sthetic

@sthetic@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bottoms up⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m only in that category because I don’t drink coffee every day.

  When I used to drink it daily, it did nothing for me except remove my irritability and prevent a headache.

  Now, I take at least two non-coffee days between coffees. I don’t depend on coffee on any given day; I can wake up with energy and go about my life without it.

  But when I do have coffee, it has a huge effect on me. I get super caffeinated. And it tastes delicious.

  It’s Saturday morning and I still feel energized from the coffee I had at noon yesterday. I could hardly sleep. It’s kind of a problem.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The White House is paving over the Rose Garden with concrete. People are outraged⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree. I despise Trump. But removing a lawn and putting in hardscape, in a spot where people often gather for events, is not an insult to heritage or anything like that.

  If a president that I otherwise liked did this, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

  It’s not as if a lawn is super environmentally valuable. And I doubt people spread picnic blankets and play Frisbee on this lawn - they put chairs on it and walk on it with heels and hold events and stuff.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm gonna mute this one⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “Man, I was fine with just being intentionally homeless, and I was fine with all the other stigma and physical discomforts, until I realized that the city wants to discourage my presence in public spaces. Fuck these armrests, I’ll just go to a shelter, get treatment for my addiction, get counseling for my traumatic past that fed the addiction, get an education, get a job, rent a house, save money, then buy a home instead. It’s just not worth trying to get comfy on this bench.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dear Kevin⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I choose guilty sex.

  It makes it a little raunchy, without explaining why.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the best way to respond to someone who says "transracial is just as valid as transgender"?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Good points, and I think we generally agree. I definitely didn’t mean to exclude anyone in those real or hypothetical situations you mentioned. To me, those examples are more about showing how gender is, or can be, biologically fluid. There are many “odd” situations that aren’t binary. So amongst the many unusual ways that sex can occur biologically, “male brain in a female body” or “I reject the concept of gender entirely” are valid and believable.

  I agree with your last point as well, but in the context of this post, would you tell Rachel Dolezal that she says she’s Black, so she’s Black? I guess I was trying to find some sort of difference between gender and race identity, the way the question was posed.

  I’m definitely not claiming to have an unassailable argument, so thanks for responding with good points.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the best way to respond to someone who says "transracial is just as valid as transgender"?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m no expert on either topic. But I believe humans basically start off as female in the womb, and either become male or don’t. And there are many intersex conditions. The body responds to hormones typically associated with either sex. So gender is fluid in a biological sense. If someone transitions to male, female or nonbinary, they already kind of contained that potential.

  However, race is a social construct, usually based on heritage as well as biological appearance. So it’s hard to say how much biology is really involved. Does the human body contain the ability to be any race? Or to cultivate an appearance that prompts other humans to socially categorize you as one race or the other?

  Maybe for people who are mixed race, there is a sort of spectrum available to them. They likely know how to present themselves in a way that gets them categorized as one race or the other.

  But otherwise, not really. If you’re White, and you say, “I identify as Black,” the question might be: do you have Black heritage? If you don’t, you can’t really create it out of thin air. There wasn’t a situation while you were in the womb where various hormones could have influenced you to appear more Black than you do. If your parents are both White, they were going to have a White baby, no matter what.

  If you’re assigned female at birth, and you say, “I identify as male,” then cool! Your body already has the capability to become hormonally male. You can socially identify as male. Any human, of any race, has this potential. Any two parents could have a baby that is any sex or gender, depending on various factors.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon watches a romance movie⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, fictional romance is more interesting when it’s forbidden in some way. Otherwise, who wants to read a romance novel about a nice couple who meets at the library when they’re both single, and proceeds to have a wholesome relationship? Great for real life, but boring to read about or watch a movie about.

  Many of the traditional reasons for forbidding a romance are gone in the contemporary world. Different race, different social class, same gender, rival families? Not convincing.

  So you’re left with stuff that’s plausible but icky, like being in a relationship already, or being teacher/student or boss/employee. Or pornographic stuff like step-family. Those are problematic and people will criticize them.

  You could set your story in a historical setting in which the countess and the gardener are truly forbidden from passion, or a fantasy world where the ogopogos and sasquatches are sexy rivals.

  Or just have a lukewarm type of forbidden-ness, like “his family’s greeting-card store is in competition with my family’s greeting-card store” or “we’re coworkers.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon's split personality⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The eyeballs are a good example. But perhaps an ignorant pro-vag-washing man could retort, "Well, nobody jizzes in my eyeballs!’

  Maybe the issue is self-loathing as well as misogyny - they think their cum is disgusting, so they assume it contaminates a vag?