generation. He wants to be liked. He wants to be followed. He wants likes on Instagram, a lot of views on his YouTube video. He is exhibiting himself. He's not a typical millennial -- he is very critical of his generation, which might be one of the reasons why we've gotten along, and been together for as long as we have. But he wants to be accepted in ways that I just never did, and my generation never did.

A teacher reading something I wrote and slamming it made no difference to me. At college, my professor read one of the first stories I had turned in, and said, why all the brand names? Why are you mentioning the songs people are listening to, or what's playing on TV? And my reaction was, well, this is part of the wallpaper, the background noise of their lives. That's life. And he took me to task and said: "You're going to end up on the ash heap of literature. If you keep writing books like this, you're going to date yourself." And I really didn't care.

Coupled with social media which makes it impossible to get away from it and you can't self promote your work without it... You're expected to have a parasocial relationship with your fans. Especially if you start off on YouTube. You get people like Doja Cat and her insane relationship with her audience on twitter. You got what you wanted I guess. Most people aren't doing anything.

"What is millennial culture? There's no writing. None of them read books."

Millennial culture is video games btw.

Two things you should understand about millenials:

https://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/po...gender-nullary

Trigger warning for everything that follows: the coddled, over-sensitive, "triggered" millennial crybaby does not exist. Hold your applause--the COSTMC is an oxymoron because coddling does not sensitize, it scleroses. Have you met these people? They can?t feel an emotion without an audience and a week to rehearse. The performative offense of this group results from high emotional tolerance, not low; sad-rage is heroin to everything else?s Motrin, and no matter how vast the safe space, some kids are gonna hang at the outskirts hoping to score.

https://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/po...adult-fictions

Unfortunately, the ability to parrot accepted opinions is often taken for the ability to derive judgments of one's own. I?m thinking of a homestuck 13 year old who is constantly told that he/she is "so mature" for getting straight A's and being well-spoken with the dinner guests and not ditching class to smoke brick weed with Devin. Whether or not those behaviors are good, the kid isn't mature, he or she is well-trained, and if you keep claiming maturity then you are going to stunt development. Sorry: not having an adolescent rebellion means you didn't complete adolescence. The result is neotenous adults who are not overly sensitive--as conservative media would claim--but rather overly dependent on external rules. Cards Against Humanity is so funny, right? You get to say bad words, but it's only a game.

The consequences are predictable. Imposter syndrome. Scrupulosity. Sexual fetishes suffixed with -play. Gushing compassion ruined by the inability to picture how one appears to the outside world. Neediness. Ill-fitting jeans. Trouble with romance, and not because they don?t know how--deep down they do--but because they cling to a rulebook ("milady") instead of trusting instinct. They were never allowed to have instincts. For that matter they?ve never really wanted, never felt a desire that wasn?t assigned, which is why: open relationships, switched majors, medicated anxiety, and ambivalence, ambivalence, ambivalence.

You don't know what love is
You do as you're told

Also related:



A lot of Gen Z is similar but worse. Current teenagers are even more mentally ill (lonely, anxious and depressed,) than my generation. They have less sex, do less drugs etc. As a younger millennial I was sort of in between there. Never really had sex besides giving hand jobs and fooling around, found my partners during the pre-online dating app era, drank alcohol a lot during uni but didn't do other drugs didn't do any of this until 18. Then stopped dating, dropped out of society etc. The age that people are giving up is getting lower over time imo.

I remember my friend judging me when I got drunk a decade ago and at the time we'd just started dating we were both 19. I'm not complaining about this it was a long time ago I'm just commentating on what I've noticed. He never drank and didn't enjoy clubbing etc, a very introverted guy. Over the past year or so he's developed anxiety issues and finds the idea of going to work every day of his life depressing. He went on a couple of dates after we broke up but never found another relationship. He was never that into sex either which worked for me because I was having issues sexually anyway and trying to figure myself out. He says that most people who messaged him on dating apps either had peculiar fetishes or were asexual. There was also a woman who had dogs and he didn't like the idea of dating her partly because of the dogs but not sure if there were other reasons.

My brother also has never drunk alcohol. He hasn't had a relationship or tried dating anyone since the early 2010s. A lot of the culture is quite puritanical and anxious.

Most of my cousins are married with kids although some of them on my dad's side were older and didn't have kids till their 30s (now in 40s.) On my mum's side a few had kids in their late 20s. One cousin wasn't married I think when she had a kid. I don't keep up with the specifics we're not in contact now. I last saw her at my granddad's funeral in 2016 when she had a young kid (like toddler age I guess,) she was supposed to be getting married during the pandemic not sure if with that guy or not. Another I think is married and has a kid with him (at least one, I think just one.)

I have another male older cousin on that side who I've not heard anything about I don't think he was with anyone at my grandad's funeral and didn't have kids then. None of my family members who had kids went to university (none of my six older cousins went to university at all.) My brother dropped out of university in his second year (he was studying a very ironic subject but I already write in far too much detail about certain things so I'll keep that to myself lol.) I don't know about their partners though I know at least one cousin's husband didn't he used to work with my dad, uncle. Lots of my family members have worked for the same one company.

One of my male cousins on my dad's side had kids (I think two,) another didn't have kids and is diagnosed schizophrenic (he was only diagnosed because he threatened to stab his sister during a delusional episode or something like that. It's very difficult to get diagnosed with mental health issues here besides social phobia, depression and generalised anxiety - even then it's not really a diagnoses you'll just be referred for cognitive behavioural therapy, but that seems like a diagnosis of sorts.)

Some of my cousins grew up in my hometown (or are growing up still,) some grew up in Liverpool. Sociologically speaking it would be interesting to know what happens with my gen Z cousins (that sounds very clinical/psychopathic lol, actually it's weird because the older gen z cousin I only saw a few times growing up and mostly saw as a baby so he's the only baby I've ever held lol,) but I'm not in contact with them only hear stuff through my mum now. One recently graduated from university I think. The other is still a teenager in school. Their mum is a lot younger than my mum and is gen x and she had her first kid in her late 20s I think? Or early 30s but her second in her late 30s. But my mum also had kids fairly late probably for her generation + class background. Like she'd been married for a decade but my dad told us he didn't want kids until we were born also suggested once that my mum essentially just tricked him into having kids. Lots of men don't want kids which is another thing conservatives don't factor into discussions.

A couple of women I had on facebook from my hometown before I stopped using it ended up pregnant at a very young age. In one case the dad wasn't involved at all. One woman I went to uni with was in a relationship before she started uni, and then got married when she was 21 I think and he was like 19. Then sometime around 2014 probably? They had a kid so in their mid + early 20s. Very mixed bag actually but that's only because I've known a lot of working class and lower middle class people. I think if most people I knew weren't, including in my own family, that would have been a very different picture.

Even so my mum had/has (because one is dead now,) 4 siblings and my dad had/has 2 (one is dead now.) On my dad's side his sister didn't have kids because she couldn't but wanted them apparently, but both he and his brother (now dead,) had kids though my dad didn't want them. On my mum's side everyone had kids except one of her brother's (not the one who is now dead,) and he seems to be pretty introverted and have anxiety issues too from what I've heard. Finds hanging out with family members difficult etc. Travelled around alone a lot.

My dad recently brought up some story about him (I guess because he noticed how similar me and my brother are or something and because he used to hang out with and work with him.) About how one time he borrowed my parents washing machine and then just disappeared with his laundry still in it. And then later they found out he was halfway across the country because he just went on a random trip. He also used to drive around to random music festivals and stuff in a van and was unemployed a lot because of anxiety and schizoid-like tendencies I assume. My dad then said that he felt my mum never really sympathised with him and didn't really get it. Because my dad likes to criticise my mum lol.

But yeah so more of my generation in my family aren't having kids than my parents generation I guess so far, but it's not a huge difference yet, unless both of my younger cousins don't have kids. I don't think this is the biggest issue either it's like a symptom of the other underlying issues which are making people unhappy and incapable of living well.

I think some conservatives underestimate how much of a trainwreck many people's lives are too. Somehow... Because they're the judgy political team. Some of them don't underestimate that though they just don't give a shit.

Bret: I'm nothing. I'm not a conservative or a liberal. At least in the US, I can't agree with either of them. I think they're both completely bonkers. I don't watch the news anymore. We have the Food Network on all of our TV screens, or video games. I'm done.

So that's what you get right? You get video games and politics. They both trigger emotions more easily which is the younger generations drug of choice, and are more absorbing for ADHD-like minds, and when you're fed up with the politics you can chill out with video games or video game content on YouTube + twitch.

"But I criticise the people making video game content and playing video games too because I want them to go back to doing other things."

Oh I know. I agree. I think if we really work at it we can collectively get people to just stare at the walls and/or kill themselves.



https://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/po...gender-nullary

There's a practical argument to be made against fractalized gender: it's confusing. With 3^^^3 possible sex-gender-orientation combos, how are kids supposed to know how to grow up? Aren't imperfect gender roles better than 24-year-old otherkin? I hear you, guy wearing a Harley-Davidson jacket and listening to Motley Crue, but Tumblr semantics are a consequence of twenty-teen spirit, not the cause. If we weren't arguing about the gender binary (and before we were) we'd be arguing about the range of femininity or masculinity; the crusade would be for pixie cuts and stick-and-poke tattoos to be considered as feminine as Brazilian butt lifts. Don't be fooled by words--do you really want society to have one idealized template per gender? How would that ideal be decided? Majority rule?

^ Parts of this are actually very funny.

There's a hilarious overlap between the people who get mad about preferred pronouns and those who call for a return to "traditional masculinity." The idealization of some Hollywood-ified tradition isn't the problem; if you want to roleplay a fursona, go ahead. No, what?s pathetic is the begging. Rather than be a man, in spite of the system, you demand validation from the system for aspiring to be a man. Being against identity politics is the new identity politics. That?s why right-wing culture warriors are so into the idea of crybaby millennials?it?s comforting to believe that you?re actually strong (since you don?t drink from plastic water bottles) and that anyone getting laid is actually xeno-estrogenized. Even if this was true, obsessing over it, masturbating to it, using it as an excuse for self-pity and inaction?that makes you a _ _ _ _. Four-letters. Multiple choice. Maybe hangman will teach you something.

I'm seeing this a lot honestly. Also from 'reactionary feminists' which - the fact that this a group that even exists is damning in itself. But because it's so unclear what a lot of conservatives are complaining about in regards to men and what they want from other people... I mostly just get the impression that they want people to cheerlead for masculinity. Not just conservatives but people who discuss masculinity and men in general.

But the excessive criticism is a problem conservatives created really. Because 'the left (tm)' (not the left in any meaningful sense where you're talking about economics lol but you know what people online call the left. 'the woke (tm)' maybe,) adopted their kind of moralistic attitudes and puritanical hen pecking but just directed it at the things they didn't like. It's not much different than the clips below in rhetorical style just the buzzwords and focus of certain things change a bit:





And now everyone has decided universally that they should critique video games and AI (but for different reasons,) which is amusing. It's some kind of equaliser I guess. And they're really trying hard to make it as political as possible but since most people dislike video games and have contempt for gamers there's been no solid, fixed position even though most things in the Anglosphere - especially in America have been assigned to one tribe or the other. Just an endless back and forth of:

"These characters are all white men and that is bad."

"Games are making everyone violent and causing school shootings we need to ban video games for under 18s."

"Video games are sexist."

"Woke opinions are ruining the video game industry. Game journalists can't speak their mind without being yelled at or fired."

"Right-Wing Hate Groups Are Recruiting Video Gamers"

"All these gamer's are soy. Video games are for unmasculine woke men."

"This video game character doesn't look sexually attractive."

"This video game character looks too sexually attractive."



^ this is the best argument I've ever seen for playing video games. Oh god if you stop playing you might turn into Sneako, Andrew or Tristan Tate lmfao. Good point.

Edit: Actually it's funny:



"Yeah but Tristan it doesn't matter does it?" Because you're both being destroyed by women now. 😏 (Well not just women lol but the part where women are destroying them is more fun.) Should have stuck to Call of Duty.





^ it's weird that he thinks men were supposed to be the main audience for everything he brings up. Consumerism has always been associated more with women so it makes sense that the target audience for spending $$$ would be women where possible. If the people who spend money hate straight white men, then you'll get content that hates straight white men. That's assuming they're prioritising profit over their own creative preferences of course. Also I don't understand his complaint about gay male Shepard. I mean because he seems specifically bothered about that and less bothered about lesbian female Shepard. If you're going to have one, you obviously have to have both or it just extends the backwards attitude towards homosexuality that most of the world shares where they violently hate male homosexuality and ignore/begrudgingly tolerate female homosexuality most of the time when they don't feel like raping them.

Technically speaking the characters would be bisexual I guess. Consider it pay back for all the bisexual characters from the 90s and 2000s who were made either straight or gay. And I know of many btw. (Willow why is she a lesbian when she's obviously bisexual... Spencer Reid on Criminal Minds couldn't be bisexual even though the writer was gay and wanted to make him bisexual so he had to be straight, Phoebe on Friends is singing a song about bisexuals kidding themselves but keeps talking about how hot various women are and is attracted to Ross and Monica's cousin. She's straight though!) Some were also turned into cousins haha (in the US dub of Sailor Moon.) Who knows maybe when you stop talking about 'gay Shepherd' and 'lesbian Shepherd' maybe people will stop. Probably not though because Velma is a lesbian except when the writers find Glenn Howerton attractive and so have to make her have a crush on Fred. Also she briefly dated Shaggy and kissed Daphne and a lot of guys sure do seem attracted to Velma... Huh. And also that straight white male WoW dev who likes Sylvanas so hooked her up with a self insert character. And game devs spend all their time working (overtime often,) in an industry with few women, not often the most socially adept people in the first place, and can't get a girlfriend. Or boyfriend hypothetically.

I don't think you've fully recognised how much of a dystopia we live in so your lens is a bit skewed by your own optimism about the world.

Also guys like this just sound like reverse Anita Sarkeesians and mostly it just seems to reveal how much straight men (tm) and women (tm) are at complete odds in terms of preferences and don't like each other. Also straight men (tm) and LGBT+ people (tm.) (tm) because these are all just stereotypical loud voices.

At least among people who are very vocal the kinds of characters most men aspire to be are not the kind of characters women find attractive (especially the kind of women who play video games,) and vice versa with the characters women find inspirational generally speaking men aren't into them and find them annoying and unattractive. So you have two competing audiences with entirely different preferences (well at least two.) Not to mention the various preferences of the designers themselves. I wish everyone would understand that and stop coming up with bizarre conspiracy theories to explain this away but alas.

A lot of the audience seem to be disagreeing with him though which is odd for YouTube. Generally speaking comments sections are predominantly filled with people agreeing, and then a minority disagreeing especially if you sort by 'top comments.'

Ah yes, the two sexualities: Straight and Political

A video essay on how wokeness is ruining the video game industry. Woke bugmen game journalists are in a liberal bubble and can't stand the majority of their own audience, and game developers have largely given in to leftist cancel mobs. This has turned games into woke corporate trash. Examples: Unlikable female protagonists in Forspoken and Horizon Zero Dawn, gay and lesbian characters in the Last of Us, the innumerable gay flags in Call of Duty.

^ bear in mind that in the UK at least 21% of game developers are LGBT+ (still a minority but like insanely overrepresented.) I also noticed a lot at my uni studying a related topic so this has increasingly been the case over the years and so you will start to see that reflected in the type of video games that are created. Not many women in general though and probably not many cis straight women, just lots of LGBT+ people.

The Last of Us Part 2 is a neverending nightmare of discourse, and the outrage hasn't stopped. By far the most absurdly controversial aspect remains Abby, a character whose existence has been offered up for debate by weirdos.

Abby's swole build has been called into question by a bunch of boys desperate to erase anybody who doesn't fit into their tiny idea of what "real" women should look like. To do this, they've gone to amazing lengths to argue why Abby shouldn't be muscular.

It's an absolute roller coaster of nonsense, let me tell you.

"nobody shoots anybody in the face unless you're a hit man or a video gamer."

"We've always had guns, always had evil, but I see a video game industry that teaches young people to kill."

My own contentious relationship with gaming continued through high school and college: I still enjoyed playing games from time to time, but I always found myself pushed away by the sexism that permeated gaming culture. There were constant reminders that I didn't really belong.

^ tbf she also once said that she didn't play video games at all so.

A good 80% of video games are built around the same premise, "murder a bunch of stuff!? It severely limits the medium?s potential. #E32017

Imagine all the stories we're missing out on because game developers insist on building worlds we experience through the barrel of a gun.

Imagine player interactions inside game worlds that aren't forged through combat but are instead based on shared creative endeavors. #E32017

I've used The Sims to kill Sims in unique and weird ways outside of the general bounds of what the game allows even modding the game to do that. I once [redacted] I also carry out other weird experiments. The Sims is a game that encourages creativity.

Also if you make chaotic videos like that, it will generally get more attention than those which don't. From majority female audiences.





I discovered his channel because people in my comments section compared me to his channel at one point. His channel is very popular but he doesn't just make Sims videos but he still gets millions of views on his Sims content. I see him get brought up the most when people are asking for suggestions for people to watch.

Just noticed this video title is actually referencing one of Kevin's lol:





A lot of channels are like cutesy Saw film series. Some people make this kind of thing in The Sims 4 as well:





I really want to hammer that point home though. Because you can't just stop people enjoying fictional violence by changing the genre of game or increasing the capacity for creativity.

In focus groups for simulation games they found that men would lie about what they were doing in the game and pretend they were having sex and committing violent acts, when they were actually just cooking because a large part of playing the game is also mundane stuff like that and 'that's girly.' (I don't know why they lied because they were being watched and I assume knew that.) But that's not what most people want to watch.

Don't get me wrong though there's also lots of gay stuff happening and 'male character gets pregnant' and various videos that are blatantly catering to someone's fetish whether they realise or not. 'Pregnant with wolves' 'mermaid barbie birth underwater sims 4' I think someone made a video critiquing that segment before lol. Like from outside The Sims community 'uh so what's going on here guys?' LOL. I can't find that video now.

One day someone will get the balance between violence and gay stuff just right and everyone will be happy. Or we could just go back to playing Spyro. I mean it's still violent but unrealistic violence.

We just saw a packed auditorium full of adults cheering at seeing bodies cut in half with a chainsaw. Really think about that for a moment.

Think about it without getting defensive. No one wants to ban DOOM. But what message does that send to the world about the gaming community?

Lots of sadists. It's better to enjoy that virtually than irl.

Some YouTube comment:

Quitting partying, doing drugs and alcohol, fake friends, being lazy and unproductive was the best decision of my life. Now after 3 years of working on my personality and working out...I realized something which was on my mind a long time ago. I need to cold turkey quit gaming. Thank you for these uplifting Videos. More people need to see this, look in the mirror and face their inner demons. God bless everyone who started the journey of not wasting any more of their precious time on Earth! <3

Puritanical again.

Just moved from one thing to another lol. Perhaps before you stop thinking about stopping some behaviour you should think about what you're going to replace that behaviour with and be realistic. Do I think Tristan Tate is better than someone who does nothing but plays video games no I don't but I think a lot of people do so that's why Tristan Tate exists. And honestly I think he might be worse than his brother Andrew in some ways. At least as bad and some things I've heard him say are worse. Also he's living in Andrew's shadow which is sad for a different reason.

So in conclusion I guess technically doing anything related to video games is the most edgy thing you can do right now. Sad but essentially true. The people have spoken lol.

If this was a video essay I'd just end with like some clip of someone (myself I guess) doing this:

Long time viewers of my channel they shouldn't be too terribly surprised that hey I like dragons so let's get some dragons up in here. This particular series I've liked it ever since the first time I had the chance to play one of them. My first experience with this series I think goes back to when there was the official playstation magazine. They'd occasionally release demo discs and this was on one of them. So I played the demo and I just instantly fell in love with it. I thought it was charming and fun and as soon as I had access to get the main game I went for it. So let's play Spyro the Dragon.

I just found this channel and his voice is actually really cute what was I doing again?

It's just the juxtaposition of all this [BEEP] oh my God. But that's why I started contemplating making gaming videos again in 2020. Initially it was just because some people seemed friendly/wholesome and not a nightmare like most of the internet and in 2019 my friend sent me this clip of this YouTuber expressing like pure undiluted joy and excitement to the point of crying about something in a game. And I was like 'yes. I remember that.' But obviously it can satisfy multiple needs simultaneously (sadism, attention, creative outlet, money etc.)

Actually I do want to make a video essay about something (I had a concept + title for one video but it wasn't quite speaking to me + editing another video atm,) but I don't have all the pieces yet. The main thing is I don't want to do what I do in my posts here where I keep posting the same kind of thing but with slight variations because I had another thought. So not making it yet (I see this happening a lot on YouTube.) Though that's ironic because my main channel is already in a super specific niche and if I upload anything even slightly outside of it it gets less attention because that's how YouTube works for most people. Basically the only reason I spend so much time writing these posts is because it's cathartic and I'm mostly invisible and I'm getting no money so I'm annoying the least amount of people possible while still posting online haha.

[Nyctophilia]

Sounds like the ocean. Also Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, etc obviously.

https://soundcloud.com/orchid_mantis...=orchid_mantis

anyone unable to read the bio this isn't her music. her stuff doesn't sound like this and this cannot compare. we don't know if it's somehow hinting to a new era or if it's random but i'd be surprised if ethel did anything randomly, especially posted by her from her youtube channel. we shall see

Also isn't clear at all that it's not her music. She really needs to specify in the title as well as bio (but I guess why she didn't, because of the aesthetic.) I mean I read the bio and realised but lots of people aren't noticing in the comments. Even after reading that it wasn't clear to me whether this was her music and just under a different name. Cause her real name isn't Ethel Cain obviously, and Ethel Cain isn't the first name she's posted music under. She also posts ambient music under אשמדא:

https://soundcloud.com/ashmedaiii/003a



So no. Not clear lol. I'd say the biggest clue it might not be her music is most of her music is dark in theme. And also that soundcloud account has the name Thomas Howard and Atlanta United States.

The shitposting is sending me though:

I love the commitment of mother spending the last 6 months to teach herself bioengineering so she could produce these orchid mantis larvae that never pupate in order to teach them the choreography for this video. As usual, mother makes it seem near effortless. Bioengineer, siren, muse, pupa blocker, choreographer, singer, songwriter, producer, mantis herder, and absolute icon.

spreading misinformation or legit

^ this made it even funnier.

Much appreciated. I just want to bring attention to mother's groundbreaking work in the fields of biogenetics, quantum mechanics, human cloning, the Goetia relating to the Keys of Solomon, and especially mother's work on marriage and trauma counseling for the Tulpa community.
I just feel that sometimes these aspects are overlooked because of mother's musical career, which is understandable considering what absolute bangers are in mother's catalogue.

Whenever her fans call her mother I just think of this Sims 4 game pack (which is definitely referencing other things in cinema but yeah):

why is everyone freaking out about the sim speaking english? in my house we stan a bilingual king

Dead.

I don't often play The Sims 4 (no I really don't lol,) but when I do I usually hook my Sims up with the red headed Sim with glasses Erwin Pries, or Morgyn Ember from the Realm of Magic pack or the androgynous mersim from Island Living who's name I always forget. Paka'a Uha yeah.

Actually when I first discovered that mer Sim I was purposefully trying not to let my preferences influence my Sim's dating decisions (which I usually do or at least factor in their preferences chemistry wise, but The Sims 4 gives you more control than the previous games in a sense because your sims just don't have much in the way of personality or desires or even dating preferences, even after reintroducing the concept of wants and fears they still didn't work well at all which is really sad because they worked better in The Sims 2, and now they have sexual orientations but I think they still don't have preferences beyond that which is weird. Which is one of many reasons it's my least favourite game in the series.) But I'd downloaded a mod which randomises preferences for your Sims because that way I'm not making all the decisions and it's more interesting. But the Sim just wasn't having that she was like 'No I want to date the hot androgynous guy (? gender unclear) stop trying to hook me up with bearded guys.' I tried.

Anyway The Strangerville pack was really fun to play and I also really like desert aesthetics and always liked Strangetown from The Sims 2 which it's vaguely a nod to. I always liked The Sims console games because of the quest/scripted element as well. For some reasons aliens are actually a huge ongoing element of most of the Sims console games. (I mean the subtext of The Sims games especially the early ones is actually quite dark and the whole thing is kind of dystopian so kind of makes sense.) Even ones where it's not obvious at all like oh my god the ending of this one game but I won't spoil by saying which one. It's like that Itchy and Scratchy thing in The Simpsons where he's like 'I have to go now. My planet needs me.'



But I still liked it because it's whimsical and looking back it's like playing an indie game.

But the replay value of that gamepack isn't brilliant, and it also doesn't take that long to complete. But if it did have greater replay value, I'd probably like more packs like that but that's really because The Sims 4 isn't a great Sims game so it's like you try and find redeeming qualities in the packs that exist.

The main selling point of The Sims 4 is it has the hottest Sims and the best create a sim from the pov of modifying physical features. Not personality obviously.

Someone asked this on tumblr recently and this was her response:

LOOKINGFORMADS ASKED:
why are all of ethels boyfriends twinks.

only willoughby. logan was a hunk and isaiah was too, kinda. both taller than her also. willoughby is the same height as her.

That's very female gaze of her. Also I guess this means Isaiah isn't a hot serial killer because he's not a twink and I don't make the rules for Western civilisation Tumblr does (Tumblr also decides on the definition of twink):



Also I love how they're just telling on themselves. They imagined them as twinks :')

Lol reminds me of this video why is there so much discussion about this:



WE HAVE TO KNOW PRECISELY HOW SKINNY THESE CHARACTERS ARE. #SANE.

I love how they're all arguing about what this fictional character should look like. I mean it's her character but still.

"Cal Robertson"

Yeah that's not bad I guess.

Just reading the chat:

"Will you ever write a song about scissoring?"

Asking the real questions.

"That answers my question there's no elf bars in 1991"

Are there elf bars now? (And what do they mean by elf bar? I'm going to pretend they mean elf themed bars.) I'm doing life wrong. But I already knew that.

Edit: The chat in that video is so funny like:

"Ethel's grandma better be a lesbian."

"Willoughby is actually a lesbian what do you mean."

I was wondering before if Willoughby was the character in the camo jacket in this video. Because I just headcannon'd that character as being a non-binary lesbian lol. I don't think it is that character though. I can't find clarification.



Also:

'God bless Crush, it was a fun song, but I honestly reject ever making that song. Because people are obsessed with pop music, and if they hear you do even a shred of anything pop-tinted, they're like 'we only want this from you.'

At about 3 minutes into this video for a very brief second there's someone who looks a lot like that person or is that person, maybe they're still playing him in this music video I dunno: