SwingingTheLamp

@SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨type shit⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Again, I have to express doubt. I understand brain plasticity, and why some people can read Braille, while I cannot. (I haven’t put in the work.) Sensory receptors are specific to certain functions, though, and one type cannot assume the function of another if it’s not present. Nobody can read Braille on their lower back, because it lacks fine-touch receptors.

  I did read a study which made a good point about perceived intensity of sensation not correlating with number of sensory receptors. I can understand why circumcision may not affect many men. However, I stand by my statement that you cannot perceive sensation from receptors that are gone. WRT the original comment, there are some men who do experience lowered or absent sexual sensation due to circumcision. Perhaps their brains are attuned to those receptors that are gone. Also, later in life sensory perception of all kinds naturally begins to fade, and the number of missing receptors become more evident.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sneacking a meme in before .world updates⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Imagine being so ignorant and/or racist to call out another nation for human trafficking from the United States.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨type shit⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  That, uhh, sounds nice and all, but I don’t believe it. This doesn’t even make sense on the face of it: Why does removing one body part lead to phantom pain signals, but removing another body part lead to improved sensation? Do people who lose fingers develop better sensation in their remaining fingers to compensate? Wouldn’t it stand to reason then that some men would get phantom foreskin pain?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨type shit⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  That is non-figuratively impossible. You can’t feel anything with nerve endings that have been removed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨type shit⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  There are several possible reasons why other men might be upset, although your own equipment still works perfectly normally:

  • Just like women’s sexual responses differ, men’s sexual responses may differ, as well. I’ve learned from a friend, who’s had many male partners, that some men get intense pleasure from manipulation of their foreskin. Some can even reach orgasm that way. I’ve learned from several (intact) men on Reddit and Lemmy that their primary source of sexual sensation is their foreskin, rather than their glans. Losing a major source of pleasure could be upsetting.

  • This same friend also reports that, in his experience, intact men have better awareness of their own state of arousal, and better control of it. In brief, they can “last longer.” This is anecdotal, of course, but I seem to recall reading some research to back that up. That’s part of the reason why he’s upset by his being circumcised.

  • “Circumcision” is not just one thing. It ranges from the traditional bris (a small snip at the tip of the penis, so that the tip of the glans just peeks out) to amputation of the entire mobile skin system of the penis (about 15 sq. in. of adult tissue gone). I would imagine that men who have drum-tight skin on their penises, and must use lube to facilitate penetration or masturbation, might not like it, whereas a man whose glans was still covered when his penis was flaccid might not notice much difference.

  • The dorsal nerve of the penis can be severed during the procedure, removing sensation from the glans almost entirely, leading to erectile and performance issues, as well as greatly reduced enjoyment of sex.

  • The healing of the circumcision wound can go not-quite-perfectly, leading to adhesions, assymetry, tight frenulums, phantom pain, and scarring. Journalist Gary Shteyngart wrote an essay about the odyssey of pain that he was thrown into when a skin bridge (an adhesion) on his penis became infected. Worse, I recall a letter published in Savage Love from a man whose circumcision scar was so thick and inelastic that it caused the end of his penis to go ischemic, then necrotic, and then fall off when he was an infant. He’s left with a stub of a penis, and a pretty good reason to be upset about circumcision, I’d say.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This keeps me up at night⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Can’t fool me, I saw that post about re-charging your cat from a plasma globe…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This keeps me up at night⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  So then why do we have the idiom, “dead cat bounce”? Seems this would only work until the cat dies. (Entropy is a bastard.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The true meaning of love⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The account over 2 years old, and just became active recently, so it’s unlikely. There was another user who seemed to take personal affront to violet08, and it’s more likely to be him based on how over-the-top that account’s posts are.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm 29 and my partner is only 28 am I exploiting her?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I used to date a woman who’s a month older than me. She used to joke about robbing the cradle. Too bad I’m not as clever as the Futurama writers, or I would’ve insisted instead that I was robbing the grave.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Beautiful⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  At least it’s better than when they cast Paul Bettany as Maturin in that movie opposite Russell Crowe. He’s not even a turtle, he just studied them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What the Hell is this Bull shit ?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The six-packs of bottles sold in grocery stores have been 500mL for years. Probably somebody filled the machine with them. (The label should say, “Not Labelled for Individual Sale” near the barcode, if so.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank Thomas Jefferson for that brain damage. It has a lot to do with why most of our topsoil is now in the Gulf of Mexico.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Picture of elongated people with their arms raised in happiness⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d be happy, too, if I didn’t have to wear pants.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨guys would this work?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Right proper shitpost here. Imma start forking ASAP.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨California father arrested after repainting crosswalk, adding stop signs near children’s park⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for the excellent reply. I don’t exactly agree, but I love that it’s logical, clear, and respectful.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Doesn't happen here much but it does elsewhere.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The crying woman is close enough to monument in the cemetery near my house that I’m pretty sure that he’s stealing her dead baby, which, given Jesus’ close association with Israel, is right on brand.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨California father arrested after repainting crosswalk, adding stop signs near children’s park⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They allegedly did a study to see whether there was enough traffic, a step which requires a certain commitment of resources. If the placement of a stop sign would’ve harmed safety by displacing traffic flow, then they could’ve cited that without spending time on a study. But they didn’t, from which we can conclude that a stop sign is okay there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨California father arrested after repainting crosswalk, adding stop signs near children’s park⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It may be a science, but that doesn’t place it in some rarefied air of infallibility, any more than any other science. It’s only ever as good as how it’s applied, and how any science is applied is always subject to human fallibility. Traffic engineering is especially bad in that respect, routinely and as a matter of course being subverted by political considerations, not least by the fundamental choices about who and what matters, and who and what does not matter. It does not deserve much respect as a practice.

  But with that said, in this case, even the traffic engineers agreed that a stop sign was an appropriate treatment for this intersection when they rejected it on the basis that the traffic volume wasn’t high enough to warrant installing one. Presumably, if there were more cars, it would be fine. So, yes, we can say confidently that this man made the area safer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GroverHaus East Wing⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s also a shiny bauble to dangle in front of the demented puppet who’s the face of this regime, in order to keep him distracted.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨EU vs USA⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They still don’t have color photography in Europe?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨do I accept?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  💀

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨False Fronts⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Mostly I hear it in the idiom death throes, or in the throes of passion, but occasionally it pops up in other contexts to describe painful spasms, or difficult upheavals, like workers in the throes of economic turmoil, or the throes of childbirth.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨False Fronts⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  *throes

  I mean, I understood the comment just fine, but throe is kind of a neat word and it’s a shame not to use it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Americans be like:⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There is no better, quicker way to turn a dyed-in-the-wool, rugged-individualist, capitalist American into a raging communist than to mention anything to do with their cars: Gas (should be cheap), highway lanes (no tolls and MOAR!), or parking (free parking was the 3rd commandment).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Remember to wear your safety gear! In this case, one of those RSI wrist braces…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are Americans Actually Idiots?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s the Wheel of Dharma, a symbol from Buddhism, and to its right is the “Happy Human” symbol used by secular humanists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sitting in traffic⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My city recently got a BRT route. Having a counter that tells you how long you can expect to be stuck in traffic is good UX, but even better is when the trip always takes the same time, because you’re not stuck in car traffic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sitting in traffic⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In a walkable area, you don’t buy for a week at a time, you buy what you need for a meal or two. Popping into the store is a pleasant, 10-minute diversion where you’re likely to see friends and neighbors, not a 2-hour safari overland to the edge of nowhere. It means buying fresh, healthy food, rather than the giant palettes of highly-processed product that I see folks haul out of the CostCo.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sitting in traffic⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Even better would be sitting in a climate-controlled box, with a nice chair, and a good stereo system… at home, relaxing after a nice walk.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It made it interesting when they started with a name and not a number⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I found it easy to understand. The last manual exchange in the US was replaced by automatic switching in the 1970’s, so the reason for the letters is still within living memory for some people. I thought that people who’d used the old system would be able to explain the reason for the letters easily.