Apple Cider

Yeah, things that are pretty embedded and fundamental are the hardest to change, especially when they are hard to quantitatively analyze. I did like your thoughts in the Life thread, btw! It's been hard today putting together how I feel because I am in the middle of a really serious brain fog, but you nailed some of my feelings on the head. Respecting others boundaries, particularly women's, is very hard when we live in a society that actively encourages innocuous transgressions of that regularly. I have my own critiques of monogamy but I have my own critiques of men in relationships, regardless of what they are because you still carry that baggage with you. Being into kink or polyamory doesn't shield you from being misogynistic, abusive, or just generally a butt. Relationships are not immediately radical if you don't do internal work to root out problematic behaviours.

Well, yeah, that's the obscuring factor of privilege - if you don't deal with that kind of socialization or behavior, it's extremely hard to understand why it is a problem. But the pushback is just so loud, I want people to at least consider why they think they can make demands on people in that sort of way. Granted, there's definitely relationships and extenuating factors that obligate you in some ways socially but the less we have people not thinking critically about this, maybe that obligation will be reduced significantly. I know it's hard to cover all base on these sorts of more abstract discussions but getting at some unchallenged, unquestioned behaviors feels like a good place to really think critically.

As a jump out of the Life thread with the discussion about dating sites, let's maybe have a rap sesh about cultural mores, specifically revolving around the idea women are expected to put up with boundary violations, that assumptions about their desires is okay, and their feelings in the matter are secondary. It's a pretty difficult thing to acknowledge, admittedly because it's something I find really ingrained. But it's one of the reasons why it's so hard to interact with men, for me personally. A lot of resistance to this line of thought is like, "Oh what, so I'm not even ALLOWED to LOOK or TALK to women" but in some ways, that is not something you are owed in life. Granted, taken to the extreme, it feels very "unfair" but underpinned to this is maybe why this feels unfair. I do not feel like it is my right to be able to interact with anyone, really, but I even had to be pretty into feminist thought to recognize this pattern of thought. For a very long time, I felt like I was here to acquiesce to the attention of men, even so much that it was tantamount to how I felt about it. It's a pretty wicked socialization to not only teach someone that their own feelings are not paramount but rather that this behavior is a way to be validated (as men's attention makes you "worthy".) It's hard, even now, to tell dudes who are creeping on me to go fuck off, because innocuous violations get me labeled something nasty, and more intense violations risk the threat of violence or worse. See: Telling a guy not to leer at me or get into my personal space, etc. I even used to have a lot of anxiety about this because I've had shitty stuff happen to me while out and about on like, public transit.

I think this conversation says a lot more about societal mores about assuming things about other people and not really caring, in the end, if you feel that your desire to reach out to them is paramount. Which is a whole other conversation in and of itself, but it's why dating or meeting sites in general are really annoying because no matter what, you end up dealing with tons of creepy randoms. Like, maybe the "only friends" setting would be meaningful if you had any real means to not get creepy people in your PM box. This is not the fault of people who use the friends setting "poorly" but rather the people who will do whatever they want anyways?

My boyfriend has static fried at least one electronic device in our house. No lie.

Yeah, my ex had a grounding strip literally because that was his job - building out servers, etc.

If you build PCs on the regular, I would just suggest a grounding bracelet but honestly, just tie your hair back and touch your fingers to the case every so often. I've built computers on rugs, with a cat (IN A HAT, ON A TRAIN, ON A PLANE) with long hair and haven't had any parts fry.

All I ask from anyone, ever, is that they respect my boundaries. If you can't do that, there's no way I can trust you in a friendship, much less a sexual relationship. So wait, does this mean "absence of no means yes" because as far as I am concerned "friends only" is a no, but I am also incredibly squicked out by the idea of "well you didn't say you're against it specifically anywhere so..." vs. "Oh, you said specifically you ARE open to it!" C'mon.

I've been mulling over that for a bit because you have to either REALLY like free speech so much that you're okay with overlooking child porn or you just really like child porn or a little of both. The really weird part of this is that people still don't get that matters of the free speech thing do not stop any private individual from limiting you, so I am just guessing the latter for most people on 8chan.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/207704056/black-lodge-fingerless-gloves-chevron?ref=also_bought Guys, did you know there's a ton of kitschy Twin Peaks crap on Etsy? I did not know this. Beware. I may have bought these.

I quit WoW last year with just over 1000 days played.

The only YTMND I ever watched with regularity was the dude screaming about the loot off Princess Huhuran from World of Warcraft.

Yeah, nothing says like unrestricted speech protected from the government like fascism

All this does is make me feel old because I was a teen before social media was invented.

No problem. It was really crucial for me to understand just the mechanics are behind many forms of abuse, including from friends.

Nothing is wrong with you. Crying happens for a lot of reasons and it's pretty typical. It sounds like you needed to spend time with someone and connect with them and that's not a bad thing, it's a pretty human need to be filled. Crying sometimes is your brain's way of dealing with pretty intense emotions that might overwhelm you - I cry a lot when I am swept up in feeling vulnerable or angry. It's almost like a cup spilling over that's a little bit too full. It sounds like you're crying because you had a really happy time and now it's ending and you miss it. Nothing is wrong with you, you're pretty awesome.

I am currently listening to a gaming podcast made by some college friends I haven't spoken to in 10+ years, it is surreal. The internet is crazy and my life is bizarre.

Just a heads up to anyone who wants to watch Black Mirror: series 1 deals HEAVILY with sexual coersion and other dark themes regarding that and if that's something that bothers you, maybe skipping the first two episodes, especially. Series 2 is slightly less grim in that respect.

To all of those who messaged me about the PDF, reminder to myself I will send it tonight, this week has been fucking crazy at work and I come home and forget to do everything.

I have no issue with polyamory, literally none. But my understanding of poly couplings was consent, respect, boundaries, etc. If I literally list myself as ONLY looking for FRIENDS, a couple (of any stripe, most of this was actually heterosexual "open" marriages or committed couples looking for threesomes, not even all poly) looking at me for sex is not negotiating with me on respectful premises. I grasp that being poly opens you up to a lot of intense scrutiny and trust me, I empathize as a queer woman. Being bisexual means being hypersexualized literally all the time if you are visible, among other things. However, every time I was approached by someone, it was always the man of whatever relationship it was, it was always "want to hang out with me and my wife/primary/etc" with the "and potentially more" hanging out there despite requesting no "more" at all. I don't care who you are or what you do in your life, but respect people. I can grok that it's hard to screen for potential other poly people since it doesn't seem like they have similar sites for meeting like OkCupid but I thought poly people tend to list that kind of thing in profiles.

I suspect most places have abandoned long-form work because frankly, it's pretty expensive (if you even pay out that much to your writers) and it is hard to produce consistently that generates enough hits to pay for work like that. A lot of longforms are GREAT (see Polygon's history of games marketing creating the gender divide) but they don't drive traffic in the slightest. I read Polygon, Kotaku, Unwinnable, Crit Distance, Five Out of Ten, Arcade Review, Haywire, etc.

Please review "Twin Beaks" from Sesame Street.

Yeah, I really need a platonic friends app, really badly. It's so hard to meet people in my city since I am not a college student, not similar with work cohorts, etc.

I was going to link that here so I am glad someone beat me to it. Her proddings at what it means to be a female auteur and get no credit is so meaningful.

The scene with Maddy was really horrifying the first time I saw it and I got that same gut punch when I finally watched FWWM. Because it gives you a huge amount of context for that scene.