1. A dark fairy tale as a metaphor for the effects of war on children, set in the midst of the Spanish Civil War 2. A superhero movie that features a war between mankind and magical creatures 3. An action movie where the heroes have to share their minds and bond emotionally so they can punch aliens from the sea better. Also Charlie Day is a scientist. 4. Basically what would happen if all three Bronte sisters got hammered and wrote a book with Lord Byron. and 5. An adorable woman falls in love with a fish man. Not a merman. A FISH MAN.
The contextual foreignness of firm breasts in a society that doesn’t use bras
This is funny and charming
By far one of my favorite posts.
I love that across cultures, every woman grabs their boobs.
My friend is an army wife and spent some time with her husband on his Pacific posting. One day the locals invited the families from the British base for a big get-together. It was going really well but after a few hours the British women noticed that a lot of the local babies were crying, so my friend asked one of the mothers if there was something wrong, like a bug going round or something. The mother replied,
“Oh no, they’re just very hungry.”
So my friend asked, “Why don’t you feed them?”
And the mother said, “We will when you’ve gone. We use our breasts to feed them and we don’t want to embarrass you.”
And my shocked friend said, “But we do that too!”
So all the British mothers who had babies sat down and whipped out their boobs to feed them (whether they were hungry or not) and the relieved local mothers then did the same.
Two things:
– because western ladies usually cover their boobs the local ladies weren’t sure whether western women use boobs for what they’re supposed to be for
– women everywhere are considerate of other women
I also really love this photo set because, far too often, we only see pictures of African women as anthropological archetypes. They are treated like exhibits to be studied, similar to exotic animals or landscapes, rather than human beings. I LOVE these pictures, because here we have women of two different cultures laughing and talking and playing around. You can see their personalities shining through and I LOVE IT
So, even in the midst of….probably the most significant crises of faith I’ve ever experienced, there is still a part of me that believes that after you die someone is going to sit down with you and ask about your life.
(I always picture it in one of those beige, nondescript rooms like a high school counselor’s office. There are bright, inoffensive posters on the wall. A glass dish of hard candy. The entity interrogating you wears a sweater.)
And they are going to sit down with you, and they are going to ask, SO HOW DID IT GO. THIS WHOLE….LIVING BUSINESS.
And you are going to have to tell the truth.
And the truth isn’t….did you make it. Where “it” is anything ranging from a lot of money to a lot of fame. The nice entity in the sweater doesn’t care about that. The nice entity in the sweater wants to know if you helped.
When you saw suffering, did you react in a way that was to minimize pain and bring relief? that came from a place of empathy? did you react our of love and justice, or out of showmanship, or worse—out of fear? did you give up what you could live without, to serve them?
If you were privileged enough to know other people, did you help carry their burdens where you could? did you meet them where they were, and forgive them their trespasses as you forgive yourself? did you rein in your own anxieties and fears, and let them blossom as only they can?
When you moved through the world—and wasn’t that beautiful, all that physics and chemistry and psychoanalytic geometry, really so impressive—did you leave the bits of it you touched better than you found them?
And at the end of the day, the nice entity in the sweater is going to know, whether you improved, helped, carried, served,….or whether you didn’t.
No other standard matters. Nothing else is important.
And….I mean, I didn’t choose my profession out of pure disinterest, I’m guilty as anyone of ignoring what I really and truly believe should be the guiding principle of my life. But I do believe it. And I think that there are millions upon billions of humans who fit the above criteria even though the historical record will never mention them by name.
That reminder keeps me humble, as I pursue more lofty goals—however prestigious, however notable, that entity in the sweater doesn’t give a fuck. All that matters is: did I lessen suffering and unkindness where I could? was I gentle even when I could have reacted with violence? and did I help others flourish, even when I wasn’t sure it would help me grow at all?
It’s late when he makes it home from practice and ends up in their bedroom, familiar blonde head resting comfortably on the pillow on the far side of the bed.
“This is an AU.” Johnson whispers, just to remind himself how lucky he is to get this world to himself. He slides under the blankets and slings an arm over Bitty, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck before settling down for bed. “Anything is possible.”
Bitty, well versed in the language of his weird and ridiculous goalie, just snuggles closer and lets himself drift back to sleep.
So there’s a known thing in the study of human psychology/sociology/what-have-you where men are known to, on average, rely entirely on their female romantic partner for emotional support. Bonding with other men is done at a more superficial level involving fun group activities and conversations about general subjects but rarely involves actually leaning on other men or being really honest about emotional problems. Men use alcohol to be able to lower their inhibitions enough to expose themselves emotionally to other men, but if you can’t get emotional support unless you’re drunk, you have a problem.
So men need to have a woman in their lives to have anyone they can share their emotional needs and vulnerabilities with. However, since women are not socialized to fear sharing these things, women’s friendships with other women are heavily based on emotional support. If you can’t lean on her when you’re weak, she’s not your friend. To women, what friendship is is someone who listens to all your problems and keeps you company.
So this disconnect men are suffering from is that they think that only a person who is having sex with you will share their emotions and expect support. That’s what a romantic partner does. But women think that’s what a friend does. So women do it for their romantic partners and their friends and expect a male friend to do it for them the same as a female friend would. This fools the male friend into thinking there must be something romantic there when there is not.
This here is an example of patriarchy hurting everyone. Women have a much healthier approach to emotional support – they don’t die when widowed at nearly the rate that widowers die and they don’t suffer emotionally from divorce nearly as much even though they suffer much more financially, and this is because women don’t put all their emotional needs on one person. Women have a support network of other women. But men are trained to never share their emotions except with their wife or girlfriend, because that isn’t manly. So when she dies or leaves them, they have no one to turn to to help with the grief, causing higher rates of death, depression, alcoholism and general awfulness upon losing a romantic partner.
So men suffer terribly from being trained in this way. But women suffer in that they can’t reach out to male friends for basic friendship. I am not sure any man can comprehend how heartbreaking it is to realize that a guy you thought was your friend was really just trying to get into your pants. Friendship is real. It’s emotional, it’s important to us. We lean on our friends. Knowing that your friend was secretly seething with resentment when you were opening up to him and sharing your problems because he felt like he shouldn’t have to do that kind of emotional work for anyone not having sex with him, and he felt used by you for that reason, is horrible. And the fact that men can’t share emotional needs with other men means that lots of men who can’t get a girlfriend end up turning into horrible misogynistic people who think the world owes them the love of a woman, like it’s a commodity… because no one will die without sex. Masturbation exists. But people will die or suffer deep emotional trauma from having no one they can lean on emotionally. And men who are suffering deep emotional trauma, and have been trained to channel their personal trauma into rage because they can’t share it, become mass shooters, or rapists, or simply horrible misogynists.
The only way to fix this is to teach boys it’s okay to love your friends. It’s okay to share your needs and your problems with your friends. It’s okay to lean on your friends, to hug your friends, to be weak with your friends. Only if this is okay for boys to do with their male friends can this problem be resolved… so men, this one’s on you. Women can’t fix this for you; you don’t listen to us about matters of what it means to be a man. Fix your own shit and teach your brothers and sons and friends that this is okay, or everyone suffers.
This makes so much sense omg
the first step to fixing it is: knowing that being emotional with your friends may get you mocked or lose their respect, do it anyway. the ones that bail, let them go. they can’t handle the real you, so wave goodbye.
this doesn’t mean you should be a big soppy oversharing weenie. but if you can’t tell your best friend what you’re feeling, it’s not much of a friendship, and you need to gut up and take the step to make it better. start with positive emotions and compliments to get used to how it works – next time you’re having a great time together, just open up your mouth and say, “it’s so great hanging out with you. i really like this.”
is it hard? does it feel freaky and weird? does it feel like you’re hitting on them? that’s the toxic bullshit talking, that’s the monster you’re killing. you should be allowed to fucking tell your best friend you like him, jesus fucking christ. what the hell is the patriarchy DOING to us. like this is not news but here i am typing this advice calmly and suddenly it comes back to me how much it fucking HURT when i was like 6 and andy’s mom told us not to hold hands because andy’s ‘girlfriend’ would be jealous, like holy shit lady did you really say that to someone wearing an oscar the grouch backpack and optimus prime moonboots, no wonder adult men are certified fucking insane D:
LET THE LITTLE BOYS HOLD HANDS
OH MY GOD DON’T TELL THEM THEIR FRIENDSHIP WITH A GIRL IS A ROMANCE
I feel like a lot of attempts at convincing conservatives that larger social safety nets and state-funded healthcare are good things are like… fundamentally failing to engage with their basic concerns.
Like, guys, I have literally been asked questions along the lines of “what are your plans for when the economy collapses and all of our currency becomes worthless” by multiple family members in the past month. If people keep yelling WHY DO YOU HATE THE POORS at them, then I think they’re going to feel roughly the same as a conservationist who keeps hearing WHY DO YOU HATE POOR PEOPLE IN THE CONGO WHO CUT DOWN THE RAIN FOREST FOR AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES
like, you don’t. you don’t hate those people. maybe you hate people much more powerful than them who cut down many more trees, but the people who clear four acres so they have some land to grow crops to feed their families? nah, you don’t hate those people. if you object to their actions, it’s because you’re afraid that those people might accidentally be hastening the end of the world as we know it. And if you think the debate is Person In The Congo Would Like To Clear Some Rain Forest To Feed His Family, Please vs This Will Bring About The End Of The World, you might reasonably conclude that we are just not gonna be able to compromise on the end of the world thing.
There are a lot of conservatives who seem to be every bit as concerned about government spending as liberals are about climate change and extinction rates. And like–you might think that’s dumb. You might think they’re tilting at windmills while ignoring the hurricane right behind the windmills. But as long as they think that the windmills are an imminent threat to everything they know and love and hold dear–as long as they turn to me and say “bard, I’m so sorry we couldn’t defeat those windmills for you, I’m so sorry that you’re the one who’s going to have to live in a world where their reign of terror seems impossible to escape”–like, at that point, you gotta engage with their concern about the windmills. You gotta try to convince them that your proposed policies are not going to destroy everything they care about.
Yelling at them to have compassion doesn’t solve that problem. They have compassion. That’s why they’re so worried about the killer windmills.
Huh, neat point.
this is pretty insightful. it lacks only one thing: the information that some people without compassion are deliberately creating a killer windmill scare to neutralize the compassion of those who might otherwise notice them vacuuming billions of dollars out of the economy to be sequestered in overseas accounts.
i have not yet found a way to convince don quixote that the guy who warned him about the killer windmills was lying, on purpose, for real, with intent to decieve you, yes really, you have been fooled, he fooled you.
folks are just not willing to consider they might’ve been played. it tends to upset them.
just moving along like everyone else 