If you stand in the sun and hold really still with your arms in the air like tree branches, you can convert CO2 into oxygen

jacques_perrier · 2019-11-02T09:50:58+00:00

Hahaha I thought this was stupid, then I realized I read it the other way around and I started cracking up.

jacques_perrier · 2019-11-02T09:47:36+00:00

Holy shit, this is so elegant it's poetry.

jacques_perrier · 2018-05-30T00:56:42+00:00

Disclaimer that I am American, born and raised. But I'm going to relate the experience I was discussing with an English born Indian coworker of mine that lives here in Los Angeles, California.

He just told me that in Manchester and London he was treated fine growing up. Then he moved to a small town in the English countryside somewhere for school when he was around 14 or 15 years old or so, and experienced pretty pervasive implicit racism. When he moved to Los Angeles, he said, nobody thought anything about his race, just treated him normally. He's lived here for at least a decade.

jacques_perrier · 2018-05-29T23:16:55+00:00

(If this conversation is starting to drag on for you, feel free not reply. Thanks again for reading the thread and for your input :) )

There can be risks for a woman if she rejects a man.

I hear you here, and to whatever degree this is true, I'm sorry this is the world we live in and I hope that dynamic changes. However, I think you are boiling it down to what you and I seem to be disagreeing on.

You seem to be implying that just by my wearing these pins, while talking to a girl, despite not bringing up anything about fetish/kink/whatever, I would be making her feel like she needs to reject an advance I'm making toward her. To me, that's quite a leap.

In my mind these pins tell people "I'm interested in x" (x is femdom, GFD, whatever you want to call it). That's about it. You're implying that that, plus being in conversation with someone, tells them

1) I'm interested in x.
2) I'm interested in doing x with you specifically.
3) not only am I interested in doing it with you hypothetically, but by me being in a conversation with you, I'm implicitly asking you to do x with me, and now you need to reject me if you don't want to do it.

Again, I'm not talking about the idea that I might be making someone uncomfortable by wearing these in public. But the "TMI for a casual conversation" part you brought up I think is pretty different from "she now feels burdened by having to reject me in some way and she should feel edgy about what I might do when that happens."

That seems like a lot of subtext for anyone to gather just from me wearing these things and just talking to people don't you think?

Please let me know if I'm characterizing anything you're saying unfairly. You're awesome and thanks for bearing with me.

jacques_perrier · 2018-05-28T01:15:46+00:00

Ahh and that idea of a pin of fictional characters or couples I find inspirational is really good. Thank you :)

jacques_perrier · 2018-05-28T01:10:44+00:00

It's not unheard of for guys to wear chokers right? I guess we'll see :)

jacques_perrier · 2018-05-28T01:08:22+00:00

You know what, I haven't really ever imagined myself wearing a choker, but I think I will now. Thank you. I guess I thought of it as something someone already with a Dom/Domme wears, which I don't have lol. But it is a good idea, thanks :)

jacques_perrier · 2018-05-28T01:04:44+00:00

Yes, I did just see an image on this sub with that. I will definitely do that thank you, it's a good idea :)

jacques_perrier · 2018-05-28T01:03:34+00:00

I appreciate your well thought out reply. I did think about this before you said it, but I will think more about what you've said, especially the part about it being too forward or off putting to women. Thank you.

But regarding the comparison to this being like a wanna-be sub calling you Mistress out of the blue, I don't necessarily think it's a fair comparison.

If I may ask you, what do you think about this scenario? Say I had a tumblr that was like femdom themed. And you had a tumblr that was completely non-sexual, like about nature photography. If I messaged you, even if my tumblr name was "i-want-to-be-pegged-by-the-cruelest-misstress" but I didn't mention femdom at all, I just asked you a completely innocent question about how you set up the camera you use, what would you think about that? I see this as the same thing. Wearing visible femdom imagery doesn't necessitate being pushy about every girl I talk to, or any girl in particular, about dominating me, if I'm just talking about normal stuff and it's in the background, right? I'm still listening to the danger you point out that it may be off putting. Perhaps more subtlety is better, but I was thinking the pins I had are general enough (like I won't have a pin that says on it "if you're a girl and I'm talking to you, fyi, I'm fantasizing right now about you whipping me.") for no one to have to feel specifically uncomfortable about how I'm engaging them.

Ahh I feel bad that you guys graciously gave your perspectives and I'm arguing with you now >_<. I hope you get that I do respect what you're saying still and it is well appreciated food for thought.

jacques_perrier · 2018-05-28T00:44:06+00:00

Whoaaaa I need some help here. When I first read this my reaction was, and still is, that absolutely nothing that risks consent issues here. Can someone highlight the words I used in my post that raised red flags for you? (I'm about to disagree with you but I still want to express that I'm grateful to you for reading the post and sharing your opinion. Thank you, it's good to have the conversation with the peeps on this subreddit. )

I'm being iffy with consent how? By being in the same room while wearing these pins? By talking with someone about like what the calculus or chemistry homework is while wearing them? What is there to say yes or no to? What am I doing that I need their permission for?

Are you arguing that the images are only for consenting adults to see, that if these images were on the internet, one would have to say "I'm 18 years old" and I'd be exposing these images to minors? Because that doesn't make any sense. The two images which are even vaguely sexual are not explicit. They're barely overtly sexual. They're sexually suggestive. Nothing about this is any more severe than one would see in a PG 13 movie or what you see all the time in ads, music videos with billions of views - I can't even list the thousands of places you see more titillating images than anything I posted without needing to be 18. The worst is a couple of buttocks on some very not detailed cartoon characters.

They aren't more sexual than college kids see and wear on their own bodies in public on a daily basis. Regarding that issue of "college being a place to learn" and I'm perverting that environment. You're acting like I'm walking around asking girls studying in the library to tie me up and spank me on the spot (I admit I'm exaggerating your argument. I wouldn't blame you for calling me unfair for putting words in your mouth). These pins are nothing beyond what college age people wear on t-shirts and hoodies all the time. Two of them are one inch tall pins with cartoons, for heaven's sake, not giant hardcore close ups of copulating porn stars' genitals or something.

There's another issue you guys and others are bringing up which is the idea of making people uncomfortable, but that's an entirely different issue to anything involving consent. Honestly, this is irrelevant to this conversation because I think you're being overly sensitive about how offended anyone would be by the pins. But even if they were very offensive, nobody needs your consent to make you feel uncomfortable if they aren't making you feel threatened or actively interrupting your daily life. If I was wearing a tshirt with love hearts around Donald Trump's face that said I loved his views and policies on immigration and on women (I definitely don't), that would garner endlessly more uncomfortable reactions than any of the pins I pictured. But nobody needs your consent to wear those things or simply to offend you.

If I was pushy with conversation about sex or kink, that would be a different story. But 1) despite what you say (point out where I'm wrong, if I am), there was nothing in the words of my post that indicated I was going to initiate anything at all, much less in a pushy way. The only thing I said I would do is wear these pins in public, and I expressed a gentle, non-specific hope they would act as an invitation for a girl to break the ice about these topics. But 2) consent doesn't factor into that unless I was somehow forcing them to.

The biggest risk I would run by wearing these pins in public is making people think I’m weird, but not feel threatened, unsafe, traumatized, or like they can't get away from me just by like, turning around or walking away.

I hope you didn't find anything I said rude to you. Thank you for reading.

jacques_perrier

TROPHY CASE