We’re going back in!
There were way too many amazing screenshots of self-confident mansplainers of women’s bodies and sexuality to fit in my post on r/NotHowGirlsWork the other day. So I’m doing another one. Like right here, and right now. It’s the very post you are reading at this moment!
Weird coincidence, that. Anyway, let’s see how completely wrong it is possible for human beings to be, in convenient screenshot form.
Only women who are virgins can fully close their legs:
Lesbians don’t get periods because bleeding from your vagina is too girly.
I mean, trans lesbians don’t have periods, but I don’t think that’s what this person is talking about.
When women sit down on the toilet thy never know if they’re going to pee or poop.
Women like to have sex with, er, lobsters?
I’ll bet they only go for the lobsters at the top of the dominance hierarchy, you know how women are.
Actually you don’t because women, far from being inveterate lobster humpers, have no sex drive at all. Because of science.
This next one should win some sort of award. For what, I’m not sure, but wow.
The end. Or is it?
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Nothing is more girly then blood running down your legs. everyone knows men can’t do things like bleed.
First, that was very nicely done, Elaine.
Second, WTF with that last one? Who is Kevin texting? Why? Is there a commercial product called “MPenzi Vagina”? Is this the tech support account for that product?
I am so, so not able to even even.
Dammit, the article ninja’d the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the title. 😛
@ Elaine: True fact! 😛
Okay, so the only contact they had with women were as shadow on the wall of the grotto, right ?
@Elaine @David
While it’s true that we do not generally shed uterine lining as required for a period by a sometimes necessarily cisnormative medical system, the full answer to the question of periode is, as usual with trans stuff, complicated and fascinating. Here’s a nice article:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/can-trans-women-get-periods
So basically we can get all those delightful feelings of tender boobs, belly and wild mood swings. For me personally, I think it’s worth it as the long term psychological benefit of cyclic hormones gas been very good for me and I would recommend any trans girls to ask her doctor if it may be right for her. One caveat though: If you have high natural progesterone (pre op) be careful or you are in for a weird and colorful trip.
Otherwise, nice cringefest
Oh, yeah. Passing large amounts of blood and tissue is so feminine. Having sore breasts making me snarl “DON’T TOUCH ME” to Mr. Parasol … super-feminine. And cramps? Well, that was just ultra feminine!
ETA: Seriously, the great thing about menopause was getting to say goodbye to all that.
Women use lobsters to masturbate? Does Jordan Peterson know about this?
Trigger warning for, uh, particularly disgusting late 20th century anti-lesbian propoganda.
’90 or ’91; back when stupid, obviously false stories had to spread by word-of-mouth, chain letters, and physical copies posted on office bulletin boards; I remember coming across the lobster masturbation story. It is a long tail with obvious point-of-view issues. To sum up, woman masturbates with lobster, which leads to later giving birth to a bunch of baby shrimp, which causes her to suffer a fatal head injury when she is sent into shock by the experience.
The woman was described as a lesbian, which does really seem relevant, other than the whole point of the story being anti-lesbian propoganda. I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that misogynists are still passing this one around.
I *wish* my lesbian status made the moon cycle go away.
The lobster thing is an old horror story. One of the first things I found on Snopes back in the day when browsing urban legends.
That last one is a special kind of incel.
I love the juxtaposition of “women are so desperate for orgasms they will put live pinchy crustaceans in close proximity to their delicate bits” and “women are completely uninterested in sex, it’s evolution”.
I kind of want to put those two comments in a room and watch them fight it out.
Nothing says dainty and girly like the period shits!
That said, I guess it’s good to know thigh gaps aren’t considered good anymore, because I do not have one.
This discussion reminds me of the awesome responses that people come up with whenever some idiot claims that “women aren’t Metal.” Whether it’s periods, childbirth, or transitioning, women are VERY Metal.
vent/ I need advice (I’m so mad right now)
My primary OB-GYN has left the country for a couple months so with her gone, I’m seeing this replacement guy temporary. I’m this close to requesting or finding someone knew. Not even sure if I should be reporting this guy because he is extremely kink negative. He keeps insisting that my husband is abusing me because I came in for my appointment with bruises and cuts all over me (days old now). I told him we like bdsm and that this a totally normal and consensual thing. He’s not here for it and I’m getting super tired of being talked to like I’m an infant who can’t decide what I like sexually.
This man actually looked me in the eye and said, “do you really want a baby to be conceived through violence?” and I just can’t. It’s a spanking and a few knicks on my thighs, this isn’t violence.
@Elaine:
In the middle of this plague? And this is a healthcare expert, too …
Advice: dump the new guy. No more hesitation. Can’t trust a misogynist with your care, even a “benevolent sexist” who infantilizes you; and especially not with care of those parts specifically. Who knows what he might decide to do “for your own good”?
I’ve known more than one lesbian who wished she didn’t get periods. And one who had a hysterectomy after years of having terrible ones.
I still had the hormone cycle even after the bleeding had stopped (hello, monthly chocolate and salt cravings, lower backache), but it was so much nicer not to bleed. Because that’s damn inconvenient no matter how light it is.
@Elaine and @Battering Lamb: so extremely true.
@Elaine: DTFM ASAP. He’s a terrible person, probably with a paternalistic savior complex.
If there’s some anonymous site online to rate doctors, definitely post there about his hangups.
@ elaine
I feel for you; and if you are unhappy with a doctor then it’s only right that you should seek an alternative.
This is though a complex topic. I’m not downplaying your own experience; but this is a controversial issue here.
Personally I’m a big believer in bodily autonomy and the idea that you should be able to consent to anything; even stuff that may harm you. As far as I’m concerned the only arbiter of what is acceptable for you, is you.
But as they say, hard case make bad law. There have been cases here where people have used consent as a defence to charges of causing harm, and even death. So the argument is that even if a person has consented to harm, then that should not be a defence to criminal charges.
This all goes back to a case called ‘Spanner’ (more formally R -v- Brown & Ors [1993]). That was the prosecution of gay men for injuries inflicted during consensual sex. That decision was highly criticised and the law then became more relaxed about such matters.
However there have been further cases here where people have used consent as a defence to charges of causing harm, and even death. So the argument is that even if a person has consented to harm, then that should not be a defence to criminal charges.
There’s a new Domestic Abuse Act 2021 in the offing. That will prohibit anyone raising a defence of consent in cases where injury is caused; or even putting forward evidence that the other person consented. More here on that.
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/2709
That’s not to say your doctor wasn’t just being an arse. But there have been cases where medical personnel have been roundly criticised and even disciplined for not raising safeguarding issues where people with injuries have said that they were inflicted consensually. So doctors do have to tread a fine line.
OT, but I’m getting frustrated with my incompetent provincial government.
First of all, they’ve managed to lose control of the virus again: it’s been skyrocketing in Ontario this past week. Every time it gets down to low triple-digit case counts they loosen restrictions and the virus starts growing rapidly again. If they kept the restrictions for just a couple additional weeks at that point maybe it could be eliminated, or nearly so; or if the majority of the people would just collectively act as if the restrictions remained in place for two more weeks. But no.
Then there’s the poor information availability. I can easily get county-by-county breakdowns of new case counts, but nothing with finer granularity. The case counts here have been in the low to mid double digits (in a county of maybe 100,000) with single digit new cases per day, until this morning, when I woke up to reports of 18 new cases in a single 24-hour period. Obviously there’s some community spread happening, but where is it? Two towns over? This town, but the other end of it? Right outside my door? These make a big difference to the safety of going out: if there’s a lot of transmission in my area of town, or where I shop, I should postpone shopping until there isn’t, but if this spike is due to a school outbreak 40 miles away it doesn’t affect that shopping trip. Without more granularity to know which neighborhoods have community spread, and which shopping areas, I can’t ensure my own safety, or the safety of the people I might infect in the event that I catch the damn thing.
It would be less of an issue were it not for Omicron. I don’t trust the shots I’ve had to protect me from that, nor do I trust masks to be of much use against it. The lower transmissibility variants were significantly suppressed by ordinary mask use; even Delta, to some degree; but I doubt Omicron will be slowed much by anything other than professionally-fitted-and-applied N95-equivalent masks. Needless to say, few people have those, rather than cloth or surgical-type masks that are much easier to find, and fewer still would have them fitted and have the specialist skills to put them on and remove them “to medical standards”. Without the latter they’re probably equivalent to a particularly good “ordinary” mask, which is to say, decently effective against OG and Alpha COVID, moderately effective against Delta, and nigh-useless against Omicron.
They should have called it Omega, because I suspect it might mean the end. Our already climate-stressed and corrupted civilization was teetering between saving itself and screwing itself before; this goddamn variant is sure to tip it over the edge. Further unraveling of supply chains will be the first stage; expect lots of bare shelves and price volatility real soon now. Once the bare shelves are impacting food and not just T.P. the civil unrest will make 2020 look like boisterous kids in the school playground by comparison. There will be assassinations, revolutions, beheadings. Nancy Pelosi almost got the Marie Antoinette treatment on January 6; that will turn out to have been just the dress rehearsal. And so on, until wars break out, purges and pogroms develop, and by the time the dust settles we’re back to feudalism if not the Stone Age, probably whilst glowing in the dark.
“The lengths a female will go to for an orgasm…”
Someone needs to read more emergency room stories. People end up there all the time from the things they’ve tried to do for sexual pleasure. I’ll give you three guesses as to which demographic leads the way, and a clue – it’s not women or non-binary people.
As for the bathroom, when I go there I know what I’m going there for… but to be honest and TMI,
surplus
The lower transmissibility variants were significantly suppressed by ordinary mask use; even Delta, to some degree; but I doubt Omicron will be slowed much by anything other than professionally-fitted-and-applied N95-equivalent masks.
I saw an overview (in some Oz news source, can’t remember which) basically saying that all masks have some protective effect. Given that Omicron appears to have at least 2 or 3 times the transmission rate of the variants so far identified, I’d say wear a mask, any mask, everywhere you go. I don’t care if a new outbreak is 50 miles away in this state, my rheumatoid arthritis drugs try to destroy my whole immune system every day.
I’m 1. wearing a mask everywhere I go, 2. avoiding all enclosed chopping malls and going inside only a few shops anyway.
I need to stock up on the replaceable thingummies that go inside a couple of my cloth masks. I’m seriously considering doubling up on the liners each time. Don’t complain too much about governments. The idiots who crowd onto Oz beaches the moment a govt says maybe we should try loosening up a little bit here and there – Boom! Dance parties with no masks and no distancing go on day and night. And then everyone complains when the local authorities or state govt slam on the brakes.
And we’re fucked.
@weirwoodtreehugger
Thigh gaps are (yet another) excellent example of how features of physiology are weaponised as a stick to beat women with. I know that in translation it’s just “are you skinny?” as a meaningless arbiter of beauty, but as a person with a thigh gap with much thinner friends who don’t have one, I am certain they are nearly entirely down to bone structure. I find it weird how parts of your body can get a weird halo of perceived virtue/shame when there’s literally nothing you have personally inputted to make them that way.
The term “thigh gap” sounds like it should mean something like pay gap; perhaps a gendered difference in average thigh thickness.
Regarding toilet TMI, I usually only ever sit down on toilet if I need to poop – which is quite often due to my intestinal issues. If I also empty some urine from my bladder at the same time, it feels like an afterthought, not really planned. If I sit down for just peeing, it feels generally awkward and I also like I can’t trust myself to not defecate “unnecessarily” at the same time. Probably a lot of this relates to my irritable bowel and the fact that I’m extremely accustomed to peeing standing up.
@ buttercup
I was part of a team that did some work for an organisation trying to get legal protection for crustaceans.
That was apparently successful, and some new legislation is coming into force.
The client was very happy. They said “This is a victory for our ten legged friends!”
At which point I lost what little credibility I had by saying “I thought they had eight legs.”
You could see them suddenly regretting instructing me.
@Alan Robertshaw
Not a sentence you hear often — and very sweet. Congratulations!
@ Kat
Thank you!
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lobsters-octopus-and-crabs-recognised-as-sentient-beings
And I checked a photograph. They’re right about the number of legs thing.
I did get to be nerdy about how octopuses have arms not tentacles; but the cephalopod experts said they already knew that.