Jan 24
planned barrenhood commented on SL Letter of the Day: Sex and the Single Trans Man.
#27 has the right idea, I think. LW, the key thing here is that you didn't really do anything wrong. You talked to him, you came out promptly before meeting him (which imho is a good idea just for your physical safety), and then he reacted like a total asshole. It isn't your fault that he, like many cis people, have a background assumption that anyone they are attracted to must also be cis. So don't blame yourself for his hangups and bad behavior. You just had bad luck.
Jan 23
planned barrenhood commented on Here's Hillary Clinton's Testimony Before the Teabaggy Congressional Committee.
"The original 9/11"? Somebody please tell this child to STFU and sit down.
Jan 22
planned barrenhood commented on SL Letter of the Day: What Do I Say to My Ex-Straight/Ex-Gay/Ex-Straight/Ex-Gay Brother?.
This is perfect advice. My brother dealt with the same cycle from a friend of his, except it was slightly less egregious since they're all college kids. I told him to tell the poor guy, "Are you happy with that? Great, awesome, I'm so glad we're keeping in touch" no matter what.
BROS can live in hope that his brother will get to a better place in life, but you can't really support or convince someone who goes to such extremes with such frequency. So, just be blandly positive, and find other common ground to talk about if possible.
BROS can live in hope that his brother will get to a better place in life, but you can't really support or convince someone who goes to such extremes with such frequency. So, just be blandly positive, and find other common ground to talk about if possible.
Jan 22
planned barrenhood commented on "Lena Dunham Is a Liar".
I get the uncomfortable feeling that Anon is a young woman hating on her own body type.
Listen girl, it's not the chub, it's your raging inferiority complex and inability to realize that plenty of average looking people have awesome sex with pretty hot people all the time. Nobody wants to hear your rant about how a vanity project memoirish TV show is a lie because it doesn't conform to your bleak, overly pessimistic view of sex and society. You're so hung up on your imperfections that you can't even see how a girl like Dunham, or me, or you can be viewed as a sexual being. Our airbrushed and photoshopped culture has got you convinced that you will never measure up to an ideal that doesn't actually exist in nature. Sad.
Put down the newest issue of Cosmo and back away slowly.
Listen girl, it's not the chub, it's your raging inferiority complex and inability to realize that plenty of average looking people have awesome sex with pretty hot people all the time. Nobody wants to hear your rant about how a vanity project memoirish TV show is a lie because it doesn't conform to your bleak, overly pessimistic view of sex and society. You're so hung up on your imperfections that you can't even see how a girl like Dunham, or me, or you can be viewed as a sexual being. Our airbrushed and photoshopped culture has got you convinced that you will never measure up to an ideal that doesn't actually exist in nature. Sad.
Put down the newest issue of Cosmo and back away slowly.
Jan 14
planned barrenhood commented on Overheard Across the Street From the Ballroom in Fremont Last Friday Night.
Scary.
Jan 10
planned barrenhood commented on The Original Sins (and Pleasures) of the Movie About the Original Sins of America: Talking About Django Unchained.
Oh one other thing - @7, in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Douglas went full white supremacist and Lincoln threw black people under the bus in disgusting ways in order to reassure his audiences "Hey, I'm as racist as that guy, don't worry!" It's kind of funny how those debates are considered such a high point in our national discourse, because seriously. So racist.
Jan 10
planned barrenhood commented on The Original Sins (and Pleasures) of the Movie About the Original Sins of America: Talking About Django Unchained.
@13, thank you. I've gotten kind of into this whole sesquicentennial thing lately??? I started reading the NYT's Disunion blog and realized that the Civil War is actually way more interesting than all the battle names and maneuvers I learned in school. There was so much going on there, societally, culturally. I decided I had to educate myself.
I haven't been able to see either movie yet, I live overseas. But I'm looking forward to both. I can tell you this, I am already irrationally mad that Frederick Douglass isn't in the Lincoln film.
I haven't been able to see either movie yet, I live overseas. But I'm looking forward to both. I can tell you this, I am already irrationally mad that Frederick Douglass isn't in the Lincoln film.
Jan 10
planned barrenhood commented on The Original Sins (and Pleasures) of the Movie About the Original Sins of America: Talking About Django Unchained.
@10, I wouldn't discount Cobb's examples of resistance, but in 1859 it would have been pretty impossible for a free black man, let alone a slave, to ride a horse or carry a gun in the South. Especially after the Haitian slave revolt, whites were paranoid as hell.
Also don't forget attempted revolts like Nat Turner's or Denmark Vesey's. I think that our impression of the passivity of slaves is absolutely false.
Also don't forget attempted revolts like Nat Turner's or Denmark Vesey's. I think that our impression of the passivity of slaves is absolutely false.
Jan 10
planned barrenhood commented on The Original Sins (and Pleasures) of the Movie About the Original Sins of America: Talking About Django Unchained.
@7, you should look farther into what Lincoln thought about black people! Pre-war, he was a free-soiler who thought slavery was wrong but who did indeed advocate colonization abroad for American blacks. To him this seemed like an attractive solution, and stated that this was because he didn't think whites would ever be willing to get along with blacks or give blacks equality. He even met with representatives of the free black community during the war to push the idea of colonization, which they rejected as ridiculous. At the same time, he was trying to get the border states to go along with the idea of compensated emancipation, but that was rejected too.
By August 1862 he had a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation sitting in his desk drawer and seems to have been convinced that emancipation had become a military necessity - that in order to get the South back, he would have to wage total war on southern institutions including slavery, destroying the labor resources and immense property value that the slaves represented to the South. This was also intimately connected to the policy of raising black Union regiments, which Lincoln and others believed would be a total nightmare for Confederates. (It pretty much was)
Here is a letter he wrote which suggests his thinking post-Emancipation Proclamation: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/…
And of course, at the end of the war, just a few days before his assassination, he gave signs that he had changed his position even further. He publicly advocated suffrage for some ("the very educated" and soldiers) black men, which at the time was an extremely radical position: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/…
As you may know, that last speech incensed John Wilkes Booth enough to convince him Lincoln had to die. Wilkes' exact reaction: "That means n*gger citizenship. Now, by God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make."
And it was.
I don't think that Lincoln should be declared a saint or some kind of anachronistic 19th century anti-racist. He was racist. But you do him an injustice by focusing on his colonization advocacy. There's a lot more there - and without his evolution, I don't think we would have had emancipation or the 13th Amendment.
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By August 1862 he had a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation sitting in his desk drawer and seems to have been convinced that emancipation had become a military necessity - that in order to get the South back, he would have to wage total war on southern institutions including slavery, destroying the labor resources and immense property value that the slaves represented to the South. This was also intimately connected to the policy of raising black Union regiments, which Lincoln and others believed would be a total nightmare for Confederates. (It pretty much was)
Here is a letter he wrote which suggests his thinking post-Emancipation Proclamation: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/…
And of course, at the end of the war, just a few days before his assassination, he gave signs that he had changed his position even further. He publicly advocated suffrage for some ("the very educated" and soldiers) black men, which at the time was an extremely radical position: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/…
As you may know, that last speech incensed John Wilkes Booth enough to convince him Lincoln had to die. Wilkes' exact reaction: "That means n*gger citizenship. Now, by God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make."
And it was.
I don't think that Lincoln should be declared a saint or some kind of anachronistic 19th century anti-racist. He was racist. But you do him an injustice by focusing on his colonization advocacy. There's a lot more there - and without his evolution, I don't think we would have had emancipation or the 13th Amendment.
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The poor LW has stumbled into a situation in which her partner and her partner's husband are seemingly most invested in the appearance of a regular heterosexual 2-person monogamous marriage, over providing a stable and loving environment for their child, and over basic human respect for their partner/surrogate. LW tried to do the work that you have done to build your family and put your family first, but now she is finding out that her partners are far too chickenshit to play their fucking position and pull their fucking weight.
The similarities are there, I guess, but they're all superficial. At most this letter might be a reminder to you to double-check that you've got the legal side of things 100% squared away as far as your parental rights and your housing. But it's not about you. It's really, REALLY not about you.