whats up its walnut

I think a lot about the nature of the inability to confront the-- I don't know what you'd call it, the id, the Jungian shadow, whatever mid-century German horseshit you want to call it-- and how this manifests in a lot of behaviors that are ultimately externalizations of behaviors that we would otherwise aim inwards. This is a difficult thing for me to articulate but I wanna use this as an example, not because this ask is particularly unique but because it's, if anything, kind of uniquely not

The parts of ourselves we find repellent are parts of us we grow increasingly incapable of accepting AS parts of us, and without putting in the effort of wrestling with those parts, I think we enter a kind of sustained, low-grade long-term madness. We say, "No, that's not right, this can't be me, this can't be a part of me, that would make me Bad, that would make me Repulsive, that would make me Evil." And then the only thing left is frantic denial and suppression, but we can't permanently suppress parts of ourselves, and the Things You Hate About Yourself grow and grow until the things you hate about yourself become not even you but this horrible other entity that represents everything you fear to find.

And two things about this:

First, most of it is a frantic attempt at protecting the ego against some of the most mundane things in the world. The fear of being vulnerable and hurt. The desire to hurt in order to feel less vulnerable. The former is humiliating and difficult to wrestle with, and to admit this sincerely feels like exposing a raw nerve to the world. The latter induces guilt and smears the general narrative constructed by the ego that one is a Good Person, and a good person, according to that narrative, does not feel such vindictive impulses.

Second, these twin phenomena combine and, unexamined, lead to persistent behavior of: a) Externalizing the things within the self that disgust you, because to begin to grapple with that disgust within causes you to just hate yourself further, b) Finding a way to attack that externalized representation, which must needs be in a form that makes you feel protected from vulnerability while also fitting into the narrative of a justified attack, to protect the ego that says you are a good person. And it does feel good in the short term, while harming you in the long run because you're still ineffectually attempting to build yourself up while simultaneously wishing you could lop off the parts of yourself you hate like diseased limbs.

You see this in interpersonal relationships, obviously, in all sorts of veins. This whole topic came to mind because a friend of mine is in an abusive relationship with someone who refuses to accept that the relationship is abusive, because he was abused in his childhood and he (I'm sure sincerely!) does not mean to abuse anyone, and is so horrified by the idea that the lashing out he does in response to very real pain COULD be considered abuse that he needs to protect himself by saying he's being gaslit, that's not true, he's the victim and the abuse is actually being directed at him. You see this in larger scales too, with the biggest example imo being the general culture of suburbia that so effectively wipes out the "unfavorable" elements of communal living that it's induced a sort of permanent hypervigilance and failure of toleration that leads its inhabitants to be, well, [gestures at every viral video of people chomping at the bit to become John Wick because the family two houses down put out their recycling too early].

I think there can be a very real danger in looking at the unpleasant and reflexively going, this is entirely Other to me. I can't be this. The idea of something like this residing in me is intolerable and I refuse to believe something like this could exist in me, I cannot even begin to imagine it without feeling tainted. I can't stand it. I won't believe it. And so you lash out, and it helps a bit, but again you can't really run from yourself, you know?

And I think I'm someone who's, if I may toot my own horn, kinda done the work on this front, and it's difficult as a result for me to feel scandalized on a day to day basis, and I think I'm very good at sitting with my discomfort. I also think this makes me very good at recognizing vulnerability when I see it and acting with sympathy because I know what it feels like to show your belly to the world, while also recognizing when I'm being unkind for unkindness' sake because I'm also not ashamed of recognizing when the desire to knock people down a peg for my own self-esteem comes up. I don't think this makes me a saint or anything (God knows this is a constant, iterative process) but I do think it is deeply freeing, and I think it's led me to act in ways I feel proud of saying were aligned with my personal ethics, difficult, and oftentimes humbling.

Anyway this is just my general feel for it to other people. None of this was directed at anon, specifically, because anon is the type of person to see someone talking about shitting themselves, feel revulsion, feel the need to directly express it because they can't sit with the feelings themselves, but are also not committed nor brave enough to do so without hitting "anon" because at the end of the day, they, too, are aware that there is a difference in power between someone who is gross without care and someone who cares so much they can't be quiet about it. At the end of the day, I have turned my anus into the mouth of a volcano and I am still, somehow, more content than someone who navigated to a blog. To the askbox. Externalized their disgust. Concealed their identity because their personal shame outweighs-- always, always outweighs-- anything they can properly direct outwards. And then spent god knows how long refreshing to see if I responded like picking at a scab because any kind of response I give will assuage that self-disgust (a hurt response helping the part of them that feels vulnerable and small, a rude response helping the part of them that is frightened of being unjust in their behavior, either way: ego temporarily soothed through externalization)

The truth is of course that the very similarities we share with that which we fear or despise is exactly what drives us to derangement. The inability to tackle this makes us hate the reminders even more. This is how you end up disregarding reality, with people insisting much of the things they hate is a choice, that they could lift themselves up by their bootstraps, etc. They want so badly to believe one can opt out of the things they fear because every single day they're opting to believe those things-- vulnerability, weakness, however you want to define it-- don't exist within them.

I saw some anon hate a while back that said "I hate you so much that if you answer this it proves you're desperate for acknowledgement and if you delete it it proves you're a coward." Is there any greater cry for acknowledgement than sending an ask to a blog that would otherwise not know you exist? Is there any greater cowardice than doing so while hiding one's identity? The things we lash out at are ultimately aspects of ourselves. People who are accepting of the worst parts of themselves (not happy with themselves, not reveling in their worst parts as a defense against hate, but just acknowledging themselves as a whole) I've found don't really need to lash out. They can get angry, they can respond to provocation with venom, but the variety of people and actions and behaviors they encounter are not, in and of themselves, perceived as provocations.

I remembered that google maps has an option to also go through the older street view footage, and while the place looks a lot different now, in 2009 this spot looking towards my childhood home looked just as I remembered it being when I was 5 years old. Painted from this streetview screenshot:

Calling this one "should've never smoked that shit, why am I in an impressionist painting". From this shot, also from 2009:

It's not a "Nissan Snail."

Nissan gave it a much better name.

BISEXUALS GROW FROM THE GROUND

is because people have been arrested and put in fucking PRISON just for having gay sex in the privacy of their own homes. in the United States. this millennia.

if you think i'm joking, look up Lawrence v. Texas (2003). 14 out of the 50 US States STILL had laws on the books criminalizing sodomy--and yes, you could be imprisoned for multiple years and sometimes even life for repeat offenses.

in the years directly leading up to the landmark case, enforcement even in those 14 states varied, but it was absolutely weaponized against queer people, especially when stacked on top of other offenses to make up a longer sentence.

"Sodomy" does not, in a legal context, mean "anal sex."

It means "any sexual act the court has decided is deviant."

BDSM? Sodomy.

Crossdressing for sexual pleasure? Sodomy.

Jacking off to nude photos or video your consenting adult lover sent you of themselves? Sodomy.

Het oral sex? SODOMY!!!

If you're starting to think "but how could anyone prove that happened without breaking down the door?"

Ha. Haha. Ahaha.

First, I'll give you one guess how they did prove it.

Two, these were often scapegoat charges--basically they couldn't actually nail you on anything because you hadn't done anything actually illegal, only things they didn't like, and they relied on public disgust against your "degenerate character" (yeah there's a very big reason we keep saying not to use that word and it's not to be killjoys) to make sure you knew your place.

Which means that in practice:

Went to a socialist meeting? Sodomy.

Male kindergarten teacher? Sodomy.

Mixing races? Sodomy.

Not Christian (or the right kind of Christian)? Sodomy.

YES THEY FUCKING DO COUNT.

Wanna know why?

Take a look at how many politicians have labeled trans people and their allies as pedophiles.

Take a look at how many politicians used to label gay people as pedophiles.

Take a look at how much suspicion falls on innocent men who just think working with kids is fun and want the chance to help, grow, nurture, and teach.

Take a look at yourself.

What about you could someone twist into "that person is a pedophile" if they wanted rid of you?

I can tell you exactly how they'd do it with me. I'm queer. I have a niece who came out as lesbian in her teens. I supported her.

Clearly I groomed her into that lifestyle, right?

Child sex abusers should be proven in a court of law to be guilty, and penalized to the fullest extent of the law. Pedophiles who have not abused children and seek to avoid doing so should not be hanged for something going wild in their brains.

Yes! That's super uncomfortable to say! I'm a CSA survivor! It's awkward and it means I have to defend people I really wish were not the way they are!

But the rope you use to lynch another will yank you into the tree to die.

Its also a fucking useless example for sodomy law especially because of how wildly age of consent can vary even in the united states. Which I hate that people get so weird about when you try to discuss it. No, knowing this stuff isnt a "red flag" you have to know something before you can speak on it or try and change it!

Child marriage is legal in 34 states with 4 of them technically not even having an age minimum outside of common law that could theoretically set it at 12. If we go back a few years the state of it would be even MORE dire as many of these laws putting age minimums only were put into place in the past eight years! So if one defines sodomy as "any sexual act done premarital that isnt missionary" then these wouldn't be covered.

Sodomy laws are USELESS for protecting children, because laws about CSA are better off being their OWN thing with strictly defined terms. Sodomy is so nebulous and hand wavy it does nothing but punish people who have done nothing wrong, strict terms with clear meanings is what creates protections. "You can't just make "if we think its gross" the law and expect that to actually work on deterring people who are doing the actual crimes. Which are ALREADY illegal.

“We need a law that makes it illegal to go into a bathroom that doesn’t align with your birth sex! Otherwise, people might go into the wrong bathroom to sexually assault someone!” Huh, interesting, but isn’t it already illegal to sexually assault someone, including in a bathroom??? Because if so, then you can just completely discard that explanation for the entire law. It is already illegal to go into the wrong bathroom and sexually assault a person; ergo, the law is not about sexual assault at all, it’s just about bathrooms.

“We need to arrest undocumented immigrants in order to crack down on gang activity!” Huh, interesting, but isn’t that gang activity already illegal??? So, if you wanted to crack down on gang activity, you could simply arrest people who are associated with gangs, and in fact, we do already do that. Ergo, this rhetoric isn’t actually about gang activity at all; it’s just about undocumented immigrants.

“We need to diminish free speech and freedom of movement rights for suspected terrorists, because otherwise they could commit mass murder!” Well, interestingly, mass murder is already illegal, and if you have probable cause that indicates that someone is planning to commit mass murder, you can simply arrest them for that. Since the law is already fully equipped to go after people who are genuinely suspected of gearing up to commit a violent terroristic act, this clearly isn’t really about terrorism at all; it’s just about diminishing free speech and freedom of movement rights.

“We need tort reform that caps the monetary damages that large corporations can be forced to pay, in order to keep people from bringing frivolous and fraudulent lawsuits!” Hmm, but see the thing with that is fraud is already a crime, and frivolous lawsuits can already be thrown out. If a law caps the amount of damages corporations need to pay in lawsuits which were not found to be frivolous or fraudulent, then almost by definition, it has nothing to do with frivolous lawsuits or fraud – it’s just about limiting corporate liability.

I could go on.

Always ask yourself what the actual function of a proposed law is – not just the stated goal, but what it actually does that is not already covered by an equally restrictive law.

And remember, a good general rule is: