Honest to god the term Sex Worker reads exactly like Queer to me in that it conveys no useful information about the person it’s supposed to be describing BUT it does convey that I should not trust the person uncritically using it.
self-described “radfems” online: uhm there’s this problem i’ve been noticing in radical feminism where some of you are like crazyyyy. like way too extreme. haven’t you considered that average women aren’t gonna agree with your ideas? that means you hate those women. and if you hate most women that’s not very feminist. so tone it down a little
the word “radical” in radical feminist: do i mean nothing to you
also since we are all critiquing the discourse right now, it would be awesome if we could keep talking about the inhumane ways the European Union treats those that come seeking asylum even after the Titan leaves the headlines. This has been going on for years and it deserves to be more than a whataboutism
I can’t do a more deep opinion on this orca thing because yeah one can say “go orcas!”, it feels good, doesn’t it?…
but in fact those must be very scattered cases that won’t change the fact that the current situation is that ocean transport is noisy, it’s everywhere, and it must be driving these very, very sensitive animals crazy. Before motors, a whale could listen to what was happening in South Africa from the Argentine coast. Now their range of communication must have dropped to only a few kilometers: moreover, all the noise must be insane. There have been studies saying that even things like lawnmowers can make permanent ear damage to small rodents, and birds have had to adapt to city noises (their songs changed to a more “natural” pattern during the pandemic lockdowns) So I can’t imagine what such things must be doing to the minds of orcas, one of the animals with the most complex and intelligent behavior registered outside of primates, and extremely sensitive to sound. Can we even understand what they’re going through right now.
And this is not to mention the widespread whale (baleen whales, not orcas) hunting that decimated their populations to an absurd degree. All the world is currently going through a beyond worrying trend of defaunation, but whales were particulary hurt. There were 250.000 (estimated) blue whales before whaling, and they were decimated to less than 2000. Even today, with strict conservation measures, there’s around 10-25k blue whales, and that’s one species. Let that sink in.
Is there a solution to this, besides returning to the age of sail and banning ocean explotation? I don’t know, there might be. I hope there is.
When I read about orcas, about their behavior, about their pods with their own almost cultural quirks and even dialects, so much we don’t know about them, I only remember Arthur C. Clarke, when he spoke about blue whales: “We do not know the true nature of the entities we are destroying”
the fact that “stop consuming pornography and see if it helps” is not standard medical advice for gender dysphoric people is an absolute disgrace.
if making this post taught me one thing, it is that, for the younger generation, porn and sexual activity are the same, and all criticisms of pornography are just puritanical attacks on human sexuality, to be mocked and dismissed.
Yall do NOT hop on a cosmetic surgery hate train during an ongoing campaign against trans Healthcare I am fucking begging
My tits didn’t smaller themselves, fuckos. Either you believe in bodily autonomy or you fucking don’t.
The sacred bond between trans people who’ve had plastics and cis people who have had plastics is fucking sacred and I will not tolerate anybody in the queer community trash-talking plastics no matter what it is and who is getting them and for what reason!!!
I want there to not be a line between ‘costmetic’ and 'necessary’. If there’s a line, then insurance companies and whoever-the-fuck-else will decide everything is 'cosmetic’. That happened to me with getting my jaw rebuilt when I was A CHILD. 'oh it’s cosmetic’ My insurance wrangler lady and the surgeon had to write SEVERAL LETTERS to the damn insurance company detailing out just how graphically I would DIE if I did not get my face rebuilt before I was 18! If 'we won’t pay for cosmetic plastics only necessary ones’ wasn’t a thing, that wouldn’t have had to fucking happen!
So you know what? I don’t want to hear the word 'cosmetic’ out of anyone’s mouth. it’s ALL just plastics. And all plastics are still 100% the person’s choice to get, I don’t care what the reason is, all reasons are your business and should be honoured and that’s as it should be. As Sweaterkittens said, you either believe in bodily autonomy or you fucking don’t.
Signed,
A Transman who has had exclusively plastics for all FOUR major surgeries throughout his life.
Imagine being dependent on cosmetic procedures for your mental well being. Imagine getting ripped off like that and loving it. Imagine being a cash cow to rich white men and hating on anyone who suggests they might not have your best interests in mind like a simp.
i’ve had over 10 elective cosmetic procedures, starting at age 17. some were combined into single surgeries, but the number of procedures i had totals well over 10, especially counting all the different liposuction. breast reduction, breast lift (two of them), full abdominoplasty with muscle repair (the most invasive kind of tummy tuck), buccal fat removal, skin excision of over 10 inches on my back and on my jaw/neck, and, as i said, more liposuction than i could ever count (face, neck, underarms, back, stomach, hips, inner thighs, outer thighs, lower back, all areas multiple times over a period of 10 years), and the star of them all, a BBL. plus the surgery to repair the BBL infection to save my life.
despite my surgeries being “successful” (you could argue that the BBL was not in the end, but the rest technically were) i have been left permanently disabled—even when you factor out the effects of the BBL.
i used to be like that. i used to think i had a right to do whatever i wanted to my body, and fuck anyone who criticized that choice.
i want to laugh now.
i don’t want to hear a fucking thing about how right and good elective cosmetic surgery is until you all have had as much work done as i have.
you would’ve fought for my right to get these surgeries, even at 17. but you don’t give a shit about me now that i’ve had them and am in pain and wish i had died. did i deserve that? after all, i started out just like you, who support unconditional elective cosmetic surgery. would you have supported me then? have i lost your respect now that i have something real to say about the sinister aspects of this industry that preyed on my low self-esteem and left me irreparably damaged? was it just bad luck on my part, every single surgery? that seems a bit coincidental.
i got all these surgeries. i had the best surgeons in my state. i exercised my right to get them. i did them “for myself.” i did it all. i’m begging for death every day in a way i never knew before, even at my most self-loathing. how empowered am i now?
i’m just one woman. but was i worth it? was my life worth this? how about the millions of other women who have either died or suffered long-term complications from their surgeries? you and i both know the number isn’t zero.
i used to think that was a cost we could all afford to pay—after all, it’s all about an individual’s choice.
but then the cost was me. and now, with clarity of experience, i don’t understand how you can pay that. how you can sacrifice women like me by encouraging the cosmetic surgery industry like this.
you never want to hear from survivors, though, do you? surgery-havers are all valid until… until what? until we say something that doesn’t unconditionally validate what you think bodily autonomy means?
if you truly want elective cosmetic surgery to be an openly accessible industry, for whatever reason, then you better get to work on lifting up girls and women about their bodies. you better let us talk about our bodies, and how we ARE our bodies. about how there is no wrong way to be born. because otherwise, if you push the right to cosmetic surgery but condemn the right to celebrate the bodies we were born with, you’re just contributing to a global pressure on us to look a certain way that is ONLY achievable (i should say “seems achievable”) through invasive cosmetic surgery.
because you don’t get to have both worlds and expect stories like mine to remain rarities.
again, please ask yourself, how many women are you willing to sacrifice for your beliefs to triumph? are we less important if we don’t have a trans identity? are we more expendable for being “cis”? do we cost less to throw under the bus so long as everyone gets to champion the right to surgery?
this isn’t a game. this isn’t cool “bodymodding.” this is human experimentation, whether you’re trans or not. you can call it whatever you want, but it is going to cost lives. it is breeding ACTUAL medical malpractice.
if you actually cared about trans people, you’d want them to be informed about how fucking dangerous and life-ruining this industry is. how it preys on low self-esteem and gender stereotypes. how it leaves you high and dry. how doctors at the top clinics in the country for years afterward will scratch their heads trying to figure out your mysterious illnesses and immune system catastrophes.
if you actually cared about trans people, you would care about why cosmetic surgeons see them as absolute cash cows, right alongside “cis” women who are chasing a body ideal.
and yet you’re at work trying to silence voices like mine after we’ve actually HAD SO MANY COSMETIC SURGERIES.
i want to talk to someone who’s had exactly as many as i have. right now. talk to me and tell me how worth it it was. tell me how happy you are and how healthy you are. i’d LOVE to hear it. tell me how great your body works now, 10 years later. i can’t wait to sit down and gush with you about how amazing it’s all been.
but if you haven’t had elective cosmetic surgery, then you don’t get to weigh in and tell me how necessary it is. until you’ve been through it, you’re just an internet philosopher. come talk to me when you’ve been through MY hell.
(and no, i am not talking about medically necessary plastic surgery, so please don’t conflate. i am talking about elective cosmetic surgery. period.)
the terms “learning” and “unlearning” in identity politics are some of the most dystopian shit. 9 times out of 10 you could trade them out for “brainwashing myself” and “ignoring common sense” and there would be no meaningful change in their usage.
Leftist men will be like rapists can be reformed thru restorative justice and therapy but my manager at arbys gets the guillotine for making me clean the mens room
