Like a lot of people in the US of A, I am taking a long weekend. Posting may be a little light for a bit. So here’s an open thread for everyone else taking a long weekend. Or not. Use this thread for anything that’s not personal. Like misogyny, politics, kitties, you know the drill. (Though kitties are welcome in all threads, of course.)
I am hoping my long weekend turns out a bit better than that of the people in the Australian movie of that name from 1978, which I keep meaning to see. Apparently their little beach vacation doesn’t go so well, and they are attacked by … nature? At one point, I believe, they face off against an enraged dugong. (No, really.) The movie was recently remade, but apparently the remake wasn’t as good.
Stay tuned for more reviews of movies I haven’t seen and that I’m just giving vague impressions of based on things I’ve heard somewhere.
Oh and I totally understand why you don’t want to risk it, but there are still decent people who pick up hitch hikers — my ex-FWB for example. (Obviously that’s an FYI not a “you should totally do it!”)
Argenti-
I was out-of-town when you posted the survey. It’s probably too late to take it, but can I see a link to the original questions?
@Hellkell:
“OF: I’m not trying to shame you by saying you’re a shit human. You’re clearly impervious to shame. If you weren’t you wouldn’t be typing the shit you type.”
O: OK…
“Something tells me that online you and offline you are probably very similar–but not in the badass way you think–, because you’re shown here that you are a weasel-worded, mealy-mouthed, all around chickenshit supremely dishonest motherfucker.”
O: Actually, you wouldn’t know me much at all; I don’t tout myself as a “badass”, but let’s just say that you don’t grow up in North Philly, etc, and not know how to handle yourself. Nor have I ever been known to mince words – to people’s faces, like the young lady I discussed.
“I hope you get a big blast of self-awareness one day.”
O: We all are eternal students, Ms. HK…
O.
So I’m the only bra-wearing person who doesn’t hate the things? I don’t find mine particularly uncomfortable. Might just be that since I’ve been wearing one since I was 9 I don’t remember what it was like not to, but even comparing sleepytime (no bra) with the rest of the time I don’t feel like it makes that much of a difference. I also find underwire bras more comfortable than the kind with just elastic underneath.
Coming back to this thread again and Obsidian Files tells me, in response to my post saying that my experience of one-night-stands have been two people enthusiastically and reciprocally engaging in sex, thus no difficulty in knowing whether the other person consent or not, that this kind of sex isn’t for all men.
Um, okay. So apparently I’ve only had sex with men who are hot enough (?) for me to get enthusiastic over. But men who aren’t that hot must settle for women who… idk… mostly just lie there? Which makes it very difficult to know if the woman consents or not?
This is so WTF that I don’t even… Look. Although people’s taste differ, obviously some men will be considered hot by lots of people because their looks confirm more to conventional attractiveness norms. So if someone were to point out that some men can easily get one night stands and for others it’s way more difficult, fine, I’m not gonna object to that. But OF seems to be saying, rather, that some men get enthusiastic sex and others non-enthusiastic…? Like WTF?
He says he’s telling me what things are like “from the other side” – the other side of what? Some kind of dimensional barrier that separates OF:s universe from ours?
Cassandra-
I also don’t mind bras. I recently got fitted and got some very comfortable ones. I don’t even know how I was running in my old sports “bra”.
That said, it’s hot here and I frequently shed mine ASAP at home.
LBT, I don’t want this to come across as if I am romanticizing homelessness (so totally not) but I have to say that your plan to turn it into an opportunity for seeing the country is inspiring. Ugh, I hope that doesn’t sound too patronizing because I really mean it. I had this dream for a while about hiking the Appalachian Trail, or at least a stretch of it. After my rape I spent a lot of time not wanting to be alone where there might be other people, so no more hiking. And then I got sick. And now that I am off the meds, I want to get my body back to my pre-illness state of health and general fitness. Having a hiking goal would give me something to work toward.
He comes to us from the other side of the invisible barrier between amoral assholes and decent human beings. What’s odd is that he thinks he’s the first person that we’ve heard speaking from that perspective.
RE: Ally S
Obviously, as a trans man, I come from a different direction, but I LOATHED bras. In my mind, they are evil, expensive torture devices, and I seriously considered celebrating my top surgery by burning one. (I didn’t. Seemed a bad thing to expose my city neighbors to.)
RE: ObsidianFile
My understanding of “enthusiastic consent” as I’ve read about it from leading Feminist writers online, is that the Man is to verbally ask for permission at every point in the seduction, and if the Woman doesn’t reply with the same verbal “yes/no” response, he is to STOP. Given the very high price a Man – especially a Black one (Brian Banks, anyone?) can and likely will pay for violating these rules, I think it behooves a guy just to not even go there.
Wow, it’s rare that I actually have a relevant blog entry for things, but this time, I totally do!
Now, back to travel planning. My GOD, why do buses not go to Ohio?
Regarding bras, I think it’s most comfortable to go without, but it’s not uncomfortable to wear one either. Ally, you probably don’t have to worry – in my experience, those women who say bras are uncomfortable are those with big boobs who have trouble finding a version that fits really well. But AFAIK most women who transition end up having small to medium-sized boobs, unless they add silicone. I’ve heard that you generally end up having boobs, after hormones only but no silicone, which are one to two cup sizes smaller than the average cis woman in your family.
Oh, sorry, should be “one to two cup sizes smaller than the average cis WOMAN’S [boobs] in your family”. Boobs that are one to two cup sizes smaller than an entire woman would be burdensome indeed…
RE: CassandraSays
I was wearing bras at ten, and hated them even then. It was this awful punishing exercise where I’d get “caught” without a bra and get chastised, so for a while, we had this paranoid behavior where we were constantly worried someone was checking us for a bra. Eventually, we caved, but hated every minute. (Then again, I also had a form of chest pain where bralessness was pretty much the only thing that worked.)
RE: Argenti
Hmmm, tarp and sleeping bag also might work okay (though still has the issue of sleeping on wet ground). And while I’ve hitchhiked before, amazingly successfully, it was kind of an act of desperation (I wanted OUT of Whakatani!) and not something I’d care to repeat. Unfortunately, I’m not that knowledgeable about setting up tarps. Might be time to hit up the zine library, and ask my fellow scruffies…
RE: gillyrosebee
I’m not offended at all. And I hope you do get to do that hike someday! Sometimes I worry I’m romanticizing everything to myself, but if I have to make the choice between cheerfully deluded and miserably depressed, I think I’ll take deluded. And oddly, my rape mostly made me feel more comfortable alone or around strangers. (The people who’ve hurt me the worst are invariably the people who were meant to be our nearest and dearest.)
Some days, yes. Though I generally find lacy bras sexier than lacy panties, personally, so even if I didn’t have to wear one, I would want to wear one sometimes just because. I used to have a few really expensive racy ones that I would wear anytime I needed that extra boost of confidence to get me through an interview or the like.
That’s so weird, being chastised for not wearing a bra. I’m suddenly very grateful for my mother’s very matter of fact approach to body stuff – she offered bras as an option when it became obvious that I had boobs, but there was no pressure, it was up to me to choose, and she never policed what I wore.
The survey questions — hope that link works, I’m on my iPad currently and the mobile version…meh. (Though the google drive app is actually better than excel for deleting empty columns)
“Now, back to travel planning. My GOD, why do buses not go to Ohio?”
Amtrak Pennslyvanian line goes at least part way through the state. Gets expensive fast though, like, Pittsburgh to CT by train cost as much or more than flying, and only $20~30 of that was metro north.
Philly train station has like, a mini Quincy market food wise though. (And no, it isn’t easier to decide what to eat!)
“though still has the issue of sleeping on wet ground”
Take a spare, use one+ to make shelter, and one to keep your ass dry (my worst camping experience involved it raining during the night and our CAVE leaking!)…dude atop the cave in his water proof “mummy” bag was fine though.
Give me a sec, I’m sure I can dig up info on pitching a tarp.
RE: CassandraSays
Oh yeah, in my family, the bra was one of the most contentious aspects of puberty. We got away without shaving our legs without too much trouble, but try and go without the bra and we’d get pulled aside and scolded. And if we were out and about, we’d then be left for hours horribly paranoid that wee fifth-grade us was so obviously braless and that everyone was silently repulsed and judging us, but being unable to do anything about it. It was awful. I DO NOT miss those days. What brief, “Yay, boobies!” feelings we had as kids were quickly annihilated by the sheer amount of trouble they caused us.
Regarding enthusiastic consent: even though, as Cliff says, the term is imperfect, I think the best way to explain the idea is to say that enthusiastic consent is any form of consent that is completely unambiguous (which should be verbal, although technically it doesn’t have to be).
RE: Argenti
That might be a good way for me to go about it. That tent you linked looked really nice, but yeah, expensive. If I can DIY it, I figure it’d be really useful for me. (Also, seeing my housing situation, the idea of being able to make myself a tiny little home wherever I am sounds deeply reassuring.)
(Notes that the bra conversation seems to have done the trick. I guess talking about boobs in a non-sexualized way is like kryptonite for misogynists.)
YAY! Cookies! (I’ll take any excuse to have a cookie!!)
Say it out loud and you’ll get 98% of it, Argenti. Some folk use it as a way to say Indian that sidesteps the whole historical oops that the European arrivals to north America made. People try to reverse engineer it into one of a range of acronyms, but it is my impression that it started as a way to say “inn DEE inn” without saying Indian. My experience is that there is a good deal of scoffing at it (one of these days my aunt’s eyes are gonna roll right out of her head), but my experience is admittedly limited.
@RG:
“Gilly – I agree with you. I’m not in the business of publicly shaming and policing other grown-ups. Unless someone is doing something really crappy (a long berating, or assaulting someone), I’ll wait until later to address their behavior in private. Hell, I did this after my 4th of July party. My (male) friend was being a shit to my other (male) friend. I privately told him that he was obviously hurting my friend with his mean-spirited jokes. I only mention genders since OF asserts none of us have empathy for men. OF doesn’t care about empathy; he just wants others to hurt because he has.”
O: Actually, no, I’ve never been “hurt” in the way you suggest; annoyed, yea; offended, occasionally. But “hurt”?
Nah.
And I maintain what I said – in these kinds of discussions in the wider public discourse, we really don’t care what happens to guys. We just don’t.
And, on top of that, we EXPECT them to “Man Up”, all the while also EXPECTING them to be “empathetic” largely to Women and anyone else who isn’t straight and Male. Orwell would be proud.
O.
Seconding the childhood bra thing. I developed pretty early (and then pretty rapidly) but even before I had, I remember my grandmother (mother’s side, SUPER MEGA CATHOLIC) nearly screaming at me because I had gone outside (I think I was about 7) without a tshirt on JUST LIKE ALL MY COUSINS. Of course they were boys and I was not. I didn’t have breasts at that point, but I would some day, so I had to wear a tshirt.
That’s awesome. It’s sad that parents who don’t police their children’s clothing are so rare these days (as far as I can tell, at least).
…oh. Overthinking it for the win >.<
LBT —
Some basic super simple tarp set ups — http://www.trailspace.com/forums/beginners/topics/120382.html
Some more complex designs — http://www.naturalbushcraft.co.uk/shelter/tarpology-setting-up-your-tarp-in-different-configurations.html
And what looks like the holy grail of cheap camping — http://www.tarptent.com/projects/tarpdesign.html
That one does require some sewing and what not, but a mosquito net and zipable door are lacking on your standard "stick poles in the ground, slide tarp ring over them, tie/weigh down ends".
Even carrying stakes and a couple of poles, they're still WAY lighter and cheaper than a pre made tent.
And I forgot one Very Important Thing. If you're carrying food, which I assume you will be, take some sort of bag you can hoist into trees, and hoist it up a bit away from your camp site. You do not want to attract big animals. (And bodily functions don't mix with water sources, and make like a cat and bury them)
Actually, if you can find a used Boy Scout manual, it should have all the basics to wilderness survival.