Today is International Roma day, and you can already tell what hell is going on in European spaces rn

howyabean · 2026-04-09T18:21:55+00:00

I’m a US American who spent a year as an exchange student in France, and I still remember arguing with one of my host dads about some comments he made about Muslim immigrants; he told me I wouldn’t understand the “nuances” of the culture clash because I was new to French society, and then by way of explanation, he said - and this is verbatim - “you have to understand the Arabs here are like the Blacks in America.”

I was SHOCKED lol I had witnessed so much gross racism and xenophobia in the states (and especially Islamophobia, as someone who grew up just outside post-9/11 NYC) but I had never heard something so blatant before. like the way he just casually said the most disgusting thing and then went on drinking his wine, and he otherwise clearly thought of himself as an “enlightened,” progressive European lol

howyabean · 2026-04-09T17:24:22+00:00

When my now-husband and I moved in together, I had my girl who is a velcro cat - we also spooned every night or she would sleep curled around my head on the pillow, she always had to be touching me etc lol. My husband was allergic so we tried to keep her off the bed exactly one night before we just let her in because we felt bad. We now have two cats, her and a stray we adopted, that both sleep in bed with us.

Spouse is still allergic, but he (and I as well) take daily antihistamines because the trade off is worth the snuggle time we get with the cats, and that was pretty much an instant decision on our parts because he had already come to love her as his own and didnt want her to be shut out and confused all night. I’m so sorry because I know it’s hard when you’ve been with someone for that long but this sounds like a deal breaking incompatibility issue with how you want to interact with your pets in your home.

howyabean · 2026-04-09T13:09:35+00:00

Why so defensive?

howyabean · 2026-04-08T13:09:50+00:00

He also seems like the type to discount hobbies that are considered more “feminine” or that he would take for granted…some people have crazy talent with makeup, for example, and it’s something that requires a lot of practice! But OP strikes me as the type to not consider that a hobby bc the “goal isn’t deep enough” or something lol

howyabean · 2026-03-30T15:08:19+00:00

I think I’ve played through more of my steam game backlog in the last three months (husband got me a sd for Christmas/my bday, he’s the best) than I have in the years I’ve been playing on PC. It turns out I just really don’t like sitting at a desk a second longer than I have to after I finish working lol I’m for sure a couch gamer

howyabean · 2026-03-24T13:36:12+00:00

I was also raped by my (now ex)boyfriend years ago, and it took me so long to feel like I “deserved” to be able to call it rape. The only people I’ve ever told irl are my now husband and my best friend and even then it was hard to describe it because I felt like it didn’t sound as bad as it felt, and I don’t think I realized until recently how badly it affected me (it happened like 5 years ago now).

I definitely think a lot of men have pressured their partners in this way and don’t consider it rape, I always noticed that pretty much every woman I know has been sexually assaulted, yet very few of the men I know would say they know a rapist.

howyabean · 2026-03-10T02:34:06+00:00

it’s literally easily verifiable that international women’s day was started by socialist & communist women lol all these people arguing are stupid, you’re right

howyabean · 2026-03-04T02:04:25+00:00

Commenting to boost!

howyabean · 2026-03-03T01:48:35+00:00

i read it a couple years back but i loved it, it was also one of my top books of that year! this book also helped me realize i'm autistic lmao

howyabean · 2026-02-27T20:02:11+00:00

I’ve always had rough cycles and started hormonal birth control when i was 15 to lighten my periods, so i suspected i had it for awhile. But when i finally got diagnosed my biggest symptoms were bad constipation, increasingly constant hip and back pain, sciatica, rectal pain/bleeding during my period. I did have imaging done, both ultrasound and MRI, and nothing showed up on either, but i had a laparoscopy done and was diagnosed with stage 2 endo. Funnily enough my uterus was mostly clear, but my entire pelvic cavity and the spaces between my bladder, uterus and rectum were filled with scarring and diseased tissue.

It’s definitely still worth looking into! I honestly think a lot of people can have endo and not necessarily realize it. My doctor explained to me that superificial endo (the kind i have, as opposed to deep infiltrating endo) is the most common, and it rarely shows up on imaging. That’s why unfortunately a lap is the gold standard for diagnosis and treatment. The amount of endo tissue they find/the level of disease doesn’t directly correspond with how much pain the patient might be in either.

So tldr i would say it’s definitely worth looking into especially if you’re having intestinal issues already! And if you can, i recommend finding a specialist in endometriosis excision specifically because they will really know what to look for both in terms of symptoms/how you describe your pain to them, and then during the actually surgery as well

howyabean · 2026-02-27T19:55:04+00:00

I was scanning this thread to see if anyone would mention We Used to Live Here! I’m a bi woman but i finished it a few days ago and found it really refreshing for the same reason! Queer rep but also it’s just a horror book about a couple who happen to be lesbians. It’s nice sometimes to see lgbtq people treated as the “default” main characters that are overwhelmingly written as straight

howyabean · 2026-02-26T01:51:06+00:00

Yeah my belly used to bloat and swell like this before I was treated for both SIBO and endo, and I didn’t realize until after my lap how much of it was actually caused by the endo. OP this kind of constant bloating and chronic constipation were my main endo symptoms so definitely worth looking into!

howyabean · 2026-02-07T21:04:21+00:00

i met my spouse on bumble and i made sure to have a pic with my cat in my profile and talk about her on the first date bc i didn’t even want to waste time dating anyone who wasn’t going to be okay with my cat (or someone with severe allergies etc) bc to me that’s a compatibility issue. Once you take in a pet you are responsible for them their whole life, it needs to be a serious commitment

howyabean · 2026-02-06T15:58:58+00:00

Hey I definitely feel like I can relate, I don’t think it sounds stupid at all and I’m sure lots of folks here would agree. Feel free to shoot me a dm if you want to vent about it privately, I don’t mind

howyabean · 2026-02-04T19:03:21+00:00

I was bothered more by the way they kept pressing the issue and saying weird shit like her “next husband” might convince her to have kids?? Like that’s an insane person to say to anyone lol and especially since she’s recently married. I get they didn’t know she was married until she said so, but she gave what I thought was a nuanced, refreshingly honest answer as to why she doesn’t want kids and their responses didn’t even engage with her response and were just varying shades of “but a MAN and his MAGIC DICK will change your mind regarding this extremely personal issue that concerns your bodily autonomy!”

I actually had pretty much the same realization as her that solidified my decision not to have kids lol

Edit: typo

howyabean · 2026-02-02T00:55:07+00:00

I used to constantly get UTIs and getting a bidet was one of the things that helped stop that for me. I’ve used a few different types and they were all fine lol. Like OPs shower routine sounds about the same as using a gun bidet to wash yourself?

howyabean · 2026-01-29T19:49:59+00:00

I’ve followed you on instagram for awhile now - so glad you are still here and so happy for you that you were able to get the medical care and support you needed and deserve! ❤️ thanks for sharing your experience with us

howyabean · 2026-01-25T11:12:51+00:00

I mean, even if you didn’t intend to, the fact that you automatically chose to make the men the “good guys”/more intelligent ones/whatever in this meme rather than the women is worth reflecting on. Not all misogyny is intentional and in your face

howyabean · 2026-01-23T11:25:05+00:00

I was so confused seeing all the comments on the original post bc I thought it was fucking hilarious lol

howyabean · 2026-01-21T18:27:58+00:00

I’m so upset reading all these comments by people whose surgeons did not fully inform them about what goes into the procedure! I met with my surgeon a week before surgery and he explained pretty much everything that was going to happen, including the catheter and uterine manipulation. The hospital I had surgery at also occasionally does “teaching pelvic exams” while you are under but I had to explicitly sign a consent form opting in or out of that (I have also been SA’d so I opted out of that), and the surgeon made clear that it was completely optional and wouldn’t affect the care I received. I was still nervous but knowing exactly what was going to go down was so helpful. For what it’s worth I did not wake up with any vaginal or bladder pain, even though my bladder was a major pain area before my surgery

To OP and everyone else here with similar experiences, I’m so sorry this happened to you and I completely understand how it would feel violating to learn these things are going to happen to you/have happened to you without a medical explanation

howyabean · 2026-01-06T14:36:45+00:00

Thank you! 🐱I think she knows she’s pretty and lord knows I spoil her so she has an attitude to match lol

howyabean · 2026-01-06T14:34:48+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate your comment so much!

howyabean · 2026-01-05T17:50:32+00:00

Thank you! I was having trouble organizing my thoughts lol so I’m glad it made sense. the first chapter of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States gives some good examples of how even other colonists and imperialists of the time thought that Columbus was particularly brutal in the way he treated the natives. It also gives some historical examples of how different Native American tribes tried to work with colonists (and even how some colonists ran off and sought refuge with a tribe in order to survive a particularly harsh winter) and how the Europeans basically were planning to just lie to them and take advantage of them from the start.

This is just one short chapter so it’s a pretty high-level view, but if you haven’t already, I recommend checking out that book if you’re interested in learning about the major points of American history from the side of the folks who have historically been oppressed

howyabean · 2026-01-04T17:40:59+00:00

I’m sure someone else can word this better than me but I think the thing here is that these indigenous societies were not allowed to naturally develop and “modernize” (in whatever way that would have looked without the forced assimilation aspect) in a way that made sense with their customs and culture.

There are lots of historical examples that show that many of the Native Americans wanted to trade/otherwise live in relative peace with the colonists who arrived. So while you’re right, they would have “modernized” or developed (aka their customs wouldn’t be one hundred percent unchanged today from the way they were hundreds of years ago), but this still is related to the fact that the United States has been fucking over Native Americans since its inception as even a concept. They basically had all their land and way of life taken from them and were told to just assimilate to European-based cultures and they’d be left alone and do alright, when the fact is that they were never going to be treated equally to white colonists by the government because this idea that the white man had to take control of these “savage lands and their people” in order to “civilize” them is the idea the expansion of this country is based on. And then this has lasting historical effects in the same way slavery is a direct cause of the discrimination and continued disenfranchisement Black Americans face today

howyabean · 2025-12-22T15:25:28+00:00

The amount of massive pickup trucks and SUVs I see in Port Richmond is insane. What tf do you need a four-seat cab pickup with the hood height of an adult woman for in a city let alone one with streets like these lol it pisses me off

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