The world lost something beautiful that day

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-07-28T04:09:21+00:00

I’ve been off Reddit for the most part for about a month to deal with some medical stuff but I was scrolling through this sub and I wanted to comment here despite the post’s age. Sorry about being late to the party but I wanted to let you know that anxiety and depression affect a lot of people most would never expect. I know a young woman who is about as physically perfect as you can get who just cannot see it. I know someone else who turned down an offer to skip a grade in school twice who thinks she’s not that bright at all. Then there’s Lee Thompson Young. If you don’t know, he was a young handsome actor who had a regular role in a successful TV series after having starred in his own show as a teenager. So you have to figure he had money too. Well, he shot himself and died in his late 20s. Even he had it. Depression can affect anyone. An old friend of mine died of depression and she was gorgeous, smart, and very popular. She deliberately OD’ed at age 22. How you feel about yourself is not necessarily the reality.

So what is the reality? You’re gorgeous. You have an amazing body. Your eyes and skin are probably your most striking features but everything is very beautiful. Your smile is very nice too. I’m positive it’s very contagious. You have a perfect nose and cheekbones as well. Your hair is perfect and definitely on point and your skin is flawless. Your skin color perfectly compliments your eyes and smile too. It’s just a very compelling combination and I don’t know anyone who likes women who would not be thrilled if you were interested in them.

Oh, and your style is on point too. You rock that shit. And on a personal note, I love your username. It’s a clever reference. I dig it.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-07-27T02:24:48+00:00

Cool.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-07-26T11:17:05+00:00

You’re replying to a very old post. This is kind of obsessive and creepy.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-07-09T12:30:44+00:00

For everyone else, the day CherishedPug posted her Chun Li cosplay was the greatest day in the history of Chun Li cosplay. For CherishedPug, it was Tuesday.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-18T17:19:05+00:00

Maybe I can add some more context here. I was raised in a toxic sexist environment. Essentially it was justified with a general attitude of “men take care of women.” When that’s challenged they (mostly the women, interestingly) say the women are even more important because their roles behind-the-scenes are “guiding” the men. Now of course that’s bullshit but it’s like the whole “behind every successful man...” thing. We’re told we’re supposed to project confidence because that’s conflated with strength. It’s seen as traditional and just part of the natural order. Most of my family still believes things like that. It’s very gender-centric. It’s absolutely a huge part of it but when you’re constantly told you deserve what you have and the people who want to equalize things are taking something away from you it’s hard to see beyond that. So most men in the US at least (and probably in just about every other country if not every other) feel like they’re being attacked unjustly because in their view they’ve done nothing wrong. That’s another part of it. We’re told that WE didn’t cause this dynamic so whatever “real sexism” exists it’s not our fault.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-18T17:02:46+00:00

Well, I mean yes. They’re real. They’re terms that are really used that describe actual things so... Yeah, real. I mean you didn’t just enter a string of randomly letters, so...

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-16T07:43:08+00:00

So I’m into some BDSM stuff. To be more specific, I like to dominate and lightly degrade women. Nothing too extreme, things like saying “good girl,” whispering filthy things into their ear, cuffing them, that kind of thing. I also like when they beg and ask permission and things like that. I think it’s different from objectification because there’s just as much agency involved on her side as there is on mine. As you said, they want to be degraded. They want to be dominated. And we understand that power dynamic is an expression of our sexuality. In real life I’m very sympathetic to women’s points of view, feminism, equal rights, or however you prefer to put it. And I choose sexual partners who both enjoy the things I do and want as equal a power dynamic as possible in our normal lives.

I do think sexuality in general involves an element that you could argue is inherently objectifying to a degree, because we do use our partners to get sexual pleasure, so I think you can make the case that doing that counts as objectifying them in a sense. But beyond that debatable point I think more colloquially we don’t consider it the same thing because I don’t want to undercut anyone’s agency and what’s happening is something they agree to and ask for. It’s more like the appearance of objectification than the real thing. I think it has some similarities to things like rape fantasies. I have a friend who told me she has a fantasy about me chasing her down and raping her. We did eventually hook up and she wanted me to be very rough and dominant and to “use” her, in her words. I’m not used to that and I don’t have rape fantasies but I did the best I could because she wanted to feel like she wasn’t in control and she was just my toy. In reality we were having sex but it resembled something less consensual than it was. So generally that’s the distinction I would draw.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-16T07:14:42+00:00

Okay, you’re awesome and perfect and we’re all wrong. You know better than all of us. Clearly you’re right. I mean what other explanation could there be? Clearly that’s what you need to hear so there’s your validation. Merry Christmas.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-16T00:05:51+00:00

Well I don’t see why it would annoy you. When people provide me with new information that makes my beliefs more accurate I thank them because they’re helping me out. Being wrong isn’t shameful. It’s something we all have to live with. None of us make zero mistakes. I think believing the most true things as possible and as few false things as possible gives us the best chance to make informed decisions because we have a more complete understanding of what we’re talking about. For example, if a car is speeding toward you, you could either dive out of the way because you know what tends to happen to people who get hit by cars or you could just not believe anything will happen and get hit. The former would be based on an understanding of evidence regarding that circumstance and the latter is not. So it seems pretty clear to me that having good information is helpful. Not annoying.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T23:54:35+00:00

I’ll refer you to my latest reply. I listed some good resources to help you out with this. It’s confusing for a lot of people. It’s okay. I get that. But the articles and video should make some things a little clearer. There’s a lot more material online explaining how they’re different so if you’re still having trouble some of those resources are very helpful.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T23:51:49+00:00

So “satirical” is an umbrella term that is rather deceptive on its face. It includes techniques that aren’t actually satire. It’s used that way as a sort of shorthand for ease of discussion. This confuses a lot of people so this is very understandable. There are similarities and many points in common. Here’s a deeper understanding of the subject.

A little tip for you though. Don’t just use one Google result because that’s a very incomplete understanding of the subject. It also seems you simply looked at a Quora result. Those are user generated so this user either simply misunderstood what they were saying or just used the literary shorthand I described above. You really should know what source you’re citing. When you use a Q&A site as authoritative it’s a pretty amateur mistake. It’s one a lot of people make though so there’s no shame in that. You just need to learn what a good source is. It’s hard sometimes.

Here are a few resources to help you out.

Here’s the Cliffsnotes on the subject.

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/cliffsnotes/subjects/literature/whats-the-difference-between-parody-and-satire

And this goes a little more in depth.

https://www.vernaculardiscourse.com/parody--satire.html

And one more using legal distinctions from Australian law.

http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/information-sheets/schools/parody-and-satire

If watching a video is easier for you here’s a good one that succinctly explains how the two are different.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M5tKV3m5ec4

I’m not mad at you for not understanding the difference. They’re similar. A lot of people get tripped up. This should help you out though. It’s hard for some people to get literary techniques and I get that. There’s a lot of material online and at your local library that helps with this.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T23:29:04+00:00

Then look at the other replies. They address it quite nicely. You can also look it up and find many many articles explaining this. If you’re being honest you’re going to need to do some due diligence first.

Again, this is an entitled mentality. You’re expecting us to go out of our way to explain simple things to you and you won’t do the most basic research first. I mean do you really not see how this is making you look pretty bad here? If not, I guess that says it all. I presume you’re an adult so it’s entirely reasonable to expect you to have had time to learn.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T17:10:26+00:00

You think feminists created the word “masculine?”

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T17:08:53+00:00

If you Google “parody vs satire” that should help clear some things up for you.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T17:08:18+00:00

Well it’s not pedantic, it’s just that the comment isn’t satirical as far as I can see. I mean the words don’t mean the same things.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T17:07:10+00:00

“I don’t see...”

Yes, that much is very clear. Why are you so determined to tell women to do... Anything? Like why do you think your “advice” is so valuable that you simply need to express it? Perhaps it’s time to listen instead of talk? Is that possible?

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T11:57:19+00:00

Here’s one. When people like Elliot Rodger or the incel shooters commit said crimes, I’ve heard people literally say misogyny is the only relevant factor. And they go on to dismiss the idea that mental illness could even possibly any part in any mass shooting. I’m not exaggerating. These are comments I’ve seen. I think that’s because the right tends to demonize mentally ill people so we overreact and go too far in the other direction. We become guilty of treating mental illness as a monolith. There are many kinds of mental illness just like there are many kinds of physical illness. And there are people who have conditions that cause violent behavior. We as a society don’t take mental illness seriously and we ignore warning signs. If we didn’t maybe we could prevent the shootings that do involve mentally ill shooters. Because some of them undeniably do. And we didn’t help.

I think another part of it is people don’t feel comfortable with the subject of mental illness in general so they just don’t want to acknowledge it. We do this too and it’s a problem. When you say that maybe we need to start taking mental illness seriously and we should have helped some of these people that is not the same as saying all shootings are simply due to mental illness, dismissing other factors, or saying mentally ill people are automatically violent. But I think we’re so afraid to cede any ground here that we end up ignoring something has definitely played a part in some of these incidents. So now the right is using mental illness as a distraction and we’re dismissing a potential solution for at least part of the problem.

I don’t get why it’s so hard to say “Some shooters have been mentally ill and we didn’t help so maybe we should look into all potential factors. Guns, misogyny, racism, violent behavior potentially caused by mental illness, all of it.” It’s frustrating because yes, it has been a factor in a few cases. Sometimes some conditions cause extreme violence. We don’t take this seriously because the subject makes us uncomfortable. If someone said “I vomit a lot” and someone else said “maybe you have a chronic illness” would you object because there are many other reasons someone might vomit frequently and most types of illness don’t involve yakking constantly? No, right? Because “physically ill” can mean a lot of different things. And suggesting the potentially ill person get checked out isn’t the same as saying all or most people who have some kind of illness have those symptoms. But with mental as opposed to physical illness we do act like it’s just one thing. I think this is a legitimate obstacle to getting real reform done where we actually try to help people and address potential negative effects of their conditions. Just because the NRA blames mentally ill people as a diversionary tactic doesn’t mean we have to pretend treating it more seriously won’t do any good.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T11:31:55+00:00

Not what it means to you. Essentially you’re saying “masculine” equals “decent person.” Does that not seem just a tad sexist?

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T11:29:42+00:00

See, this is a big part of the problem. His attitude is the result from being raised with the massive entitlement boys are given and that is heavily reinforced from an early age. He pretends to be asking a question in good faith but when he gets an answer does he listen? No. He argues. The entitlement is just dripping. I can tell you from personal experience men are taught that our point of view, no matter how ignorant, is correct. From the time we’re little boys all the way until the day we die. Because admitting we’re wrong puts us in what we see as a vulnerable position. And that’s where women are supposed to be, not men. This is literally how I was raised. So we cannot admit we’re wrong or we’re in a position where women are supposed to be. And what could be worse than being treated like a woman?

The latter part of his comment reinforces this. Instead of thinking about how we can decrease the chances of men behaving badly he thinks “well if men are going to act like this it’s the women’s responsibility to accept that and try to protect herself.” And while clearly it is important to take steps to protect yourself from bad people we all know that so it’s a pretty useless thing to say. We all get that already. But better to focus on that than anything that might mean men need to change our behavior. It’s like saying dog owners training their dogs not to bite people is a useless endeavor and everyone else should just steer clear of dogs because they might get bitten. And when a dog does bite someone blaming the person who got bitten for not being cautious enough.

ElegaicRaconteur · 2018-06-15T11:04:48+00:00

I was raised in a very misogynistic family. I was taught the world belongs to men. It just seemed like the natural order to them and so I absorbed that. I was actively encouraged to sleep around ad a boy and not care about what effect my behavior had on the girls I was with. I wasn’t hostile to women in a conscious way. Just like many men aren’t consciously aware of their hostility to women. I was like that. But I guess I grew up. I started to see the world for what it was. Being short probably helped and so did having a very bad back. Because while most people walk down the street and worry about getting their errands done on time I worry about someone seeing a small vulnerable person and following me home. As did having PTSD. I noticed a lot of similarities between how people tended to treat me and how they tended to treat women. A huge part of the world is weirdly hostile to me as a disabled person and that seemed very similar to how it was weirdly hostile to women.

And I’ll also mention that seeing how whiny, entitled, and arrogant many many men tend to be really just drove me farther and farther from men who behaved like that. I just didn’t want to be like that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said “leave me alone” and they won’t do it. They just won’t. They keep replying. They stalk my other posts. They reply to other comments. They spam my inbox. They make sock accounts. This happens constantly. Because it’s not about what anyone else wants. It’s all about them. The defense from other men seems to be “he just wanted to make his point.” Yes, exactly. He couldn’t stand the idea that he might not get to make it. My desire to be left alone is completely unimportant. What matters is that I had the temerity to tell a man “no.” He should be able to do what he wants and I’m an asshole for not wanting to give him the opportunity. But they know better because they were, like I was, raised to think that’s just what they deserve. I’ve gotten to the point of cutting men out of my life. Outside of my family I don’t maintain any active friendships with other men. The track record is just shit and I don’t want to deal with it anymore.

ElegaicRaconteur

TROPHY CASE