Reblog All The Things

“Whoever is doing the thinking is doing the learning.”

By asking artificial intelligence to do tasks that otherwise take minimal brain function, you are literally sacrificing the neural pathways your brain has built in order to do that task.

Imagine a world in which AI suddenly disappears. All of the skills you left to AI would essentially need to be relearned. That would be far more inconvenient than just taking care of the task yourself.

"Oh I don't normally use AI, I just wanted it to plan my trip"

You lived on this planet for decades, you know what you like, there are hundreds of websites where you can type into any search engine " things to do in [area]" and have at least a hundred different options.

"Oh I only use it so I can figure out what to make during the week with what I have"

The most popular website as you type in "recipes" into google have sections where you click dinner- quick and easy and those usually rely on staples + 1 or 2 items. I found 30 recipes on chicken alone.

"I had a writing idea, so I typed a few sentences into Chat GPT and I was able to write 20 pages with it."

Made this post about 15 minutes after the repair guy who fixed the pump on my dishwasher packed up his tools and left, as the dishwasher was whirring along doing my dishes from that morning.

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

Sexual fantasies are, by their very nature, transgressive. Yes, even the fluffy, romantic ones. As long as general culture remains negative about sex and sexuality in any form that isn't cishet procreative sex within the confines of matrimony with the woman not as an equal actor but an object sex is performed onto, this is going to remain true.

And the thing about fantasies is that our brains like to take the things we crave the most and mix them up with our fears, anxieties, pain, and trauma into a melange of, sometimes, truly epic levels of fuckery.

But here's the secret - things we fantasize about, from the most wholesome to the bizarre to seriously fucked up? They are very, very often NOT what we literally want.

Being into dubcon or noncon doesn't mean you actually want to be raped or rape. Being into monsters doesn't make you a zoophile. And fantasizing about violent, obsessive men doesn't mean you wouldn't run as far the fuck away from a man like that the second one of them set their sights on you.

If you're really interested in the subject, I recommend reading My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday, a compilation of anonymously submitted women's sexual fantasies. And, as it turns out, women fantasize about a lot of really violent, uncomfortable, and just plain screwed up stuff.

And, for most of them, even when they don't actively realize it, it's about reclamation. Of fear, of trauma, of loss of power. It's about THEMSELVES and how THEY feel. As weird as it's gonna sound, the men featured in those fantasies don't really matter, they're just a vessel, a manifestation of the extreme version of what you're dealing with and/or crave. A safe, cathartic way to experience something profoundly unsafe, unwise, and terrifying.

For women fantasizing about criminals, villains, monsters, and anti-heroes, it's very often about the idea that someone like that - intense, violent, with single-minded focus, and immense power - would love her, want her, always put her first, go against all his instincts/training for you without a second thought and be a clear and present danger to everyone but warmth and safety for her and only her, and burn the world itself down for hurting her in even the slightest of ways. It's a sexual version of the fantasy of having a pet tiger, one that would never, ever attack you or hurt you in any way.

And just like the people who want to boop the forbidden snoot, the women fantasizing about their fantasy Mafia Boss Lover are very well aware of the fact that 1) men like that don't actually exist, 2) the criminal world of their fantasy has all but nothing to do with reality, and 3) that the thing they're actually fantasizing about is being loved, wanted, and safe... just in a REALLY intense, exaggerated way. And, let's not mince words, there's also often a more or less strong D/s dynamics at play in the scenario, too.

Now, you can choose to be judgy bitches about it (goodness knows plenty of you in the replies, comments, and tags are), in which case I would suggest you examine why you're feeling such a profound need to shame women for enjoying themselves in their own little world, or you can apply the YKINMKATO mantra and understand that straight women, living in the constant state of preyhood, sometimes consciously or subconsciously reclaim power over that situation through transgressive sexual fantasies.

Also, fuck this idea that queer people only fantasize about healthy and wholesome relationships, romantic, sexual, or otherwise, as if at least half of Tumblr isn't simping for, oh, for example, Hannibal fucking Lecter. Do you have ANY idea how many Mafia and Thug BL content there is out there?! FFS, Tom of Finland, a WWII veteran who fought against Nazis, drew art of exaggeratedly masculine men in Nazi uniforms in pornographic situations as a way to dissociate himself from those traumas and fascists themselves as far back as the 1950s!

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a horse fantasy is something that is theoretically possible. I do not currently own a horse, and the reality of owning a horse would involve boring stuff like paying for its food and mucking out its stall, but it is something I could do in real life. like, horses exist and can be owned by humans. lots of fantasies can fall into this category: traveling to a foreign country, living in a cute house with just you and a cat, winning a marathon, basically anything that is technically achievable even if it would be difficult to do so in real life.

a unicorn fantasy is something that is definitely (or almost definitely) impossible. I do not currently own a unicorn, and there is no version of reality where I could own a unicorn, because unicorns are not real. the actual logistical issues that might arise from owning a unicorn, like paying for its food or mucking out its stall, are completely immaterial because it's not something that could ever actually happen. and like, it's in my brain! I control it! I can imagine a unicorn that only eats marshmallows and shits potpourri if I want to!

I think the disconnect comes in when people assume that a unicorn fantasy is actually a horse fantasy. to use the tiger example from upthread: you can own a tiger. you can't have a completely domesticated tiger that would never hurt you, not even by accident. so saying "I want a pet tiger" is a unicorn fantasy, because everything necessary for that fantasy to work (it being completely domesticated and incapable of harming you) are not things you can have in real life.

now, serial killers/war criminals/normal criminals/etc. are all things that exist. and there are definitely people in relationships with them in real life! so it's tempting to assume that something like "I want to fuck a serial killer" is a horse fantasy: something you would want to do, and could do, if given the opportunity.

The fantasy is that here is a powerful, aggressive, even violent man, and he wants you and needs you so much that he would burn the world down for you. The central fantasy of the romance novel is that the heroine is so desired and loved by the hero that he is both metaphorically and literally forced to his knees for her. I'm not with my books or notes right now so I can't remember the exact quote, but I think it was Jayashree Kamblé who said that this aggressive/Alpha male subtype of romance heroes is "a lion among men who is a lamb before his woman". That's the fantasy. It's really powerful! If your life experience has told you to expect to do all the care work and to minimise yourself and your needs to be palatable to others and to be grateful for any crumb of attention because you're too fat or too outspoken or just generally not perfectly feminine enough, the fantasy of someone going absolutely feral because they want you so much is really powerful and empowering!

The effect is something like when you've got a persistent unwanted suitor doing "romantic" shit like sending you flowers at work and lovebombing you and otherwise making a big deal out of his feelings and your coworkers or your family or your friends are all encouraging you to give in because "it's so sweet" or "he wants you so badly, it's cruel of you to deny him" or "I wish my boyfriend did that for me, you're so lucky" and none of them will understand that a) what they want isn't what you want and b) the persistence, the control, the disregard for your wishes all make him the romantic equivalent of food that's been pissed on---and neither does he.

The whole effect is viscerally uncomfortable, and even the echoes or memories of coercion taint the whole concept.

And I think a key factor in the fantasy is a variant of that unicorn situation up above, to wit:

Your church, family, repressive upbringing, and/or purity-focused socialization will never approve of you dating a mob boss or a monster

Therefore

Your church, family, repressive upbringing, and/or purity-focused socialization will never force you to date a mob boss or a monster.

Therefore

Your fantasy about the mob boss or the monster is effectively free from the coercion you're used to in your real life and trying to escape.

It’s the same concept mentioned by everyone else here that the fantasy derives from a desire to take what happened to you and make it something you are actually in control of the entire time.

Sexual assault at its base is about power and control. Survivors of assault had their autonomy completely stripped from them and that can sometimes result in a strong desire (subconsciously or otherwise) to regain sexual power in seemingly contradictory ways. Reading erotic fiction where a character, especially the main character that could serve as your self-insert, is assaulted or goes through some sort of nonconsensual sexual experience is a safe way to process what happened to you. You can stop reading/watching/imagining whenever *you* want to. You have the power the entire time you’re engaging with a dubcon/noncon fantasy.

Her first 28 years are fairly tame, until we reach 1987's Canadian Mountie Barbie. Reasonable odds for a cop, even if they're not a USAmerican cop.

in 1991, we get US Air Force Pilot Barbie, US Marine Corps Sergeant Barbie, US Navy Petty Officer Barbie. There's also 1992's US Army Barbie, if those guys were feeling left out. I'm also ignoring the 1989 US Army Barbie because that one is 100% a stolen valour runway look, not a uniform.

Going to run my autism over those four.

US Navy Petty Officer Barbie is wearing quartermaster's rating insignia, so no combat for her.

US Army Barbie is wearing an airborne maroon beret with no rank insignia that I could see, but she's loaded down with medical supplies, so I'm gonna say combat medic, but only as many kills as her other medical endeavours.

US Air Force Pilot Barbie is wearing a jacket that looks like a Top Gun tie-in. The unit patch is just the USAF coat of arms, and the name patch says she's a Captain. VERY confusingly, the plane on the box art is an F-5, which had just recently been retired. But its USAF usage was almost all in the OPFOR Aggressor squadrons, which is... "come play enemy planes for our training exercises".

US Marine Corps Sergeant Barbie is wearing E-5 Sergeant's insignia, and three medals (she's in dress uniform). To my eye, and allowing for badly printed colours, looks like Navy and Marine Achievement Medal, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, and the South West Asia Service Medal. The first two are fairly obvious "Barbie Is Well Behaved" stuff, but uh. That last one though?

USMC Barbie was in Desert Storm.

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