scumbag grad student

Came across this art installation, Liza Lou's Kitchen, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC. It's a kitchen made of tiny glass beads, that artist Liza Lou did, taking 5 yrs. to complete, from 1991 - 1996.

My favorite part is the sink.

There was one episode with a trans woman getting different gender-affirming operations, including breast implants. It showed the procedure, and (what I found so fascinating that it's stuck with me for decades), as soon as the doctor put the implant in, a censor blur popped up on the nipple.

And you just know there was a meeting between the TLC lawyers and the editors and producers of the show to discuss what the difference was between a "man nipple" (can be shown) and a "woman nipple" (no no must obscure, 'tis naughty). And they decided that as soon as the implant goes in and the nipple has more mass behind it, that's the moment when it becomes a woman's nipple and must be hidden to comply with TV rules.

But it's the same nipple. On the same person. I know what it looks like; I just saw it. But TV and obscenity rules are rules, and the rules say woman nipple = sexual and therefore explicit, but man nipple = neutral, just fine.

The story illustrates many of the problems with 'just' being kind. In the eyes of some, the boy's autism elevated him above the other boys who pressure girls to do things they do not want. His shyness and social awkwardness were problems the original girl could have solved simply by saying yes. Maybe she judged boys like him just because they were different. Her rejection became, not a simple expression of her desires – just as his choice to ask her, rather than another girl, had been – but a judgment on his worth as a human being, one which the rest of the world set about correcting. To some, the boy had a right to kindness and validation which the girl was withholding. But what of her right to have her needs respected? There's a suggestion that while all girls have the right to say no, it would make life a lot easier if they could train themselves not to, coupled with the old message that girls are better than boys at manipulating their desires – see how many of them were willing to approach the boy the next day! There's so much prejudice in the world, but if girls agreed to offer themselves to the boys who felt most left out, we'd have begun the work of removing it. Taken to its logical conclusion, this is incel thinking.