リスカ/Řîşü ♡ he/him/his ♡ adult (this is my age, if you need more specificity in my country adults are over 18) ♡ Header by @transmascbastard and icon by @ratsetflummi ♡ Hamas stans fuck off ♡
Unless I know you or your fundraiser is actually verified, I will not reblog it. If you send it me on anon or tag me in replies, I will assume you are a scammer.
Hi, I'm Risuka
♡ he/him/his
♡ adult (this is how old I am)(this is considered to be my age)
♡ queer
♡ cripple + mad (not mentally ill)
♡ parent
♡ I will be converting to Judaism the second my child isn't taking up 100% of my time
Sideblogs:
♡ eroticplantibal (plants)
♡ divine-guro (horny shit)
♡ autoartisticasphyxiation (art)
Off-site:
♡ AO3: eroticcannibal
♡ visualkeiarchive.neocities.org (visual kei)
♡ risuka.neocities.org (personal site)
If you want to cancel me:
♡ Terrorism is bad guys. Yes even Hamas. And the IDF. Both bad. Indiscriminate violence is bad. Terrorism is not resistance.
♡ Inclusionism good (in general)
♡ Kinks are good especially the "problematic" ones
♡ Porn is good for you
♡ Cripple punk is by the physically disabled, for the physically disabled
♡ Prisons are necessary but need reform and should not be used for non violent offences and even many violent offences
♡ pro-Zionist (I do not believe non-Jews should be identifying as zionist or antizionist), pro-Palestine and anti-kahanist.
♡ Chibnall is not *that* bad a writer
♡ I support sex-offenders registers
♡ Most discourse could be solved by putting your phone down and learning a craft
♡ Stop putting that you're a minor + your triggers in your description
♡ TMA/TME is fucking dumb
♡ Transandrophobia is real + neither trans women nor trans men are "more" oppressed
♡ Recovery culture is harmful + anti-psych is good
♡ Home education is not only good but necessary to meet children's right to education
♡ Sex work is work
♡ The Magnus Archives did not have a 5th series
♡ Mutual abuse isn't real, thats just self defense
♡ Amber Heard was right + Neil Gaiman is a sexual abuser
I'm not gonna get into the trans infighting thing yet because tbh I'm over it, but when looking at posts like this it's really important that we remember to actually read the studies that people are talking about, instead of inferring facts from out-of-context screenshots taken from news reports that only quoted the study and didn't get into the big picture.
so for anyone else who (like me) saw this post and wondered what the numbers actually said, I've broken it all down:
(TL;DR at the bottom!)
here's the full paper, by the way. it's called "Transgender and Nonbinary Deaths Investigated by the State Medical Examiner in the Portland, Oregon, Metro Area and Their Concordance With Vital Records, 2011-2021". it's a study about discrepancies in death certificate data and medical examiner records, with the goal of helping people make death certificates more accurate in the future.
it's important to remember that this data is:
local to the Portland metro area
from January 1st, 2011 through September 30th, 2021
a very, very small sample size (only 47 people!)
like to give you an idea of how small a sample size it is, the article says this:
Estimates of the transgender population in the United States vary; a recent estimate is 0.6% of the adult population (or around 1.4 million); for Oregon, the estimate is nearly 20 000 individuals. This article focuses on the Portland, Oregon, metro area (Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington Counties), which has an estimated total population of 1.8 million residents; 0.6% of the adult population is an estimated 9500 transgender individuals.
also it seems this study only included information about violent deaths, or deaths that were investigated for potentially being violent, because that's what was available.
Oregon was one of the first states to participate in the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), which contains detailed information on violent deaths, including homicide, suicide, and overdose. The NVDRS has a variable to collect gender identity (for violent deaths only) via a checkbox for transgender status but does not have specific gender categories. This difference is important, because research has demonstrated an increase in violence among nonbinary transgender persons versus other transgender individuals.
In Oregon, the Office of the State Medical Examiner investigates certain types of deaths (Oregon Revised Statute 146.090) in its jurisdiction, including by possible suicidal, homicidal, and accidental means.
Note that “natural” deaths are not under the purview of the ME system.
and very important to note that these are only deaths where investigators knew and recorded that the dead individual was transgender. there are likely many other trans people in the system whose deaths were not included in this study for that reason.
Moreover, if death investigators did not ask about the decedent's gender identity, then the data would not be included in the case narrative, thus never making it into the NVDRS pipeline. Furthermore, there is a multiple year lag time with NVDRS data, and generally data at the county level are not easily accessible.
and the study goes even further in saying that the MEs probably wouldn't have recorded a patient's trans identity unless it was relevant to their death
Gender identity is collected in the narrative portion of the report if it is perceived as forensically germane to the death investigation. However, sex at birth on a decedent's official documentation may differ from the self-identified or preferred gender of the decedent. The 2015 US Transgender Survey reported that only 11% of respondents had all their identifications with the name and gender they preferred, while more than two-thirds had none of their identifications with their preferred name and gender. Thus, evidence collected by the investigator regarding gender identity and transgender or nonbinary status may be inconsistent.
(the bolding here is mine)
I want to make sure everyone here sees what I'm seeing: we really have no idea how many people in their death records are trans. we have no fucking idea, because people straight-up do not record that shit, and to pretend that this study is a great and balanced example of every single trans person who died in the Portland metro area would be very weird.
we can't know how many trans men were only listed as female, or how many trans women were listed as male, or how many nonbinary people were listed as either male or female. that is an unknowable thing for us!
this is one reason why erasure is a kind of violence: even when people are trying to study it, the lack of information being recorded means that we do not have a way to do that.
even if someone combed through every single death record, looked at everyone's social media on the wayback machine, talked to people that they knew, they would have at best a vague guess of what some of those individuals' identities might have been.
that's why the researchers in this study put it out there, to say hey, maybe we should make it easier for trans people to be remembered the way that they want to be:
Typically, the funeral home director adds the final information about the decedent's sex in the official death certificate, based on informant interview (legal next of kin in Oregon). However, the next of kin may not be aware of or disagree with the decedent's preferred gender or sex. This phenomenon can lead to what has been termed nonconsensual de-transitioning—a type of gender bias after death.
In this study, we used narrative information from the Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington County Medical Examiner case investigations between 2011 and 2021 to determine and describe transgender status of decedents. To further investigate the concordance between transgender status and the official death certificate sex, we matched data between the ME system and the death certificate. We expected poor concordance because gender information is not a required element of the death certificate. However, reporting on this discrepancy is an important step in determining whether individuals are being nonconsensually detransitioned.
(bolding still mine)
got that? that this study was written by some very nice people who want trans people to get to have a legacy that they choose? and who expected the data to be transphobic, but put it in writing it and published it in hopes that maybe it will help trans people in the future?
okay cool. moving on.
here are the death stats:
We identified 51 deaths from the ME narrative and/or suicide form in the Portland metro area between January 1, 2011, and September 30, 2021, in transgender persons (Table 2). More deaths were identified between 2020 and 2021 (n = 27) than all the other years combined (n = 24). The most frequent gender reported was transgender female (36/51, 71%), followed by transgender male (11/51, 21%). Suicide was the most frequent manner of death (36/51, 69%), followed by accident (7/51, 14%) and natural death (7/51, 14%).
so 51 deaths: 36 trans women, 11 trans men, and 4 nonbinary people.
(the above paragraph I quoted doesn't mention that the remaining four were nonbinary, but the rest of the study does; you can check if you don't trust me)
(also fuck, it's bleak that so much of their data came from just 2020 and 2021. I'm hoping that that means an increase in people being able to be identified as transgender and not more trans deaths, but this is yet another thing I can't extrapolate from a sample size this small)
Table 3 presents the results of matching the ME reports to vital statistics death certificate data (n = 47). Excluding the death certificates marked with “unknown” sex (n = 4), there were 47 deaths to compare. The κ coefficient for this table was −0.0657, indicating poor concordance.
the study says that three trans women and one trans man had death certificates that were marked as "unknown" when it came to sex. the researchers excluded these from the study, dropping our number of people to 47.
"why exclude those people from the study?" you may be asking, and there is an answer for you:
We excluded 4 deaths marked as unknown sex in vital records for a total of 47 deaths to compare, because unknown in vital records is reserved for cases when sex cannot be determined after verification with medical records, inspection of the body, or other sources and does not correspond with any ME category.
(I'm not a scientist but as far is I understand it, because they're specifically looking for cases where ME data and death certificates match, the ME not having a category for "unknown" would mess with their study.)
here's table 3, and now we can see that on their death certificates, 13/33 trans women were gendered correctly, 5/10 trans men were gendered correctly, and 0/4 nonbinary people were.
also good to note that in Oregon, they do have X as an option on their death certificates, though as of 2022 it seems like maybe nobody was using it:
The state of Oregon did add a new category of “X” to the death certificate in April 2018 to indicate nonbinary. “X” is inclusive of individuals whose gender identity is not exclusively male or female; however, “X” is not descriptive in terms of the individual's transgender status. Use of this category “should” match the sex on other legal documents, especially the birth record. Each epidemiologist checked his or her jurisdiction's vital records for “X” and did not find any records (J. Walters, MPH, M. Mew, MPH, and K. Repp, PhD, MPH, unpublished data, 2022). It is unclear whether “X” is not used because it is unclear, uncommon, or not considered respectful of a person's gender identity.
and, the study mentions that while people can also have X put on their legal documents in Oregon (which could make it more likely for X to end up on their death certificate), there are still things that make it hard for a lot of people to change their gender information:
Changing a driver's license or ID card requires making an appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles office, requesting a new card, meeting the requirements for issuance of a new card including proof of address, getting a picture taken, and paying a $40 to $70 fee. Obtaining a new birth certificate with a corrected sex requires an application signed by the applicant in front of a notary, a completed order form, a $35 fee, and a photocopy of the applicant's ID. Because of these lengthy processes, it is likely that only a small proportion of transgender persons have all their official identification matching their preferred gender. A person may go through life relatively unencumbered by mismatched identification but, upon his or her death, the inconsistencies cause gaps in data that obscure death disparities among gender minorities.
so what's the result of all of this?
To our knowledge, this is the first report to assess concordance of sex on death certificates and gender identified through death investigations for transgender individuals. Our findings demonstrate the significant implications for transgender individuals in a death system in which they are systematically unable to be recognized as their chosen identity after death in nearly every part of the death process.
shit sucks. for all of us. that's the result.
I don't know that I agree with all of the writers' suggested options for trying to fix this problem (but I'm not a medical examiner so I'm no expert), but the results of this study really are: in the Portland metro area from 2011-2021, it seems like trans people had a pretty high chance of being misgendered on their death certificates.
now.
if you're going to say, "yeah, and trans women have it worse than trans men! they're definitely less likely to be gendered properly!" I will say sure, in this study of 47 entire people from an area with an estimated 9500+ trans people, sure, trans women had it worse than trans men.
and nonbinary people had it worst of all in this study, with absolutely none of them being gendered correctly upon death! which is deeply sad for them, though I was honestly glad to find out Oregon even has an X option on death certificates, as I'm betting a lot of states don't.
but if you read this post, and look at this study, and for some reason decide that you're going to use it to try to argue with other queer people on the internet instead of like...idk, telling your next of kin to help you preserve your legacy when you die? calling your representatives about whatever censorship bullshit the government is up to? organizing in your community? or even like, watching Speed Racer for the 12th time and playing minecraft? then I cannot help you.
there are better ways for all of us to spend our time than starting shit (or even continuing shit!) with people who largely believe in our beliefs. if you disagree with other queer people, that's awesome because all people disagree on things all the time! but in an era where trans people have to keep a Do Not Travel list of states that are unsafe for us to even visit, we need to learn to stop doing the facebook boomer mom thing™ and actually read the data when we see posts like this.
like ideally we shouldn't start our days ready to pull out, "yeah but I'm more likely to have my memory desecrated by the government!" as a gotcha to make ourselves feel better, especially not when referencing a study of 47 people from Portland who had potentially-violent deaths over the course of a fucking decade.
TL;DR: This study was about 47 trans people from the Portland metro area who died in potentially violent ways from 2011-2021. The point of the study was to point out that it sucks that trans people can't always have the legacy that they want, or have their legal documents match their identity.
The results show us some solid examples of people being misgendered on death certificates, but teach us absolutely fuck all about which specific people are more likely to experience this, because trans people across the board are misgendered and erased so constantly that we can never know what the actual numbers are. This is something the study itself pointed out multiple times.
Also you can't extrapolate shit from a study with a sample size of 47 people.
A couple gatcha game blogs reblogged my gambling post (with clearly the best intentions) and suddenly there's an influx of ppl angrily insisting gatcha games are not gambling in there
"You're guaranteed to get everything if you spend enough money" is a fucked up defense btw. People don't have infinite money, the gambling is happening in the attempt to get the pull they want for as little money as possible, and in the sunk cost fallacy that encourages them to spend more than they otherwise would. It's predatory through using many of the same mechanisms as traditional gambling, and it's fucking ridiculous and disgusting how much it has spread and how normalised it is.
Gacha people are in so much denial about their gambling but also how gacha is a sign of further deterioration of the gaming industry; you used to pay for a game once and get everything, and DLCs were only major content additions, not micro-transaction bullshit
Yeah exactly. I'm only 31 but I do wonder if this is partially a sign of me getting old and remembering "how things used to be" vs some people online who have basically grown up with this fucked up version of the gaming industry. Extremely popular 'Live service' games with season passes, constantly releasing new cosmetics, being a continuous money sink is another aspect of it.
the amount of leftists who uncritically support the DSM-5—wielding it online in battles against random individuals who might be “faking” a disorder—boggles my fucking mind. you guys realize that the DSM-5 isn’t the only diagnostic manual on the planet, right? you realize that we place it at the top of the global hierarchy because it’s american, right? has it occurred to you that the APA shouldn’t have so much authority over what counts as a “real” mental illness? has it occurred to you that perhaps there are other diagnostic manuals? in fact, there are dimensional models that don’t rely on sorting individuals into “disorder/no disorder” boxes in the first place. food for thought, lmao
my mom just had a 7cm brain tumor removed and since she's woken up she's been talking nonstop about this dream she had about going to an art gallery full of colourful paintings by a 'homosexual artist' named klimsdorf who was ethereal and wise, both young and old... at first she was convinced he was a real person but after failing to find him online she's accepted he was a figment of her subconscious mind and is now determined to bring him to life via painting his portrait herself. she's 67 and has never drawn in her life. and now this. blorbo from her tumor
everyone post your biggest hear me outs my friend just showed me two conventionally attractive white men in a row i need to teach him what a real hear me out is
It is. There is nothing wrong with watching people have sex. The morality of it depends on the context (buying porn from sex workers to watch is good, revenge porn is bad, for example), but watching people fuck? That's morally neutral. It's just watching some activities.
Almost all porn is abuse, you know that right? Most women in porn are drugged and then raped.
Even if she were paid, it would still be coercive, similarly to prostitution. You cannot buy women, or their consent. That immediately creates a coercive force that makes the consent invalid.
Ok so first of all you're lying. That is not how most porn works at all.
Regarding economic coercion, that's called having a job. But also I promise you there is a world of difference between trying to buy a person (for the love of fuck will you people ever aknowledge its not only women in porn and work conditions are a concern for EVERYONE involved) and someone making a career in porn.
Also re read what I said because you have said nothing that argues against what im saying AT ALL.
The way these people talk about sex workers genuinely makes me sick. Sex workers are not being bought, they are not owned by people paying them. They are compensated for their services or performance, like every other worker. They own themselves no matter what. They deserve dignity and respect and their work not being described in such horrible fucking ways.
And it's genuinely fucked up to tell people what they can and cannot consent to tbh? You don't get to choose that for others and then try to say you genuinely care about consent. You just want to control people.
Absolutely right. We are people, we own ourselves, we decide what we do and don't want to do. Honestly if I attach the criteria of pay and a camera to my consent, denying me that is no less fucked up than forcing that on me.
Puritanical christians/radfems and rapists/traffickers are two sides of the same coin and all ultimately working towards the goal of ruining people's lives for their own benefit.
Also, it needs to be repeated again that stigmatization of sex work leaves trafficking victims trapped. They are now in an even more socioeconomically disadvantaged position than before because no one will want to help an "icky porn star" who is being exploited.
To help trafficked and coerced sex workers we necessarily must end the demonization of sex work or else you are giving traffickers the literal tools to force unwilling people into it!
One of my family members was sex trafficked. Her case became a part of state legal precedent because her trafficker's conviction resulted in an expanded definition of one of the terms used to define trafficking (kept vague for the sake of my family's anonymity.) You know what one of the biggest barriers was to her getting help?
The fact that everyone she reached out to saw her as a stupid meth head "whore" and not a person who was fucking afraid for her life.
If society had shown sex workers some basic amount of decency, she might have had the social standing to get help sooner.
I got to see a change in the criminal law, in real time, that shifted the window on how sex workers are treated in my state. Agencies that tended to treat them as perpetrators, even when they were victims, had their behavior changed the most. But even the more progressive police departments, and of course any number of labor- and benefit-related agencies, also got a few notches more understanding and accepting.
TL;DR: sex workers are people, sex work is work, and the road to utopia is paved with extremely boring legislation and administrative decisions.
Okay but what is missing here is consent and how murky that gets with visual media.
Porn is a filmed image of someone’s naked body. An image that is being filmed for consumption and profit. That sounds obvious but it needs to be stated.
Actors and actresses in regular film have access to a full spectrum of consent over their image both when making it and after it is made. However even that broad scale level of protection does not fully protect them from exploitation from a media company or the public. You hear about terrible lawsuits all the time where big name celebrities have to fight to keep their image from being used in bad ways.
People working in the erotic film industry have less protection systematically because that industry is based on coercing people into exploitation in order to maximize profits. Pornography is a structure of capitalism. You cannot take the capitalism out of it. Exploitation is always going to be a part of a capitalist structure because the point of capitalism is to make as much money as possible. Dubious consent is a part of porn’s business model. Sex workers have less control over how the images of their bodies are made or how those are distributed or used even if they’re “doing it themselves” on a platform like Onlyfans. They don’t control the distribution of their image even if they hit post with their own finger. We live in a world with Google, photoshop, AI and screenshots.
We’ve long established as a society that consent under coercion is not true consent. We’ve long recognized that fawn is a legitimate response to threat.
So a sex worker saying “Haha idk what you’re talking about, I love doing this!” is not a legitimate endorsement of the morality or ethics of the industry they participate in. Of course they’re going to say that. They have bills to pay and this is how they currently pay them. You are hearing the coercion in front of a live audience. It doesn’t mean that they have fully and truly consented to everything that is going to happen to their image or that they truly consented to the image that was made.
So sorry but no you’re not just watching two people have sex. If you want to do that you need to find two people who want to have sex with each other who don’t mind being watched, ask them politely if you can watch and schedule an appointment.
If you’re watching porn you’re watching media that was made with coercion as a core ingredient and you don’t have true consent to be doing it. Yes even on Onlyfans. Yes even if the porn star cam girl/boy/they says you can. You’re a peeping Tom with extra steps and voyeurism in most societies is a crime. Crimes don’t stop being crimes just because a lot of people do it and people turn a blind eye to it.
And it’s not pearl clutching prudishness to say that. It’s just the harsh cold truth. Porn is not and will never be an ethical form of sex work.
Yeah you. Acknowledging your lack of reading comprehension can be an inside thought. You don’t have to click several buttons to tell us. You can just read it again dude. No one is stopping you.
TL;DR Summary: All I said was that sex workers are being disrespected and treated unfairly and gave an example of that. I stated that the fact that they are being exploited makes the industry unethical to consume as a consumer if you care about the fair treatment of sex workers. So why the f*ck are you fighting me this hard on this dude? Sus as hell. Major side eye. 😒
Actual response:
My contempt is for you specifically because you take pride in your ignorance and you paint yourself as an advocate for sex workers when you are actually a direct obstacle to their ethical treatment. Sorry not sorry babe but it’s not a particularly hot take for me to point out obvious flaws in your industry. Clearly having to think about hard things makes you uncomfortable but that’s not my problem.
If you truly want a world where sex work is respected as an industry and workers in that industry are well treated you have to have a frank conversation about the ways that they currently aren’t. Singing Kumbayah with your pants down doesn’t help anyone.
You need to talk about coercion. You need to talk about financial abuse. You need to talk about human trafficking. You need to talk about multi-million dollar media companies and how they exploit people’s content and images. Those are real issues plaguing the industry. They don’t stop being a thing just because you or someone you like is making money and thinks they have agency over themselves.
If you as a sex worker are complicit in a system that exploits people, which porn does, and you contribute to the perpetuation of that system then you’re not an advocate for your community. You can say “respect sex workers” or “sex work should be de-stigmatized” all damned day but those platitudes are meaningless swill if you openly contribute to the disrespect and the systems that create stigmatization. This industry is stigmatized because it has centuries of financial exploitation and human rights abuses baked into it and you’re not going to get rid of that until you get f*cking honest about reality and dismantle the whole thing. There is no way to preserve the status quo.
I actually respect sex workers (not you obviously because you’re more than likely merely LARPing as one). I respect them enough to research their work thoroughly. I see the entire industry clearly for what it is. A cluster fuck of labor exploitation that needs to be addressed and rectified now.
So I’ll be crass and rude now. An uppity little ninny with a delusional blindfold on with an insipid AI generated profile picture of tits can spew bullshit as much as they like but it’s not going to stop me from saying what needs to be said. Porn in its current state is not ethical. It just isn’t. It is a capitalist nightmare and if you don’t see that it’s probably because you don’t want to see it because you benefit in some way from the system either as a content creator or in your case a consumer and that makes you a bad person. Keep making and spending your money however you want but don’t play pretend that you care about other sex workers when you’re trying to preserve a system that systemically harms them.
I frankly hope I’m upsetting you enough to actually think about the industry you claim to be a part of and the part you play in it. Do better because this absolute pile of nothing isn’t doing jack shit but making you look like an exploitative ass trying to justify a corrupt system. Respect sex workers is an empty hypocrisy when you fight this hard to silence someone pointing out that they’re not being treated fairly or respectfully.
Same pattern, different modifications. The parts that made me question my sanity the most: on the left, the double 500+ stitch Latvian Braids, and the fact that I had to remake it three times because the colors kept bleeding even after pre-washing the yarns; on the right, FOUR i-cord loop braid sections, and several false starts before I finally got the colors right 🫠
BTW if the one on the right makes you go "haha cool that middle bit kinda looks like a Stargate" that was ON PURPOSE. These are both Fanart for my Teen Wolf/Stargate crossover series ❤️
Oh my god people liking harry potter doesn't make jkr commit sexual offenses can you just criticise her actions like a normal person instead of making excuses for her. Sexual offenses are not limited to those who have written successful children's books. They are unfortunately a normal part of life. Normal people do that shit and are responsible for their own fucking actions. Stop with this fucking enabling bullshit. You have let fandom drama poison you into running defense for sex offenders.
How the fuck do you see her doing what she did and then go HOW DARE PEOPLE READ A BOOK are you fucking serious do you have any idea how fucked up it is to have someone post upskirt pictures of you from that kind of platform. And you jump straight to "how can i use this to yell at people for liking book". When a woman is being publically sexually harassed by a billionaire. That's just fucking evil.
Oh my god people liking harry potter doesn't make jkr commit sexual offenses can you just criticise her actions like a normal person instead of making excuses for her. Sexual offenses are not limited to those who have written successful children's books. They are unfortunately a normal part of life. Normal people do that shit and are responsible for their own fucking actions. Stop with this fucking enabling bullshit. You have let fandom drama poison you into running defense for sex offenders.
I went to a clothes shop with my daughter yesterday and we were talking about how the clothes were nice but how it was the kind of shop that made us both feel like a horse. You know it’s like, here I am, a horse at a human clothing shop, putting on clothes that look ridiculous on a horse, and it’s obviously my fault for being a horse and not a human
Of course that sweater looks weird on me, I’m a horse, not a human! I can barely get my hooves through the sleeves, and it bunches up over my withers and doesn’t reach my fetlocks, and there’s no accounting for my hindquarters. Or my forequarters either
So then we started talking about horse shops and classifying clothes as for humans or for horses, and now I’m afraid the idea of the horse shop is permanently cemented in my vocabulary, and someone is going to ask me about clothes and I’ll be like “oh I can’t shop there it isn’t for horses” and it will be weird
Because under the post about giving minors the right to medically consent, people are spreading a ton of misinformation on this - largely because they just do not question the stuff they just assume are "normal". Which here is: "kids are all afraid of needles and therefore if we let them consent or not to medical proceedures, they would just not consent and not get vaccinations, because needles hurt".
And, look. Here is the thing: no, needles do not actually hurt a whole lot. And while, yes, certain procedures that involve being stabbed by a needle hurt more if you are younger for a bunch of reasons... that is actually not the main reason children fear needles. Because, again: the pain is not that bad. And most kids, especially young kids, whose motor skills are still developing, usually will have a bunch more hurting scratches, bruises and the like at any given moment than there will be pain from the needle.
No, from what research can tell, the main reason kids are afraid of needles, is more that for many of them needle procedures are very traumatizing. And that is largely because of the consent issue.
Imagine you are a person who is still pretty darn new to that whole human thing. So for one, yes, your brain is actually not that great in understanding what pain is dangerous and what pain is a safe limit of pain. So yes, someone intentionally hurting you (like with a needle) is really kinda scary. But then there is also the thing where this person hurting you is not telling you why they are doing. The people who you normally trust with keeping you safe (your family) is betraying you, by just holding you down and scolding you for crying over it. Or maybe it is not your family, but some strange nurse who is holding you. And while you are scared, because someone is intentionally hurting you, while someone else is restricting you, the adults around you are telling you, that your emotional reaction to this is actually bad and you are wrong for reacting that way. They might in fact lie to you and tell you that something that is insanely scary to you is "not that bad", instead of just understanding that it is super scary to you. And that is then what you start to expect whenever you see a doctor prepare a needle: people holding you down, hurting you without reason, and telling you that you are wrong for being upset, actively gaslighting you.
We have research on this. And this research is pretty clear: most kids are actually somewhat okay with needles, if you inform them why you are doing it, allow for them to have their emotions, talk to them about their emotions, and allow for them to set at least some conditions.
And frankly, I hate how many people just accept the framing of "kids are naturally afraid of this because it hurts". Like, folks, I know y'all are fucking Americans and that in your culture it is kinda normalized to like put kids into like some sort of fortified hamsterball to stop them from like doing typical kids stuff. But... let me tell you: if you do not do that, kids will actually very regularly engage in dangerous play that they know will often end up in injuries that are going to hurt. And, no, they are not to dumb to understand that. The kids know that this is what might happen because of their play. They actually just take the risk. Yes, they will cry if they get hurt, because - again - their nervous system is still calibrating how it relates to pain. But they will likely do that thing again and again. I can tell you: I fell down a tree so often during my childhood, and I still climbed it. Again and again. So did most kids I knew. Like, fuck, we lived next to a forest. We played "Tarzan", and tried to go along paths without touching the ground. And we fell. A lot. And we still did it.
It is not the fear of pain that makes kids afraid of doctors. It is the fear of the associated force, and gaslighting.
The thing is, if you don't explain it, how are kids meant to give informed consent? That's why a woman named Mary Jenner created The Butterfly Pig, which sells medical play toys to families with medically sensitive kids and children's hospitals, so kids can play about the stuff that's going to happen or watch their caregivers show them. For this reason in particular, there's a syringe toy to simulate injections, and it includes a Buzzy toy, which imitates a real Buzzy that vibrates and is cold so injections don't hurt as much, and the real Buzzy is used in over 5,000 hospitals and clinics globally.
Toy butterfly needle comes with a Velcro strap for easy placement on doll or stuffed animal. Lab tubes are dual-sided so a twisting motion c
Buzzy® Mini Healthcare features a contoured and compact design that tucks under a standard tourniquet or fits easily in the hand to deliver
There are very few studies on the use of a thermomechanical device for reducing injection pain in pediatric dentistry, especially for inferi
Effect of toys made from medical materials on anxiety among hospitalized children: A randomized controlled trial
— the profession is fully dedicated to supporting kids and families in the health care setting, and a significant portion of that is educating kids (in a way they can understand, developmentally) and making plans With them to make the experience easier!
And there is SO MUCH research out there! If you explain to kids what’s going on, they need less anesthesia, get better quicker, and have less medical trauma— which leads to a willingness to accept preventative care in the future!
Child Life has been leading the charge in this area for decades, and it’s so awesome to see it becoming more mainstream knowledge!
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