Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter

and i would've gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling... monsters???

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*can also include those with active libidos who just choose not to sleep with anyone, but theyre a bit more likely to find out via masturbation whereas someone without probably won't feel the need to explore what's going on there as much

also i wanted to add vis a vis the physical therapy part, the "having a doctors finger in you" part does feel weird and awkward and embarassing and yes probably will hurt a bit when youre first starting out, but they will go as slow as you need and it really is helpful, because from that they can tell you what areas to focus pressure on with the dilator, test muscle control, make sure youre doing kegels/breathing exercises right, and gauge your progress while making sure youre not pushing too fast, so if youre willing/able to push thru the awkwardness of it then it really is worth it

Tempted to actually put this on spotify so I can secretly stream it at work...

i’m like “you can totally go downstairs, but just so you know, right now the only thing down there is the genealogy department. that’s like the history of this area and the people who lived here a long time ago.”

i’m expecting them to lose interest, but to my surprise, they go “we want to see the genealogy department!!!!!!”

so i’m like “alright let’s do it!!!!” and lead this group of maybe six elementary school kids across the library make way for ducklings style and downstairs to our extremely not kid friendly genealogy room. our genealogy librarian is super cool, though, and he pulls out a few interesting things for them to look at & they ask a lot of questions and try to find where they live on maps from the 1800s

after about fifteen minutes, their curiosity has been sated, so we go back upstairs and over to the children’s department in that same duckling parade style

It's about kids learning that they can go where they want to go, it's about kids seeing what the world (library) has to offer and expanding the range of options in their minds

It's common sense here, except for USians, so I'll analyze it a bit more for the dominant demographic here. In a globalized setting, the most dominant culture affects the others and sets the trends. The way our language works, how we think, our levels of politeness and intimacy, and our levels of respect. (flash news, they are going down 😂)

I don't want to imply that there is nothing good in the US. There are plenty of positives in the country. It's just that for the rest of the cultures online it's a constant daily fight to not forget our roots, with the degree US media and brands have permeated our lives. In Greece at least we watch more US American media than Greek media nowadays, and many of our shows are rip-offs of USian ones, with little adaptation to Greek reality and culture.

And to demonstrate the amount of this exposure, a 22-year-old Greek asked me the other day "if something happens we call 911, right?" This might have literally cost them their life, in a dangerous situation! Because all the movies and songs they consumed (not an unusual thing for the Greek youth) were what they knew. And I found a similar comment in this comment thread.

It's about American media drowning out native language media all over the world, and workplaces requiring the English language in your repertoire more and more. It's about proper translations and foreign language dubbing of films disappearing because "everyone speaks/should speak English anyway." All of this is leading to the deterioration of native speaker groups of languages worldwide.

In my country, Dutch language courses can't find enough people who want to study the language, while English language courses are overflowing with people who want to study the language. There is even widespread distaste for the Dutch language for being crude or sounding rough or what have you. That's our native language!!! That is our culture in its purest form!!! That is knowledge we inherit from our parents as they did from theirs!!! That is how we learned fairytales and folk stories and myths!!! That is the language that shapes our communication and our way of thinking!!! To hate your native language is to hate yourself at the deepest level.

And yet it's so normalised. Droves of foreigners living in the Netherlands will never learn a word of Dutch, because "everyone speaks English anyway." We are the world's leaders in non-native understanding of English, but it comes at a cost. A grave cost we will continue to pay.

If you're looking to support your non-American friends in any way that is not performatively shouting "I hate being an American" into the void, first of all, unlearn that hatred of yourself and your culture. You are of no help self-flagellating, and there is a difference between holding your country accountable for its issues, and denying yourself your culture because your country is doing and has done bad things.

(I am not going to get into arguments about whether or not US American culture exists. It does, and if you think differently you are welcome to change your mind.)

Secondly, learn about other countries. Learn a bit of Chinese. Take an interest in the Italian political system. Ask your friends about their countries' folklore. Watch documentaries about art from Nigeria. Absorb information that is not fed to you by American media.

And thirdly, quit expecting your non-American friends to communicate in a way that appeals to you. The French and Dutch will always seem rude to you because our way of communicating is far more direct than the way you communicate. People from other cultures may seem vague to you because their way of communicating is far more indirect, and you're not used to that either. Quit being frustrated when you don't get what we mean exactly. Quit assuming we mean the absolute worst thing you could imagine just because you didn't get what we meant the first time. Ask us to explain if you need us to, and learn to accept that we are different from you.

oh no, worst ever meet your new grandpa in the history of ever