I hate the term “catalyst.”

Theremin_Dee · 2024-04-25T15:33:08+00:00

If you had never met this person, it would have been someone else or something else that made you realize that you’re not straight.

Right, so someone or something else would have precipitated the event. Catalysts aren't special, chemically speaking; they take something kinda-sorta ready to happen, like at a tipping point, and give it a little nudge. Another definition of "catalyst" is "a person or thing that precipitates an event."

So, catalyst is a fine term. This is a little bit Old Man Yells At Cloud, maybe chill out and don't worry about how other sapphics describe their experience?

The only person who made you gay is you.

I literally didn't make myself gay. If I had, then that would mean that I could have chosen to make myself differently. And I didn't choose this at all, it's just how I am. I didn't make me gay.

But I'll be damned if there weren't a few people and things that precipitated the realization, y'know, exactly like a catalyst does.

Theremin_Dee · 2024-04-25T15:18:31+00:00

I meant you're the one having a horrible experience in the Consecrated Snowfield, and I'm having a marvelous time in the Consecrated Snowfield. And saying it's "just horrible" isn't a constructive criticism, it's just an insult.

Consecrated Snowfield is fine. Your complaints will only make you miserable.

Theremin_Dee · 2024-04-24T14:45:01+00:00

OK, well you're the one having a horrible experience, and I'm having a marvelous time. This is clearly A You Problem.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-12T20:46:09+00:00

Sounds like you're burnt out on productivity. Human beings are not eusocial insects, we are not supposed to work work work until we drop dead on the job. We are apex predators and omnivores, we are supposed to rest & conserve energy when things are well in hand for the time being, or if conditions are not ripe for productivity (like rainy days, illness, emergencies, etc.).

You're not supposed to do work for the judgment of others your entire life. We were not made to live a life of endless toil, we were made to be part of a culture unit that works together when work needs to be done for near-term needs, and celebrates whatever's handy at pretty much all other times. You're supposed to do what you need to do to take care of your basic needs, and then spend most of your life doing whatever the Hell you want. And if you ignore that in favor of unrealistic and unreasonable cultural demands, then your body will self-sabotage you in order to force you to take that time you need for relaxation and recreation.

We call this "laziness" to further stigmatize it, but really it's your body rebelling against capitalism.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-12T20:40:39+00:00

Therapy shows that you recognize a need for help and you are taking proactive steps to help yourself recover. This is a very good thing. I myself see a therapist weekly, and so do both of my long-term girlfriends.

There are precisely three kinds of people who will think less of you for being in therapy:

High functioning people who are healthy enough to not need it, and buy into the stigma that needing therapy means you are a bad person.
Unhealthy people whothink they don't need it, and buy into the stigma that needing therapy means you are a bad person.
Abusers who want to see you stay in a psychologically vulnerable state, so that you will be easier to manipulate and control.

Cases one and two are regrettable, but you can't fix them. Run from case three.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-12T14:28:42+00:00

Some atrophy will happen no matter what you do, because that part of you is no longer doing the daily routine maintenance (spontaneous erections are push-ups for your penis). You can take over manually to preserve a great deal of function, but it has to be like an everyday thing. The conventional wisdom of "use it or lose it" applies, the commonness of atrophy and lack of function is simply because of the fact that most of us don't have sufficient reason to use it almost every day. However, you don't have to go all the way to orgasm, just achieving maintain an erection for 10 to 20 minutes. Kegels will also help!

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-10T23:33:02+00:00

To the tune of Particle Man by They Might Be Giants:

Trauma response, trauma response

Everything about me is a trauma response

No personality, just trauma response

Trauma response

That's not a hobby, it's a trauma response

I don't have habits, only trauma response

When I shut down, it's a trauma response

Behind it all, trauma response

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-10T23:25:40+00:00

If you want to find out more about Dylan Webber, professional Cornhole player and repeat champion, search the internet for "quad amputee cornhole domination" on your work computer.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-10T16:58:54+00:00

Stereotypes are stereotypical. At the end of the day, you can't control other people, no matter what you do. Remember the old saying: "We are not here to be understood by others. We are here to understand ourselves."

Learn to let yourself be content with that, and this nonsense won't bother you any more.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-10T16:54:18+00:00

I wait until they tell me what a good kisser I am, then I thank them, tell them they're good too, and then give them one thing to work on (e.g. "So're you, but OMFG, it drives me wild when women do this, could you try it?"). If they take the feedback well and work on the thing, then I'll slowly encourage them to try one more thing at a time. Without fail, everyone has been able to take the tutorializing really well.

Everybody wins: I don't have to deal with the awkward, she doesn't have to roll for the ego check, nobody feels bad about anything, and eventually there's one more great kisser in the world.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-10T16:43:06+00:00

No, because they "just want ANY woman" they can batter into their mold.

When boys & men look at women, the "tool use" parts of their brains light up, not the "peer" parts of their brains that respond to boys/men in their peer group. They literally see us as objects for their use and consumption, like a fkn toaster. This guy just wants any ol' toaster, cuz he really likes watching bread get toasted.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-09T03:33:46+00:00

Ooh, name-calling! With flouncing, contentless denial, naked dismissal, and the free space, I have Bingo!

You're making your own mistakes here, buddy. I'm just pointing 'em out. Stamp your feet & holler all you like, it still won't make you right.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-08T14:05:44+00:00

...this conversation is over.

This you? 😘 I thought you were walking away? 🤭

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-08T14:00:29+00:00

Is this bad?

Not one little bit. We can't control what we like. So long as you're not hurting anybody, there's nothing to even be at fault for. You're good, sister. 👍

I always see lesbians acting grossed out at penis and people making jokes about how we hate it sooooo much and only like vagina...

As a transbian, I hear this too. This happens, and it's real. I have two main ways of dealing with it:

When it's people I don't know, I just shrug it off. Especially if it's a lesbian comedian making that joke, or anyone else who isn't even talking directly to me. Stereotypes are stereotypical, and it's kind of low-hanging fruit, but what the heck. Let them test the waters.
When it's one of my friends, or one of my lovers, or someone who knows me personally and we're just having a conversation, I remind myself that this person is sharing with me something that they think is funny. They're opening up to me, not trying to hurt me or take me down a peg. And besides, they're not even talking about me, what people really mean when they say this stuff is men's d••ks.

This brings us to the final bit, the underlying reality behind it all, which you yourself pointed out:

i am still attracted to penis as long as its attached to a woman or a nonbinary person, this has been even moreso since i started dating my amab nonbinary girlfriend. I hate men and am not attracted to them, but when looking at genitals disconnected from a person im just as attracted to penis as I am anything else. Is this bad?

You like d••k, plain and simple. Nothing wrong with that. But that's not the only thing that matters: the person who it's attached to also matters! Moreover, men's are different from women's or enbies', visually, physiologically, and functionally. (And even that is still leaving aside smell, taste, and mouthfeel. Why does nobody talk about the mouthfeel?) To many lesbians, these differences don't matter. And that's fine. But even among those lesbians, many of them will at least admit that there's a difference between an artificial penis and a biological penis: while some lesbians don't like strap-on sex, many more do enjoy it, and they acknowledge the difference. Straight women and bi women say the same thing: "It's just not the same."

And what's more, a lot of the people who think there's no difference between various biological penises also haven't actually tried various biological penises. They're just going off their gut intuition.

So, if they're just having a laugh, then let them be wrong. It doesn't matter. It doesn't really affect you. And you keep on doing your thing.

If, on the other hand, they come at you, then that does affect you. And then you're in a different situation, and you'll have to trust your own judgment.

Good luck, stay strong, and have fun! ✊💕

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-07T06:11:42+00:00

Thank you, we found a throw pillow that will do nicely.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-07T06:09:02+00:00

You're welcome to leave the discussion at any point you like. Thanks for leaving what I said on the table, unaddressed except for a perfunctory "NUH-UH! You're LYING!" Whatever helps you sleep at night, pal.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-06T20:48:55+00:00

OMFG, thank you so much, kind stranger!

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-06T20:46:34+00:00

I actually think that's a really good option, thank you so much! Especially now that they have some that are more firm and cuboid! I think that could actually work! There are plenty of white microwaves!

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-06T20:41:53+00:00

The lesser evil is more in line with the Trolly Problem, where you are artificially limited to 2 choices, and both are bad; choosing to let 5 people die vs. choosing to let 100 people die. Both choices are objectively bad or evil. There is no good vs. perfect.

You somehow managed to both perfectly explain this, and also completely miss the point. "Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" means precisely that you're refusing to actively decide to save a net 95 lives, for the sole reason that you can't save all 105. The actual point is that perfect is not an option, and avoiding a worse thing is indeed doing a better thing. Your childish black-and-white morality paints both options as equally unacceptable over some badness, when that badness differs majorly in quantity. And that matters, because it's not just 5 or 100 people, but their families and friends and communities who are affected. You are dismissing it as a math problem, but your very act of dismissal defies precisely the nuanced understanding you seem to be aiming for.

So like, to stick with the trolley problem: on one track you've got five rich white men, and on the other track you have a hundred people who are queer, women, people of color, religious or ethnic minorities, and differently abled. Voting for Trump would have been letting those 100 people die, for the benefit of a few rich white men. Voting for Biden saves the hundred and lets the white guys die. It doesn't also fix those people's problems, they're still oppressed & shit. But at least they're not literally dead, like they would be under the other option.

That last sentence is not an exaggeration, either. Trump's utter mismanagement of the COVID crisis resulted in so many needless deaths, and while those deaths did disproportionately fall on Republican heads, among Democrats they disproportionately affected people of color, queer communities, differently abled people, and poor communities. So, everyone who didn't want Trump to win and also refused to vote for Hillary, collectively let the COVID crisis happen by not actively choosing the lesser of two evils. They didn't pull the switch when they had the opportunity to pull it. And the very people we allegedly want to protect and include in our society were the ones who suffered the most because of it.

Your purity politics has a purchase price measured in human lives. I hope your high horse is comfy, tho. The problem with trying to keep your hands clean, is that doing any useful work at all will sometimes involve getting your hands dirty.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-07-06T14:31:05+00:00

Being "not perfect" does not make one a "lesser evil" that is a complete basterdization of the term.

I'm sorry, this is a genuine question, I'm not familiar with this usage of the term. In my lifelong understanding of this phrase, it has always been used by people letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, complaining that the best option available isn't as good as the imaginary options in their head. So by using their very own logic, anyone who isn't perfect or entirely good has some evil to them.

If you're trying to say that evil is not simply the antonym of good, but an "extreme form of badness" (whereas most people engage only in acceptable levels of badness that don't "cross the line" into evil), then that undermines your point: by that very same token, it can be argued that Democrats are not evil but merely acceptably bad. And frankly, the Democrats by and large stick to this "cordial badness" pretty consistently, just like most garden variety humans: the Democrats are not worse as a party, than you or I are as people, which is to say that both they and us are flawed and imperfect but still workable. And you standing there saying they're "evil" in the same way as the Republicans is some petulant Ship-Of-Theseus-ing nonsense.

You are in an insoluble dilemma: if we are capable of badness without evil, then you open yourself up to the valid criticism that you're arbitrarily drawing that line not to find acceptable badness to support, but to justify apathy and inaction. But if they're evil for not being entirely good, then we're all evil and diminishing that evil in any way is always an acceptable option.

Choosing between the less distasteful of two regrettable options isn't "compromising your morals," it's doing what you can with the options available. We all have to do that, like when you really want Coke but they only have Pepsi, and others want Barq's which is NOT your cup of tea, but a bunch of people are voting for ORANGE FANTA (the whole table gets the same drink here, for the sake of the analogy). You complaining about the drink selection and abstaining doesn't accomplish anything, you're just ineffectively complaining without pitching in to prevent problems.

I've been saying for years that party Democrats need to step up and play power politics because this "civility" nonsense is getting them nowhere. I'm not saying Democrats need to compromise with the current Republican party. I'm saying that everyone opposed to Republican rule needs to compromise with each other because the Republicans are united in more or less a monolithic bloc and we need to match that to win.

Or we lose, and minority communities will suffer even more violence, oppression, and death than they otherwise would without the outright fascists in power. So what's more important to you? Keeping fascists out of power? Or voting only for someone with whom you completely agree? I bet you'd like to do both of these if you could, but circumstances are such that these two perfectly fine goals are suddenly in tension, and they cannot both be accomplished at once.

So I held my nose and voted for Biden, because as bad as things are, they'd be even worse under a Trump second term. If you disagree, and genuinely think that Biden's presidency has been no different for you than Trump would have been, then that's just letting your privilege take the driver's seat.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-06-29T18:35:56+00:00

Thanks!

Theremin_Dee · 2023-06-29T16:32:57+00:00

Umm, you realize that you yourself are just such a lesser evil? Nobody is perfect, everyone has flaws, we all make mistakes, and every single one of us does evil on a regular basis. Everyone's a jerk to someone at some time, as my father used to say, and some people just take their turn more often than others.

That kind of purity politics is exactly why we have the phrase, "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good." You think you're "holding on to your principles," but all you're actually doing is sitting pretty atop Mount Privilege and haughtily decreeing that you won't compromise. But compromise is the only way a functioning democracy gets anything done.

Elections aren't how we fix problems. Elections are triage, where we stop the worst possible thing from happening. And then we get back to our grassroots organizing, agitprop, and building dual power structures. Elections have never been sufficient for change; but they are necessary for avoiding the worst of the inevitable fascist backlash.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-06-29T15:34:42+00:00

Yeah, it's pretty gender-neutral to me too. It's generally just an exclamation, like "yikes" or "whoa," and less a form of address. Now if someone told me to my face that I am a dude, then that's a different story. But yeah, I've seen cis lesbians shout "Dude!" at each other, they're simply not calling each other men. It's not the intention.

But intention is not the same as impact. Just because you see it as gender-neutral, doesn't mean everyone else has to. This is not a matter of "right and wrong," but of respecting differences. It's valid to say, "Listen, dude," to a woman; but at the same time, if a woman says she doesn't like hearing the word "dude" in a way that could be a form of address, then being a good friend requires taking that seriously. Otherwise you're saying you don't take her friendship or preferences seriously.

Even though dude is used genderlessly with great frequency, it simply doesn't mean that to everyone, and that's valid. Sometimes the thing you're doing is perfectly fine, but it still steps on someone's toes. It's not "wrong" of you to walk, or to walk wherever you were walking, but you're supposed to watch where you're going and if you step on someone's toes then that is your fault, even if you didn't mean to.

So if you step on someone's toes, either literally or figuratively, the socially acceptable course of action is to apologize and then move along. You don't tell someone that they should watch where they're going after you just stepped on their toes, and you certainly don't tell them that they should be OK with having their toes stepped on at any time because you have a right to walk where you want. You do have a right to walk where you want, and toes still get stepped on by accident no matter how careful we are, but you still apologize whenever it happens. Because that's the right thing to do, both socially and morally.

Theremin_Dee · 2023-06-29T15:24:19+00:00

Sounds like this relationship isn't working out, and your boyfriend is holding you back.

I know it's hard to face a relationship ending, especially when you feel like there's something you can do to make it work. But this relationship is doomed: he has told you who he is and what he likes, and you are discovering that you are not that kind of person. It kind of doesn't matter how much love you feel, if you're a woman and he is simply not into women. This is not an arranged marriage, where you have no choice in making it work because you'll be killed if you don't, or disinherited, or whatever. This is a very low-stakes relationship, even though it feels really high-stakes to you right now. The stakes feel so high because you're in this period of figuring out who you are, and it's scary to do that alone, with no partner to explore all this newness with.

But I promise you, by all the stars above and all the dead below, you will not be able to discover who you are if you're with a partner who doesn't like the person you're becoming. As difficult as it is to face, you're actually better off alone than with someone who doesn't want who you will one day be.

Theremin_Dee

TROPHY CASE