if anyone asks what my gender is i'm just going to show them these photos

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advertisers have trained us that the correct response to “I love that this object exists” is “I must buy and own this object forever in order to express my love for it”. I’m talking about themed merch, funko pops, LEGO sets, airsoft guns, and other toy-like items that are often aimed at adults

but what I’d like to posit here is that advertisers have trained us to conflate “I want to experience and use this object for some period of time” with “I want to permanently own this object”

because, consider this: for how long will you enjoy this new toy? of course you’ll probably love getting to experience it at first, but that joy will fade over time, right? maybe not for all things, but for most things

for example I love assembling a new LEGO set, and I love playing with the LEGO set afterward. sometimes I’ll disassemble the whole set just to build it again. but after about 2 weeks I’m bored of the whole thing, and get no further benefit from it. our consumerist programming tells us that the correct response to this is to put it in deep storage and own it forever, where it will just take up space and be forgotten

but what if, instead, you swapped LEGO sets with someone else? now you both have a new LEGO set to play with for free, and you both get to enjoy building them and playing with them all over again. or what if you traded a LEGO set for a funko pop that you liked? and then when you were bored of admiring the funko pop you traded it for a book, and then when you were done reading the book you traded it for another LEGO set

just think of how many sales you’ve just denied our corporate overlords by doing this, and yet the joy you feel is the same

pass on your things. spread the joy to others. consume less and share more

We treat our default settings as sacred.

HRT for trans people is a good example, but crucially, it shows an issue that everyone potentially faces.

A cis woman should have as much control over her hormones as a trans woman. Maybe she has painful periods. Maybe she doesn't want to be pregnant. Maybe she wants bigger boobs. Whatever.

"this may alter your body". Get fucked.

"what if you change your mind later". Get fucked.

"this may make you less fertile". Get fucked.

Many cis women I know heard, when they complained about pain or other health issues related to their sex and their reproductive organs, that they could simply get pregnant. Usually a male doctor told them that.

If getting pregnant will lessen a symptom, that means it's probably a question of hormone levels. It's insane that we treat "produce an entire human being inside you from scratch" as a solution to women's inconvenience or pain or discomfort.

Just take Progesterone. Or whatever else your body needs.

Yes, I said "needs".

Hormones are so cheap to produce they're basically free. There is no reason to not tweak our sex hormone levels. The range in which a body operates healthily is HUGE. Sex hormones raise like a hundredfold during a pregnancy. The AFAB body can handle taking hormones. It doesn't need or have to be an emergency. You don't need to be menopausal.

What the fuck am I talking about. Taking E to lessen the symptoms of menopause IS something doctors look at with suspicion.

We treat our bodies as sacred in the worst possible way.

Bodily autonomy means FULL bodily autonomy. Our hormones should be ours to decide.

We shouldn't sometimes allow for hormonal injection or pills when we actually need to, with furtive embarrassment. That is not bodily autonomy. That is medical oppression.

Trans people are so hated by the right because we lay bare the indisputable fact that the human body is mutable. It's flexible. It can be a little DIY project. It has optional software.

It goes for all bodily modifications by the way. Tattoos? Piercing? A boob job? Liposuction? Hair removal? Plastic surgery?

Cis people, especially cis women, deserve the freedom that we as trans women demand for ourselves. It's not up for debate. But it's the reason trans people are a threat.

We show what is possible. And that is not a Good Thing under patriarchy. A woman's role is to be shamed for having a body while denying her opportunities to modify it. Then blaming her for being the way she is, and selling her half measures to make herself acceptable. It's set up this way very deliberately.

Tell me I'm wrong, lol.

hey, does anyone know of any projects similar to openshock.org or pishock? I'm wondering if there are any other open source solutions for shock collar control

also, does anyone have any good resources on things like safety & shit for shock collars? I know I see some things that say not to use shock collars on your neck, however I know that people have done that without issue, so I'm wondering if there are any resources that explain the safety limits for smth like that

@h3mmy interesting - so are sexual pleasure and orgasm things that you’re generally not interested in? if so I’m guessing that you don’t tend to encounter situations where you have an urge to feel either of those things

and omg yeah I know the feeling of having to essentially invent your own language to talk about certain things, because the existing language just doesn’t communicate what you’re trying to explain. I wonder if every neurodivergent person has to do that to some extent - although I imagine you have to deal with that a lot when it comes to words related to kink, intimacy, etc.

also, you’ve had a physical climax from reading books? that is fascinating omg. is that a skill that you deliberately learned? I would love to hear more

in the past I’ve tried to have a hands-free orgasm (not caring whether there was a physical component to it or if it was completely mental) through hypnosis but I’ve never been able to do that. I’d really like to experience that someday - especially as a mental-only orgasm

It’s interesting to consider if these should count as masturbation. Mental Arousal and mental stimulation with the intent to “feed the desire” feels like it should count. Is there physical stimulation involved in the imagined scenario? Does that even make a difference? So many good questions!

these are really interesting questions. I personally think that pleasure or orgasm (physical or mental orgasm) that comes entirely from the mind with no physical stimulation should have its own vocabulary. maybe a word that’s the mental equivalent of “masturbation” would be a good start. but I think that those are special enough to have their own word(s)

although of course there’s a grey area there: what about someone who is touching a part of themself physically that is not normally erogenous, but they’ve made it erogenous through their mental state? for example if someone was hypnotized to feel pleasure and have the potential to orgasm from touching their belly button, are they masturbating by touching it? I’m not sure how I would define that

I feel like when there’s intent to feed sexual urges, it should count as a form of self-gratification like solo sex, even if it doesn’t fit the criteria for masturbation. Would you agree?

definitely! I don’t think I’ve heard the term “solo sex” before but I think that’s a very good umbrella term that could encompass “masturbation” (by my definition) as well as [some word for psychological/non-physical masturbation]. but I think that they’re all roughly the same category of behavior: feeding sexual urges or gaining pleasure by engaging with sexual urges

I feel like when you share your perspectives, it gives me a good catalyst for going into more detail about a topic. Thank you for that

I’m really glad to hear that I’m able to help! I often don’t have the energy to think as deeply about these topics as you do but when I do I love being able to read your thoughts on them and talk with you about them - I always discover so much nuance that I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, and learn a lot in general

If you want my first pass write-up about defining Masturbation, I did so here: https://lgbtqia.space/@h3mmy/115407651737161832 but I still need to go back and revise it for readability so you can comfortably circle back to it at a later point.

ooh, thank you for the link! I’m definitely going to add this to my “to read” list for when I have energy later

@Shivaekul ooh okay so I did actually understand everything that I needed to about that! it’s good to know that abstract algebra is the thing to look up though if I run into this again. also this is interesting, and to be honest I really like the idea of math that is written in such a way that nothing is taken for granted like that. because I think a lot of math papers rely on implicit cultural knowledge within academia which I find frustrating

I think some of learning to read maths stuff is learning all the stuff it is okay to skim to and come back to later if you need to, cause they really do like to be formal in how they state things

ohh, interesting. I felt like I was doing something wrong by not understanding some (sometimes most lol) of the word choices in certain math things but I’m glad that that’s normal. and thank you for explaining all of this! it helps a lot

expectation: a shader is what the GPU uses to shade geometry

.

reality: a shader is when

graphics card

does math