As Tom Lehrer once said, “if two people can’t communicate, the very least they could do is to shut up.” but that’s neither here nor there.
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Slightly tangential, but as a kinky autistic person who obsesses over communication it always puzzles me how people often describe the characteristics of autism as being “stereotyped behaviors” when it is apparent to probably many of us that “normal” human relationships take for granted a lot of stereotypes and preconceived roleplay.
That sounds interesting to me!
Since some people use NRG for energy, I would call it “NRNRG” for extra silliness. That NRG is one of the most annoying feelings I have experienced, because I feel completely hijacked by it. And I fall in love far too easily, with far too many people. But even one would be too many. So I usually deal with this by structuring my life so that I do not have varying degrees of intimacy with people, but that does not go over very well.
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Limerence!
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I have never understood what “stereotyped behaviors” meant.
Also everything we thought we knew about autism in the 1980s was either wrong, insufficient, or misinterpreted.
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I take it to mean inflexibly re-enacting already tried behavioral and social routines to an extent that it becomes maladaptive.
But “we” don’t happen to ever know the same things. The politics of consensus tends to be where evidence-based living ends and reputation games take over. I see fair and accurate society as being infinitely fragmented/granular and being immune to consensus/coercion/persuasion, since reality speaks for itself.
That’s one of my more esoteric kinks! >;]P
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If you ripped open my stitching I thing you would see I am filled with nothing but pink fluffy stupids.
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Are you a teddy bear?
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When I grow a beard some people think so. 
That video just made my day. Thank you 
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Oh, but I do love zefrank videos! My favorites are still the “True facts about …,” but this one is also great!
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I don’t know if this is the right thread (and somebody split this off if it’s not) but Donal Logue’s child is missing.
Normally, the coverage of a celebrity tragedy is horrendous, but this is worse. Jade is trans.
So there’s a police bulletin about missing “Arlo… who may use the alias Jade” like she’s some sort of criminal, news reports that can’t figure out what pronouns to use, even in the same story, and instead of comments concerned about a missing child, there are comments questioning her right to even exist. I can’t help but wonder, if she wasn’t a celebrity’s kid, would we care at all? The fact that there isn’t wall-to-wall coverage of this when it is a celebrity’s child tells me otherwise.
But I can only imagine that things like the police bulletin and the reporting only make investigation worse. I can semi-understand the police bulletin if she hasn’t legally changed her name (though it should be laid out and phrased to more accurately reflect who they are looking for), but the reporting is inexcusable as far as I am concerned.
It’s painful enough reading this, that I can barely imagine living like it, where documentation and bureaucracy deny your existence at every turn.
Sorry for the downer, folks. This just really struck me in the gut today.
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I don’t blame you. It’s always sad when a kid disappears, doubly so when they are treated as if they are at fault somehow, because of who they are.
I hope she’s safe.
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Missing white cis-woman syndrome?
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Yesterday my daughter and I celebrated the 4th of July by attending the Invasion of the Pines.
Although I’ve been to a few Pride parades, this was different. This was a party for gay men in their own space where we were guests and onlookers. There were a few lesbian couples there but mostly it was gay men.
It was such an eye opening experience to be in a place where men dressed to impress each other, and nice to see men free to be expressive in their dress. It made me realize how little men get to express their sexuality. Of course with the drag queens intermingling there was a lot of people trying out different across gender dress styles, but also there were a lot of men sporting only very small speedos (because beach) or just dressed sexy, which is something I never see. My aunt used to live at Dupont Circle in DC which has a big gay community, so I’ve seen gay men dressing for each other on for day to day wear, but it was different to be there in this party space on a party day.
Both my daughter and I noticed how freeing it was to know no one was looking at us. Even just talking to people, the whole flirtation factor was out and we could relax and be. I had to check myself a lot because I didn’t really know how not to be “on.” It was freeing but also discomfiting to be aware of how self-aware I am normally in public.
The bar we were at had a big women’s restroom that men were popping into and using. It made me aware that I have very rarely seen men using a women’s restroom, and never have I seen them act comfortable doing it. I’ve seen it the other way around plenty of times, but this was the first time I saw men act like it was no big deal. It was also interesting to just be in the bathroom with men; kind of fun, actually. Funny how we act like there would be danger in it for women. It made me aware of how much of a sense of sharing space we miss out on by separating ourselves all the time.
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Hell yes!
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Funny: I learned it as New Relationship Ecstasy!
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That’s very interesting.
The sex one is assigned at birth.
determines how one constructs a gender identity.
“Females” are more interested in physical attraction.
while “Males” are more interested in the signifiers associated with gendered expression.
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There was a brief bit where I was trying to figure out how you came to that conclusion, then I saw it! Wow, I’ve never noticed that color correspondence, although I’m pretty sure that’s not what the creators of the graphic were trying to imply. I do think that they were trying to avoid the trope of male => blue, female => pink, but I can certainly see how having the same colors on the graphic for different concepts could actually lead someone to that idea.
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unless i’m missing it in going through the thread, i don’t see much mention of bisexuality. at risk of oversharing, i am a bisexual cis-male. while i was single i had a few dating relationships with cis-women which didn’t last very long; a somewhat longer but unconsummated relationship with a cis-man; and a brief, very physical, relationship with a trans-woman. most of these relationships were ended by mutual agreement. about a year after i had returned to texas from a couple of years in colorado i met and eventually married a cis-woman with whom i have spent the past 19 years exploring life and each other.
i have had people tell me that bisexuality is a front to cover my true homosexuality, i’ve had people tell me that i “need to make up my mind what team” i’m playing for, i’ve had people tell me that my long term, monogamous relationship with my wife “proves” i’m straight. i find those statements fatuous and wrong-headed. simply because i respect my wife’s desire for exclusivity in our marriage does not mean that i do not or cannot appreciate the physical attractiveness of the universe of gender.
i wonder if some of the low esteem i see for bisexuality is related to the fact that, prior to this point in our recent history, to fully express one’s bisexuality one would have to be in a triangular relationship, an open marriage, or as a secret relationship hidden from the other partner. now the possibility exists for serial monogamy with partners of any gender. i wonder how long it will be before that will be as well accepted as multiple marriages and divorces are among the straight set?
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Correct. Overall in society, there is little to no mention of bisexuality. I don’t see any in this thread, but there is some over here:
I have never understood this mindset. Instead of accepting that people might be any sexual orientation, we’ve basically come to an understanding that people who aren’t straight are gay, and gay means gay men first, lesbians second but only if they’re extremely stereotypical, and the garbage bin taxonomy of everybody else dead last. I could go on and on about how the LGBT movement needs to be more accepting, and more intersectional, but I won’t, because I feel I’ve been doing that a lot lately.
And why all the hatred toward bisexual people? I’ve never understood that. Not fitting in, sure, because there is no real bucket for bisexuals currently, but I’ve never understood how gay people treat bisexual people as the enemy and how straight people say bisexual people don’t even exist. I guess it all comes down to insecurity.
Do you think that’s really true, or just how it’s talked about?
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That, and some gay men are married to their beards for a long, long time before they come out (if ever). I know of one marriage that lasted over 25 years and produced two kids. It ended when the youngest kid moved out of the house and the husband came out. The wife had had no idea, but after the initial shock they worked things out, and last I heard ex-husband, ex-wife, and ex-husband’s new partner were all living under the same roof, much to the outage of the church they still attended.
In cases like that I always wonder if the person isn’t actually bi, but what the hell do I know.
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