Show Me The Way To The Bar

Like if I want to tell a child in a casual way that they need to be safe, “I can’t have you exploding into smithereens on my watch” is much less serious than “I can’t have you getting hit by a car on my watch.”

This is a good one.

Also slightly related but I don’t threaten my students in any physical way obviously, but it is fun to make up a useless threat à la “if you don’t eat your dinner, daddy is going to go outside and look at a cloud.”

“Hey, guys, if you say 6-7 again I’m going to make you sit in the hall and draw a picture of a sunflower.”

“Stop wrestling or I’m going to walk to Ontario.”

“Anyone who shouts again will be staying after class to count dust specks.”

okay see i don't want to be a dick because i'm not saying you're entirely wrong- showing abusive relationships and clarifying that they're abusive in media does help people recognize abuse in real life. it's probably a really good thing to include in media aimed at kids or 'family viewing'. but that's not what my post is about and it's not the only reason to write abusive fucked up relationships, and acting like it is flattens stories in a way that is ultimately really bad. and you're completely misinterpreting my post if you think the point of it was sometimes we should include Bad Relationships so Kids At Home Will Know Its Bad.

my point was that sometimes it is interesting to read about or write about really weird unhealthy relationships. not educational.

I don't think an author should have to preface their gothic horror with "and of course, fucking a guy whos secretly your cousin and maybe killed your mom is bad and i disavow". i don't think every fanfic that decides to make the love interest a rapist should end with "and he goes to jail, because that was a Bad Thing to Do, and the victim of his behavior went to therapy and got help dealing with the ramifications".

It's fictional. It's not real. It's not a PSA. sometimes the point is to deconstruct the viewpoint of a rapist who doesn't know they're a rapist. sometimes it's exploring how codependent two characters can get if you put them in a jigsaw trap and tie their legs together. sometimes the point is the author thinks it's sexy to imagine getting fucked at knifepoint. sometimes its literally just this:

in my case it definitely helps that I teach kids martial arts classes at a boxing gym with a lot of women. so little boys just factually cannot tell me that girls can't fight or aren't strong or something, because they're constantly surrounded by proof that isn't true. also rules are very different in a boxing gym so if a kid is being a little shit I'm allowed to pick them up and put them in upside down air jail. you probably can't do this in most contexts.

I think the biggest thing is that they need to see men and other boys listening to women. they're following the example that's been set for that. at home maybe their dad never listens to their mom, but when they show up at my class all the other boys are following my instructions. peer pressure is real and you can use it to your advantage. I make a point to tell the biggest buffest manliest dudes what to do in front of the little boys. now this works because those dudes already listen to me, but getting any dudes to follow your instructions could probably work.

the best punishment is the natural consequences of your behavior. if a kid isn't going to listen to me, he doesn't get to do class. this works because class is fun and he wants to kick stuff and hit people with noodles. kids want to have fun more than they want to misbehave. as long as listening to me is more fun than misbehaving, they'll listen.

because these boys are learning this behavior from their dads, the dads also tend to be the kind of tough strict emotionally distant parents that would yell at "girly" behavior or crying. even when I'm strict with the kids, I never yell, I obviously never hurt them, and I always listen. they want to yap at me about pokemon or youtubers. it can be tough when they're really sexist at the beginning but eventually they will show you something that their dad wouldn't approve of, whether they want a pink noodle or quietly mention they like a girly show. this is the part where you simultaneously act like it's no big deal while encouraging it. you need show it's completely normal for a boy to want or like that. if you can, bring up another boy or man they know who likes the same thing. I always show off my nails to the kids and bring over the guy who also paints his nails. you'll probably get "boys can do that?" comments and I usually just go "well he's a boy and he did it, so unless his hand falls off right now I think it's okay"

for me, it's always eventually gotten to a point where the boys realize that everyone else thinks it's normal to listen to women, and that if they want to have fun they need to listen too. they also realize that these people and these women are nicer and listen to them more than their dad does. they notice how all these nice people that make them happy talk to women very differently than their dad does. when those boys yelled at their dads for being rude to me, I made a point to thank them and say that they were right and their dads were rude.

This is what damage control looks like. The three ghosts that visited her would be her agents that got her that HBO deal because it looks bad to have multiple directors and actors refuse to work with you for your open political radicalism. Contrary to social media echo chambers beliefs, not everyone knew about JKR being a transphobic person let alone that she actively funds genocidal legislature and systems. So people taking a stand and saying "No, I won't work with her, because of this." is making people who never knew about her views examine her views. That's why there's a move to obfuscate this as just having a problem with what she says on twitter. Then she can just post the right things for a while and they hope the media pressure will die off and they can continue as normal with their show.