fracture [he/him]

wonder how much of this is due to prevalence of driving culture and awareness of the dangers of driving while intoxicated… ten years ago, i wouldn’t mind driving after i had a few drinks and waited a few hours. but nowadays, i don’t even want to hassle with at all

while noting your experience, i do think it’s good context to have that testosterone for trans men / transmasc folks can also improve their ability to process emotions and also generally their temperance (and personally, estrogen just makes me a goddamn wreck; i get depressed, irritable, cynical, etc)

(i worry that the anecdotes you’ve heard from trans women may be a little biased, as well 😅 i personally tend to think it’s more about the right hormones, than what they are)

there’s plenty about trauma itself that causes behaviorial instability. hormones may be a contributing factor in some situations, but i question how universal it is

i kinda wish this was… more? like, this isn’t not a part of the process, but it’s a pretty limited analysis of why men would be reticent to approach women. there’s a lot of (very real and good) consideration for women’s safety and consent, which situations are OK to approach in and which aren’t, etc

i guess the article is focused on how men feel, which is cool, but i think omitting this point means also missing how those worries feed back into creating those feelings of insecurity of men, too

this was a really funny article to me because the author really doesn’t seem that attached to being a man. i want to be clear, that’s fine and valid. but it seems weird to then speak to the want of men in general to have more positive role models of masculinity, and say, well you should just want positive role models

like? yeah, you can have role models of any gender, but isn’t it nice to have role models who look like you? isn’t that the entire point that people make when saying representation is important? that doesn’t stop being true just because we’re talking about men now

he’s missing such a basic and fundamental argument that the entire thing just becomes, at least for me, an externalized argument about how he feels about his own gender, which appears to be disconnected and largely not good

also he picked like, apparently the worst examples of masculinity he could find and said, yeah this is why we don’t need positive masculinity?? like c’mon

i like being a man, it’s cool. there’s a lot (A LOT) of shit i have to reconcile with being a man. but imo that’s part of the duty that comes with it. so yeah, author, it would be pretty cool to see men who had done that, who expressed their masculinity in unique and authentic ways that sometimes conform and sometimes don’t

you know. like people

(i want to take a moment to say that i have several women role models and also people whose gender identities aren’t so easily captured by the binary. but those people, generally speaking, don’t need to reconcile with the long history of people of their gender doing harm to those around them, nor with the present day scars from that harm. it’s a LOT to come to grips with understanding that you scare a lot of people just by existing, and frankly, that’s just an experience that a man is more commonly going to have to experience. exclusively? of course not. obviously, there’s a racial bias here as well. but due to the commonality, having readily available examples of how to handle it well, and even gracefully, would be nice)

@MareOfNights@discuss.tchncs.de hoping you’ll see this as well

kind of feel weird about you both using trans men as demonstrating your argument without either of you actually being trans. there are as many kinds of trans men as there are cis, and you can find examples of those of us who enjoy conforming to stereotypical masculinity and those of us who don’t

it’s also fairly presumptuous to assume every trans person’s goal is to pass, and also to presume the intent behind the goal of passing

honestly even presuming that trans men are asking how to be men, instead of defining it for themselves, is very presumptuous

like, the points you’re making, in general, aren’t bad. but it kind of feels icky to presume a minority’s goal and to also use it as an argument, when that minority’s reasoning is wide and varied. i think most people don’t like being treated like a monolith and i think that applies here, too

trans men were also largely unnecessary for the arguments you were making. a lot of it could be said for people who want to or enjoy (or don’t!) presenting masculine, regardless of sex assigned at birth. the answer to the author’s question, why should we have positive examples of masculinity, really boils down to, because some people like being masculine, but not toxic. trans men aren’t really special in that regard

anyways, keep in mind that i don’t speak for all trans men, but this trans man felt weird about this, like i’m being referenced as a demographic with no regard for what being in the demographic is like. thanks for reading

i am also wondering this, this thread feels like the goddamn twilight zone

god bless the people giving stool samples so often for the studies. FOUR TIMES A YEAR FOR SIX YEARS?? i did it once and it was awful. and more frequently if they got vaxxed or sick? i would cry

if you want to talk about women’s issues, why don’t you go to communities dedicated to that? we’re not taking away from them; we’re also feminist. we’re allied, and it’s important to have a space for men to talk about, from a feminist perspective, how the patriarchy impacts them

i don’t understand why you think space on lemmy is somehow limited?

nor do i see how your second paragraph is relevant at all

it seems like you view this community as a stereotypical MRA/MGTOW kind of place, which it definitely isn’t. and getting rid of it would leave it so men looking to talk about their issues only have those shitty places to go. that would only lead more men down the alt right rabbit hole

there’s enough space on the internet for everyone

you can take the link to the internet archive yourself, but it’s still getting cut off halfway through for “verifying access”. i had this happen with a different article recently too (different site as well, but still blocking access through the internet archive). i wonder if companies are shutting down access to their stuff through the internet archive :/

thanks for sharing this information with us, i think it’s important to discuss this stuff on the fediverse

i notice that beehaw doesn’t have a similar clause in its TOS, as far as i can tell. without the expectation of you answering this question, i’m wondering what the difference is between the two such that cohost has such a clause and beehaw doesn’t. maybe it’s because one is run by an individual and one is run by a small company?

i did a search on cohost itself to see if anyone else talked about this and found this quite extensive thread: https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1588769277053739010

so based on what you’ve said and what’s in that thread, i’m gonna update my post with some qualifications about cohost. thanks for piqing my interest in the TOS

is there a way they could protect themselves (“still legally be able to function”) without that clause?

it’s not federated or open, but cohost is a tumblr-alternative run by a group of queer devs who promise not to sell the company or your data. i don’t blame you if you don’t buy into it, but i do like the platform

https://cohost.org/rc/welcome

edit: based on what /u/FaceDeer@kbin.social has mentioned about the TOS, as well as further elaboration i found in a thread about it (https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1588769277053739010), i don’t think i can responsibly advocate for cohost, even as a closed/private alternative to tumblr

me walking in: oh cool, a mythology thing. i bet it’s just for straight people tho

the article:

Apart from the Old Man Under the Moon, another divine matchmaker in Chinese mythology is the Rabbit God, who has been worshiped as far back as the 18th century as a god of love between men.

ay yo??

(sorry for lesbians tho)

completely understandable, it sounds like it totally came out of the blue. i’ve gotten caught off guard a lot by shit like this too and been unsure of how to react, definitely don’t feel bad about it

if you manage to get your bearings, if something like that happens again, a good way to approach this sort of situation is to ask the person to explain the joke. so, for example:

“well, that’s definitely putting a rack on a shelf”

“haha… yeah uh, what do you mean by that?”

they try to explain it without sounding sexist but sound sexist and feel silly afterwards

honestly though, i would have asked them to explain it anyways. you clearly sensed the intent behind it, so i totally get that it was sexist. but like, wtf does that even mean?? putting a rack on a shelf? huh??? i would have filled in the details more but i genuinely don’t get it 💀💀💀

anyways, i’m sorry you had to hear that kind of shit from a client. it’s tough because i’m sure that’s a situation where you have to be really cognizant of the relationship. fwiw, you don’t need to chase them down or be really mean about the whole thing; usually getting them to realize by themselves that they’re being sexist is enough. you can just be pretty apologetic about not understanding their “joke”

Zeno Franco, who studies heroism and post-traumatic stress disorder at the Medical College of Wisconsin, thinks that we can turn masculine norms against sexual harassment and assault. “When has it ever been an acceptable norm that men instill fear in women? When has it ever been an acceptable norm that men turn a blind eye when other men harm women?”

absolutely. i always feel leery about making blanket statements about “what it means to be a man”; but without question, for me, it means protecting those who cannot protect themselves, pushing back and speaking out against those who exercise their power on others without regard for their well being. it means interfering in situations where i think someone will be harmed if i don’t, and trusting myself to be able to improve the situation, not just make it worse

sometimes, that means risking my own well being, too. i’m smart about it, not reckless; my own well being matters a lot to me too, especially because there are some people who are just fucked if something happens to me. but there are plenty of times i take that risk too and trust that, if things go wrong, they’ll be alright and they’ll understand

sometimes, there are things i see and need to act on because i couldn’t rightfully call myself a man if i didn’t

i’m trans, though. i don’t really understand the position of (often) cis men who don’t feel like this. maybe they’ve been told their own power is contingent on the system functioning as intended. maybe they’re just afraid, i get that

part of my ability to do this is that i’ve already been through hell. i know that if i mess up and do something to jeopardize my life, i can figure it out and fix it. i’ll survive. and it will have been worth it. maybe they don’t know that, they don’t have that kind of confidence in themselves

i’m also decent in a fight and i’ve spent some time learning communication and de-escalation skills (shoutout nonviolent communication) and i’ve spent over a decade in therapy

but i’ve always thought we should be speaking to men this way - are you really strong if you can’t protect those weaker than you? not to shame them about being weak; sometimes you are and that’s the reality of things. but is it truly strong to hoard power for yourself? how confident can you say you really are, if you’re afraid to use some of it for the benefit of others?

i haven’t lived an easy life, but it’s worth shouldering the burden to help make other people’s lives easier, too. it is what needs to be done, if we want to see a better society than the one we’ve grown up in

(i generalized a lot of this because the abuse of power, while influenced by gender, is not defined by gender)

i, uh, hm. well, in a marriage, you don’t know if someone is exploiting your goodwill, but ideally you marry someone who you don’t have to actively worry about it e.g. someone you can trust

relationships aren’t a hard science, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t science about them. for example, you could check out the book, “a general theory of love”. or you could check out the work of john gottman on relationships and love, he’s done a ton of work on them

for more general information on like, how humans work, you can check out paul ekman’s work on facial expressions and the facial action coding system (FACS). i’d also recommend marshall rosenberg’s non-violent communication - i don’t recall how strictly research-based the work is, but he (until he died, anyways) and his org do trainings across the world in this stuff, and he has a phd in clinical psychology, so i… think… it has a reasonable foundation? (it’s been a while since i read it)

and of course, because trauma invariably deeply affects relationships, you can read “the body keeps the score”, which is maybe the foremost research based text for the layperson about it

sorry, i’m not sure how open you are to actually receiving this kind of information… it’s totally understandable if you’re not. i used to feel a lot like you, i think, kind of unsure and untrusting of others. and all of these things are things i’ve read and learned from that have given me a lot more confidence about interacting with other people in general

obviously, the knowledge itself isn’t enough, but maybe you’ll find it helpful nonetheless

yeah no, my post is closer to “there’s more than 0% free will” than “there’s 100% free will”. i definitely know too much about trauma to think it’s 100%. but trauma get so deeply ingrained, and it’s so cyclical; that anyone can break free, seems nothing short of miraculous to me. to me, if we had no free will, that would never happen

it’s insane to me that someone could understand the ramifications of trauma on neurobiology and conclude that free will doesn’t exist

i feel like, without free will, no one would ever escape their trauma. without saying something shitty and uncompassionate like “you’re only held back by your trauma because you’re not strong willed enough”; that’s not true at all

but i think, at it’s core, healing from trauma requires two things: a person who you feel safe enough to trust, and the willingness to take the leap and trust again

if you don’t have one or the other, you’re going to really struggle

and that moment where you choose to trust, how can you see that as anything but free will? when everything about your past, your nerves, your biology is screaming at you to do otherwise?

i dunno. i don’t think any of us would have grown past our trauma at all without free will

that said, i think there’s also just too much going on in the brain to conclude there’s no free will for sure. i guess that’s not the same as saying it’s deterministic, which you can’t really say, because physics gets too fucking weird at low levels, right?

anyways, i guess we can never really definitively say whether free will exists or not. but i think you can still make very strong arguments for being compassionate to poor people / traumatized people / people with mental illness / etc without saying we all don’t have free will. it feels a lot like saying we’re all doomed to be what we were made to be and we can’t make a better life for ourselves

it just starts with convincing people, and believing, that we all deserve that

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as someone who has similar group chats, this is a really cute read