The Demon's Den

This sounds like a shitpost but people should be allowed to be horny. As in, sexuality is just part of life for most people and there’s no reason for consensual sexual behavior to be punished. A celebrity getting “caught” at a sex club shouldn’t be a scandal. No one should be fired for having a fetlife profile outside of work. Nudes getting leaked shouldn’t be career-ending. Denying and hiding (consensual) sexual interests doesn’t make anyone more professional, it just makes everyone more repressed. And sterilizing ourselves to be better work drones isn’t productive, it’s just creepy. I’d rather my surgeon get absolutely railed on camera and come to work in a good mood, frankly.

the amount of ace, aroace, + sex-repulsed ppl leaving support on this post is rly heartwarming

also this goes without saying but is also true of ppl who do sex work for used to do sex work. an accountant’s boss finding out that they used to do sex work shouldn’t be a career ender. a restaurant worker shouldn’t be fired bc they have an OnlyFans.

can i stress the importance of boundary setting? of being able to say no? if you want to be able to play with this shit, or really engage sexually at all, you need to be able to look someone in the eye and say “i don’t want this.”

if you can’t look me in the eye and say No, if you haven’t demonstrated an ability to voice discomfort when you feel it, you are not a safe partner and i do not want to play with you.

specifically what i’m thinking about here, though idk if clarification is needed, is that when you don’t tell me you’re uncomfortable you’re putting me in the position of harming you without giving me the option not to. if you never say “i don’t want this” then i don’t get to say “no problem, we don’t have to!” and you’ll grow to resent and hate me for crossing a boundary that was never communicated to me. actually, this applies to things other than sex too. if you never voice displeasure/discomfort, or direct desire, you’re making it impossible for people to respect you and give you what you want and keep you feeling safe.

This is also, btw, how the US drastically reduced drunk driving in the US. Telling people they shouldn’t drive when intoxicated made absolutely zero difference. A slogan-and-ad-campaign for “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk!” changed drinking culture. Going after the bystanders is quite often the most effective thing to do in any social change.

yeah i found out awhile back that the 'pressure headaches' that i get that 'aren't that bad' (but still leave me feeling sick and dysfunctional all day) were migraines. i now take a low dose of a preventative medication and the number of shitty rain days i have per month has dropped from like ten to two. it's great.

In my experience anyone who has chronic pain of any kind ALWAYS under diagnoses it in part cause people who DON'T have chronic pain always tell them how it's Not That Bad Just Get Over It and it takes a lot of fighting to get anyone (including doctors) to do anything about it. Fucked if I know why. Everyone seems to think we're making it up. I've never met anyone who is making it up.

as i slowly try to get over my arachnophobia i must confess i always thought it was silly when people told me "don't worry, they're more scared of you than you are of them!" like okay first of all i'm not even sure if thats true, most house spiders seem like they're kinda minding their own business while i am demonstrably freaking out. second of all if it IS true then it doesnt even change how scared i am. like great now we're both scared. i'm scared, the spiders scared, everythings fucked. lets just burn the house down hand in unlovable hand (and hand and hand and hand and hand and hand and hand and hand.)

Actually more helpful to arachnophobia is the fact that spiders hate the feel of human skin. They think you're really really gross

^This. Like the tags said it is veeeery hard to get a spider on your hand they just hate touching you so much. Despite the fact that I'm not even a little bit scared or grossed out by bugs I still have to let spiders outside by the paper-and-cup method because trying to get one on your skin is just impossible.

no seriously i’ve SEEN them freak out and go “eEEWWWW I TOUCHED IITTT” and they shake off their feet like cats it’s so funny 😭

i feel like people aren't getting how dire ai is. we are running out of drinkable water. our brains aren't engaging as much with what we see and hear. people near data centers don't get clean water and experience electricity blackouts. it's being used to make pornography of underaged people and women. it often just lies. it affirms everything. it lies. it has made people kill themselves. it lies for gods sake. and people act as if im dramatic for being staunchly against it. 'now i KNOOW you hate ai and whatever, but look at this cute video' this isn't me being a new age puritan about internet videos, this is about the fucking earth and our future living on this planet. people are suffering now, people will suffer more, and my friends and parents will roll their eyes and think im annoying for despising ai so explicitly. we need to wake up because we cannot live like this