I'm now envisioning a car wrecking its way into a house, and then trying to make cat sounds with its engine and stuff (the meows would be kinda hard, but whining would be easy enough) at the door of the restroom, and then the tires just squeal as it zooms away as the person opens the restroom door. I'm envisioning the sheer, overwhelming perplexity on their face.
I'm completely cracking up over this image. It's amazing.
You think that the statement "what LGBTQ+ says about x" is a comment that is possible to make sense?
"LGBTQ+" is not an organization. It's not a religion or a creed. It doesn't "say" anything - and, in fact, isn't even an "it" in the context you're using!
It's a term for a group of people that have nothing to do with each other, other than some shared traits. In your comment, replace "LGBTQ+" with another word for a group of unrelated humans. "Blondes," maybe, or "women," "men," "dark skinned folk," "humans," etc. You can't put something like "Americans" or "Christians" in that sentence, because those are too specific.
Can you see the problem now?
Is it fair to post a video of some random dude saying something stupid, and then say, "I have proof that men believe X"?
No, because "men" don't share a creed.
LGBTQ folk also don't share a creed. We're just people.
And I absolutely believe you'd hear some folks joking around about "coming for their children." A friend of mine jokes about the gay agenda all the time. Her gay agenda is "going to the grocery store to get milk." But someone could get a clip of her saying that she's got a gay agenda, easily.
And thing is, even if that video happened to be about some folks who weren't joking - it doesn't mean anything! Just because someone found some random assholes at pride doesn't mean that everyone who's LGBTQ+ has an agenda.
I'm probably wasting my time, I know, but I figured I'd put it out there just in case you are honestly misunderstanding the situation. Here's hoping.
This is so cute and weirdly wholesome
We once did something really amazing along these lines. Only once, it was a crap ton of work.
We were fighting this giant demon wall thing. We made it out of Graham crackers and chocolate decorations, which we attached with melted chocolate as glue, basically. It was super creepy - I made demon eyes, oozing blood stuff, it's was great.
As we damaged the wall, we would rip parts of and eat it. It was like a solid 2-3 freaking pounds of chocolate and other assorted things. It was glorious to devour the enemy like that!
It’s annoying when monogamous people act like we’re all lying about experiencing compersion.
Man, do I feel this. Why is it so hard to believe that people can feel differently about things?
No, I'm not jealous and afraid my wife is going to leave me if she has sex with someone else. She isn't when I do that, either.
We'll eagerly discuss all the juicy details. She loves hearing about my adventures. She's more shy, so I hear more about who she'd like to be with rather than actual adventures. We both giggle and discuss people we'd totally bang and there really actually isn't an undercurrent of anxiety about it.
If I found someone that I started to fall in love with, isn't that an awesome thing? Love is wonderful! And the sort of person that I could love would be someone that my wife would, at the very least, like. How does this not sound like a wonderful situation to people?
Monogamy doesn't make sense to me, though I respect people's right to feel the way they do. If they feel jealousy, that's allowed. If they think it's better to have jealousy, then I'm confused, but whatever.
It's just weird that feeling differently gets such negative reactions and accusations of lying.
Thank you! That's really sweet, I appreciate it.
It's been a number of years, and I've found my way. Found someone truly amazing to get married to and she's done a lot to help me out. I still suck at making friends, but my wife helps bridge that gap.
Interestingly enough, tabletop roleplaying games, like dungeons and dragons, helped me more than anything else. I could practice different ways of interacting with people and get actual feedback on how I came across - people will criticize characters I'm pretending to be in a way that they won't for my real self. And it has lower stakes - if I screw up in that context, it doesn't matter. If I freeze and don't know what to do, I can just roll a die and make the problem go away.
I appreciate what you and your wife are doing. If it weren't for my wife, I'd probably really be in need of that sort of support. Thank you.
"Different?" That's just always been true.
I've been going to a psychologist on and off for "social dysfunction" since I was like 3. My family wasn't well off, so it was more my mom trying to do what she could with evaluations or whatever every few years.
I was diagnosed with ADD back when everyone was diagnosed with it, despite not meeting pretty much any of the criteria. My mom tried to argue about it, but random not-quite-poor person vs psychologist, she was blown off.
I used to fantasize that there was an alien civilisation that was trying to understand earth and so created a human-alien mental hybrid to try to make sense of humanity. It'd mean there was nowhere I truly belonged, of course, but it'd also mean there was a reason, a purpose, to me being surrounded by confusing aliens.
Mom ended up going to medical school and learned about autism (and Asperger's, at the time) while there. She was furious. I was a textbook case of a woman with Asperger's syndrome, but in my youth, psychologists frequently didn't consider it possible for female patients to have Asperger's.
She wasn't sure if she should mention it, since by that time I was an adult and on my own. I discovered it through a video game, actually - To The Moon, an amazing story in which one of the main characters has Asperger's.
I mentioned it to her as a "holy crap, I looked into this and I feel like I've been seen!" And she mentioned what she'd learned in school. It kinda annoyed me that she hadn't passed that along, but between her support and what I'd seen, I pursued options and got diagnosed.
Now it's just autism and not Asperger's, but whatever. Still, it was blatantly obvious my entire life. I had a rough childhood. I didn't manage to actually make a friend of my own till I was 17. I had a few friends before then, sort of, but they were a thing where I was kinda adopted because I was easy to manipulate, and not any real connection.
I could be defiant as hell, but I was so lonely, I'd do anything for those who called me friend, so... yeah, not the best friendships, in hindsight.
Really wish those psychologists would have identified my issues back when. My life would have been vastly different.
I dunno, I've seen some really low bars :P
None of this is saying don't hit on women.
It's saying that some men are complete assholes when they're rejected, and so it's not a simple and straightforward thing to reject men.
Don't invalidate the experiences of women who have had reason to have trouble. Don't say stupid shit like "just say no, why do women gotta do things like ghost people," etc.
And if you do hit on women, don't give them a hard time for rejecting you! They're allowed to say no, for any reason, and they aren't required to justify themselves to you.
But absolutely continue to pursue women - respectfully.
Thank you very much!
Yeah, I've run into that plenty myself. Hell, I'm a woman and I have a wife, and I was once accused of being homophobic... as I was trying to explain why I was happy about living thousands of kilometers from my family.
It really bugs me when people accuse people like my grandparents of being "hateful." If my grandparents see that, they'll just see more "proof" that left wingers have no idea what they're talking about.
I can't do anything to fix the issues on the conservative side of the fence - I really wish I could - but I can hopefully help on my side of the fence, with fostering better understanding and communication.
My break from conservative thinking was... uh... perhaps best described as a violent psychological event. I went from thinking we were the good guys, to maybe getting some things wrong, to suddenly realizing I'd been unknowingly on the side of evil my whole life. Meeting someone who was gay and hearing his story, about the abuse he took from people who acted exactly as I'd been taught to... Stars above, that ripped out my heart.
And if I hadn't already had my beliefs cracking and under pressure, I'd have blown off his story as pure manipulation.
It's a whole thing, for me. I can only hope for reconciliation of some kind. My family members aren't really evil people - they mean well, even if they only consider people who are straight, white, and Christian to be fully people.
But calling them things they aren't won't ever get them to listen.
Not that I know what would get them to listen, beyond convincing their pastor of things...
I get where you're coming from and why, I really do, but I think saying stuff like that is really unhelpful.
I'm about as left wing as they come, but I grew up in rural Florida. All the bullshit you see about the place? That's my family. None of them specifically have shown up on the news, but still, it's them - their beliefs, attitudes, etc.
The issue isn't deception or manipulation from regular conservatives. When my grandparents / cousins spit out that sort of bullshit, that's not what's going on.
The issue, rather, is a complex one that is, among other things, a thing of trust.
They believe, honestly and truly, in Fox News. They believe in their preachers. They believe that homosexuality is a demon that possesses people, and by interacting with "the gays," you "open the door" to demonic influence in your life.
That last bit is an example of something I was outright taught.
When my grandparents talk about how it'd be good for America to round up all the gays and put them in concentration camps, what they're feeling is protectiveness. They want to protect people from Satan's influence, and if someone has accepted the enemy to the point of being proudly gay, then why should people be sympathetic to them? Get rid of them all, obviously.
Yes, it's insane and hurtful and stupid and so frustrating that I haven't spoken to my extended family in a few years.
But they're not trying to trick people. They don't need to think about what they believed before, they don't need to second guess what's right, they know what's right. What's right is believing in the authority figures they've been trained to believe in. What is right is to listen, to obey, to fight as they are directed to fight, for the good of all.
It's horrifying from the outside, but from the inside, it's a safe little bubble where you don't have to wonder and worry about what is the right thing to do. It's easy - the only hard part is acting on it. Do what's right, and everything else will fall into place. It's simple and feels good.
To challenge that way of thinking, to suggest that they have to figure it out themselves - that's a huge ask. Going against what they've been taught their whole lives, and for what? To have to deal with moral uncertainty and unsolvable moral dilemmas? That's hardly a reason to change.
I think it's absolutely intentional. It feels like it's written by and targetted towards people who are viscerally repulsed by pedophilia.
It's creating a situation that feels like absolute horror, and using that revulsion to help sell the horror. This centuries old mind, trapped in a child's body, unable to properly experience things like sexually and romance, continually on the outside of everything, treated like a child despite her age and abilities...
If I remember correctly, she ends up being this extremely bitter murdering monstrosity, out of rage and spite over her existence. Despite her angelic, innocent face, she's the most evil of the lot. Partly because she doesn't even have the option of interacting with humans properly, and even most vampires treat her poorly.
And all because a character had a moment of moral panic, of pity for a poor child. A desire to do the right thing.
It's awful. And it's supposed to be.