"I Asked ChatGPT--"

are you uncomfortable from your hands being dry? if you apply lotion, you can instead be uncomfortable with how greasy they are now. Subscribe for more tips!

This feels especially important to remember right now as the uk welfare system is under attack, wish I could send this to the politicians who will be the cause of fuel poverty, starvation and homelessness in the coming years. Super cathartic to read, I wish the general public was more aware they are in a state of pre-disablement , not immunity.

Stigma and illness

"We do not want to reckon with a world that is merely unfair; where some people get sick, not because they did something wrong but because the world is unjust, and insofar as it is just, it's random.

"And so, we tell ourselves we understand, which too often means creating explanations that blame the sufferer. Stigma is a way of saying 'you deserved this to happen', but implied within the stigma is also 'and I don't deserve it, and so I don't need to worry about it happening to me'.

"Stigma can become a kind of double burden for the sick. In addition to living with the physical and psychological challenges of illness there's the additional challenge of having their humanity discounted. Think of the word universally used in English to describe Tuberculosis patients in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were called 'invalids'. They were literally invalid.

"People living with TB today have told me that fighting the disease was hard, but fighting the stigma of their communities was even harder."

...

"Finally, the origin, or perceived origin of a disease also matters. If an illness is seen to be the result of choice it is much more likely to be stigmatized.

"So for instance, people with major depression are often told to just 'choose to be happier' just as those with substance abuse disorders are told to just 'choose to quit drinking'. And some cancers and heart diseases are stigmatized for resulting from purported choice as well.

"Of course, this is not how biology works. Illness has no moral compass, it does not punish the evil and reward the good, it doesn't know about evil and good. But we want life to be a story that makes sense, which is why, for example, it was commonly believed up until the middle of the 20th century that cancer was caused by things like social isolation, parents were actually told their kids got leukemia because they hadn't been adequately loved as infants.

"If a clear cause and effect isn't present, we will invent one, even if it's cruel."

John Green - The Deadliest Infectious Disease of All Time

the idea that restrooms, locker rooms, etc need to be single-sex spaces in order for women to be safe is patriarchy's way of signalling to men & boys that society doesn't expect them to behave themselves around women. it is directly antifeminist. it would be antifeminist even if trans people did not exist. a feminist society would demand that women should be safe in all spaces even when there are men there.

This scene changed my life fr, my beautiful butch wife.

Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley in Alien (1979) directed by Ridley Scott

Hallig Habel, a farm in northern Germany on the North Sea, an area of low flatlands and mudflats. This photo was taken during an extreme high tide. From Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter

Photo by Hans Joachim Kürtz

dominant things you can say during sex

i didnt hear what you said

hold on i need to blow my nose

wow

i feel kind of nauseous

is this anything

i don't know

this kind of reminds me of that one song

we can probably ignore that noise if you want to

why is my sock wet

it smells bad in here

that was weird

where are my glasses

ow

this is normal

sorry

just 2 chill people chilling

this is cool

can you say that again

are we good

youre actually naked

the enormity of my desire is totally fine and manageable and good for me

I love talking to kids about disability bc

1. they often just Get It, and

2. they have 0 concept of disability as a tragedy or something pitiable.

I've watched kids get into an argument with a teacher bc they thought wheelchairs were cool. I told a kid that I can't stand for too long sometimes and they replied, "That's okay, I can't do cartwheels sometimes, but I just do other stuff then. You can sit down with me if you want". Today a girl asked me what the headphones on a classmate's desk were for and I told her that headphones are important for some kids because noises bother them, and she said she wished she had headphones at home, because her baby brothers make a lot of noise and it makes it hard to think. The idea that different people could use tools at different times is intuitive and simple and when accessibility aids are explained neutrally, kids don't see them as bad or unfortunate, they're just things that are useful.

Even mental disability!! In Kindergarten the other day one of the kids asked me why his table partner got stickers when nobody else did. I started off by saying, "Well, when you do your work well, it feels good, right? That's your brain giving you a reward," and the kid just right away went, "Oh, and the stickers are like his reward?" YES! You are 5 and have a better grasp on ADHD than most adults! Kids blow me away every day.

See. This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us.