So I've got this friend whose nervous because she's trans and dating this guy who she hasn't told yet because they've only been on a two dates. For this story let's call the friend Jane and the guy she was dating Jason. Happy ending don't worry.
So I tell Jane to bring her boy over to a bbq I'm having and she can tell him she's trans at my place surrounded by queer and trans people who love her and will support her if he ends up being awful.
She waits till the end of the bbq to tell him the news, by which point the rest of us have learned that Jason is a kind, friendly, empathetic, hard working, dummy. So we sit down, all of us a little worried about this gym bro's reaction when she tells him she's trans, and that she understands if he doesn't want to keep dating her it's no big deal.
He's baffled, so we explain what trans is, and after the disclosure that she hasn't had bottom surgery yet...
"Oh you have a dick?"
"... yeah."
He look's around at the room full of people with baited breath, his clearly a little afraid girl friend says
"Oooohhhh! I get it! You think- don't worry Babe! Watch this!"
And ya'll this man jumps up, runs into the kitchen and returns with one of the bratwurst we had for grilling and proceeds to tilt his head back, put it down his throat, hold it in his mouth for a moment, and spit it up without even a whisper of a gag and then looks around at the group absolutely beaming with pride.
My mans saw his worried girlfriend and her support network and thought to him self "Oh they don't think I can't please my girl, but I'll show them!"
I do feel the need to add that later he excitedly tell the group that as a straight guy, he never thought that skill would be useful outside hotdog eating contests.
What does it mean that religion, not porn use, predicts porn-related problems?
Now, researchers have put a nail in the coffin of porn addiction. Josh Grubbs, Samuel Perry and Joshua Wilt are some of the leading researchers on America’s struggles with porn, having published numerous studies examining the impact of porn use, belief in porn addiction, and the effect of porn on marriages. And Rory Reid is a UCLA researcher who was a leading proponent gathering information about the concept of hypersexual disorder for the DSM-5. These four researchers, all of whom have history of neutrality, if not outright support of the concepts of porn addiction, have conducted a meta-analysis of research on pornography and concluded that porn use does not predict problems with porn, but that religiosity does
If the concept of pornography addiction were true, then porn-related problems would go up, regardless of morality, as porn use goes up. But the researchers didn’t find that. In fact, they cite numerous studies showing that even feeling like you struggle to control your porn use doesn’t actually predict more porn use. What that means is that the people who report great anguish over controlling their porn use aren’t actually using more porn; they just feel worse about it.
Having moral conflict over your porn use (PPMI) does turn out to be bad for you. But that's not because of the porn. Instead, higher levels of moral conflict over porn use predict higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and diminished sexual well-being, as well as religious and spiritual struggles. In one study by Perry and Whitehead, pornography use predicted depression over a period of six years, but only in men who disapproved of porn use. Continuing to use porn when you believe that it is bad is harmful. Believing that you are addicted to porn and telling yourself that you're unable to control your porn use hurts your well-being. It's not the porn, but the unresolved, unexamined moral conflict.
I'm only saying this for your sake, but objectively, it's not a smart idea to bring politics into normal hobbies. You might lose supporters of your blog just because of your political stance, and that would be terrible since you're so amazing!! It's only a suggestion, but I really reccomend not bringing politics into anything.
The time to be quiet about politics has passed since people are literally dying. If you think social etiquette is a higher priority for you then people's actual real world suffering, then you have some bigger problems then seeing politics on your dashboard.
I can't be the only one who thinks its fucking funny watching a bunch of terminally online weirdos crash out over a character aged up in a bikini, right?
Like, I feel bad for the original creator, because this is a nothingburger. At the end of the day, watching these freaks talk themselves in circles about how this is BAD ACTUALLY, just because they personally don't like it, is like top teir entertainment.
Man, I'm kinda jealous. Some people need real problems in their lives to worry about.
Ok, so. The Trump budget. It has already passed the House and now just needs 51 senators to pass it and send it to Trump for signature.
There are 53 Republican senators, 45 Democratic ones, and 2 Independents that vote with the Democrats. VP Vance is a tiebreaker vote.
So to block the bill, at least four Republican senators need to find their spines and the Democrats and Independents all need to keep their spines. This will not happen without direct action from voters.
They are only going to resist this bill if they hear from voters in their states. They do not care if some person from California calls them.
It's really fucking bad for everyone except the ultra-wealthy, surprise surprise.
At the center of the sweeping bill is trillions in tax cuts, which Republicans aim to partially offset through changes to safety net program
I'm going to go through some of the features of this budget in reblogs, but trust and believe that it's horrible for the vast, vast majority of Americans, including you.
Highlights include:
Extends the Trump tax cuts passed in 2017. This continues $3.7 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. If this budget does not pass, these tax cuts will expire and go back up without any action.
$150 billion in additional military spending
Work requirements for Medicaid. "childless adults without disabilities would be required to work 80 hours per month to qualify for benefits.". They expect millions of people to fail to meet work requirements and lose Medicaid.
Planned Parenthood and trans care. "Bans Medicaid from providing funding to Planned Parenthood as long as the organization continued to provide abortions, and would bar Medicaid from covering gender affirming health care to any beneficiaries. "
Reduces SNAP food stamp access that 40 million people use. "mandates work requirements for able-bodied SNAP enrollees who don't have dependents.".
Clean energy "dramatically scaling back many of the tax credits for clean energy."
Border walls and ICE. "$46.5 billion toward completing Trump's border wall. It also allots $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities and more than $6 billion to hire and retain more agents and officers"
Student loans. "cut $330 billion from the student loan system by scrapping several existing repayment options, including the Biden-era SAVE program that based payments on income and household size.". Does anyone want to have student loan payments that you cannot afford?
Guts Obamacare. "Saves $100 billion, but will result in millions of Americans becoming uninsured if they fail to adhere to new paperwork requirements or can no longer afford insurance premiums."
Weakens federal courts that keep using orders that his actions are illegal and unconstitutional. It prohibits courts from enforcing contempt citations for violations of injunctions or temporary restraining orders unless the plaintiff pays a bond. Bonds can be EXTRAORDINARILY EXPENSIVE and are not currently required in these cases. The provision "would make most existing injunctions—in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases, and others—unenforceable," says the god of constitutional law, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.
So, you folks in red states and you folks in wobbly blue states (PA, NC, etc), you need to call your senators and save us all.
Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.
Call every day. Call after hours so you can leave a voicemail and not talk to anyone.
For real y'all, millions of people are going to starve, go broke, and be without medical care if this bill passes. Which is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration.
And it will balloon the national debt to pay for these tax cuts for the wealthy.
Here's a good post (without melodramatic misinformation) if you want a detailed rundown of what is in the budget bill. As you can see, it's absolutely bad enough without additions, and needs to be resisted on those grounds alone.
Quick bonus media literacy/reading comprehension question: what position is the New York Times coaching you to take on these cuts by putting them in green (the go/"good" color) instead of say, red, which would make more sense for budget cuts? How does this connect to the way the NYT has been repeatedly criticized for soft-pedaling its coverage of Trump in the past? What overall impression does this give you about how you're supposed to feel about this budget and whether it's a good or bad thing?
A bit different from the usual, but I want to boost this Intersex Jam on itch.io! The goal of the jam is to create more accurate, respectful, and realistic intersex representation. It is unranked (meaning it's not a competition and there won't be ranking of submissions based on votes) and open to all kinds of work, from games to novels. The jam lasts through June 2025.
In addition to the basic resources linked on the jam's page, I want to link this page, which features a collection of documentaries, books, online PDFs, etc. where intersex people talk about their personal experiences. I have not read/watched all of them, but those I have were very helpful to me when I was researching intersex experiences.
I think my general thought process with interacting with other people online is like yeah you have really cool art. You have really cool writing. You're really good at that thing you're posting about, but are you nice?
Are you non-judgemental? If someone was able to show you a creative project or a photo of their room, would you have nothing negative or unsolicited advice to give?
Are you polite to people online because its primarily good for your reputation on your username, or is it something you do automatically? When you make a social mistake, do you first think of how it reflects back on you in the eyes of others? Or how the other person feels in their shoes? Are you more concerned about your reputation or the sense of community?
Do you respond nicely to commenters who 'just don't get' the project you're working on? Even if they are a little rude or misguided? This is not to say don't block anyone ever, do that too! But is being nice with an attempt at understanding your first course of action? Do you practice having good faith when you interact with a conflict online?
Can you compliment someone without comparing them to someone else, like another creator? Maybe someone with an art style or hc you don't vibe with. Are you able to lift up your fellow creatives without creating a habit of using others as a stepping ladder, even if you don't like them. Do you consider your friend's feelings when you put them in that situation?
Do you respect the people that obsess over the tv show/game/ship/whatever that you cannot stand even if its overrated? What about things that are unpopular? Do you group people together by a single shared interest/disinterest and carry a preconceived opinion of them based on that? Do you attribute the value of an idea by its prominence, and (even if unknowingly) assign negative or positive connection to it and the people that like it? (<This reflection does not apply to harmful things with real world consequences, such as HP.)
If you're someone who consumes more than they create, do you practice boundaries? Do you check for consent before sending a stranger a suggestive/nsfw message even if they are creator who makes adult content? Do you remember that creators are people with lives outside of content, and cannot pump out content continuously? Nor will they forever stay creating the same things you want to see?
If you recognize some not-so-nice behaviors, do you know that you can break bad habits, or are you comfortable with them considering they've become social norm of internet and influencer culture? Do you remember that people interacting with you are real people and not NPCS?
It's okay to say that you've had trouble with that. Short, near minuscule interactions with hundreds, thousands of people every day on the world wide web such as likes, reblogs, ect have trained our brains into seeing usernames as texts on a screen in our notifications and not registering as a human interaction, and about as common as ads are nowadays.
But did you know that you can rewire your brain away from that? Aren't you tired of going ape shit? Don't you just want to be nice?
Some other things a person might not know, especially if nobody ever taught them because their parents assumed that men don't need to do house maintenance:
Washing machines have filters to catch large debris; you should check these periodically and remove anything stuck in them. If you don't, it affects the machine's efficiency and eventually can lead to the filter getting clogged and flooding your laundry space.
Washing machines also need to be cleaned from time to time, generally by running them on hot with nothing in them except cleaning chemicals (you can buy washing machine cleaner, or google it for various diy solutions that probably involve vinegar or bleach). If you don't they'll start growing mold, and then all your stuff will come out of the wash smelling bad.
Dishwashers also generally have filters to catch large chunks of food and whatnot. Boy howdy can they smell bad if you don't ever check them.
There are dishwasher disinfectants as well, or you can do things with vinegar; either way, it'll prevent mold buildup and also hopefully rinse away buildup from soaps and whatnot.
If you have a reusable water bottle, wash it weekly. Otherwise you're probably drinking mold, the effects of which can be widely variable but almost always bad.
Vacuum cleaners often need their filters cleaned or replaced. If you vacuum a room and it smells worse than it did before, you probably need to change the filter or the vacuum bag.
To piggy back on the last post, my neighbors back in AZ literally lost their whole house to a fire caused from this exact thing. It was a couple of guys, they didn't know they needed to clean the filter and their whole house burned down. They lost everything and it took a year or so for them to rebuild their house.
Memuary Art Exchange!
Where we celebrate the future by redrawing someone else's art from the past!
If you would like read more details or to sign up, please fill out this form! forms.gle/iBjQgVmWFjp6...
Submissions due by 01/01/25
Then join the discord! discord.gg/KQp6MdaZpe
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