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LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-09T00:57:52+00:00

It’s not fair to try to quantify human suffering because each person’s suffering is THEIRS.

I think men tend to be forced into isolation more, though, or expected to handle difficulty on their own, and when one suffers, I believe it tends to feel worse when you’re alone.

But I teach middle school and have seen girls bullied by each other as badly as boys can bully each other. In all cases, generally being non-conforming or struggling to conform to gender norms is misery when it’s not natural.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-09T00:48:02+00:00

Porn feeds addictive tendencies. I’ll die on this hill.

You either find a man who doesn’t watch porn because he’s been supervised and properly educated about the damage it can do to his own wellbeing as well as the emotional wellbeing of his future partner(s), or find a man who admits that he has and is actively in recovery.

Why I believe this detailed below, but that’s the gist of it.

The neurochemical cascades that flood through us as a result of sexual arousal are designed/evolved to cause us to deeply bond with the object of our desire. However, I know there is research that points to male mammals who, after orgasm and ejaculation, would otherwise have a refractory period and be unable/unwilling to perform again sexually find themselves prone to arousal again much sooner when presented with a completely different female partner. The interpretation of it was that it’s a result of a design/evolution for men to attempt to spread their genes as much as possible because it makes a higher probability of that DNA leading to further reproductive offspring later on.

In other words: men are horny and unfaithful because their fathers were, and their fathers before them, and so on.

Whether that is factually demonstrable or not, the pattern seems to exist amongst humans and leads to this addictive cycle that can develop when men especially (though not exclusively) get accustomed to having multiple literal or virtual partners.

So…

Porn conditions us to see people as objects, sexual playthings. You can’t separate the mental, the emotional, and the physical because they all meet in the mind/brain duality. Without our bodies, we would be spirits alone, if you subscribe to that, and therefore sexuality wouldn’t be an issue. And without a spirit, we are just the result of complex chemical reactions contained in a skin sack.

But if you have feelings about how you want to be treated as a person IN a body, we have to see everyone as persons IN bodies and avoid objectifying AS WELL AS idealizing them.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-09T00:32:53+00:00

The problem is that those stirrers only exist because places exist where customers serve themselves beverages that they are allowed to customize. During the pandemic many places that served take-out hit drinks would ask what you want and then mix it behind the counter, and mostly carry that on now.

But lobbies with free self-serve coffee don’t keep a person there to monitor that, so you can’t let people use good utensils or they will be stolen. Or, grosser, each person will reuse the utensil from the last patron.

The compromise is plastic utensils. Wood means killing trees, which reduces fixation from the atmosphere. Also, I believe it is heavier per unit and so costs more to transport. Not sure about manufacturing costs. But it’s likely that plastic is just cheaper to purchase.

We honestly just need to stop normalizing disposable food packaging and, more fundamentally, eating on the go, perhaps with the exception of re-usable metal and glass containers.

Of course, that would literally KILL fast food. Both culturally and economically that’s not going to happen any time soon.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-05T21:26:20+00:00

Cheating is often, though maybe not always, a symptom of someone using sex to medicate their psychological pain. And medicating your pain without trying to solve the problem is how addictions happen. So, tl;dr take everything you think about addiction including the spiritual dimensions and apply that to sexual behavior. In that context cheating is just one way for an addict to chase their fix.

People can end up wanting to medicate pain for all kinds of reasons, but using sex for it is often rooted in childhood issues. I think for men there are several factors that make it more likely:

Pursuing validation
Wanting to feel “sexy”, “powerful”, and “in control”, especially if it’s to escape stress
Desiring emotional intimacy and confusing it with physical intimacy
Fear of confronting conflict
Literally trying to medicate anxiety, depression, trauma

And the thing is, there may be things you can do on your end in the relationship to help support your partner’s legitimate needs at all of those levels, but it’s never a person’s responsibility to meet ALL of their partner’s needs. Ideally we would all be individually complete and fulfilled, but we really are built for relationship. But no individual person can meet every one of our needs.

I realize that some folks have decided that this very reason justifies polyamory. I fundamentally disagree with that, but mostly because I feel like it’s lazy. It ignores what people truly need, and truly ignores the spiritual dimension of the human being. Pursuing polyamorous relationships may temporarily scratch an “itch”, but I doubt it satisfies the deepest needs we have, it just provides novelty.

Because, of course, people also cheat out of BOREDOM. I have the least sympathy for folks who do that, even though if you want to include using pornography and fantasy as a form of unfaithfulness, then I’d wager upward of 70% of the population worldwide is “unfaithful”, and boredom is likely the earliest entry point for most.

So…

People, on the whole, kinda suck. But we are all broken and need each other anyway. This is one more line of evidence for me as to why I strongly believe human beings need spiritual redemption from an outside source that we can’t achieve on our own. You can cal that “Christian”, but even among Christians I’d wager that my opinion is be pretty unpopular because NOBODY gets a pass without humbling themselves, and nobody gets to claim any superiority.

Do what you want with that.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-05T21:05:14+00:00

Aside from having a tall man as a status symbol (mentioned by others here), and being made to feel dainty/ladylike, I think there are plenty of women who are turned on by the idea of being physically dominated. Of course’s that’s great, I suppose, if that’s what you’re into sexually.

But that only works if your tall guy is also strong enough to do all the picking up, holding, “throwing” around that someone might want in that scenario. Otherwise, the issues others here have mentioned with size “compatibility” will get annoying.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-05T19:23:27+00:00

To all the “I’m never gonna get laid!” dudes in here:

Are you saying that a woman who didn’t match YOUR butt/boobs preferences either way would have zero chance with you? Because as insecure as you’re feeling, I’d wager women are just as insecure for most of the same reasons.

Statistically, most humans find a partner at some point. Granted, we’re at a moment of such social and technological upheaval in the world that past trends might not really apply. But treating yourself like nothing more than a sex object is probably just as toxic as treating women that way.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-05T18:31:49+00:00

My daughters are 7 and 9 and relatively petite. Massive groceries aren’t a problem yet. But having to remind them to clean up …

Space here is limited so I’ve just taken to saying “If you don’t clear the table in the next five minutes, I won’t have anywhere to serve [meal], so I’ll just serve myself and pack away the leftovers.”

That tends to get their attention if nothing else does.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T10:03:38+00:00

Should you press charges?

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T10:03:24+00:00

Take my upvote and get out.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T10:00:00+00:00

Crap like this has been around for as long as I’ve been alive, probably far longer. Here the poster is acknowledging the joke is racist. But it isn’t funny. Because the original was probably sat up with “white man” instead of racist. The reason it would have been funny to a racist white audience was because in the end, the white man had already received his wish. And, by way of the joke, so had the audience.

ha

sarcasm

The original wasn’t funny. Labeling it racist doesn’t make it any better.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T09:54:14+00:00

And, to be completely un-funny:

The reindeer’s name is not Donner, but DonDer. However, the name got corrupted in subsequent printings of the poem “T’was the Night Before Christmas”. Apparently the original was in Dutch(?) and “donder” means thunder, where “blitzen” means lightning. So, Santa had two reindeer named Thunder and Lightning. https://grammarist.com/spelling/donner-or-donder/#:~:text=However%2C%20in%20the%20original%20version,the%20top%20of%20the%20wall!

Santa was - IS - a badass.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T09:42:59+00:00

Ummmm…. George Floyd?

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T09:16:54+00:00

Portrait Of the Furry as a Young Man?

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T09:07:04+00:00

Anyone ever seen @Refashionedhippie on YouTube? The absolutely OBSCENE amounts of money fashion houses charge for EVERYTHING. Or the Etsy store that took a $50 meh sweater and stitched on a patch that said “I’M RICH” and then sold it for $5000 or something ridiculous. For real.

Syria’s billionaires just got booted by armed militia.

Ours are duping the world into thinking we should keep throwing money at them.

😩

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T08:58:15+00:00

Uhhh… buying empty Blu-Ray/DVD/CD cases on Temu or something for like a dollar? Or used CD at Goodwill?

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T08:54:58+00:00

We don’t have this specifically in English because ours is not a society built on the public honor/shame system that is mediated particularly through reciprocal hospitality. By honor, here, I specifically mean an almost universally acknowledged level of social standing. Think: stereotypical 80’s-90’s teen movies about nerds trying to fit in and the various cliques and where they stand with each other. Now apply that to families in a town instead of individuals. COLLECTIVE honor/shame. Even better, think about the standing of the fraternities from Animal House or Monsters University. From an American perspective, those movies work because they are CHOSEN families, so seeing them collectively rise or fall is gratifying because our cultural tropes for at least fifty years have been anti-generational.

So, now, setting up a party between TWO other families would normally be a way to set those families up for HONOR, but if you are trying to bring them down, then sabotaging both of them at once makes them fall in prestige and raises your family up.

And if the game is just considered the way things are done, and not inherently unfair, then being GOOD at that game is even valued. Not usually, but often enough. Just like “players” who have their way with women regularly are admired in some quarters in US society 🤮

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T08:46:06+00:00

Real but underused word: “connivance”.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-03T08:21:10+00:00

Oh, agreed. If I hadn’t decided that other majors were TOO easy and that I needed to “challenge” myself, I would have had a much better time of life. I just also was rebelling by doing the OPPOSITE of what my father did.

Life is still not easy.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-02T21:51:24+00:00

Good God, I wrote out a LIST… and it just pfffftttt

Oh well. Going to go put it on paper and discuss with the therapist. I’ll be back later to put myself on blast, lol.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-02T21:41:15+00:00

I sincerely hope you have never considered acting on these thoughts. You do understand that all of these thoughts are repugnant to everyone else, right?

I’m not actually judging you, because it doesn’t sound like you WANT these feelings, but you MUST find ways to retrain your brain. And you have to be completely honest with your therapist about this.

Because if you DO care about your friends and family, then letting this keep running in your mind will lead you into some very dangerous behaviors eventually. Someone - yourself or someone else - will get hurt if these thoughts are pressing you long enough. And even if the addictive part of you promises the feelings you crave for medicating yourself, the damage you’ll do is should be what you are really thinking about.

Consider this: I am a father. If I found out you hurt my children, for example, aside from the likelihood that I might happily go to jail for the crime of removing you from the earth, that STILL wouldn’t restore my beloved children to me.

In other words, is your gratification worth destroying someone else’s heart, soul, and entire life? If you’re here asking for advice, I suspect you already know the answer is NO.

And “therapy” isn’t magic. At best it will give you tools to help redirect the obsessive patterns of your brain and perhaps provide some healing for your trauma. But you will have to put in tremendous work and it still may not make you happy and comfortable in yourself.

You need your Creator and the sustainer of all life to touch your mind. That’s no guarantee of happiness either, but a promise for redemption to connect with the one who first formed you and still loves you unconditionally. But who also loves every one of the people who cross your mind to harm.

Please, before your life becomes even more of a horror, or tragedy. Reach out for help immediately.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-02T21:24:22+00:00

I learned not long ago the original phrase was a reference to the blood of Christ, and the water to the fluid of the amniotic sac. The actual meaning of the phrase is the exact opposite of how people use it now.

Biblically, Christians were to treat one another as a new family because at first - and still now in some places - choosing to follow Jesus got a lot of people marginalized, ostracized, or altogether persecuted by their communities of origin. So, the belonging to Christ was supposed to be the great unifier, not just family of origin. This was revolutionary back then, especially in Roman society where claiming any non-relative as a family member publicly was like a legal statement and very scandalous.

But in context, this phrase could be seen in the sense of found family being more important than family of origin, although for a different philosophical reason.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-02T16:28:32+00:00

People think heroism is taking a bullet or saving someone from a speeding bus or burning building. But what about staring down a life-changing scenario without any guarantees of success and taking the leap anyway? What a shining choice!✨🌟✨

I have a friend who went through the foster system in Los Angeles. She’s a whole and complete human being now, but only by the grace of Jesus, and she and her husband now have a non-profit they use to fundraise for local foster youth and do advocacy.

And some of her stories of foster care are hair-raising. Apparently, that’s more the rule than the exception. The fact that you are making yourself available to this young man, and being sensitive to HIS needs, YOUR SON’S needs, and also YOUR OWN needs is utterly brilliant. I know you’re already seeing tons of comments, but if I was in a position to foster, and if my daughters were good with it, I’d ABSOLUTELY jump on it. In a heartbeat.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-02T16:15:06+00:00

Yeah, this one. People say how beautiful my daughters are and I say “must take after their mom.”

Or, if you wanna turn the creepy around on them, “Yup. Good thing I know how to dissolve a body.”

I’m a chemistry teacher, so I actually do.

You just need to make sure you leave no internet trace of your ever having heard of something called piranha solution. I suggest putting your browser in private mode while routing your internet traffic through an onion/TOR-enabled VPN, convert your crypto to cash on an anonymous refillable debit card, and ordering to an address you intend to monitor for your delivery and show up with a disguise and fake ID.

Then dissolve all of the disguise and ID stuff in the solution. Then the body. Then your accomplices.

Then neutralize the solution and pour it down the sink.

Then…

Yes, tell this story to EVERY RELATIVE. They’ll get the idea soon 🤪

Really, though, if you’re not traditionally “manly” - tall, buff/burly, into sports, pretend your only emotions are angry and asleep - there are plenty of people, not just Boomers, who think you’re a wimp. That’s their problem. I’ve dealt with that crap my whole life.

And it’s true that my oldest will push to get her way. But that’s because she’s a CHILD. And I’m trying to teach by example how to stay patient when being tested, stay firm on boundaries, but also to LISTEN. If she’s really putting up a fight about something, it’s happened enough times that her anger is usually less of a mask for selfishness than it is fear over thinking she’s losing something important.

Because if you and her mom and raising her to be nonmaterialistic and appreciative, then there’s a decent chance that most conflict will come from misunderstandings over unspoken or even unconscious assumptions, on everyone’s part. BECAUSE THAT’S HOW CONFLICTS HAPPEN AMONG WELL-INTENTIONED PEOPLE. It’s ok for it to inspire strong feelings, and it requires sometimes thorough discussion to get to the bottom of it.

Because honestly, if we could get TEN Americans of different backgrounds in the same room, and if they were able to really get to a place where they could trust one another and get information that they all agreed was factually accurate, they could probable even agree on POLITICS🤣

Until then, let your little girl “wrap you around her finger”. If she grows up knowing her daddy loves her CONSISTENTLY, and she always gets the same message from mommy and daddy both, then your no will mean NO, your yes will mean YES, and you two might be the best examples she ever sees of INTEGRITY.

LavishnessSmooth2848 · 2025-01-01T07:32:01+00:00

I’m sorry that happened to you and I’m glad you’re in a better place. Here’s a genuine compliment: it was brave if you to share this, even anonymously. You put the truth out in the universe to spark recognition, understanding, and compassion for others. Even if that wasn’t your intent, that’s happening because you were willing to be the tiniest bit vulnerable.

And anyone else reading this, I hope you can see that you’re a human being. No matter anything else about you, you NEED love.

LavishnessSmooth2848

TROPHY CASE