rae
23d ago
You are basing your worldview on random ragebait TikTok videos, a platform where the #peeyourpantschallenge had over four million views. Please, I implore you, talk to real people instead of doomscrolling dumb online discourse.
MEN are the ones not putting in enough effort into their appearance and there's just not enough hot men out there.
It’s absolutely true that most men put way less effort into their appearance than women. Like, c’mon. If you don’t believe this, tell me your skincare routine, how many hair products you own, and how long it takes you to get ready in the morning.
But anyway, that should be an advantage for you. Getting a nice haircut, moisturising regularly and buying a few well fitting fashionable outfits will already set you apart from the crowd.
rae
25d ago
Everyone wants gibs. Cushy government jobs, questionable grants, corporate welfare and industry nepotism are not a gendered phenomenon.
rae
1mo ago
That link doesn’t work btw.
For all the men I know who are perpetually single, it’s pretty obvious why they’re that way, whether it’s from an off-putting personality, impossible requirements, or just plain never leaving the house. I don’t know a single one of these mythical average nice guys that somehow can’t get a girlfriend despite their best efforts.
rae
25d ago
If society isn't offering any net benefits in exchange for the money paid into it, then it is quite morally defensible to stop paying in.
You’re American I believe, so fair enough your social services are inefficient and terrible (although you pay less taxes and earn a lot more than us Europeans), but that’s completely unrelated to gender.
Why would any man want to continue to support a productive society that treats him like an expendable worker bee and doesn't even guarantee that he'll at least have the CHANCE to pass on his genes?
This is clearly a personal grievance. All I can say is, you’re sitting inside watching content designed to make you angry, with the goal of hooking you on a corporation’s algorithmic content feed and selling your attention to the highest bidder. It’s not real.
It’s absolutely true that being plugged into the globalised online rat race is hopeless and depressing, so switch it off. Focus on your local community, your niche interests, and you’ll find people that value you for who you are. Join a commune or go pick fruits if you have to.
rae
24d ago
I have to ask what you're basing your statements off of because none of these statements are true for the "average" man, and they haven't been for at least the last 10 years. Full disclosure, I'm a late millennial/early zoomer (late 90s to early aughts) straight male.
This is my own lived experience as a bisexual man (at that time), and this was in the last 10 years as well. I’m not American though, so perhaps it’s different and more cut-throat in the US?
I was no “chad”, just a short skinny effeminate guy. I had an awful personality, little interest in women and still a few hook-ups and flings just happened from going with the flow. Getting set-up at work was a real thing that happened to me.
rae
25d ago
What is the objective of this male general strike? What’s in it for the men, just teaching some women who making annoying videos a lesson? Why would any man who’s a productive member of society rally behind this?
Society is set up so no woman need to be entirely reliant upon a particular man.
That benefits men too! The time when the average man needed to farm the land, build a house and fix most things he owned himself is over. Men are just as reliant on the collective labour of society as women. Any blue or white collar male worker needs the police, firefighters, agricultural workers etc just as much as any woman, and can count on disability and unemployment benefits if things go poorly (maybe less so in the US, but that’s another issue).
And it’s not like women don’t do any “essential” work. The healthcare system would fall apart without the majority female nurses and staff. Childcare? Education? Who does the majority of the work when it comes to household and raising kids? Fighting over which is more “essential” is pointless.
You’re just doing the same old identity politics as the feminists you’re complaining about, just flipped.
I think your point is getting a bit lost in this discussion. Anyone who can understand basic statistics can look at the relative differences in population averages.
What exactly is the hypothetical autistic teenager supposed to learn by comparing his performance to other women playing the same sport? It’s unlikely for him to be good enough that he can’t find a single woman who’s better than him. How is it supposed to discourage him from transitioning?
rae
1mo ago
I don’t want to discount the psychological and physical benefits of but come on, it won’t stop anyone from being autistic, or even trans. I wish it did! I went to the gym and I just became an autist with a six pack. And it didn’t stop me from being trans either, unfortunately.
Plenty of athletic people I know are various flavours of neurodivergent or queer. Some trans guys I know are particularly into bodybuilding and powerlifting and it uh… has the opposite effect of making them conform to the social expectations of birth sex.
rae
1mo ago
I’ve never heard “what’s up with all the canes” despite being pretty active in trans communities (I actually don’t know anybody that uses a cane or crutch), although I’m seeing that canes are popular in the broader American queer community for some reason? I do know that various disorders are more common among trans people (e.g. endometriosis, PCOS in FtMs, EDS in general) but they’re not related to puberty blockers. Delaying puberty for too long without any sex hormones is bad for bone health, that’s for sure.
Not quite. The original rationale for puberty blockers was passing, "time to choose" was a marketing strategy. It has been lost to debate when the reversibility of blockers became dubious / indefensible.
To have the best chance of passing, you should skip the 2 years of puberty blocker and just go straight into opposite-sex HRT. Once you are on estrogen or testosterone, you’re not at a higher risk of osteoporosis than cis women/men respectively, and it’s conceivable your risk could actually be lower than someone who goes through menopause. Trans women that are on only puberty blockers for a while will actually grow taller and have a barrel-like chest (the classic eunuch physique), even if they avoid masculinisation.
rae
24d ago
I was talking about my own Lived Experienced™ though! Maybe I should have cleared that up more. Oh well.
I think blackpill/manosphere/battle-of-the-sex discussions benefit from queer viewpoints as they can bridge the gaps between the sides so to speak, so I’m happy to give my two cents regardless.
rae
25d ago
Yes! I had an old-fashioned school curriculum and there was a huge emphasis on verbatim memorisation of all sorts of things including poems. From what I can tell, that’s no longer in fashion though.
Perhaps it’s useful as a generic way to exercise your memory, but I’m not sure the cramming and forgetting learning style that was encouraged was very useful for anything. I remember basically nothing of the vast amounts of information I had to regurgitate. Maybe a line or two, out of dozens of poems? I think it’s mostly a cool party trick, like memorising digits of pi.
rae
1mo ago
Historical eunuchs who were castrated pre-puberty had remarkably increased lifespans (and that’s with no sex hormones, having estrogen in your system would decrease the odds of osteoporosis), so if there’s major health issues arising from puberty blockers, it would be a side effect of the particular medications, not of blocking puberty itself.
There’s also a difference between the compromise protocol of “go on puberty blockers until age 16, then start estrogen/testosterone”, and “start HRT ASAP to go through cross-sex puberty at a normal age”. The whole point of the former was to let the minor have time to decide if they want to transition or not, but that seems to have been lost in the debate.
rae
1mo ago
I’m attracted to men so I do think I understand male attractiveness, and I agree with the posters above. Finn looks like a git, Niko is cute but not in a 1 in 100 way (I absolutely see a lot of men equally or more attractive if I go on Tinder/Hinge…), and a lot of the other men are handsome sure but kinda unappealing. Give me men that look like they have personality, not just generic pretty boys.
I don’t see why the number of likes is that important anyway unless you’re just looking for an ego boost.
rae
11d ago
There’s also big differences outside of the Hajnal line in Europe itself. Slovenia is a prosperous country with well functioning infrastructure on track to surpass the UK in terms of GDP per capita while Serbia is a poor corrupt autocracy, even if both were part of Yugoslavia and are ethnically south Slavs.
I don’t know any circumstances where HBD is a better explanation than culture and history.
rae
25d ago
It costs double in the US compared to most other countries, but it’s still a complicated and expensive surgery that requires a decent amount of post-op care, and I wouldn’t trust a random Tennessee plastic surgeon with it.
The number of top surgeries on underage patients is in the hundreds per year for the whole US anyway, might as well have the minimum age be 18 and avoid the moral panic altogether.
rae
1mo ago
I meant that she doesn’t have anorgasmia (having started puberty blockers at 14 or 15 IIRC). But in any case you can delay the puberty blockers until tanner stage 3 or 4, or use local testosterone gel on specific areas.
I know adult cis women who never had an orgasm and that are quite unhappy about it. From a cursory search it’s around 10% of women? It’s pretty easy to talk and read about it and feel like you’re missing out.
rae
4mo ago
That has more to do with the fact that they’re men than the fact that they’re gay. Male homosexuality is simply male sexuality that doesn’t have to deal with women. How many straight men would practice monogamy if they could have unlimited sex on demand simply by going on an app?
Despite that, there’s still a sizeable proportion of gay men that choose monogamy and raising children, hence the demand for gay marriage and surrogacy.
I don’t watch porn but masturbation alone can definitely be better than sex. When you’re by yourself you don’t have to worry about having the right chemistry, about your partner being selfish or getting tired, and if something doesn’t feel good you can just stop, slow down or try something else without being afraid of ruining the mood.
Now, good sex doesn’t compare of course and is a divine experience, but not everyone is so lucky as to be with their ideal sexual partner.
rae
1mo ago
In a normal, healthy, average relationship, men trade resources and services for sex. That’s just how it goes. Prostitution simply formalizes the exchange.
That kind of transactional relationship sounds like the opposite of normal and healthy. A healthy relationship should be based around mutual love and desire; what you described sounds like being a sugar daddy, not a partner.
Plus it’s not like women need a man’s resources to have a successful life nowadays.
I don’t disagree that it’s appalling that physical fitness being neglected for the majority (although calling men “weak” and “feeble” as opposed to just unhealthy is an odd choice of language). It doesn’t really matter for the main point that there’s elite female athletes, but it’s still important to know that the delta is not that big at the extremes. The top female athletes are about ~10% worse than the top male ones, and if you look at something like a 5k run, the top females today are better than the top males from the 1930s. That’s way closer than most posters here would suggest, and to compete with female Olympians in most sports you’d still have to be in like the top 0.1% fittest men. The average Joe, even with a decent amount of training, doesn’t stand a chance.
But that’s getting aside from the main point. How exactly is knowing that he can easily surpass most women at sports with relatively little training supposed to dissuade the hypothetical autistic teenage boy from transitioning? If anything it might backfire and make him stop exercising altogether to match more female levels of performance/muscularity (and on estrogen, male performance is drastically reduced anyway).
rae
11mo ago
Serious question - what’s the use in calling a phenotypically female intersex person a “man” due to XY chromosomes? They have a vagina, grew up perceived and socialised as a woman, and some even have ovaries and the ability to get pregnant (if it’s Swyer Syndrome). Prior to the invention of genetic sequencing, there’d be no way of telling they’re not say, female with some hormonal abnormality. Look up CAIS - people with it look 100% like women to the point where historically they weren’t told they were anything but infertile normal women.
Barring intersex athletes from competing with women is perfectly reasonable if it’s a condition that gives them an unfair advantage. However, having pronouns and gender be tied to chromosomes seems to me like it would cause the same issues as what some trans activists request. If you’re intersex, you have to “include chromosomes in bio” so people can call you a dude/a lady despite you not looking like one at all. You’re, ironically enough, saying that men can have vaginas, some men can get pregnant, and that women can have penises.
rae
25d ago
I don’t think many 14 year olds can afford a $15k+ surgery without their parents anyway.
rae
25d ago
Do you just feel like you suck at programming, or do you actively dislike it? You’ll get very different advice depending on your answer.
rae
1mo ago
Here’s a LessWrong article that goes in depth about this slightly bizarre topic. It’s pretty much certain that castration makes you less likely to die from infectious diseases, cardiovascular disease, and (obviously) testicular and prostate cancer, and the benefits decrease the later it’s done.
I’m a trans woman but before that I was a man and dated women and men. My experience isn’t typical but I know a decent number of straight men and I have trouble believing an actual average guy can avoid having a single date for years, unless they’re avoiding all social situations with the opposite sex.
If you’re a regular straight person, everything is basically designed for you. You can ask out basically any single member of the opposite sex. People try to set you up with their friends/co-workers/whatnot. You can hook-up with random strangers at a party if the chemistry’s right without having to worry if they’re in the <5% that’s attracted to you, if you’re sexually compatible, or if you’re trans and passing, that they won’t react violently.
You don’t have to deal with people hiding your relationship, you can just follow a preset script, introduce your partner to your friends, meet their parents without fear, etc. And as a man the bar is honestly pretty low and it’s ridiculously easy to set yourself apart in terms of fashion/being a decent partner/a decent father, and your attractiveness is dictated by a multiple of things rather than just your rapidly declining physical appearance.
Plus most straight men seem to be attracted to most women? I don’t understand it but it should make your life easier to not be picky.
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