In my American Sex Ed, bisexuals were also in AIDs.
(I was taught that myth in middle school and continued to believe it, even though it hurt, until someone– who was himself biphobic and yet knew this– mentioned that it was false.)
In my sex ed, that was pretty much the entirety of it. Here’s horrifying pictures of worst case untreated STIs, that’s what will happen to you if you have sex, so never have sex or you will get sick and die.
And we had to wait until 10th grade to get that. I don’t believe we were ever even taught about how the reproductive system works or what even the terms for the parts of the genitals were. For that you had recess talk often at the hands of whoever was the most die-hard toxic masculinity fan who wanted to brag about how “mature” he was because he was allowed to watch R movies and knew totally accurate terminologies for genitals like the c-slur or 4chan made up “porn moves”.
Honestly, looking back, it’s kind of boggling that I didn’t grow up with massive fucked-up ideas about sex. I think it was all just so disconnected that I never bothered internalizing any of it, because it was all so confusing and baffling to my ace ass.
Nah, that was seen as too liberal as it would imply that there were some people who had sex with multiple partners in their lives.
Hell, there wasn’t even a “sex is okay in marriage” thing, it was just “here’s the horrific way it will kill you”. I think my 12th grade English teacher was trying to push back against that with a bunch of sex and sexual attraction is a critical part of being a human being stuff she was always preaching. But it just pissed my kid ace mind who felt personally erased and attacked by that.
There were two kids in my class who moved from the Midwest ki grew up mostly in Southern California, ao way different) sho had been taught that so my teacher pulled out a dollar and passed it around and at the end said who still wants the dollar and that was how he showed us our worth wasn’t tied to who touches us or how many people touch us and i thought it was a great lesson.
I has the opposite problem. My biological mother had a lot of partners before getting with my dad who use to be a hippy and then tricking him into getting her pregnant by going off birth control without telling him. I heard way too much detail about sex including them talking about their sex life. I heard stories like my dad getting an STD from her and having to paint his dick with some kind of blue medicine for a while. Biomom told me about being with several guys at the same time. Dad told me about parties where women would tap on his shoulder, go have sex, go back to the party, and repeat with another girl. I heard about dad getting crabs from a woman he was fooling around with because her husband was a trucker who got them from sleeping with women on the road and bringing them back to her and having to tell his mother (my mamaw) so she would know to clean the place (he had visited). I heard about oral sex, orgasms, using food, how breasts vary in terms of sensitivity, the penis size myth, places not to have sex, circumcised vs regular, and so on. A lot of it was from my dad as my biological mother was dumb as a post (example: asking dad how men had periods. She had already had me!), so her advice was usually useless. She tried to convince my dad to higher a male prostitute for me when I was a preteen because I had waited long enough and it would help my period. Then there was my papaw who was a fountain of dirty jokes even when I was little and his brother who was the same and had a hat with foam boobs on it. The first time I cussed I was nearly 19 and my first relationship (besides the playground boyfriend kind I had at 10) wasn’t until 23 when I got my first real kiss and eventually other stuff. I was the best educated virgin ever XD
Goodness gracious, there has got to be a middle ground somewhere, where you don’t have to be forcibly ignorant but you don’t have to hear vivid visual details about your parents’ sex lives.
My parents told us about anatomy and babies starting when I was 3, as they were expecting my baby brother. I specifically recall they described sex as “a special kind of cuddle” which was the perfect amount of non-scary information for a small child. PIV, womb, umbilical cord, baby.
When my older brother and I were like 13 and 10, my folks passed us books about impending puberty, and would’ve been happy to answer any questions. It was around the dawn of the internet. Oddly, the books used old-people words like “necking”, “petting” and “heavy petting” — I think these were intended to mean makeouts, totally touching boobies, and fingering? I definitely imagined people entwining their necks like giraffes, petting somebody’s arm like you’d pet a doggie, and petting somebody’s arm but with stronger pressure, respectively.
I wanted to say that I began looking at hentai when I was 13 years old or before (I’m not 100% sure, I’m only sure that I looked at hentai before I had my first cat, and by her age I had already know hentai before 13) and I don’t think romance is dead for me.
Now I have 25 years, I’m a virgin, and I’m only attracted to girls I share a deep genuine connection (i.e. become close friends before I’m attracted to them) and my main reason for wanting a girlfriend is someone to cuddle and share my life. Wanting to satiate my lust isn’t something that drives me to have a girlfriend because hentai already fills that role perfectly, so the only thing I really wants for a girlfriend is what I can’t get from hentai (the real connection, cuddling and sharing life part). I would not turn off sex with a girlfriend, but she didn’t wanting it would not be a dealbreaker for me.
Good lord, Arcane Darkness, you could be me, except that it took me a bit longer to get into hentai/internet porn because I’m now 40 and both of those sort of didn’t exist over here when I was 13.
Oh, and I’ve also never had a cat. That’s probably important somehow.
See, if you remove the “hentai filling a role part”…thats sort of how things are for me. Since honestly the most appealing part of the idea of dating for me is just that it’d give me a larger portion of their time. Well, that and I maybe have a thing for cheesy romantic stuff that I have noone to be like that towards.
I’m just not sure how the sex end of thing would work out and what if I couldn’t get into it, or what if I couldn’t fulfil their needs in that regard? Its…stressful to think about.
@begbert: Cats are great. Cats are super important. Well, you don’t need a lot of them, cats are best in moderation.
Jeeze, is this, like, a thing all over America? Cause a friend of a friend once upon a time asked me if it was true that having sex = automatic STD and he was like 19-20 at the time and I just thought it was his one school. I was like “Well, your parents had sex to have you, do they have STDs?” (I promise that in the actual conversation I sounded a lot less “you are an idiot, please think”)
So toxic masculinity is a type of masculinity policing that defines masculinity as avoidance of anything deemed feminine and in doing so creates a self-reinforcing culture of abuse.
Basically, think the way young boys are policed by their friends to “not be a pu**y”, or to avoid any accusation of being gay, or that being an equal partner to their girlfriend makes them “whipped”. Think of the way boys who express feminine traits are beaten and abused.
Think of the way fields and interests are abandoned by too many men and boys when women start liking it in any large numbers. Think of the way other fields are defended from women, enby, or femme/queer boy entry because of scared men’s fears of it being “ruined”.
It’s the logic behind rape and abuse culture where it is better to be seen as “strong” and “putting women in their place” than to be seen as being “done wrong” by them by getting rejected or respecting consent. It’s the logic that demands constant meaningless sexual “success” to be seen as “winning” at being a guy.
And it’s a system that no guy is ever allowed to succeed at and relax. Think “jokes” about “revoking a man card” and the nervous fear groups of toxic boys have that the slightest action deemed by their friends as feminine will result in their expulsion from their groups and being the recipient of violence or abuse. Think friend groups nastily escalating misogyny or homo/transphobia in order to still be seen as “manly” by their friends.
It turns masculinity into a toxic trap where one is discouraged from being a good person or accepting necessary cultural evolutions because of fear that they’ll be treated “like a woman” for it.
It’s basically a toxic parasite on masculinity that we’d be long rid of, if so many people weren’t invested in it and terrified that if they get off, they’ll be abused by the folks who still believe in it.
And to answer your question, there’s tons of non-toxic masculinity. And it’s something that’s becoming more and more common as feminism and fights against transmisogyny is giving young men more freedom to be themselves and seek out their own form of masculinity. We see it in lesbian butch culture, in a lot of trans men spaces, in a lot of feminist and queer men’s spaces, and in cis allo straight men’s spaces where there isn’t the same desperate policing against the feminine.
And it’s something that will become more and more common by continuing to protect boys leaving that toxic culture and forming their own new spaces to find, create and/or join masculinities that don’t define themselves by violence towards women and wholesale reflexive rejection of the feminine.
Cause at the end of the day, boys frequently want to be read as boys, and frequently have ideal gender performances in the masculine and don’t want to have to be complete fucks to be read as society as being men.
I have a special loathing of it, because being a young trans girl who didn’t know it at the time, toxic masculinity was horrible to me in the attempt of “correcting” my “non-masculine” (by their definition) behaviors. So I saw first hand the worst of how it treats young boys and tries to get them to buy into this awful self-destructive culture.
In response to requesting Conquest, Billie and Alice, AND an underage Sal losing her virginity (I believe the assumption was she was somewhere from 15-17). Willis does not want to draw minors, even if they’re at the age of consent. Acknowledging it happened and drawing it are two different things and Willis is not interested in the latter.
I’m not sure – far as I can tell, the jury is out when they’re fictional teenagers, though most porn sites won’t allow it and even if they did, Willis does not want to.
Is that why Girls Gone Wild has so many different variations on Sexy Schoolgirls?
Not that I ever watched any of them, just shelved them and directed all sorts of people to the section when it was awkwardly requested. Lots of people watch porn, like the variety is pretty out there.
I’ve gotten in the habit of name-dropping asexuality the orientation and what that means when I cover mitotic division (i.e. asexual reproduction) so at least the ace kids in the class will have heard of it and that there’s a word for those feelings.
And also so the allo kids never make that joke against their ace peers, because I treat it like ace the orientation is totes obviously the thing everyone would confuse for this brand new bio concept.
“…We call this mitosis or asexual reproduction. Which is not to be confused with asexuality the sexual orientation. That’s more about not experiencing sexual attraction whereas this is about one cell doubling its material and creating two exact copies of itself…”
See, that mitotic division was my first thing I heard the term used for, so when someone first used it to describe themselves I was super confused and wasn’t sure what they meant by it. Like if they just meant they “handled their sexual urges on their own somehow” or something.
I heard about mitotic division first because science, but asexuality the orientation made just as much sense to me since sex clearly wasn’t essential to all organisms therefore a human could easily have no interest or desire and lead a fulfilling life. Now if only i hadn’t picked up so much bs about grey-ace and the ace spectrum, that would have saved a lot of headaches.
Funny you bring up Allosaur. That was the first thing I thought of the first time I heard the term allosexual, I thought it meant being sexually attracted to those kind of dinosaurs.
Everyone experiences sexual attraction, it’s a key part of being human. Only messed up broken people don’t. Now let’s read East of Eden and spend several weeks going over in intense detail how we know Cathy is a sociopath and evil because while she has sex she doesn’t experience love or sexual attraction.*
*This might not be the actual characterization in the book, but it was all my teacher went on about so it stuck in my craw somewhat fierce.
My sex education was very detailed covering all forms of heterosexual activity (I graduated in the late nineties) and use of birth control divided by gender (we got to learn about condoms, the girls got a separate video in the other room). Though everybody got to observe the demonstration with the dowel and the condom. The lecturer also had it and an anatomical model of the female reproductive system passed around in class. Inevitably, the dowel ended up inside the reproductive model, because fourteen year olds are classy.
To be fair, she may not be. One’s own subjective view of being “mainly hetero with a few exceptions”, which is the best info we have to go on here, is at least as important as the outside “objective” understanding of the same thing. Many people who fit that description do indeed describe as “bi” but by the same token many people who fit that description describe as “straight” and both can be seen as correct because there is no hard and fast line between the two.
To give a bit of example, I used to know a guy (first in high school then later as a coworker). He was very openly gay when I worked with him, which I had cause to ask about at one point because when I had known him briefly in high school it was because he was making very unwanted advances on my then girlfriend and again in the workplace toward one of our female coworkers just before I asked about it (do note we had become friends in the workplace and occasionally hung out outside work, otherwise I wouldn’t have felt comfortable broaching the subject). The point though being that despite being occasionally attracted to women he did not in any way identify himself as bisexual but instead as “a gay man”.
Why? That’s obviously the exception. Someone so special you’re into them despite not normally being attracted to their gender. It’s the bi equivalent of demi, I think.
For Billie specifically, if it wasn’t for Word of God, I’d be wondering if she wasn’t actually a lesbian in denial. Or more possibly bisexual and homoromantic – we’ve see her talk about sex with guys and even be willing to fuck Danny on the spot, but her only known relationships have been with women and her talk about sex with guys has always been extremely casual – go to parties looking for sex.
I’d almost suspect that was just her performing her popular/cheerleader/party girl role.
I figure if you are, or ever have been, sexually interested in members of both genders as one point or another, then you’re bisexual. After all, “bisexual” doesn’t mean “willing to sleep with ANYONE of either sex”, any more than “heterosexual” means “willing to sleep with ANYONE of your preferred sex”. So of you swing both ways, even if only for one specific person on each side, then that would make you bisexual, I’d think.
Um, guys? The terms “heteroflexible”, and “homoflexible” exist for a reason. They’re for those who aren’t completely at one end, but feel that “bi” is too nebulous and constant to accurately represent them.
[repeats to self] “Heteroflexible. Homoflexible.” I did not know those words. Thank you- that is a very useful concept, and easier than juggling percentage points on the Kinsey scale…
I did not even know those were words. I am learning a lot of new words lately in these comments sections. Maybe a side effect of Catholic upbringing where if you weren’t straight you just didn’t bring it up. Maybe a side effect of growing up in Spanish-as-a-first-language countries. Maybe a side effect of not really liking labels slapped onto people or people slapping them onto themselves. I dunno.
She sort of does? She says the classic line, but it’s when she’s building Goldar, and Goldar is giant right away, instead of starting off people-sized. My interpretation is that she’s talking to the actual gold she’s using as a building material, because Rita is a little bit completely insane in this one.
Remembers a ‘Top of the Pops’ when Rolf Harris drew cartoons to go with the song. Two convicted sex offenders for the price of one, I would guess that won’t be on any repeats.
The first thing Ruth should do as the newly-re-instated R.A. is hold some sort of improvised sex ed seminar. Or just make sure everyone goes, and Roz can handle the teaching part.
The students learn things they *desperately* need to know, and who knows, maybe Mary will complain and get Ruth re-fired, which would either be terrible, or great, and if it’s the latter, it’ll probably be the best thing she’s ever done.
(This was how some LGBTQ+ groups at my college did their sex ed focused meetings– anonymous questions able to be submitted and a room with most of the lights out.)
(I’m going back to school starting this summer, so I get the email newsletter that has all the upcoming campus events. I saw one with that name and was completely confused about what it might mean.)
Do you think your therapist would be willing to try it out? I wonder if I would do better in therapy if I sat on the floor, but I feel like it’s a weird request and have yet to bring up the subject.
Sitting on the floor doesn’t sound weird to me. But then again I’m the one who is too scared to go to a therapist cause I don’t believe in their claims of confidentiality.
Confidentiality is super serious tho. If they mess up on it, they can get sued and/or get their licence taken away.
I’ve worked places where, if you’re 18, we can’t even confirm to your mom that you were in the building. (We didn’t want to accidentally give info to a stalker or an abuser, for example.)
This is canceled if there’s an imminent danger to yourself or others — like, if you attempt suicide, and you need to go to a hospital, they’ll definitely tell your doctor about it, and may even send your whole file to the doctor, depending on ur organization’s rules. If you are hurting a child, they are legally required to report it. You can totally ask what this particular office would do if there was imminent danger. They’ll probably have a sheet that you sign together, so you can sue them if they break their confidentiality wrongly.
Well, I mean, part of it was that when I still had my job (It went bankrupt), I was worried that somehow it’d show up on my insurance through my work as being that sort of thing and that they’d find out that way.
Also…I maybe just have trust issues and issues opening up to people I don’t know. Well, except online its a bit easier since I can hide beyond a certain level of anonymity and only give out what information seems “safe” for a specific location.
Well, that and I tend to not feel like people can help me unless they can understand me at least a decent amount, and I dunno, counselors and or psychiatrists and all that tend to seem like they’re billed as “Normals” and even other people who tend to be a little “weird” have trouble understanding me sometimes?
I mean I’m ridiculously good at managing my own mind and don’t have issues I can’t cheat my brain around for the most part. I mean, my going theory is that I’ve messed myself in some regards as a result of being so proficient at that. Trying to roll it back is…harder.
I totally feel your pain re:your brain being a give and take between “building a better mousetrap” and a particularly wily mouse. Getting oneself back to factory settings is definitely a process.
Well, I mean there’s also the fact that my factory defaults are maybe something that aren’t something particularly livable with.
Some of the mental bindings I’ve put in place are important, and some just need pruning a little, and some probably need to be cast off entirely. Figuring out how to selectively allow myself a bit more freedom and expressiveness in the right areas is the trickiest part. I mean I could just “Let it go”, but thats basically the nuclear winter option that doesn’t end well for anyone myself included. Its better for me to find a way to live with the proper level of self control and self restraint that doesn’t involve dismantling the defenses I’m built up against my own negativity as well as the negativity the outside world often seems to be drowning in.
Sometimes I chat with friends in the dark – it turned out to be great for my migraine issues, even though I get noise sensitivity more than light sensitivity. It’s really relaxing to just not have visual input, and makes it so much easier to process sound, and so the sound hurts less I guess 🙂
with my therapist, though, I tend to use the whiteboard a lot. otherwise I’ll have no idea what we talked about.
I taught a GED class for high school dropouts for a year once, and I had the local Planned Parenthood come in every couple of months to give the kids some /actual/ information on contraception and safer sex. The schools sure weren’t doing a good job—this was before the state passed a law requiring that all sex ed information be accurate if it was presented at all, and so the teachers would just straight up lie to the students. They had just SO MUCH intentional misinformation fed to them.
A good third or so of them had a kid (or TWO) by the time they were sixteen, simply because no one ever gave them any information on ways to avoid pregnancy. The PP rep would come in and talk about condoms and IUDs and birth control and nuvarings and their minds would just get blown.
The math and english tutoring we gave was helpful, but I’ve always felt that that one day of sex ed was the most important thing I did for any of them.
So, this is off-topic, but I wanted to put it out there, and, well, it’s midnight and I feel more comfortable telling strangers so… my mental health is in a shit place right now. It sucks because I keep feeling like I’m starting to do better, and then I have a night like tonight where I carve the word “worthless” into my arm and realize I’m not actually doing all that well.
Also, relating it back to the comic (see, title) in a way, I’ve been wondering lately if I have BPD (should I say “have BPD” or “am borderline”?) I am kind of scared of that label because the people I’ve known with that diagnosis have kind of been terrible, but I know it doesn’t have to mean being terrible, but… ableism and stuff, you know?
I have BPD and it is something that can be managed… sometimes I’m awful without understanding why but most of the time I’m a great person that just struggles.
You are not worthless and even though I don’t know you. I care.
That sucks. Try and remember that just because your progress steps backward now and then, it doesn’t mean it’s negated.
I have similar internalized issues with BPD. When I hear someone has it, it’s like ‘oh cool, someone who can relate about mental health stuff, and is yet again one of my friends. birds of a feather I guess,’ but when it’s me, I’m like ‘borderline means I’m manipulative and terrible and I should not talk to anyone about it as a potential diagnosis’ (though I already have ‘borderline traits’ tacked on to my diagnosis by one of my doctors so idk what my issue is, other than, yeah, ableism).
*internet hugs* I’m so sorry you’re in a rough place right now. Thinking you’re doing better and then having a sudden setback is awful. I really hope that you end up feeling comfortable enough to ask people irl for help and that recieve the help you ask for.
I am clinically depressed and I used to cut myself. (BTW, if you did cut yourself tonight, get some antibiotic ointment on it stat so it won’t get infected and will heal okay! If you don’t have any you can use hydrogen peroxide and vaseline – be aware that the hydrogen peroxide WILL sting.)
However, and more importantly, having a bad night doesn’t mean you’re not “doing better.” It’s about progress, not perfection. So tonight is bad for you – that’s okay. Maybe tomorrow will be better. And you CAN make tomorrow better.
As regards BPD – it’s kind of a “trendy” diagonsis right now. I can’t presume to say anything about your clinical diagnosis – do you have any access to psychiatrists, psychologists, or even counselors? After spending YEARS feeling like nothing really mattered and everything I did just pulled all the energy out of me, a psychiatrist prescribed me an anti-depressant. It has helped a lot. And yes, my diagnosis is “clinically depressed,” but that “label” is only important to me in that it helps doctors treat me. It doesn’t DEFINE me.
Again, I offer you virtual hugs and cookies and kittehs! I hope you feel better tomorrow and PLEASE, if you can, talk to someone. Things CAN get better,I promise!
Thank you. I am diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and I am on anti-depressants. They help! I’m on two, and I noticed differences when I began taking each of them, but I still struggle. They help me from being suicidal, though.
That’s a good point about taking care of the cuts. I used to cut a lot, currently working on recovery. I’d try to take care of the cuts when I could muster that level of self-care, though I did at one point get an infection. That was fun. Unfortunately I don’t currently have access to anything that could be used to care for the cuts from tonight.
Seriously, use soap and water if you don’t have anything else. And yeah, I also got an infection after cutting a time or two. If nothing else, it means that the scars will be more visible. (One of my worst recent moments was when my 3-year-old niece looked at the scars on my arms and said, “What’s that?” I said something to the effect of, “Aunt Jaime is clumsy sometimes and hurts herself.”)
I am SUPER glad to hear that you’re on anti-depressants. I’m currently taking Pristiq. It is kind of expensive even with my insurance 🙁 but it seems to work for me. I was on Celexa for a while and it made me gain ALL THE WEIGHT (seriously, *still* trying to slim down), then Wellbutrin, which pretty much did *nothing*, and then the Pristiq kind of “clicked.” I was also on Klonopin for my anxiety for a little while, but it did NOT work well for me; it made me really loopy. Again, it’s a process.
Please take care of yourself and be well. One setback (or even two, or three, or four) doesn’t mean you’re not doing better. In fact, in my personal experience, I’ll sometimes relapse just *because* I’m doing better – kind of an “imp of the perverse” thing. I am sending lots of good wishes and positive energy your way! 😀
Practical mode: please wash the cuts with antibacterial soap, and maybe wrap them in clean cotton, til you can get some ointment tomorrow.
Also, I hope you are able to throw away or tape up your cutting tools so that you’re safe for the night.
A pal of mine, when she was trying to stop cutting, switched to using a red sharpie. I don’t know if you’re there yet, but it’s worth a try, maybe you’ll like it too as a healthier compromise.
If I’m reading you right, seems like you already know, intellectually, that it’s okay to have a diagnosis. If you have BPD, then you already have it, might as well get a name and some help for it, eh? (Or, if you have something else, then you can get the name of something else.) When do you next see a therapist or doctor?
I also used to have a bad problem with cutting and one thing that worked for me was removing all the objects that I used to use for that. For me that was scissors and knives, so I made do with butter knives and no scissors for awhile, because I was in a headspace where I couldn’t be trusted with them. Now that I’m a bit better on that, I’ve been able to reintroduce both, but neither is allowed to ever be in easy reach of the bed in case I have a bad day.
Dunno if that’ll help you, but it might be worth a shot.
I appreciate all the suggestions on cut care, but like
I’m in a university library and will be here throughout the night. I’ve used soap and water but really don’t have access to anything else, so the other stuff will have to wait.
I’ve been at various points with self-harm. I had my first relapse of this recovery period a few weeks ago; before that I had refrained from it for two years. (Last time– really over a period of a couple days– I had a bunch of regular cuts on one leg, and I cut a smiley face into my other leg because it was five a.m. and I was trying to convince myself I knew what happiness felt like or something. I really need to stop carving things onto myself because I end up feeling even weirder about that than regular cuts.)
Ah, so this isn’t your first rodeo — you’re already knowledgeable about self-harm, and you’ve already stopped yourself from cutting, even for two years at a stretch — and you’re in a safe spot for the night. Yeah?
Thank you all for your supportive comments. Things in life are just kind of overwhelming right now, but it’s nice to be able to talk about it, even if it is to internet strangers.
I’m sorry you’re having a rough time. May I recommend a group I have found helpful in the past? They’re a good place for discussion with people with similar life experience.
It’s important to know that people care about you despite the people who might judge you for having or appearing to have BPD people will and do care about you, just look at this comment thread. I may have been a bit direct in this comment and I’m sorry if I was.
*hugs* You are awesome. There’s no timetable on feeling stabilized and there’s nothing to fear in your diagnosis. They don’t distract from your awesomeness or your desire to do good.
And I can assure you from the bottom of my heart that BPD doesn’t mean you’re “doomed” to be a jackass like the jackass BPD people you’ve met before. I have two BPD students in my classes and they are some of the most caring empathetic students I have ever had.
You will find the state you need to take care of you the best. But you do not need to beat yourself up on top of that with fear of what it all “could” mean.
I uh…don’t know. That said if you’re actually self harming its probably a good point to start trying to find some sort of answer or help. Not that I really know how to go about that either. All I’ve got is an *appropriate gesture of support*, sorry. X<
hmm… someone wrote in to Ask a Manager about BPD once… the happy update is #2 here: http://www.askamanager.org/2014/12/4-more-updates-from-readers-2.html and has a link to the original letter. if nothing else, it’s a story with a happy ending 🙂 (but, the comments on the original include at least one belligerent person)
and building a sense of self-worth is fucking hard, but, it’s worth it. 🙂
First off, I’m glad you are getting help. Some of us need it and a lot of us never get it. It takes courage to say you need help.
Secondly, how long have you been on your meds? You might need to up or alter the dose or see if you can get an as needed pill to take on an especially bad day. I take half a Trazodone of all things (they’ve found it works for that as well as being a sleep aid) when my anxiety or depression is bad. Paxil for depression and anxiety (also Gralise for Hemiplegic Migraines which also helps with that). I also take iron because my iron level is naturally low for some reason which causes PLMD meaning I didn’t get quality sleep (so sleep study if you haven’t yet as sleep issues makes it worse). I also get sunlight every day which also helped even if it’s just sitting in the shade for 15 minutes. And I’m honest with my therapist even with the dark stuff I hide so well from everybody else. I also have a lovely Sand Boa named Lily who is calming and I’m picking up a kitten Saturday. I use to have a fish tank with a betta sorority and kuhli loaches. If you don’t have a pet, look into getting one. You qualify for ESA so an apartment isn’t a problem. Even if you only get a veil tail betta (more mellow than crown tail) in a 3 gallon tank (minimum size for them), it will help you find a way to get out of the bed because he or she will depend on you and just watching the fish swim around will help keep you more relaxed.
Finally, the DSM is a guideline, not a rulebook. You diagnoses does not define you. It might help you learn more about yourself and how to move forward, grow, and improve, but rather or not you become the stereotype is up to you. I have depression, pale skin, and a high pitched voice with a southern drawl, but none of those things ARE me. They effect how I perceive myself and others and how they perceive me, but who I am is more than that and up to me. Don’t be afraid.
I’ve been on my meds for a while. I have recently gone up on the dosage of one because well– I had been on 75mg for a while, then my psychiatrist and I decided to try going down to 50mg, and that worked for a while, but then I started having suicidal ideation, so I went back up to 75mg.
I’ve also recently started taking vitamin D because I had some bloodwork done and my levels are like a third of what they’re supposed to be.
I have a cat. She’s great.
I started seeing a new therapist recently– only been to her twice so far. I was seeing someone else for a while, but there were things that made me uncomfortable. So it’s new, but I think I’m doing okay at being honest. Probably better than I was doing with the last one. (For example, with the last one when I told her I had relapsed with regards to self-harm, she asked something about if it was just a few times, and I was like, “Yup.” Then she said, “So like two or three cuts.” and I agreed again. Sixteen, it was sixteen and however you want to count a smiley face.)
Yeah. For some reason a lot of people with depression end up low on vitamin D. All the more reason to get 15 minutes of sun a day even if it’s by using a SAD light.
I’m glad you have your fur baby. They are an important part of any treatment plan.
God. It’s been the week of the bad fitting therapists around here. Did you see my post a few days ago?
Have you ever looked into OCD? Sometimes self harm is a type of compulsion and suicidal ideation can be a type of intrusive thought. Even over thinking and having an anxiety spike of the possibility of BPD can be part of the obsessive part of it. If you do have it, you might need your treatment plan altered. I have it and it looks nothing like it’s shown in the media. Here’s a decent personal experience article about what it’s like. If it checks any boxes, do a little research and talk to your doctor. http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-no-one-tells-you-about-having-ocd/
That’s interesting about OCD. I’ll have to look into that as well. I may also have PTSD– really, it’s that I know I have anxiety and depression, but it feels like there’s a diagnosis missing.
OCD usually doesn’t come alone, so most people have something else along with it like depression or Asperger’s. And by the way, the desire for a label and the anxiety from the unknown is common with OCD. We like to know. We often over analyze. It’s a strong drive for us.
🙁 I’m sorry to hear you’re not feeling well. I hope you feel better and your new therapist is awesome. BPD, if that is what you have, can be tricky to manage (all personality disorders can be) but it’s not impossible. Many people with BPD have amazing lives. Remember that diagnoses are a framework, not a sentence – they help your therapist help you. They don’t mean you have to have any one given symptom – for personality disorders, they require you to have a given number out of a number of possible symptoms (for example, I believe Dependent Personality Disorder is 5 out of 8 of the list of symptoms) and they don’t require those symptoms to present the same way in everyone. People are different.
*Hugs* I’ve actually been researching BPD lately – it does not mean you are a bad person, abusive or a manipulator. When not getting proper treatment or therapy, it can be very hard – but you are not guaranteed to be like those people with BPD that you knew.
Some people with BPD can be awful – some are even abusers, but they are not inherently so. It is a very stigmatised condition with people thinking it makes you violent or abusive or manipulative and people write a plethora of awful things demonising them which some people with BPD internalise as further reasons to criticise themselves.
But having BPD doesn’t inherently mean you are bad or going to do bad things – many people with BPD are terrified of hurting the people around them and are far more likely to tear their own mental health to shreds than someone else’s. That’s not to say they will never lash out – but chances are that they will then tear into themselves even harder because they tend to have low self-esteem and a lot of them feel they don’t deserve friendships or relationships they have.
A key thing to remember and remind yourself: Some bad people have mental health problems and personality disorders, but having mental health problems and personality disorders doesn’t make you bad.
If you have concerns, you should bring it up with your therapist when you feel comfortable doing so as the best treatments for BPD are types of therapy so already having access to mental health care should help a great deal hopefully.
I have BPD. I feel like an awful terrible person a lot because BPD is marked by an extreme instability with interpersonal relationships and I flip out at my boyfriend what seems to me very often. He assures me it’s not really that frequent and he’s very patient with me but I still feel like a horrible worthless piece of shit sometimes.
Not trying to make this about me, just saying I can understand where you’re coming from, with the feeling worthless stuff. But what I really want to tell you is NOBODY IS PERFECT. They’re not. Even “normal” people fuck up sometimes, and sometimes they fuck up pretty bad, so I want you to remember that. That if it’s OK for “normal” people to fuck up, it’s OK for you too. We all fuck up sometimes. It doesn’t make you worthless. In fact, the fact that you are STILL HERE, that you are NOT DEAD, that you didn’t give up, that makes you not worthless right there.
Please be honest with your therapist. If you cut more than you told her then you need to tell her. Some therapists are absolute shit, I should know, but when you find a good one they can’t help you if you’re not being honest.
Another thing I want to recommend is the rubber band treatment. Basically get a rubber band that’s snug against your wrist (not cutting off blood flow). When you feel the urge to cut, pull on the band and let go. It’s a sharp pain that SHOULD be able to be substituted for the cutting, and also does less damage and won’t cause infections. I usually don’t recommend this to people because it is still self-harm but if someone is that reliant on cutting then I do suggest it.
Anyway, I hope that some day you can go back to not hurting yourself and that after that point you never hurt yourself again. This random stranger on the internet is cheering for you.
Ok…so I’m just…gonna go out on a limb here and say Howard has somehow found a way to watch hentai, because he appears to be thinking of futanari in that last panel.
…
I’m not ashamed about knowing about that, you’re ashamed about knowing about that!!
I got to mess with my kids and nieces recently (don’t worry, they are all adults, in their mid 20s). I can’t remember what we were talking about, but I told them not to, under any circumstances, look up the word Futanari. Of course they couldn’t resist, and now they are scarred for life. I have so much fun being the strange uncle.
Maybe…I mean, unless he hasn’t watched any episodes involving Theron’s sister (lesbian in the show, I think bisexual in the books). Or that one scene were Littlefinger’s going on a motive rant while two female prostitutes are having sex. In which case probably not. Since those are the only times I remember lesbian sex being involved. But that is a damn good point. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s just lightly trolling the two of them.
Word of God is she’s straight in the books, bi on the show (though we’ve only ever seen her with girls). But yeah, that’s about it. Lots of hookers ‘practicing’, one foursome involving two girls, and Yara. Oh, right, Dany and her handmaid practiced too (and Dany seemed pretty into Yara, but that might be my shipper bias).
Well, there was the blond sailor from Lys, and some romance with Tris Botley (I’m not if they had sex, though) and now she’s sleeping with Qarl the Maid. All three of them are male and I don’t think we hear much about any other partners.
Show Yara is a composite, as much Victarion as she is Asha. So it’s not a surprise that she’s inherited some sexuality from both her constituent parts.
Qarl is the boyfriend I was referring to, yeah. And Kammon raises an interesting point – all I remembered was Martin saying she was straight in the books and the show runners said bi in the show.
Yes, but that was really really creepy and more about ‘claiming her rights’ the way her husband used to rape her (I have no idea if Taena consented, but Cersei was clearly recalling a situation with Robert where she emphatically did NOT consent).
you know if you were to combine Howard and Billie’s individual knowledge on sex education you’d probably get 2/3ds of a functional, sexually knowledgeable person.
the other third being someone who didn’t suffer through an indiana public school education
Sal suffered through a Tennessee Catholic school education, though I think even if she didn’t have experience, she’d have the good sense to google any questions.
internalized homophobia my man. or in this case biphobia. That shit messes with you, makes you rationalize your own behavior into pre-existing nonsenses.
Because life does not come with a glossary, even for the parts that are relevant to us. We learn language from our culture, and the culture has given Billie a twisted and limited definition of the word… and no other word that refers to who SHE is to take its place. Her status/category gets erased and disavowed simply by stealing the language for it.
Jesus Christ, Howie. Just, the whole damn comic starting with panel 3. The fact that last line directly follows Ruth’s line about Indiana sex ed is impossible icing on the cake.
So apart from the Indiana public school system failing to give Howard a proper sex education, it also failed at human biology since it didn’t tell him what a weenus actually is.
plus he’s assuming that neither one of them already has a weenus. i mean, it’s possible, neither Ruth nor Billie have any reason to be telling him about Billie’s genitals. i’m going to guess that — you know what, i was about to assume he had seen pads and/or tampons in the house and thus could infer Ruth’s genitals, but it occurs to me that 1) i don’t actually know Ruth’s genital arrangements any more than i or Howard know Billie’s 2) much more importantly, Howard claims not to know what a tampon is and might not be any more knowledgeable about pads
Yeah, honestly my impression of Howard from what Ruth had said previously when she was talking about “Maybe he’d go softer on Howard or maybe he’d come down twice as hard” if she died is that Howard just ends up slipping under the radar and goes unnoticed most of the time.
Probably gets good enough grades in school to not attract any negative attention to himself from Chindad, but mainly gets neglected and just assumes that dads and granddads are strict and its best to stay out of their way.
I mean, he was too young to remember their life back in Canada before “Chindad, Indiana”.
Yeah I know she thinks that now. But I hope this is step 1 in her journey to self-discovery.
Also, I’m just jazzed they said the word ‘bisexual’ at all, like, the overwhelming bi erasure especially on television is getting to me, man. I love DoA for this, that it has actual queer people talking about their own queerness and using goddamn WORDS. It’s just so refreshing, you know?
You guys do know that weenus/wenis/weenis is just slang, right? It was a word made up on the TV show Friends, though it stood for something else back then.
It was entirely made up because it sounds like penis.
I really cannot believe that no one knows what bisexuality is. I come from a conservative society and it didn’t take a great leap of logic to realise it’s possible.
Willis is pulling from personal experience kinda-sorta. There’s a joke back in Roomies, that turns into a meta joke cause our beloved author didn’t quite know what it was just that it was ‘scandalous’. He however was home schooled. 🙂
I didn’t even hear the word bisexual as a thing that existed until I was in college and reading the arc of Dykes to Watch Out For where Sparrow comes out.
Like, even when it was shown in movies or TV shows, it was always presented as the character figuring out they were “always a lesbian/gay” (coughs meaningfully in Willow from Buffy’s direction) or the word was never used (coughs meaningfully in Inara from Firefly’s direction). Even porn would describe bi character actions as “lesbian sex scenes”.
So yeah, the concept or the word was simply something I never encountered until I was about the characters in the comic’s age.
I feel you on the whole “never having the talk” thing.
The closest thing I got was my dad after he caught me looking at porn trying to figure out what everyone else was getting out of this that I was missing and what was the thing I was sexually attracted to (because clearly everyone has some thing) took me out to a ball game and went “welp, you probably know everything you need to now”.
See, I’m just too embarrassed to talk to my parents much about that sort of thing, beyond talking a little about asexuality stuff with my mother, cause she was starting to get really worried about me not dating anyone. I mean it was sort of a “Thanks for wanting to look out for me mom, but you really can’t just tell random people who you think I’d think were cute in stores that they should date me” thing.
But yeah… I’ve…maybe dabbled a bit trying to figure out what this sexuality thing is through “internet research”. Which is how I’ve figured as far as Demi on that end, cause I actually have to get at least some sort of level of attached to a character for things to work out well in that regard.
Most of it is just emotionally detached poring over “research material” wondering if people really think its hot though. Or looking over some of the really high quality art.
God, that bit with Willow always bugged the hell out of me.
Partly ’cause I could never figure out how much was her not knowing any better, and how much was the writers.
I think the worst part was the episode with Oz after she got together with Tara, because before that you could interpret it as, “okay, maybe she really has just been in the closet and this really was an awakening”. But then she was all “I have strong feelings for both of you in very similar ways” while the writing was all “she’s a lesbian now”.
Sooooo frustrating!
Almost as frustrating as Orange is the New Black doing everything it can to avoid using the word “bisexual” to describe Piper.
I think it’s why I love the creators of Korra so much for coming out immediately after the last episode and going “yeah, they’re both bi. Not suddenly lesbians, not “close friends”, but bi and in a relationship”. Cause so often bi rep if it exists is never formally acknowledged as such.
Ugh, that situation is always unpleasant on tv. It’s like ‘okay, compulsory heterosexuality or bi erasure?’ The way tv is written, they often look much similar.
Well, you know, there’s got to be a dick or dick substitute involved for it to be sex…or something? That seems to be a mentality floating around, especially on the Japanese front.
Yeah, but its just great being able to make color related jokes about “Batman’s Dick (i.e.: Dick Grayson)”. Especially with all the costume color changes he goes through in various points throughout his superhero career. ;p
I was wondering how Howard can so casually think and talk about how his older sister doing the nasty, but then I remember his favorite thing is Game of Thrones.
Panel 1: Howard begins by glancing away and immediately distracting into a defensive non-sequitur. Not only that but looks down as someone who’s ever been berated by that kind of “don’t you dare get cheeky, boy” type abuser has learned to do.
And he does this at the very thought of “how does your grandfather treat you?”
Like, we already know those flags are all red because there is actual blood, but if we didn’t, these are the kinds of signs you often see if you’re someone like a teacher checking up on a student. And it’s because they’ve learned that you can’t give anything away that could lead to badness, not even to a teacher, because them reporting it just means you get hit again when CPS goes away.
Panel 2: Oof, and as bad as the last red flag was, this one is fresh enough to still leave a tang in the air. Like, this is barely a cover for what’s going on and that is that as long as he hides and gives his grandpa no excuses and is meek and blames himself for every “slip-up”, then he’s safe.
And that should never be a child’s reaction to a guardian. Having to navigate around them to stay safe and “not be bothered”. And that last line, a clear attempt to end the conversation so it is not picked back up because of how much the topic is getting to him but also calling him “great”. Like, oof, that stings so fucking bad.
Panel 3: And speaking of heart-break, oof, Howard twisting Billie’s confused minimization of her feelings trying to figure out how to describe them is just brutal. And him taking it that extra step to imply that Ruth is some temporary thing is downright cruel.
And especially so, because that shit gets hurled at bi people all the time. That they are only with a partner until they get “distracted” by a differently gendered partner. And it especially gets thrown at bi people in relationships with same gender partners and said partners. With biphobic fucks often trying to pressure the partners to be biphobic against their partner because of the “knowledge” that the bi person will “return” to dating different gender partners as if that was how any of that works.
Panel 4: And we see the heart-break of that on Billie’s face here. Like, that’s a bastardization of her confusion of how to describe her feelings, especially with regards to how lesbian isn’t fully the right term. And with a different partner, that type of description could actually lead to a nasty fight thanks to that societal biphobia.
As such, she’s almost pleading with her face for that description to be ignored and discounted. Luckily for her, Ruth is also bi and well aware of her brother’s propensity for messed-up descriptions of situations and so rolls with it pretty easily. And doesn’t even note Billie’s “almost none” bit.
Because it doesn’t matter. Ruth knows how Billie feels about her. She knows how much Billie still fights for them despite all her attempts to push her away. She knows that they have something really strong and beautiful.
Honestly, my bi friends and acquaintances, and that includes a girlfriend, got more biphobic shit from queer people, who treated them basically as ‘to chicken to come out 100%’.
Yeah, the queer community has frequently had a nasty history with regards to bi folks and there’s been a lot of bullshit policing that has harmed a lot of bi folks. And it pisses me the fuck off.
Especially so because we wouldn’t have Pride or a queer rights movement without bi folks. Like without Brenda Howard, we wouldn’t have had that first Pride march to commemorate the Stonewall Riots. And we wouldn’t have had the Stonewall Riots to begin with without Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera who were bi trans women of color.
Like, bi people have always paid with their blood for this movement and they get fucked over by lesbian and gay folks? Not fucking okay!
Hell, we only even call it Pride because of Donny the Punk (Stephen Donaldson) who got fucking drummed out of his initial queer community by biphobes because he was bi and fell in love with a woman.
Unfortunately, humans’ first reflex for defining who they and their tribe [i]are[/i] is to declare what they’re [i]not[/i], and force anyone “on the edge” to pick a side or be cast out.
The sad thing is this is one of the fears perpetuated even amongst people who might be questioning themselves in my experience. There was a period I thought I might be bi-curious because of excessive trans-bashing (I think? Im not sure if it counts when people are suggesting you’re trans enough that you question it but ultimately find the answer being no) but was afraid if I admit it Id be dragged out full blown and told Im gay like that one movie.
Billie: Oof, yeah, that bisexuality is only in porn thing is a common misconception and it’s caused by there being little to no non-sexualized conversation about bi people and few depictions of them as not an object of fetish. Heck, there’s a same sort of dynamic that goes on for trans women where we don’t get many depictions of what it looks for a trans woman to not be in a sexualized or public state, to just be lounging around at home flipping through their browser tabs.
And the worst part is how that bisexuality is presented. Because it’s only presented as existing in women and only then as something done for the man himself. Which means it’s harder to feel it applies to you if you are not a woman or if you just want to cuddle and be intimate with a girl with no performativity. And it means you’re likely to be dismissed and mistreated because of that idea that bi=porn.
Like, there’s a lot of nasty biphobia in society, but one of the pieces of that is the idea that bi people are inherently promiscuous, unfaithful, sexual, and so on. And it means that bi people get mistrusted in relationships and are frequently victim to more violence owing to their orientations and how partners interpret that as an inherent threat.
And the porn standard also means that bi women especially get targeted a lot by unicorn hunters (couples who look for bi women for a threesome but have no intention of respecting said bi woman as anything other than a sex toy to spice up their marriage) and are assumed to be open to all comers like the bi women in porn are. Which means a lot more street harassment and sexual assault.
So I get Billie internalizing those messages and rejecting the label initially because of them. Because yeah, there’s precious little media to push back against that idea and where there’s a dearth shit like porn can occupy way too large a place in the cultural conscious.
I kind of feel like this was also the general idea for gays as well, at least for a while.
Probably due in part to the slanderous claims of “sexual deviancy” and “Wants to destroy the sanctity of marriage”.
I mean, I guess that more of the people I’ve known who claim to be bi have tended to be the ones more into polyamory, but yeah I’m actually pretty sure its not their sexuality that innately makes people less picky as much as their libido?
Honestly it seems more like something come up with by people who can’t imagine themselves not being horny if their own socially constructed rules and sexualities were suddenly opened up to a wider range than actually something that represents a real group of people.
Polyamory doesn’t have anything to do with pickiness. It has a lot of related meanings clustering around “able to, and wanting to, sustain healthy romantic and/or sexual relationships with more than one person at a time.”
And it’s unrelated to sexual preference – poly people can be gay, straight, bi, pan, etc.
Also, bi is unrelated to pickiness. I had a conversation with a bi person once in which they were asking me, “Doesn’t being straight limit you?” My answer: “Are you attracted to everyone in the world?” Them: “Huh. Good point.” Because they were bi, not pan (which I knew). So some things turn them on, and some things don’t. It’s just that they can be turned on by some men and some women, whereas I’m almost never turned on by someone with lots of body or facial hair or male-type muscle definition.
I’m sure different people use the word in different ways, from different contexts, for different purposes. There are probably some pansexual people who don’t know any term closer than “bi” to describe themselves.
If you can imagine someone whose sexuality toward the opposite sex is kind of like typical straight sexuality, and whose sexuality toward the same sex is kind of like typical gay sexuality, then that’s an example of a bi person. Simple, yes? Nothing in there about poly, or levels of horny, or socially constructed rules.
(I say “sex” in the previous paragraph rather than “gender” because AFAIK being gay, straight, or bi is largely about what physical cues turn you on, and gender is about how your brain is wired rather than what body you have.)
Right, I’m just saying that a lot of the Stereotyping on Non-Heterosexuals seems like it often jumps straight to “Sex crazed maniacs who will sleep with anyone they can get away with.” despite that not really matching up with a lot of what I’ve seen from people who I’ve known who’ve admitted to being homosexual or bi.
Which makes it feel like fear mongering at best, or at worst when combined with the “irresistible nature of sin” just makes it sound like the person trying to push the agenda believes that they’d start just raping everyone if not for their stringent avoidance, denial, and demeaning of people who don’t cling to heterosexuality cause “religion”.
So, at least the “culture of bi erasure or demonization” is a socially constructed rule thing. Even if its also nonsensical garbage. A lot of people tend to turn a blind eye when it comes to actually thinking about ancient traditions they’re told to base their worldviews on sadly.
People on the other hand are people, and therefore super complex and actually all different from each other, despite how much they usually try to pretend they’re all the same, or at least “Normals” do? People who seem to try their hardest to force their opinions to fit with whatever they think everyone else thinks?
Howard: Speaking of casual biphobia, we get the bi person’s label is “really” whatever partner they are with. Like, he just got finished noting and making the connection that she’s bi like his GoT character. But, the natural language and assumption is for him to treat them as being lesbians nonetheless, because that’s the cultural narrative for women-loving-women.
And ah, the baffled questions about how women have sex.
Part of it is that good old heteronormativity that sells all sex as PIV and nothing else. After all, this is the only type of intercourse teachers are allowed to talk about in sex ed (like no, really, I bend a bunch of rules and keep things super clinical to try and at least cover contraception, the clitoris, erogenous zones, and consent, and can wink, wink, nudge nudge towards sites that have actual useful information about sex, but I’d be dragged before the admins if I tried to talk about sex for pleasure, kink, oral/anal sex, or vibrators/dildos).
And it’s what’s reflected in porn. Yeah, they might show some oral and vibrating toys for warm-up, but if two women are getting down, the “big scene” that’s seen as the “real sex” is always strap-on dildo sex unlike in life.
And the whole thing leaves people very in the dark about what wlw intimacy looks like, even wlw trying to figure that shit out under the cloud of ignorance they have been raised in: https://twitter.com/AnaMardoll/status/852558182996213760
It’s honestly really tragic.
Ruth: I covered this a bit in Howard’s section, but American sex ed is terrible by design. We’re a fucked up nation with fucked up views on sex and one of them is a cloud of silence that makes it shameful to have any accurate depiction of something that feels very critical to 99% of the population of the planet and especially to give kids the information they need to have safe, fulfilling sex lives without having to struggle through all the trial and error of trying to figure it out on their own from terrible guides like porn.
Like, we only even cover how pregnancy and condoms work because we had a plague wipe out huge swaths of our population that was best curbed with safe sex and even then we’ve got constant attacks on contraception and attempts to make everything “abstinence only”.
And for teachers it puts us in an awful state, because we know what our kids actually need, but parents and administrations would rip off our heads if we gave that real education they need to them. And so we end up giving them pieces and hoping that figuring out the rest doesn’t fuck them over too much.
It’s honestly really frustrating.
Like imagine a country where kids would know about vibrators, lube, how to have sex without making the sort of rookie mistakes that make it all hurt or that finding what actually worked for pleasure was something sex could be. If kids with attractions to kink knew how to explore that safely and how to recognize the difference between someone “dominant” and someone withholding and abusive and that life-play is a terrible fucking idea they should never let someone do to them? Where we gave them everything they needed to craft a fulfilling sex life however it looked from the get-go instead of by trial and error in college?
But our culture would have to change so much to ever get there. And that sucks.
This is probably offensive but its been burning in the back of my head for months now and this is probably the best place to put it so here goes:
Is it OK to say that two woman in a sexual/romantic relationship are in a “lesbian relationship”, even if one or both of them are actually bi? What about male/male “gay relationships”? “Straight relationships”? What if one of the participants is actually ace?
Like I said, probably offensive, but it’s been bothering me, and you are the a reliable source on this sort of topic.
I’ve been strongly favoring wlw or women-loving-women to describe relationships between two women that are not between two lesbians and that’s an appellation that’s been becoming more and more common in usage.
Either that or queer. Queer is a super robust all around term for relationships not involving two straight people of different genders in a relationship. And if you need to clarify beyond that, you can usually talk about the individuals more in-depth (Well Johnny identifies as ace and Sam is non-binary and pan), but that tends to be a good short-hand.
Like I describe my relationships as queer relationships on the regular. It’s just much more convenient and accurate than trying to find other terms to encapsulate the orientations involved.
I don’t know the answers to those (although I think homosexual or heterosexual or asexual relationship would be more accurate than gay or straight or whatever as the latter are more identities and less adjectives (in this case)).
But my husband has so far gone with ‘I’m not gay but my boyfriend is’ as a descriptor, if that helps.
I’m a bi lady, dating a straight fellow. I wouldn’t call our relationship straight, because one of us isn’t straight. I also wouldn’t call it a bi relationship, because he’s not bi. Maybe an opposite-sex relationship? I’d probably just say he’s my boyfriend.
For further fun confusion, remember nonbinary folks. My straight male friend thought he was dating a bi woman, but while the relationship grew, his “girlfriend” realized that he’s really a man, and he decided to transition. Neither of them identifies as gay — they’re a straight cis-man and a bi transman — so it seems weird to call it a gay relationship. I think of him as ‘Jake’s boyfriend’, like I do with mine.
Guess it really depends on the situation. One of my friends is a bi woman, only acknowledged her bisexuality with her current girlfriend (they’re gonna get married soon too, I’m super excited) and she mainly refers to their relationship as being gay and makes constant jokes about it and stuff without really stressing the bi factor. Meanwhile a few of my other bi friends are more casual or are more equal opportunity about jokes like that. I myself tend to gravitate towards being ace more than being bi, since I learned that about myself before the other. Much like most things I think it’s a more contextually driven question then anything
Yeah. Sex education is really bad in the US. I lucked out in going to a Jesuit-run high school where the attitude was “abstinence until marriage is a virtue, put if you have pre-marital sex please do it safely”. The way they got around the whole “Catholic” thing? They just printed a small disclaimer reading: “The Catholic does not approve of sex outside of marriage and does not endorse this behavior” in itty-bitty little print on the last page of a rather hefty resource hand out that probably required a magnifying glass to read. Jesuits as a whole tend to be very liberal and scientific, and we had some of the most liberal Jesuits ever as teachers.
as a home-schooler who got a fairly decent (if very conservative) education aside from this, my entire sex education consisted of my parents holding a pillow in front of the TV during a certain segment of Titanic, and my dad informing all of us kids that “sometimes when people kiss, they get carried away.”
So, naturally, my sex ed has been a very gradual, incremental process via the internet (being asexual and not having had a drive to experiment on my own).
Once again, most of my experimenting in that style has been going “Huh, people think this is hot? Guess this just confirms that I’m not the generally on offer sexualities.”
Odd. Strap-ons are a rarity in my viewing experience without specifically searching for them. But, then, despite growing up in Indiana in the public school system, I knew of bisexuality in the 90s. Maybe I just don’t live under the right rocks.
24/7 arrangements, I imagine, where you are -always- behaving the roles of master and slave or whathaveyou, not just during sexytimes. Most people who talk about 24/7 simply have it as a fantasy, but there are folks who set up their lives that way. Takes all kinds.
It’s dangerous for obvious reasons, and would not be a good idea for some teenagers to try.
Ohhhhh, a Total Power Exchange or Master/slave stuff (I believe when it goes outside the bedroom, it’s considered Master/slave, obviously excepting chosen terminology choices). Yeah, I’ve known of folks who’ve been in perfectly happy and healthy ones, but those are intense and know exactly where boundaries are and won’t cross them because they aren’t large diameter assholes. Definitely not something beginners or minors should try.
What Leorale said and yeah, they’re hard enough to make work for people very experienced in BDSM and have very strong consent practices.
People just starting to figure themselves and what they want should stay far far away from it but I see too many teens and new adults fall into it because the fantasy is hot and there’s little information and thus have things go painfully disastrously wrong because they are not at all ready for that kind of dynamic.
Maybe those folks should try life-play fantasy- like, pretending to be in that dynamic for sex fantasy playtime purposes. That seems like it’d be the reasonable way to scratch that itch without diving into a new pool head on without knowing the currents or even much about swimming.
Yes, I’d bet that the vast majority of people who fantasize about 24/7 arrangements fulfill it that way; like they’d talk about being enslaved forever during play, but actually it’s a fun fantasy, not a major lifestyle decision.
Oh they should and a lot of the folks who get burned on that eventually do do that, but when they’re young, the only depictions of anything D/S are “always forever” things like Twilight, 50 Shades, or most D/S porn, so young kinky folks assume that’s what fulfilling those fantasies looks like.
And the worst part is there are way too many predatory rapist fucks in the kink community only too willing to prey on a young 18 year old’s naivety to get a relationship they don’t have to be “as strict on the consent with”.
But yeaaaaaahhhhh, a lot of predators hang out there and I imagine that things like those books make it much easier. And oh lord, TPE’s don’t have limits or safe words oh lord (which is why it’s so important the dom(me) not be a large diameter asshole).
That boy is obviously hiding something. I just finished watching Rick and Morty, so of course my default assumption is that the same sort of madness defines the relationship between Howard and his grandfather.
I was posting this as a reply but it wasn’t really relevant, but since there are a bunch of american sex ed horror stories I thought I’d post a Canadian (grad 2011) comparison.
My parents mostly left it to the school and like one puberty book but let me ask questions from them, and admittedly my mom talked to me a bit. Then again, I’m Canadian and my schools actually did sex ed, formally so in grades 5, 7, 9 and less so but touched upon in planning 10 (required to graduate here). My district had elementary (K-5), middle (6-8) and high school (9-12).
Fifth grade (~10yo) we had one day where we spent a block (maybe two, it didn’t feel super short) with some sex educator from outside our school. We learned mostly about puberty and what to expect, but also the basics of sex, eg names for genitalia, how the sperm fertilizes the egg, etc. I don’t think we really went into zygotes or any of that until the biology segment in a middle school science class, although we talked more generally about pregnancy. They talked about what condoms and birth control were. Parents were allowed to stop their kids from attending, but they had to opt out on paper.
Seventh (~12yo) or so grade it was ‘peer led’ by people who were several years older than us and we didn’t really consider our peers at all. We talked about when we considered something illicit (like, whether kissing was sexual, or laying next to each other on a bed, or hugging while laying down, and so on), lots of body image stuff. Also learned more about STDs and birth control options. Throughout that year the older students (I don’t remember if they were eighth grade or high schoolers or what) came back several times to do activities with us on those topics.
9th grade (~14yo) we had a mandatory health fair. Older students who were part of a volunteer group to teach sex ed, health, drug awareness, etc (they were students at my school, but this program was separate of school, run by a clinic) set up booths, and there were ones for each common STD (not super fear mongery) and most forms of birth control (on the perfect use statistics, what proper use was, etc).
Planning 10 was some basics on things that might help you function as an adult. I have no recollection of learning anything. By definition this had to include a tiny bit of sex ed.
So, not a lot of consent talk, or gender, or queer topics (though we did at least briefly talk about gay men, part because the age of consent for anal is or was higher than the age of consent for any other sexual acts here (18 and not flexible rather than 16 with romeo and juliet laws), but I don’t recall what class it was in, and I don’t think we talked about lesbians except maybe vaguely when talking about dental dams).
As I mentioned yesterday, everyone I know knew about homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, in early middle school, and pansexuality by eighth or ninth grade. I guess we educated ourselves and each other, or something. I have no memory of first learning those things, just that we were all aware of them as we started trying to figure out our sexuality.
I went to a public elementary school (K-8) and then a Catholic high school. Had to have sex ed from 5-9. It was all split from boys and girls (except 6th and 7th I think) sounds much similar to yours.
5th – Talking about basic anatomy (boys and girls), and mostly about puberty and what to expect and that people were different and it was okay for certain normal deviations to happen (like being irregular for a long time).
6th – Learned how babies are made, more general anatomy.
7th – I think this was very much about how sex worked and the way that those systems worked.
8th – Largely about pregnancy and getting comfortable talking about specific body parts.
9th – Holy shit, here’s where we hit the mother load – Consent (they made us write responses to a scenario where we didn’t want sex and the other person tried to pressure us until we were all ready to say ‘No’ over and over to all the common tactics), body image and eating disorders, drug awareness, contraception in so many forms, STIs (the teacher went over the common ones – symptoms, treatments, prognosis, etc. and we got to research whichever ones we wanted to go into more detail), pregnancy and adoption and what each entailed, and heavy information about pregnancy and anatomy. This was a Catholic school so LGBT+ content, kink, and abortion were off the table, but most of the information was transferable and I believe they mentioned ‘a girl can give you an STI as easily as a guy can, USE PROTECTION ALWAYS – DENTAL DAMS AND FEMALE CONDOMS ARE A THING YOU SHOULD INVEST IN AND ALWAYS GET TESTED WITH A NEW PARTNER’. Abortion was a quick two second ‘You COULD do that because it is a thing that exists and it is legal and covered by insurance, but the Catechism says it’s a no-no, here, let’s watch a video about adoption instead!’ A little bit of ‘real love waits’ bullshit, but it was very much under the ‘kids will do what kids will do, but by god, do so safely’. I have no idea if grade 10-12 physical education went into more detail.
Of course, my school went into LGBT+ content and abortion in other classes – history (especially ancient history, we got to learn about Alexander the Great and his relationship with Hephaestion), psychology (which taught us about intersex folks and that trans folks were valid), sociology (LGBT+ families and different gender arrangements), law (I believe Moregentaler was taught as a ‘landmark case’), politics (contraception and abortion fights, I believe LGBT+ rights), possibly more info in biology, I was allowed to play an actress who had an abortion in drama (but only because she regretted it – my teacher said she liked it, but couldn’t be allowed to let me perform it if she didn’t), and religion (where my teachers were generally empathetic but sided with the church on abortion, and holy shit, God may have mercy on you but they would NOT if they heard you drop a homophobic slur) and my school’s counselling office had a ‘safe space’ LGBT+ sticker on one of the counsellor’s doors. So, overall, not the best education ever, but the teachers did their best to be inclusive and I have a feeling they pushed where they could without getting in trouble.
I… That’s weird, I related more to Billie when I thought she was aware of her own bisexuality.
Yeah, even the “everyone is a bit bisexual” crap she pulled on Joyce: I used to think that when I was her age.
No, Ruth’s perfectly knowledgeable, and Dorothy. And Danny, after he had his talk with Dorothy. Even Becky got a clue pretty quick (even if she personally finds the idea unappealing). Joyce’s most recent appearance suggests she’s actually grokked the idea, since she feels fine shipping Billie with both Ruth and Walky.
No data on Carla, Amber, Ethan, Marcie, or the Walkertons beliefs on the matter, that I remember, but that includes none of them actually denying the existence. Nobody else is major enough it could be expected their beliefs would be known. Though Walky and Sal are the only ones in that I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to not grasp it. (Hell, I expect Amber clung to the idea that Ethan might be bi for a while after he came out.)
At this point, Billie’s the only one who’s still demonstrating a resistance to the idea.
Sierra, Dorothy, and Roz have all shown pretty strong awarenesses of bisexuality and comfort with the topic. And I feel Ruth, Carla*, Marcie, Grace, and Mandy have been hinted at being fairly aware of the concept as well even though we haven’t seen as much on-camera to fully support.
*Carla, especially as she went out of her way to refer to them as queer girls in love instead of lesbians in love.
Did Ruth get her SexEd in Canada?
European ideas about the US tend to be oversimplified, but was SexEd always bad over there or did it decline since the beginning of the 90ties and the rise of fundamentalism?
Ruth’s years when that was a school subject were spend in Ontario, so I’m pretty sure it’s “yes”.
In the USA individual states do a lot of determinating about sex ed. My own firsthand was in a pretty liberal state, but I am not-so-young, and don’t have kids, so all I can say is that this is one more area the wall between church and state is threatened.
Evidence, in the form of some public health outcomes, and state bills and laws allowing discrimination against LGBT+ folk, suggests it is getting wrse in those places.
John Oliver dedicated one of Last Week Tonight’s episodes to US sex ed – if you feel like you can hold back the inevitable urges of burning the entire country to the ground, you should watch it.
My American sex ed was conducted in 6th grade, when we were about 12. It was mostly things like “this is the name of this body part, and that’s what it does.” Also, they split us up based on our sexes. Girls learned how to use tampons. I do not know what boys learned.
As far as I remember, everything I learned about having sex, sexuality identity or preferences, and contraceptives was from the media and peers.
Flaming brexit means shipping to the UK alone is twice the price of the book. All because morons are working on 23 year old misinformation and prejudices.
Do the printings stay around long on the store, because I just cannot afford that?
You’d be surprised at the number of gay/lesbian folks who ALSO don’t believe that bisexuals exist. I used to date a bisexual girl and she told me some horror stories where if she mentioned she was bisexual, she either got accused of just “faking it so that guys will be more into you” (from her straight friends), or that she “was a lesbian who just didn’t have the courage to fully come out of the closet” (from her gay/lesbian friends). The takeaway lesson? Ignorant/hateful people exist among all communities.
I keep hearing about bi folks getting told that they’re “Just gay and afraid to fully come out” and I’m seriously wondering if that’s seriously a Thing That Happens (at least often enough to basically bug ever bi person ever about).
Like I know that some people who used to ID as bi suddenly realized their attraction to the opposite gender was just compulsory heterosexuality and move to ID as gay, but… that’s not quite the same thing as being afraid and in the closet. I really don’t know where this myth comes from
Sort of. From what I understand, many gay people initially identify as bi because they perceive it as more socially accepted (okay). Then they assume their stance applies to everyone. Similarly, bisexuals identify as straight or gay to fit in. This is just secondhand from gay friends explaining the phenomenon, though.
I have also seen a boomerang version… One of my exes identified as bi, for most of the time I knew her, until a while after we broke up. At which point, she began to identify as a lesbian. Then we drifted apart for a while, and the next time I spoke to her, she was identifying as bi, again.
I’ve also had a friend who identified as gay when I first met him, then after a while realized he was bi. (I don’t THINK he identified as bi before we met, but never asked.)
It sometimes happens, folks will use bi for a period of time before coming out as gay or lesbian, though I’ve far more often seen people use gay/lesbian for a time before coming out as bi.
Like all stereotypes, there’s a small handful of people they actually describe, but it’s definitely become something of an urban legend that’s been used to harass bi people about their orientations with gay/lesbian folks assuming that applies to all bi people and then getting angry when the bi people they bullied into identifying as gay/lesbian end up coming out as bi later because that’s what they always were.
Since all of you are so interested, I thought I’d share my experiences. I first heard the words “hetero” and “bi” and “homo” (same in Hungarian) was from a classmate in a camp around the age of 12 when he was bullying another classmate for not knowing them (I felt so wise back then not letting it slip that I didn’t know them either). It was a Catholic school, but we got proper sex ed on puberty, pregnancy and how to avoid it and things like that, but nothing about possible orientations. In high school they took it as an evidence we were well informed. I learned about the Kinsey scale in college, because I majored in psychology, and I am pretty sure those who majored in other things only could have known about that from journalism.
On a personal note, up until lately (1-2 years ago) I was in denial about liking girls too. With my previous boyfriend we would joke about having a threesome and I was insistent that the 3rd would be a guy. After braking up with him, he came out as bi. And from that moment it slowly came to me that it is not as big a deal (no offence intended, I know it is very hard for many) as I thought it was. I realized I had internalized the view that “it is okay to have a nonhetero orientation as long as it’s not me”. So, that’s it I am free to like girls too
You know, people tend to give Tumblr a lot of shit, and some of it is justified, but I really have to be thankful for tumblr for giving me the 101 on sexuality I really could’nt have gotten anywhere else
Yeah, I tend to do the same, if only because of how aggressive people can get about stuff on Tumblr. Though I mean I avoid like all the Major Social Communities on the internet.
This comics comment section is pretty cool though.
The emphasis is very important, because Howard is shifting it from a confused attempt to find language for one’s own experiences into a dismissal of the importance of the relationship. Which is definitely not how Billie meant it.
Nah, he just encountered bi representation whereas Billie has not. He’s still deeply ignorant about what that means, but he’s at least had something that reflected that reality he can point to.
In short, someone needs to get these two a Legend of Korra box set or else that one episode of Ultra Car where the friend with dark standard bisexual hair came out as bi.
Ruth’s hair actually looks incredible there. Maybe because for some reason she looks like Korra but with Ruth’s color palette. But I am for Ruth getting that haircut.
I wonder if Jess coming out helped cause Ultra Car’s cancellation – the ratings really weren’t that bad in the target demographic until that happened. Could be a One Million Mom’s kinda thing.
Or if they were being cancelled anyways so the writers said ‘Fuck it, what do we have to lose?’
Yeah, between that and the whole dropping of the asexual term, the conservative backlash was pretty strong. The writers really did try to make the best of it by the end though. It was all just a little too ahead of its time.
At least they put out the episodes that weren’t released, if you know where to look. You can tell that once they got word they were cancelled they decided they had nothing to lose and so did what they wanted.
Oh, jeezuz, Howard, you poor kid. When I think of your future…
As a teenager, I was lucky to find a copy of Everything you always wanted to know about sex (but were afraid to ask) by Dr. David Reuben. For the early seventies it was a pretty good intro to a lot of topics, and miles better than what I was getting in school. It sure as hell didn’t come from my parents but I’m saying, parents, make sure to leave some good books around.
Wait, so Billie doesn’t know what bisexuality is…? Didn’t she have a girlfriend before? Does she just think she’s sometimes gay and sometimes straight?
Strange isn’t it?
I always thought Billie was the last person to be in the closet, but as it seems she’s closeted bisexual, and thinks she’s straight with few expections to some girls.
One girl expection I can belive, more than one you’re bi.
It’s not end of the world to realise that, sadly mainstream media and porn works made female bisexuality as disgusting stigma of cheaters and nymphomaniacs variable who need to constantly fuck anyone ;(
No wonder no one wants to admit they are bi.
Yeah, she’s just assumed that “everyone gets curious”, including nominally straight folks – like her! – and is now being confronted with and working through the idea that, no, actually…
And as to how it helps men, culturally enforced gender roles hurt men too. Men who express their feelings, who are gentle, sensitive, etc get ostracized. Boys are taught that they have to be strong, stoic, brash, and of course, constantly pursuing sex, or else they’re “not really a man”.
Just like how girls are shut down if they express interest in traditionally masculine pursuits like athletics, leadership roles, or careers male-dominated industries, boys are shut down any time they express interest in traditionally feminine activities or careers.
Men aren’t hurt by sexism anywhere near as badly, but they’re definitely hurt. It attempts to force people to conform to arbitrary standards of behavior, even if that makes them unhappy.
There’s no reason women can’t be courageous, independent, and assertive. There’s no reason men can’t be gentle, empathetic, and sensitive. There’s no reason a person of any/no gender can’t be all of those things.
Because they’re all good qualities to have, and it doesn’t make sense to say any of them is better for one gender to have than it is for another.
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I’m sure somewhere on the internet, someone has already drawn it.
Rule 34
No exceptions.
And remember, everytime you ask whether some kind of porn is on the Internet, it spontaneously generates if it hadn’t already.
So please stop asking about the creepy stuff everybody.
They both have the weenus! Howard ALSO has the weenus! EVERYONE GETS A WEENUS
ELBOW SKINS ALL AROUND
Don’t forget to rub lotion on your weenus!
They don’t grow a weenus….they buy one. O_O
I mean, if they’re into that.
Where would you even buy elbow skin?
Some ‘Second Hand’ shops keep a supply out the back.
This ‘Second Hand’ shop wouldn’t happen to rhyme with ‘Nack Larket’ would it?
From the excess second hands in inventory?
JOINT SCROTUMS
Hey, I have seen pictures of female bodybuilders who took too much testosterone supplements. They definitely grew a weenus.
Billie you are literally a bisexual person
Nah, you heard the American Sex Ed system, that’s clearly only in porn.
Fairly sure for most of the US, said sex ed system’s curriculum is one word. “no”
Well, as far as summary goes, at any rate.
In my American Sex Ed, bisexuals were also in AIDs.
(I was taught that myth in middle school and continued to believe it, even though it hurt, until someone– who was himself biphobic and yet knew this– mentioned that it was false.)
In my sex ed, that was pretty much the entirety of it. Here’s horrifying pictures of worst case untreated STIs, that’s what will happen to you if you have sex, so never have sex or you will get sick and die.
And we had to wait until 10th grade to get that. I don’t believe we were ever even taught about how the reproductive system works or what even the terms for the parts of the genitals were. For that you had recess talk often at the hands of whoever was the most die-hard toxic masculinity fan who wanted to brag about how “mature” he was because he was allowed to watch R movies and knew totally accurate terminologies for genitals like the c-slur or 4chan made up “porn moves”.
Honestly, looking back, it’s kind of boggling that I didn’t grow up with massive fucked-up ideas about sex. I think it was all just so disconnected that I never bothered internalizing any of it, because it was all so confusing and baffling to my ace ass.
what, you didn’t get the “sexuality as band-aid/duct tape” bit, where the the part where the more partners you have, the less useful it is?
Nah, that was seen as too liberal as it would imply that there were some people who had sex with multiple partners in their lives.
Hell, there wasn’t even a “sex is okay in marriage” thing, it was just “here’s the horrific way it will kill you”. I think my 12th grade English teacher was trying to push back against that with a bunch of sex and sexual attraction is a critical part of being a human being stuff she was always preaching. But it just pissed my kid ace mind who felt personally erased and attacked by that.
yet another terrifying look into your childhood.
*appropriate gesture of support*
I’m glad she tried, but… yeah, she uh, kind of accidentally made it sound like asexuals aren’t human beings. She probably didn’t mean to.
There were two kids in my class who moved from the Midwest ki grew up mostly in Southern California, ao way different) sho had been taught that so my teacher pulled out a dollar and passed it around and at the end said who still wants the dollar and that was how he showed us our worth wasn’t tied to who touches us or how many people touch us and i thought it was a great lesson.
We never even had sex ed in my high school. Though this was when I was living in the South in Georgia.
That last sentence made me giggle.
I has the opposite problem. My biological mother had a lot of partners before getting with my dad who use to be a hippy and then tricking him into getting her pregnant by going off birth control without telling him. I heard way too much detail about sex including them talking about their sex life. I heard stories like my dad getting an STD from her and having to paint his dick with some kind of blue medicine for a while. Biomom told me about being with several guys at the same time. Dad told me about parties where women would tap on his shoulder, go have sex, go back to the party, and repeat with another girl. I heard about dad getting crabs from a woman he was fooling around with because her husband was a trucker who got them from sleeping with women on the road and bringing them back to her and having to tell his mother (my mamaw) so she would know to clean the place (he had visited). I heard about oral sex, orgasms, using food, how breasts vary in terms of sensitivity, the penis size myth, places not to have sex, circumcised vs regular, and so on. A lot of it was from my dad as my biological mother was dumb as a post (example: asking dad how men had periods. She had already had me!), so her advice was usually useless. She tried to convince my dad to higher a male prostitute for me when I was a preteen because I had waited long enough and it would help my period. Then there was my papaw who was a fountain of dirty jokes even when I was little and his brother who was the same and had a hat with foam boobs on it. The first time I cussed I was nearly 19 and my first relationship (besides the playground boyfriend kind I had at 10) wasn’t until 23 when I got my first real kiss and eventually other stuff. I was the best educated virgin ever XD
Goodness gracious, there has got to be a middle ground somewhere, where you don’t have to be forcibly ignorant but you don’t have to hear vivid visual details about your parents’ sex lives.
My parents told us about anatomy and babies starting when I was 3, as they were expecting my baby brother. I specifically recall they described sex as “a special kind of cuddle” which was the perfect amount of non-scary information for a small child. PIV, womb, umbilical cord, baby.
When my older brother and I were like 13 and 10, my folks passed us books about impending puberty, and would’ve been happy to answer any questions. It was around the dawn of the internet. Oddly, the books used old-people words like “necking”, “petting” and “heavy petting” — I think these were intended to mean makeouts, totally touching boobies, and fingering? I definitely imagined people entwining their necks like giraffes, petting somebody’s arm like you’d pet a doggie, and petting somebody’s arm but with stronger pressure, respectively.
Now kids learn from porn and romance is dead.
I wanted to say that I began looking at hentai when I was 13 years old or before (I’m not 100% sure, I’m only sure that I looked at hentai before I had my first cat, and by her age I had already know hentai before 13) and I don’t think romance is dead for me.
Now I have 25 years, I’m a virgin, and I’m only attracted to girls I share a deep genuine connection (i.e. become close friends before I’m attracted to them) and my main reason for wanting a girlfriend is someone to cuddle and share my life. Wanting to satiate my lust isn’t something that drives me to have a girlfriend because hentai already fills that role perfectly, so the only thing I really wants for a girlfriend is what I can’t get from hentai (the real connection, cuddling and sharing life part). I would not turn off sex with a girlfriend, but she didn’t wanting it would not be a dealbreaker for me.
Good lord, Arcane Darkness, you could be me, except that it took me a bit longer to get into hentai/internet porn because I’m now 40 and both of those sort of didn’t exist over here when I was 13.
Oh, and I’ve also never had a cat. That’s probably important somehow.
See, if you remove the “hentai filling a role part”…thats sort of how things are for me. Since honestly the most appealing part of the idea of dating for me is just that it’d give me a larger portion of their time. Well, that and I maybe have a thing for cheesy romantic stuff that I have noone to be like that towards.
I’m just not sure how the sex end of thing would work out and what if I couldn’t get into it, or what if I couldn’t fulfil their needs in that regard? Its…stressful to think about.
@begbert: Cats are great. Cats are super important. Well, you don’t need a lot of them, cats are best in moderation.
Jeeze, is this, like, a thing all over America? Cause a friend of a friend once upon a time asked me if it was true that having sex = automatic STD and he was like 19-20 at the time and I just thought it was his one school. I was like “Well, your parents had sex to have you, do they have STDs?” (I promise that in the actual conversation I sounded a lot less “you are an idiot, please think”)
Could you please define what “toxic-masculinity” is.
Also is there a “non-toxic-masculinity”?
Totally!
So toxic masculinity is a type of masculinity policing that defines masculinity as avoidance of anything deemed feminine and in doing so creates a self-reinforcing culture of abuse.
Basically, think the way young boys are policed by their friends to “not be a pu**y”, or to avoid any accusation of being gay, or that being an equal partner to their girlfriend makes them “whipped”. Think of the way boys who express feminine traits are beaten and abused.
Think of the way fields and interests are abandoned by too many men and boys when women start liking it in any large numbers. Think of the way other fields are defended from women, enby, or femme/queer boy entry because of scared men’s fears of it being “ruined”.
It’s the logic behind rape and abuse culture where it is better to be seen as “strong” and “putting women in their place” than to be seen as being “done wrong” by them by getting rejected or respecting consent. It’s the logic that demands constant meaningless sexual “success” to be seen as “winning” at being a guy.
And it’s a system that no guy is ever allowed to succeed at and relax. Think “jokes” about “revoking a man card” and the nervous fear groups of toxic boys have that the slightest action deemed by their friends as feminine will result in their expulsion from their groups and being the recipient of violence or abuse. Think friend groups nastily escalating misogyny or homo/transphobia in order to still be seen as “manly” by their friends.
It turns masculinity into a toxic trap where one is discouraged from being a good person or accepting necessary cultural evolutions because of fear that they’ll be treated “like a woman” for it.
It’s basically a toxic parasite on masculinity that we’d be long rid of, if so many people weren’t invested in it and terrified that if they get off, they’ll be abused by the folks who still believe in it.
And to answer your question, there’s tons of non-toxic masculinity. And it’s something that’s becoming more and more common as feminism and fights against transmisogyny is giving young men more freedom to be themselves and seek out their own form of masculinity. We see it in lesbian butch culture, in a lot of trans men spaces, in a lot of feminist and queer men’s spaces, and in cis allo straight men’s spaces where there isn’t the same desperate policing against the feminine.
And it’s something that will become more and more common by continuing to protect boys leaving that toxic culture and forming their own new spaces to find, create and/or join masculinities that don’t define themselves by violence towards women and wholesale reflexive rejection of the feminine.
Cause at the end of the day, boys frequently want to be read as boys, and frequently have ideal gender performances in the masculine and don’t want to have to be complete fucks to be read as society as being men.
I have a special loathing of it, because being a young trans girl who didn’t know it at the time, toxic masculinity was horrible to me in the attempt of “correcting” my “non-masculine” (by their definition) behaviors. So I saw first hand the worst of how it treats young boys and tries to get them to buy into this awful self-destructive culture.
Noticeably lacking aspect of my sex education classes:
What is sex?
We learned literally nothing about sex is sex education. Sounds like you didn’t, either.
Well, I mean, in Billie’s experience, every time she bangs a girl, it ends up on Slipshine, so.
Not her and Alice, because underage.
Dose that really count, it’s not like it’s real people?
To Willis it does. He’s stated as much. In reference to Conquest Slipshine requests, I think.
In response to requesting Conquest, Billie and Alice, AND an underage Sal losing her virginity (I believe the assumption was she was somewhere from 15-17). Willis does not want to draw minors, even if they’re at the age of consent. Acknowledging it happened and drawing it are two different things and Willis is not interested in the latter.
Isn’t it illegal to publish drawings of minors having sex? Maybe not, but I thought it was? (In the US, at least.)
I’m not sure – far as I can tell, the jury is out when they’re fictional teenagers, though most porn sites won’t allow it and even if they did, Willis does not want to.
I’d think Freedom of Expression protects it, but it dose seem to be a mute point if Willis doesn’t want to draw it.
Is that why Girls Gone Wild has so many different variations on Sexy Schoolgirls?
Not that I ever watched any of them, just shelved them and directed all sorts of people to the section when it was awkwardly requested. Lots of people watch porn, like the variety is pretty out there.
Don’t forget
Teen: “What if I’m not attracted to anyone?”
“Educator” with unnaturally sweet voice: “That’s called ‘celibacy‘, child!”
Teen: “…I don’t think that’s right.”
“Educator”: “Stupid child. I’m the teacher! I think I would know your thoughts better than you!”
I’ve gotten in the habit of name-dropping asexuality the orientation and what that means when I cover mitotic division (i.e. asexual reproduction) so at least the ace kids in the class will have heard of it and that there’s a word for those feelings.
And also so the allo kids never make that joke against their ace peers, because I treat it like ace the orientation is totes obviously the thing everyone would confuse for this brand new bio concept.
This is a really cool idea. I may steal this for part of my lesson plan. Can you give more detail so I don’t botch it up?
“…We call this mitosis or asexual reproduction. Which is not to be confused with asexuality the sexual orientation. That’s more about not experiencing sexual attraction whereas this is about one cell doubling its material and creating two exact copies of itself…”
Wow, that is so great.
“…and if you find yourself doubling your material and creating two exact copies of yourself, consult your local physician.”
“Or hone this ability and become Hokage”
See, that mitotic division was my first thing I heard the term used for, so when someone first used it to describe themselves I was super confused and wasn’t sure what they meant by it. Like if they just meant they “handled their sexual urges on their own somehow” or something.
Same here, pretty much.
I heard about mitotic division first because science, but asexuality the orientation made just as much sense to me since sex clearly wasn’t essential to all organisms therefore a human could easily have no interest or desire and lead a fulfilling life. Now if only i hadn’t picked up so much bs about grey-ace and the ace spectrum, that would have saved a lot of headaches.
Allo? That one’s new to me, and I thought I’d known all the terms.
Allosexual* is the term used for people who experience sexual attraction. Like the linguistic opposite of asexual, for purposes of distinction.
*not sure about spelling
Interesting, thanks. There’s a prefix I’ve hardly ever seen.
(Aside from allosaur, which I suspect is not the same meaning, there’s allotropic, which I know only from the Lensman novels.)
“allotropic iron”
Now there’s a blast from the past.
“allistic” also gets used a lot lately, as a contrast to “autistic”, while avoiding the whole “normal” aspect of saying “neurotypical”.
Funny you bring up Allosaur. That was the first thing I thought of the first time I heard the term allosexual, I thought it meant being sexually attracted to those kind of dinosaurs.
That reminds me of “allistic” meaning “not autistic.” Is it the same root?
That’s so great
Maybe it’s a bit weird, but as an ace girl, I feel really thankful people like you exist and do that sort of thing (:
Me, or…?
Yeah, probably not me.
Cerberus?
Ignore me.
I’m a dumb.
And I haven’t slept. I should do that…
Could be both of us, threading here is sometimes weird.
If only there were some sort of service that would make threading more intui— *is shot by David Willis*
WE DON’T MENTION THE D WORD HERE.
Or, instead of “celibacy”:
“Educator” with unnaturally sweet voice: “Everyone’s attracted to someone. You just haven’t found the right person yet.”
That was my 12th grade English teacher.
Everyone experiences sexual attraction, it’s a key part of being human. Only messed up broken people don’t. Now let’s read East of Eden and spend several weeks going over in intense detail how we know Cathy is a sociopath and evil because while she has sex she doesn’t experience love or sexual attraction.*
*This might not be the actual characterization in the book, but it was all my teacher went on about so it stuck in my craw somewhat fierce.
Wikipedia says your teacher was barking up the wrong tree.
That too.
My sex education was very detailed covering all forms of heterosexual activity (I graduated in the late nineties) and use of birth control divided by gender (we got to learn about condoms, the girls got a separate video in the other room). Though everybody got to observe the demonstration with the dowel and the condom. The lecturer also had it and an anatomical model of the female reproductive system passed around in class. Inevitably, the dowel ended up inside the reproductive model, because fourteen year olds are classy.
The simple fact is that porn is real so therefore bi is real, problem solved!
I mean… she *is* a character in porn…
To be fair, she may not be. One’s own subjective view of being “mainly hetero with a few exceptions”, which is the best info we have to go on here, is at least as important as the outside “objective” understanding of the same thing. Many people who fit that description do indeed describe as “bi” but by the same token many people who fit that description describe as “straight” and both can be seen as correct because there is no hard and fast line between the two.
To give a bit of example, I used to know a guy (first in high school then later as a coworker). He was very openly gay when I worked with him, which I had cause to ask about at one point because when I had known him briefly in high school it was because he was making very unwanted advances on my then girlfriend and again in the workplace toward one of our female coworkers just before I asked about it (do note we had become friends in the workplace and occasionally hung out outside work, otherwise I wouldn’t have felt comfortable broaching the subject). The point though being that despite being occasionally attracted to women he did not in any way identify himself as bisexual but instead as “a gay man”.
We have word of god. Billie is bi. As is Ruth.
It also seems rude to continue calling yourself straight with exceptions when you’re actually dating someone of the same gender.
Why? That’s obviously the exception. Someone so special you’re into them despite not normally being attracted to their gender. It’s the bi equivalent of demi, I think.
For Billie specifically, if it wasn’t for Word of God, I’d be wondering if she wasn’t actually a lesbian in denial. Or more possibly bisexual and homoromantic – we’ve see her talk about sex with guys and even be willing to fuck Danny on the spot, but her only known relationships have been with women and her talk about sex with guys has always been extremely casual – go to parties looking for sex.
I’d almost suspect that was just her performing her popular/cheerleader/party girl role.
She married Danny in the Walkyverse.
Yeah, but that’s part of the word of god part – Everyone has the same sexuality as in the otherverse.
I figure if you are, or ever have been, sexually interested in members of both genders as one point or another, then you’re bisexual. After all, “bisexual” doesn’t mean “willing to sleep with ANYONE of either sex”, any more than “heterosexual” means “willing to sleep with ANYONE of your preferred sex”. So of you swing both ways, even if only for one specific person on each side, then that would make you bisexual, I’d think.
Um, guys? The terms “heteroflexible”, and “homoflexible” exist for a reason. They’re for those who aren’t completely at one end, but feel that “bi” is too nebulous and constant to accurately represent them.
Also “queer”.
Yep, those three exist for a reason.
[repeats to self] “Heteroflexible. Homoflexible.” I did not know those words. Thank you- that is a very useful concept, and easier than juggling percentage points on the Kinsey scale…
I did not even know those were words. I am learning a lot of new words lately in these comments sections. Maybe a side effect of Catholic upbringing where if you weren’t straight you just didn’t bring it up. Maybe a side effect of growing up in Spanish-as-a-first-language countries. Maybe a side effect of not really liking labels slapped onto people or people slapping them onto themselves. I dunno.
How dare people communicate ideas using words to describe them!
Words are bad if I label them “labels”!
Wait, wasn’t Billie trying to explain bisexuality to Joyce at one point?
Nah, Billie just thinks all the straight women are into ladies.
Thank you for bringing that delightful Joyce face back from the depths.
Reading that comic again, it seems that Billie thinks sex preference is an “either-or” situation, rather than “select all that apply”.
and you grow the weenus by screaming “MAKE MY MONSTER GROOOOOWWWWWWW”
I haven’t seen the Power Rangers movie yet. Is that what Rita does in the climax?
Heh…climax.
Yeah but they didn’t do it right. Points for putting it in though.
Putting it in comes *after* you make the monster grow…
She sort of does? She says the classic line, but it’s when she’s building Goldar, and Goldar is giant right away, instead of starting off people-sized. My interpretation is that she’s talking to the actual gold she’s using as a building material, because Rita is a little bit completely insane in this one.
I’m SO using that the next time I have sex.
All hail the mighty weenus!
*plays the late Chuck Berry’s “My Dingaling” on the hacked Muzak*
Chuck berry had a song called fucking what
Behold!
That has always been my favorite Chuck Berry song.
Is that bad?
Now that’s just beautiful.
And out of all the songs he recorded, it was the only one that reached #1.
A live recording released in 1972, “My Ding-A-Ling” was Berry’s only number one single in the US. It was first recorded by Dave Bartholomew in 1952.
Remembers a ‘Top of the Pops’ when Rolf Harris drew cartoons to go with the song. Two convicted sex offenders for the price of one, I would guess that won’t be on any repeats.
The first thing Ruth should do as the newly-re-instated R.A. is hold some sort of improvised sex ed seminar. Or just make sure everyone goes, and Roz can handle the teaching part.
The students learn things they *desperately* need to know, and who knows, maybe Mary will complain and get Ruth re-fired, which would either be terrible, or great, and if it’s the latter, it’ll probably be the best thing she’s ever done.
Sex in the dark! Sex in the dark!
(This was how some LGBTQ+ groups at my college did their sex ed focused meetings– anonymous questions able to be submitted and a room with most of the lights out.)
So that’s what that means!
(I’m going back to school starting this summer, so I get the email newsletter that has all the upcoming campus events. I saw one with that name and was completely confused about what it might mean.)
Glad I could help.
And now I’m seriously wondering if I might do better in therapy if the room was completely dark the whole time.
Do you think your therapist would be willing to try it out? I wonder if I would do better in therapy if I sat on the floor, but I feel like it’s a weird request and have yet to bring up the subject.
They’re totally there to help you. They’ll probably encourage anything that makes the whole process easier for you. *hearty thumbs up*
Sitting on the floor doesn’t sound weird to me. But then again I’m the one who is too scared to go to a therapist cause I don’t believe in their claims of confidentiality.
Confidentiality is super serious tho. If they mess up on it, they can get sued and/or get their licence taken away.
I’ve worked places where, if you’re 18, we can’t even confirm to your mom that you were in the building. (We didn’t want to accidentally give info to a stalker or an abuser, for example.)
This is canceled if there’s an imminent danger to yourself or others — like, if you attempt suicide, and you need to go to a hospital, they’ll definitely tell your doctor about it, and may even send your whole file to the doctor, depending on ur organization’s rules. If you are hurting a child, they are legally required to report it. You can totally ask what this particular office would do if there was imminent danger. They’ll probably have a sheet that you sign together, so you can sue them if they break their confidentiality wrongly.
/therapy-student
Well, I mean, part of it was that when I still had my job (It went bankrupt), I was worried that somehow it’d show up on my insurance through my work as being that sort of thing and that they’d find out that way.
Also…I maybe just have trust issues and issues opening up to people I don’t know. Well, except online its a bit easier since I can hide beyond a certain level of anonymity and only give out what information seems “safe” for a specific location.
Well, that and I tend to not feel like people can help me unless they can understand me at least a decent amount, and I dunno, counselors and or psychiatrists and all that tend to seem like they’re billed as “Normals” and even other people who tend to be a little “weird” have trouble understanding me sometimes?
I mean I’m ridiculously good at managing my own mind and don’t have issues I can’t cheat my brain around for the most part. I mean, my going theory is that I’ve messed myself in some regards as a result of being so proficient at that. Trying to roll it back is…harder.
I totally feel your pain re:your brain being a give and take between “building a better mousetrap” and a particularly wily mouse. Getting oneself back to factory settings is definitely a process.
Well, I mean there’s also the fact that my factory defaults are maybe something that aren’t something particularly livable with.
Some of the mental bindings I’ve put in place are important, and some just need pruning a little, and some probably need to be cast off entirely. Figuring out how to selectively allow myself a bit more freedom and expressiveness in the right areas is the trickiest part. I mean I could just “Let it go”, but thats basically the nuclear winter option that doesn’t end well for anyone myself included. Its better for me to find a way to live with the proper level of self control and self restraint that doesn’t involve dismantling the defenses I’m built up against my own negativity as well as the negativity the outside world often seems to be drowning in.
Yeah, makes sense.
Sometimes I chat with friends in the dark – it turned out to be great for my migraine issues, even though I get noise sensitivity more than light sensitivity. It’s really relaxing to just not have visual input, and makes it so much easier to process sound, and so the sound hurts less I guess 🙂
with my therapist, though, I tend to use the whiteboard a lot. otherwise I’ll have no idea what we talked about.
Honestly have to agree at this point.
I taught a GED class for high school dropouts for a year once, and I had the local Planned Parenthood come in every couple of months to give the kids some /actual/ information on contraception and safer sex. The schools sure weren’t doing a good job—this was before the state passed a law requiring that all sex ed information be accurate if it was presented at all, and so the teachers would just straight up lie to the students. They had just SO MUCH intentional misinformation fed to them.
A good third or so of them had a kid (or TWO) by the time they were sixteen, simply because no one ever gave them any information on ways to avoid pregnancy. The PP rep would come in and talk about condoms and IUDs and birth control and nuvarings and their minds would just get blown.
The math and english tutoring we gave was helpful, but I’ve always felt that that one day of sex ed was the most important thing I did for any of them.
That is so smart. Actual sex ed for all.
even if she got re-fired it would be for a good cause. totally worth it.
So, this is off-topic, but I wanted to put it out there, and, well, it’s midnight and I feel more comfortable telling strangers so… my mental health is in a shit place right now. It sucks because I keep feeling like I’m starting to do better, and then I have a night like tonight where I carve the word “worthless” into my arm and realize I’m not actually doing all that well.
Also, relating it back to the comic (see, title) in a way, I’ve been wondering lately if I have BPD (should I say “have BPD” or “am borderline”?) I am kind of scared of that label because the people I’ve known with that diagnosis have kind of been terrible, but I know it doesn’t have to mean being terrible, but… ableism and stuff, you know?
*appropriate gesture of support*
*supportive hugs if you want them*
I have BPD and it is something that can be managed… sometimes I’m awful without understanding why but most of the time I’m a great person that just struggles.
You are not worthless and even though I don’t know you. I care.
That sucks. Try and remember that just because your progress steps backward now and then, it doesn’t mean it’s negated.
I have similar internalized issues with BPD. When I hear someone has it, it’s like ‘oh cool, someone who can relate about mental health stuff, and is yet again one of my friends. birds of a feather I guess,’ but when it’s me, I’m like ‘borderline means I’m manipulative and terrible and I should not talk to anyone about it as a potential diagnosis’ (though I already have ‘borderline traits’ tacked on to my diagnosis by one of my doctors so idk what my issue is, other than, yeah, ableism).
*internet hugs* I’m so sorry you’re in a rough place right now. Thinking you’re doing better and then having a sudden setback is awful. I really hope that you end up feeling comfortable enough to ask people irl for help and that recieve the help you ask for.
First of all, I’m sorry (virtual hugs).
I am clinically depressed and I used to cut myself. (BTW, if you did cut yourself tonight, get some antibiotic ointment on it stat so it won’t get infected and will heal okay! If you don’t have any you can use hydrogen peroxide and vaseline – be aware that the hydrogen peroxide WILL sting.)
However, and more importantly, having a bad night doesn’t mean you’re not “doing better.” It’s about progress, not perfection. So tonight is bad for you – that’s okay. Maybe tomorrow will be better. And you CAN make tomorrow better.
As regards BPD – it’s kind of a “trendy” diagonsis right now. I can’t presume to say anything about your clinical diagnosis – do you have any access to psychiatrists, psychologists, or even counselors? After spending YEARS feeling like nothing really mattered and everything I did just pulled all the energy out of me, a psychiatrist prescribed me an anti-depressant. It has helped a lot. And yes, my diagnosis is “clinically depressed,” but that “label” is only important to me in that it helps doctors treat me. It doesn’t DEFINE me.
Again, I offer you virtual hugs and cookies and kittehs! I hope you feel better tomorrow and PLEASE, if you can, talk to someone. Things CAN get better,I promise!
Thank you. I am diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and I am on anti-depressants. They help! I’m on two, and I noticed differences when I began taking each of them, but I still struggle. They help me from being suicidal, though.
That’s a good point about taking care of the cuts. I used to cut a lot, currently working on recovery. I’d try to take care of the cuts when I could muster that level of self-care, though I did at one point get an infection. That was fun. Unfortunately I don’t currently have access to anything that could be used to care for the cuts from tonight.
Seriously, use soap and water if you don’t have anything else. And yeah, I also got an infection after cutting a time or two. If nothing else, it means that the scars will be more visible. (One of my worst recent moments was when my 3-year-old niece looked at the scars on my arms and said, “What’s that?” I said something to the effect of, “Aunt Jaime is clumsy sometimes and hurts herself.”)
I am SUPER glad to hear that you’re on anti-depressants. I’m currently taking Pristiq. It is kind of expensive even with my insurance 🙁 but it seems to work for me. I was on Celexa for a while and it made me gain ALL THE WEIGHT (seriously, *still* trying to slim down), then Wellbutrin, which pretty much did *nothing*, and then the Pristiq kind of “clicked.” I was also on Klonopin for my anxiety for a little while, but it did NOT work well for me; it made me really loopy. Again, it’s a process.
Please take care of yourself and be well. One setback (or even two, or three, or four) doesn’t mean you’re not doing better. In fact, in my personal experience, I’ll sometimes relapse just *because* I’m doing better – kind of an “imp of the perverse” thing. I am sending lots of good wishes and positive energy your way! 😀
Practical mode: please wash the cuts with antibacterial soap, and maybe wrap them in clean cotton, til you can get some ointment tomorrow.
Also, I hope you are able to throw away or tape up your cutting tools so that you’re safe for the night.
A pal of mine, when she was trying to stop cutting, switched to using a red sharpie. I don’t know if you’re there yet, but it’s worth a try, maybe you’ll like it too as a healthier compromise.
If I’m reading you right, seems like you already know, intellectually, that it’s okay to have a diagnosis. If you have BPD, then you already have it, might as well get a name and some help for it, eh? (Or, if you have something else, then you can get the name of something else.) When do you next see a therapist or doctor?
You are worthy.
Hydrogen peroxide and then some bandages.
I also used to have a bad problem with cutting and one thing that worked for me was removing all the objects that I used to use for that. For me that was scissors and knives, so I made do with butter knives and no scissors for awhile, because I was in a headspace where I couldn’t be trusted with them. Now that I’m a bit better on that, I’ve been able to reintroduce both, but neither is allowed to ever be in easy reach of the bed in case I have a bad day.
Dunno if that’ll help you, but it might be worth a shot.
I appreciate all the suggestions on cut care, but like
I’m in a university library and will be here throughout the night. I’ve used soap and water but really don’t have access to anything else, so the other stuff will have to wait.
I’ve been at various points with self-harm. I had my first relapse of this recovery period a few weeks ago; before that I had refrained from it for two years. (Last time– really over a period of a couple days– I had a bunch of regular cuts on one leg, and I cut a smiley face into my other leg because it was five a.m. and I was trying to convince myself I knew what happiness felt like or something. I really need to stop carving things onto myself because I end up feeling even weirder about that than regular cuts.)
Ah, so this isn’t your first rodeo — you’re already knowledgeable about self-harm, and you’ve already stopped yourself from cutting, even for two years at a stretch — and you’re in a safe spot for the night. Yeah?
Thank you all for your supportive comments. Things in life are just kind of overwhelming right now, but it’s nice to be able to talk about it, even if it is to internet strangers.
I’m sorry you’re having a rough time. May I recommend a group I have found helpful in the past? They’re a good place for discussion with people with similar life experience.
http://www.mdjunction.com/borderline-personality
It’s important to know that people care about you despite the people who might judge you for having or appearing to have BPD people will and do care about you, just look at this comment thread. I may have been a bit direct in this comment and I’m sorry if I was.
Sorry I guess you already knew that, disregard me.
*hugs* You are awesome. There’s no timetable on feeling stabilized and there’s nothing to fear in your diagnosis. They don’t distract from your awesomeness or your desire to do good.
And I can assure you from the bottom of my heart that BPD doesn’t mean you’re “doomed” to be a jackass like the jackass BPD people you’ve met before. I have two BPD students in my classes and they are some of the most caring empathetic students I have ever had.
You will find the state you need to take care of you the best. But you do not need to beat yourself up on top of that with fear of what it all “could” mean.
*hugs*
I uh…don’t know. That said if you’re actually self harming its probably a good point to start trying to find some sort of answer or help. Not that I really know how to go about that either. All I’ve got is an *appropriate gesture of support*, sorry. X<
hmm… someone wrote in to Ask a Manager about BPD once… the happy update is #2 here: http://www.askamanager.org/2014/12/4-more-updates-from-readers-2.html and has a link to the original letter. if nothing else, it’s a story with a happy ending 🙂 (but, the comments on the original include at least one belligerent person)
and building a sense of self-worth is fucking hard, but, it’s worth it. 🙂
First off, I’m glad you are getting help. Some of us need it and a lot of us never get it. It takes courage to say you need help.
Secondly, how long have you been on your meds? You might need to up or alter the dose or see if you can get an as needed pill to take on an especially bad day. I take half a Trazodone of all things (they’ve found it works for that as well as being a sleep aid) when my anxiety or depression is bad. Paxil for depression and anxiety (also Gralise for Hemiplegic Migraines which also helps with that). I also take iron because my iron level is naturally low for some reason which causes PLMD meaning I didn’t get quality sleep (so sleep study if you haven’t yet as sleep issues makes it worse). I also get sunlight every day which also helped even if it’s just sitting in the shade for 15 minutes. And I’m honest with my therapist even with the dark stuff I hide so well from everybody else. I also have a lovely Sand Boa named Lily who is calming and I’m picking up a kitten Saturday. I use to have a fish tank with a betta sorority and kuhli loaches. If you don’t have a pet, look into getting one. You qualify for ESA so an apartment isn’t a problem. Even if you only get a veil tail betta (more mellow than crown tail) in a 3 gallon tank (minimum size for them), it will help you find a way to get out of the bed because he or she will depend on you and just watching the fish swim around will help keep you more relaxed.
Finally, the DSM is a guideline, not a rulebook. You diagnoses does not define you. It might help you learn more about yourself and how to move forward, grow, and improve, but rather or not you become the stereotype is up to you. I have depression, pale skin, and a high pitched voice with a southern drawl, but none of those things ARE me. They effect how I perceive myself and others and how they perceive me, but who I am is more than that and up to me. Don’t be afraid.
I’ve been on my meds for a while. I have recently gone up on the dosage of one because well– I had been on 75mg for a while, then my psychiatrist and I decided to try going down to 50mg, and that worked for a while, but then I started having suicidal ideation, so I went back up to 75mg.
I’ve also recently started taking vitamin D because I had some bloodwork done and my levels are like a third of what they’re supposed to be.
I have a cat. She’s great.
I started seeing a new therapist recently– only been to her twice so far. I was seeing someone else for a while, but there were things that made me uncomfortable. So it’s new, but I think I’m doing okay at being honest. Probably better than I was doing with the last one. (For example, with the last one when I told her I had relapsed with regards to self-harm, she asked something about if it was just a few times, and I was like, “Yup.” Then she said, “So like two or three cuts.” and I agreed again. Sixteen, it was sixteen and however you want to count a smiley face.)
Yeah. For some reason a lot of people with depression end up low on vitamin D. All the more reason to get 15 minutes of sun a day even if it’s by using a SAD light.
I’m glad you have your fur baby. They are an important part of any treatment plan.
God. It’s been the week of the bad fitting therapists around here. Did you see my post a few days ago?
Have you ever looked into OCD? Sometimes self harm is a type of compulsion and suicidal ideation can be a type of intrusive thought. Even over thinking and having an anxiety spike of the possibility of BPD can be part of the obsessive part of it. If you do have it, you might need your treatment plan altered. I have it and it looks nothing like it’s shown in the media. Here’s a decent personal experience article about what it’s like. If it checks any boxes, do a little research and talk to your doctor.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-no-one-tells-you-about-having-ocd/
That’s interesting about OCD. I’ll have to look into that as well. I may also have PTSD– really, it’s that I know I have anxiety and depression, but it feels like there’s a diagnosis missing.
OCD usually doesn’t come alone, so most people have something else along with it like depression or Asperger’s. And by the way, the desire for a label and the anxiety from the unknown is common with OCD. We like to know. We often over analyze. It’s a strong drive for us.
The most shocking thing about this is that Paxil is somehow still on the market.
*appropriate gesture of support*
🙁 I’m sorry to hear you’re not feeling well. I hope you feel better and your new therapist is awesome. BPD, if that is what you have, can be tricky to manage (all personality disorders can be) but it’s not impossible. Many people with BPD have amazing lives. Remember that diagnoses are a framework, not a sentence – they help your therapist help you. They don’t mean you have to have any one given symptom – for personality disorders, they require you to have a given number out of a number of possible symptoms (for example, I believe Dependent Personality Disorder is 5 out of 8 of the list of symptoms) and they don’t require those symptoms to present the same way in everyone. People are different.
*Hugs* I’ve actually been researching BPD lately – it does not mean you are a bad person, abusive or a manipulator. When not getting proper treatment or therapy, it can be very hard – but you are not guaranteed to be like those people with BPD that you knew.
Some people with BPD can be awful – some are even abusers, but they are not inherently so. It is a very stigmatised condition with people thinking it makes you violent or abusive or manipulative and people write a plethora of awful things demonising them which some people with BPD internalise as further reasons to criticise themselves.
But having BPD doesn’t inherently mean you are bad or going to do bad things – many people with BPD are terrified of hurting the people around them and are far more likely to tear their own mental health to shreds than someone else’s. That’s not to say they will never lash out – but chances are that they will then tear into themselves even harder because they tend to have low self-esteem and a lot of them feel they don’t deserve friendships or relationships they have.
A key thing to remember and remind yourself: Some bad people have mental health problems and personality disorders, but having mental health problems and personality disorders doesn’t make you bad.
If you have concerns, you should bring it up with your therapist when you feel comfortable doing so as the best treatments for BPD are types of therapy so already having access to mental health care should help a great deal hopefully.
I have BPD. I feel like an awful terrible person a lot because BPD is marked by an extreme instability with interpersonal relationships and I flip out at my boyfriend what seems to me very often. He assures me it’s not really that frequent and he’s very patient with me but I still feel like a horrible worthless piece of shit sometimes.
Not trying to make this about me, just saying I can understand where you’re coming from, with the feeling worthless stuff. But what I really want to tell you is NOBODY IS PERFECT. They’re not. Even “normal” people fuck up sometimes, and sometimes they fuck up pretty bad, so I want you to remember that. That if it’s OK for “normal” people to fuck up, it’s OK for you too. We all fuck up sometimes. It doesn’t make you worthless. In fact, the fact that you are STILL HERE, that you are NOT DEAD, that you didn’t give up, that makes you not worthless right there.
Please be honest with your therapist. If you cut more than you told her then you need to tell her. Some therapists are absolute shit, I should know, but when you find a good one they can’t help you if you’re not being honest.
Another thing I want to recommend is the rubber band treatment. Basically get a rubber band that’s snug against your wrist (not cutting off blood flow). When you feel the urge to cut, pull on the band and let go. It’s a sharp pain that SHOULD be able to be substituted for the cutting, and also does less damage and won’t cause infections. I usually don’t recommend this to people because it is still self-harm but if someone is that reliant on cutting then I do suggest it.
Anyway, I hope that some day you can go back to not hurting yourself and that after that point you never hurt yourself again. This random stranger on the internet is cheering for you.
Ruth/Billie and all the surrounding drama is one of the best things.
Howard is going to get someone pregnant, isn’t he?
No he won’t, he’ll make sure to do it sideways or upside down so his juices will go a different direction.
That seems very unlikely. Certainly not without some kinda walkthrough
I… doubt it. There are prerequisites that need to be fulfilled to accomplish that beyond not knowing how it does and doesn’t happen.
Oh look, I am now channeling Ruth as I too would want to facepalm.
Heh, weenus.
Howard knows all about frog biology
I pity the fool who walks into this conversation. 😛
GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAN
Holy internalized biphobia, Billie
*spontaneously grows yet another hand and sextuple face-palms*
Are you gonna become Shiva or Vishnu now?
Long past that now, both of them have only four arms.
Don’t worry, I’m Asura deity has enough hands for you to borrow.
And an extra pair of faces to place palms on in exasperation. Six palms, three faces equals the legendary double triple face palm.
Maybe that’s their Mega Evolutions then.
Speaking of, I’m suprised there’s no Mega EEVEElutions yet. Where’s my Mega Umbreon, darnit?
Ok…so I’m just…gonna go out on a limb here and say Howard has somehow found a way to watch hentai, because he appears to be thinking of futanari in that last panel.
…
I’m not ashamed about knowing about that, you’re ashamed about knowing about that!!
I am not ashamed.
I’m surprised he’s so obsessed with Game of Thrones in light of this, I mean that’s a serious step down from Japanese porn.
I’m not sure how even that would have lead him to think elbow skin has anything to do with reproduction
The hell? (Googles) well, how about that? You really do learn something everyday.
Fun fact: the other side of the elbow is the wagina.
Also the chelidon, but that’a not as interesting.
My brain hurts…
I got to mess with my kids and nieces recently (don’t worry, they are all adults, in their mid 20s). I can’t remember what we were talking about, but I told them not to, under any circumstances, look up the word Futanari. Of course they couldn’t resist, and now they are scarred for life. I have so much fun being the strange uncle.
Surely Game of Thrones has taught him how lesbian sex works?
Maybe…I mean, unless he hasn’t watched any episodes involving Theron’s sister (lesbian in the show, I think bisexual in the books). Or that one scene were Littlefinger’s going on a motive rant while two female prostitutes are having sex. In which case probably not. Since those are the only times I remember lesbian sex being involved. But that is a damn good point. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s just lightly trolling the two of them.
Word of God is she’s straight in the books, bi on the show (though we’ve only ever seen her with girls). But yeah, that’s about it. Lots of hookers ‘practicing’, one foursome involving two girls, and Yara. Oh, right, Dany and her handmaid practiced too (and Dany seemed pretty into Yara, but that might be my shipper bias).
Strange, could have sworn Asha (her book name) was bi in the books. I’m just no damn good at reading fictional characters’ sexuality am I?
I just remember she had a boyfriend in the book and that Word of Martin was that she was straight.
Well, there was the blond sailor from Lys, and some romance with Tris Botley (I’m not if they had sex, though) and now she’s sleeping with Qarl the Maid. All three of them are male and I don’t think we hear much about any other partners.
Show Yara is a composite, as much Victarion as she is Asha. So it’s not a surprise that she’s inherited some sexuality from both her constituent parts.
Qarl is the boyfriend I was referring to, yeah. And Kammon raises an interesting point – all I remembered was Martin saying she was straight in the books and the show runners said bi in the show.
Also in the books, Cersei fingered Taena while they were in bed together. Though I guess that’s not in the show, so Howard wouldn’t know about it.
Yes, but that was really really creepy and more about ‘claiming her rights’ the way her husband used to rape her (I have no idea if Taena consented, but Cersei was clearly recalling a situation with Robert where she emphatically did NOT consent).
Ruth’s line in the last panel for next book title.
Well, at least their idea of lesbian sex is better than Hazel from Girls with Slingshots.
Summarize, for those of us unfamiliar?
Til she was told otherwise, she thought that basically it boiled down to ‘let’s screw men and not tell everyone we did’.
you know if you were to combine Howard and Billie’s individual knowledge on sex education you’d probably get 2/3ds of a functional, sexually knowledgeable person.
the other third being someone who didn’t suffer through an indiana public school education
Sal suffered through a Tennessee Catholic school education, though I think even if she didn’t have experience, she’d have the good sense to google any questions.
…these poor children.
I will go get charts. Many charts.
Maybe some graphs as well. I think they need as much visual aid as possible.
Just make sure you don’t get them from Faz.
Wait, I thought that was Faz.
Oh, Billie, no.
I am unsurprised by Billie, but I think she’d be offended to know Danny had basically the same reaction.
Oh wow I did not expect that. How in the hell is Billie ignorant of this when she herself is bi?
internalized homophobia my man. or in this case biphobia. That shit messes with you, makes you rationalize your own behavior into pre-existing nonsenses.
This.
I internalized so much transphobic garbage before finally figuring myself out and it kept me from realizing the word applied to me for years.
I initially read that as “fingering myself”, and was very confused.
I’m reminded of that chapelle skit about the blind black guy.
Being non-straight, sadly, is not a magical shield defending you from ignorance about your own sexuality and gender
Because life does not come with a glossary, even for the parts that are relevant to us. We learn language from our culture, and the culture has given Billie a twisted and limited definition of the word… and no other word that refers to who SHE is to take its place. Her status/category gets erased and disavowed simply by stealing the language for it.
Jesus Christ, Howie. Just, the whole damn comic starting with panel 3. The fact that last line directly follows Ruth’s line about Indiana sex ed is impossible icing on the cake.
Oh god he only has two lines starting with panel 3. Well, to be fair he has some wordy fucking lines.
Obviously we take turns growing a weenus, duh!
You’re in the wrong part of the Hainish Diaspora for that, Howie. If you want to see that, try Gethen.
🙂
So apart from the Indiana public school system failing to give Howard a proper sex education, it also failed at human biology since it didn’t tell him what a weenus actually is.
plus he’s assuming that neither one of them already has a weenus. i mean, it’s possible, neither Ruth nor Billie have any reason to be telling him about Billie’s genitals. i’m going to guess that — you know what, i was about to assume he had seen pads and/or tampons in the house and thus could infer Ruth’s genitals, but it occurs to me that 1) i don’t actually know Ruth’s genital arrangements any more than i or Howard know Billie’s 2) much more importantly, Howard claims not to know what a tampon is and might not be any more knowledgeable about pads
I think it’s safe to say he doesn’t know anythin about that.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/dynamite/
I’ve read their slipshine, your assumptions were correct, although you’re also correct that it is unwise and bad form to assume.
No one tell Howard about the Black-colored Bibles out there.
Or maybe someone did already.
What are you-? Oh. Ooohhh! Keep him the hell away from Bible Black!! He’s too young for that!!
I think I’m too young for that.
I had completely forgotten about Bible Black, or more likely, deliberately erased it from my memory.
Howard’s ‘so there’ sounds like he knows exactly why Billie was asking
Perhaps, somehow, Ruth and Howard have only one shared parent, and that could explain how Howard gets treated better(if he isn’t lying)?
“As long as I keep to myself”
Yeah, honestly my impression of Howard from what Ruth had said previously when she was talking about “Maybe he’d go softer on Howard or maybe he’d come down twice as hard” if she died is that Howard just ends up slipping under the radar and goes unnoticed most of the time.
Probably gets good enough grades in school to not attract any negative attention to himself from Chindad, but mainly gets neglected and just assumes that dads and granddads are strict and its best to stay out of their way.
I mean, he was too young to remember their life back in Canada before “Chindad, Indiana”.
Define lying in a situation like this.
He’s evasive and if your red flags are up, they stay up with this answer.
Yeah that’s not the response of someone who actually has a good relationship with his parental figure
Goddamnit Billie, you’ve had at least one other girlfriend! Get it together!
Hey at least Billie thinks we exist in porn! Usually us bisexuals don’t exist at all 😉 Invisible unicorns. Very powerful. Don’t mess with us.
*hands invisibility cloak to Billie* Welcome to the erasure life, girl, buckle up, it’s a bumpy ride.
Though in a strange way she doesn’t think it exists because it’s more or less the normal state of being “It’s pretty much inevitable”.
Yeah I know she thinks that now. But I hope this is step 1 in her journey to self-discovery.
Also, I’m just jazzed they said the word ‘bisexual’ at all, like, the overwhelming bi erasure especially on television is getting to me, man. I love DoA for this, that it has actual queer people talking about their own queerness and using goddamn WORDS. It’s just so refreshing, you know?
…. is Indiana really that bad?
Indiana resident here. Yes. Yes it is.
You guys do know that weenus/wenis/weenis is just slang, right? It was a word made up on the TV show Friends, though it stood for something else back then.
It was entirely made up because it sounds like penis.
Weekly Estimated Net Usage Systems
Feels like I’m going to lose my mind.
You just keep on pushing my love…
I think Howard also watches anime…
I really cannot believe that no one knows what bisexuality is. I come from a conservative society and it didn’t take a great leap of logic to realise it’s possible.
I’m in Mexico.
Either you’re straight, or you’re gay and risk get a beating or worse from people who are less … enlightened.
Willis is pulling from personal experience kinda-sorta. There’s a joke back in Roomies, that turns into a meta joke cause our beloved author didn’t quite know what it was just that it was ‘scandalous’. He however was home schooled. 🙂
I didn’t even hear the word bisexual as a thing that existed until I was in college and reading the arc of Dykes to Watch Out For where Sparrow comes out.
Like, even when it was shown in movies or TV shows, it was always presented as the character figuring out they were “always a lesbian/gay” (coughs meaningfully in Willow from Buffy’s direction) or the word was never used (coughs meaningfully in Inara from Firefly’s direction). Even porn would describe bi character actions as “lesbian sex scenes”.
So yeah, the concept or the word was simply something I never encountered until I was about the characters in the comic’s age.
Well, with Inara I’m pretty sure the word used was…prostitute? One of the words anyways.
Part of my lack of knowledge was probably also the whole homeschool thing, that and never really “having the talk”.
I feel you on the whole “never having the talk” thing.
The closest thing I got was my dad after he caught me looking at porn trying to figure out what everyone else was getting out of this that I was missing and what was the thing I was sexually attracted to (because clearly everyone has some thing) took me out to a ball game and went “welp, you probably know everything you need to now”.
See, I’m just too embarrassed to talk to my parents much about that sort of thing, beyond talking a little about asexuality stuff with my mother, cause she was starting to get really worried about me not dating anyone. I mean it was sort of a “Thanks for wanting to look out for me mom, but you really can’t just tell random people who you think I’d think were cute in stores that they should date me” thing.
But yeah… I’ve…maybe dabbled a bit trying to figure out what this sexuality thing is through “internet research”. Which is how I’ve figured as far as Demi on that end, cause I actually have to get at least some sort of level of attached to a character for things to work out well in that regard.
Most of it is just emotionally detached poring over “research material” wondering if people really think its hot though. Or looking over some of the really high quality art.
God, that bit with Willow always bugged the hell out of me.
Partly ’cause I could never figure out how much was her not knowing any better, and how much was the writers.
(but mostly, whichever of them was doing it, the attempt to deny and rewrite history, stuff that we all saw, it happened.)
I think the worst part was the episode with Oz after she got together with Tara, because before that you could interpret it as, “okay, maybe she really has just been in the closet and this really was an awakening”. But then she was all “I have strong feelings for both of you in very similar ways” while the writing was all “she’s a lesbian now”.
Sooooo frustrating!
Almost as frustrating as Orange is the New Black doing everything it can to avoid using the word “bisexual” to describe Piper.
I think it’s why I love the creators of Korra so much for coming out immediately after the last episode and going “yeah, they’re both bi. Not suddenly lesbians, not “close friends”, but bi and in a relationship”. Cause so often bi rep if it exists is never formally acknowledged as such.
Hasn’t stopped the fandom from calling Kprrasami lesbians and getting pissy when corrected but well, we knew fandoms suck frequently.
Yeah, fandoms would be a lot better without being made of actual people.
Ugh, that situation is always unpleasant on tv. It’s like ‘okay, compulsory heterosexuality or bi erasure?’ The way tv is written, they often look much similar.
In Harry Potter, weenuses are created using the Clitorus Expandiamus spell.
…
…
I don’t know whether I should laugh, do a double facepalm, or cry out in anguish. Maybe all three.
or do a google search. there’s literally a sex comic with this exact plot.
Well, you know, there’s got to be a dick or dick substitute involved for it to be sex…or something? That seems to be a mentality floating around, especially on the Japanese front.
They’re just so… aesthetically pleasing!
killer bedroom talk. “Your penis is soooooo aesthetically pleasing. it’s so symmetrical and has a pleasant coloration!”
“It goes so well with your top!”
Hey, don’t knock being symmetrical. Some of us aren’t so lucky.
not even gonna google it….I’m sure there’s an asymmetry fetish out there.
I’m imagining yer dick is like Two-Face, but like as a dick
But Dick is a Grey Son, so he can’t be two toned. ;p
@Power Stranger: So one side is circumcised, and the other isn’t?
actually, most of the attention Dick gets seems to be to his ass. His perfect, tight, athletic butt.
(what? I used to post on scans_daily.)
Yeah, but its just great being able to make color related jokes about “Batman’s Dick (i.e.: Dick Grayson)”. Especially with all the costume color changes he goes through in various points throughout his superhero career. ;p
“Should I cum inside, or out? Let’s flip for it.”
You guys made me think of the penis bit in “The Sweetest Thing” movie.
See, I actually think they’re super aesthetically displeasing. And aesthetics are most of what I’ve got to go off of.
I was wondering how Howard can so casually think and talk about how his older sister doing the nasty, but then I remember his favorite thing is Game of Thrones.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Howard begins by glancing away and immediately distracting into a defensive non-sequitur. Not only that but looks down as someone who’s ever been berated by that kind of “don’t you dare get cheeky, boy” type abuser has learned to do.
And he does this at the very thought of “how does your grandfather treat you?”
Like, we already know those flags are all red because there is actual blood, but if we didn’t, these are the kinds of signs you often see if you’re someone like a teacher checking up on a student. And it’s because they’ve learned that you can’t give anything away that could lead to badness, not even to a teacher, because them reporting it just means you get hit again when CPS goes away.
Panel 2: Oof, and as bad as the last red flag was, this one is fresh enough to still leave a tang in the air. Like, this is barely a cover for what’s going on and that is that as long as he hides and gives his grandpa no excuses and is meek and blames himself for every “slip-up”, then he’s safe.
And that should never be a child’s reaction to a guardian. Having to navigate around them to stay safe and “not be bothered”. And that last line, a clear attempt to end the conversation so it is not picked back up because of how much the topic is getting to him but also calling him “great”. Like, oof, that stings so fucking bad.
Panel 3: And speaking of heart-break, oof, Howard twisting Billie’s confused minimization of her feelings trying to figure out how to describe them is just brutal. And him taking it that extra step to imply that Ruth is some temporary thing is downright cruel.
And especially so, because that shit gets hurled at bi people all the time. That they are only with a partner until they get “distracted” by a differently gendered partner. And it especially gets thrown at bi people in relationships with same gender partners and said partners. With biphobic fucks often trying to pressure the partners to be biphobic against their partner because of the “knowledge” that the bi person will “return” to dating different gender partners as if that was how any of that works.
Panel 4: And we see the heart-break of that on Billie’s face here. Like, that’s a bastardization of her confusion of how to describe her feelings, especially with regards to how lesbian isn’t fully the right term. And with a different partner, that type of description could actually lead to a nasty fight thanks to that societal biphobia.
As such, she’s almost pleading with her face for that description to be ignored and discounted. Luckily for her, Ruth is also bi and well aware of her brother’s propensity for messed-up descriptions of situations and so rolls with it pretty easily. And doesn’t even note Billie’s “almost none” bit.
Because it doesn’t matter. Ruth knows how Billie feels about her. She knows how much Billie still fights for them despite all her attempts to push her away. She knows that they have something really strong and beautiful.
And that’s beautiful.
Honestly, my bi friends and acquaintances, and that includes a girlfriend, got more biphobic shit from queer people, who treated them basically as ‘to chicken to come out 100%’.
Yeah, the queer community has frequently had a nasty history with regards to bi folks and there’s been a lot of bullshit policing that has harmed a lot of bi folks. And it pisses me the fuck off.
Especially so because we wouldn’t have Pride or a queer rights movement without bi folks. Like without Brenda Howard, we wouldn’t have had that first Pride march to commemorate the Stonewall Riots. And we wouldn’t have had the Stonewall Riots to begin with without Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera who were bi trans women of color.
Like, bi people have always paid with their blood for this movement and they get fucked over by lesbian and gay folks? Not fucking okay!
Hell, we only even call it Pride because of Donny the Punk (Stephen Donaldson) who got fucking drummed out of his initial queer community by biphobes because he was bi and fell in love with a woman.
Unfortunately, humans’ first reflex for defining who they and their tribe [i]are[/i] is to declare what they’re [i]not[/i], and force anyone “on the edge” to pick a side or be cast out.
The sad thing is this is one of the fears perpetuated even amongst people who might be questioning themselves in my experience. There was a period I thought I might be bi-curious because of excessive trans-bashing (I think? Im not sure if it counts when people are suggesting you’re trans enough that you question it but ultimately find the answer being no) but was afraid if I admit it Id be dragged out full blown and told Im gay like that one movie.
Panel 5: This time by person.
Billie: Oof, yeah, that bisexuality is only in porn thing is a common misconception and it’s caused by there being little to no non-sexualized conversation about bi people and few depictions of them as not an object of fetish. Heck, there’s a same sort of dynamic that goes on for trans women where we don’t get many depictions of what it looks for a trans woman to not be in a sexualized or public state, to just be lounging around at home flipping through their browser tabs.
And the worst part is how that bisexuality is presented. Because it’s only presented as existing in women and only then as something done for the man himself. Which means it’s harder to feel it applies to you if you are not a woman or if you just want to cuddle and be intimate with a girl with no performativity. And it means you’re likely to be dismissed and mistreated because of that idea that bi=porn.
Like, there’s a lot of nasty biphobia in society, but one of the pieces of that is the idea that bi people are inherently promiscuous, unfaithful, sexual, and so on. And it means that bi people get mistrusted in relationships and are frequently victim to more violence owing to their orientations and how partners interpret that as an inherent threat.
And the porn standard also means that bi women especially get targeted a lot by unicorn hunters (couples who look for bi women for a threesome but have no intention of respecting said bi woman as anything other than a sex toy to spice up their marriage) and are assumed to be open to all comers like the bi women in porn are. Which means a lot more street harassment and sexual assault.
So I get Billie internalizing those messages and rejecting the label initially because of them. Because yeah, there’s precious little media to push back against that idea and where there’s a dearth shit like porn can occupy way too large a place in the cultural conscious.
LITERALLY ALL OF THIS IS MY LIFE OMG
well, there is The Todd from Scrubs.
While it was never given a specific term “I’m just me” he was very clearly poly/pan or poly/bi
I kind of feel like this was also the general idea for gays as well, at least for a while.
Probably due in part to the slanderous claims of “sexual deviancy” and “Wants to destroy the sanctity of marriage”.
I mean, I guess that more of the people I’ve known who claim to be bi have tended to be the ones more into polyamory, but yeah I’m actually pretty sure its not their sexuality that innately makes people less picky as much as their libido?
Honestly it seems more like something come up with by people who can’t imagine themselves not being horny if their own socially constructed rules and sexualities were suddenly opened up to a wider range than actually something that represents a real group of people.
Polyamory doesn’t have anything to do with pickiness. It has a lot of related meanings clustering around “able to, and wanting to, sustain healthy romantic and/or sexual relationships with more than one person at a time.”
And it’s unrelated to sexual preference – poly people can be gay, straight, bi, pan, etc.
Also, bi is unrelated to pickiness. I had a conversation with a bi person once in which they were asking me, “Doesn’t being straight limit you?” My answer: “Are you attracted to everyone in the world?” Them: “Huh. Good point.” Because they were bi, not pan (which I knew). So some things turn them on, and some things don’t. It’s just that they can be turned on by some men and some women, whereas I’m almost never turned on by someone with lots of body or facial hair or male-type muscle definition.
I’m sure different people use the word in different ways, from different contexts, for different purposes. There are probably some pansexual people who don’t know any term closer than “bi” to describe themselves.
If you can imagine someone whose sexuality toward the opposite sex is kind of like typical straight sexuality, and whose sexuality toward the same sex is kind of like typical gay sexuality, then that’s an example of a bi person. Simple, yes? Nothing in there about poly, or levels of horny, or socially constructed rules.
(I say “sex” in the previous paragraph rather than “gender” because AFAIK being gay, straight, or bi is largely about what physical cues turn you on, and gender is about how your brain is wired rather than what body you have.)
Right, I’m just saying that a lot of the Stereotyping on Non-Heterosexuals seems like it often jumps straight to “Sex crazed maniacs who will sleep with anyone they can get away with.” despite that not really matching up with a lot of what I’ve seen from people who I’ve known who’ve admitted to being homosexual or bi.
Which makes it feel like fear mongering at best, or at worst when combined with the “irresistible nature of sin” just makes it sound like the person trying to push the agenda believes that they’d start just raping everyone if not for their stringent avoidance, denial, and demeaning of people who don’t cling to heterosexuality cause “religion”.
So, at least the “culture of bi erasure or demonization” is a socially constructed rule thing. Even if its also nonsensical garbage. A lot of people tend to turn a blind eye when it comes to actually thinking about ancient traditions they’re told to base their worldviews on sadly.
People on the other hand are people, and therefore super complex and actually all different from each other, despite how much they usually try to pretend they’re all the same, or at least “Normals” do? People who seem to try their hardest to force their opinions to fit with whatever they think everyone else thinks?
Ah, thanks for explaining the “only in porn” part
Panel 5 (cont):
Howard: Speaking of casual biphobia, we get the bi person’s label is “really” whatever partner they are with. Like, he just got finished noting and making the connection that she’s bi like his GoT character. But, the natural language and assumption is for him to treat them as being lesbians nonetheless, because that’s the cultural narrative for women-loving-women.
And ah, the baffled questions about how women have sex.
Part of it is that good old heteronormativity that sells all sex as PIV and nothing else. After all, this is the only type of intercourse teachers are allowed to talk about in sex ed (like no, really, I bend a bunch of rules and keep things super clinical to try and at least cover contraception, the clitoris, erogenous zones, and consent, and can wink, wink, nudge nudge towards sites that have actual useful information about sex, but I’d be dragged before the admins if I tried to talk about sex for pleasure, kink, oral/anal sex, or vibrators/dildos).
And it’s what’s reflected in porn. Yeah, they might show some oral and vibrating toys for warm-up, but if two women are getting down, the “big scene” that’s seen as the “real sex” is always strap-on dildo sex unlike in life.
And the whole thing leaves people very in the dark about what wlw intimacy looks like, even wlw trying to figure that shit out under the cloud of ignorance they have been raised in:
https://twitter.com/AnaMardoll/status/852558182996213760
It’s honestly really tragic.
Ruth: I covered this a bit in Howard’s section, but American sex ed is terrible by design. We’re a fucked up nation with fucked up views on sex and one of them is a cloud of silence that makes it shameful to have any accurate depiction of something that feels very critical to 99% of the population of the planet and especially to give kids the information they need to have safe, fulfilling sex lives without having to struggle through all the trial and error of trying to figure it out on their own from terrible guides like porn.
Like, we only even cover how pregnancy and condoms work because we had a plague wipe out huge swaths of our population that was best curbed with safe sex and even then we’ve got constant attacks on contraception and attempts to make everything “abstinence only”.
And for teachers it puts us in an awful state, because we know what our kids actually need, but parents and administrations would rip off our heads if we gave that real education they need to them. And so we end up giving them pieces and hoping that figuring out the rest doesn’t fuck them over too much.
It’s honestly really frustrating.
Like imagine a country where kids would know about vibrators, lube, how to have sex without making the sort of rookie mistakes that make it all hurt or that finding what actually worked for pleasure was something sex could be. If kids with attractions to kink knew how to explore that safely and how to recognize the difference between someone “dominant” and someone withholding and abusive and that life-play is a terrible fucking idea they should never let someone do to them? Where we gave them everything they needed to craft a fulfilling sex life however it looked from the get-go instead of by trial and error in college?
But our culture would have to change so much to ever get there. And that sucks.
This is probably offensive but its been burning in the back of my head for months now and this is probably the best place to put it so here goes:
Is it OK to say that two woman in a sexual/romantic relationship are in a “lesbian relationship”, even if one or both of them are actually bi? What about male/male “gay relationships”? “Straight relationships”? What if one of the participants is actually ace?
Like I said, probably offensive, but it’s been bothering me, and you are the a reliable source on this sort of topic.
I’ve been strongly favoring wlw or women-loving-women to describe relationships between two women that are not between two lesbians and that’s an appellation that’s been becoming more and more common in usage.
Either that or queer. Queer is a super robust all around term for relationships not involving two straight people of different genders in a relationship. And if you need to clarify beyond that, you can usually talk about the individuals more in-depth (Well Johnny identifies as ace and Sam is non-binary and pan), but that tends to be a good short-hand.
Like I describe my relationships as queer relationships on the regular. It’s just much more convenient and accurate than trying to find other terms to encapsulate the orientations involved.
As a bi lady, I’m perfectly okay with my partner and I being called a lesbian relationships, especially since she’s straight up just a lesbian.
Not everything needs to be so thoroughly overthunk, I guess.
I don’t know the answers to those (although I think homosexual or heterosexual or asexual relationship would be more accurate than gay or straight or whatever as the latter are more identities and less adjectives (in this case)).
But my husband has so far gone with ‘I’m not gay but my boyfriend is’ as a descriptor, if that helps.
Whoever-loving-whoever usually works. For example, women loving women, men loving men, women loving non-binary, etc.
I’m a bi lady, dating a straight fellow. I wouldn’t call our relationship straight, because one of us isn’t straight. I also wouldn’t call it a bi relationship, because he’s not bi. Maybe an opposite-sex relationship? I’d probably just say he’s my boyfriend.
For further fun confusion, remember nonbinary folks. My straight male friend thought he was dating a bi woman, but while the relationship grew, his “girlfriend” realized that he’s really a man, and he decided to transition. Neither of them identifies as gay — they’re a straight cis-man and a bi transman — so it seems weird to call it a gay relationship. I think of him as ‘Jake’s boyfriend’, like I do with mine.
Just as I suspected, the answer is “It depends!” (And of course “opposite sex” is better than “straight”. Duh-doy.)
Thank you for all the replies. I have to get bed soon, so I can’t thank you individually.
Guess it really depends on the situation. One of my friends is a bi woman, only acknowledged her bisexuality with her current girlfriend (they’re gonna get married soon too, I’m super excited) and she mainly refers to their relationship as being gay and makes constant jokes about it and stuff without really stressing the bi factor. Meanwhile a few of my other bi friends are more casual or are more equal opportunity about jokes like that. I myself tend to gravitate towards being ace more than being bi, since I learned that about myself before the other. Much like most things I think it’s a more contextually driven question then anything
Reminder that “gay” is also an umbrella term, e.g. “the gay community” “gay marriage” “gay rights”.
“I’m so gay” said by a bi woman is not necessarily them meaning “I am such a lesbian”, but rather “I am so Not Straight”.
Sooooooometimes. And some queer women think of “gay” as explicitly associated with gay men. I never liked my ex and I being described as a gay couple.
That’s why I said “not necessarily” rather than “always”.
Yeah. Sex education is really bad in the US. I lucked out in going to a Jesuit-run high school where the attitude was “abstinence until marriage is a virtue, put if you have pre-marital sex please do it safely”. The way they got around the whole “Catholic” thing? They just printed a small disclaimer reading: “The Catholic does not approve of sex outside of marriage and does not endorse this behavior” in itty-bitty little print on the last page of a rather hefty resource hand out that probably required a magnifying glass to read. Jesuits as a whole tend to be very liberal and scientific, and we had some of the most liberal Jesuits ever as teachers.
as a home-schooler who got a fairly decent (if very conservative) education aside from this, my entire sex education consisted of my parents holding a pillow in front of the TV during a certain segment of Titanic, and my dad informing all of us kids that “sometimes when people kiss, they get carried away.”
So, naturally, my sex ed has been a very gradual, incremental process via the internet (being asexual and not having had a drive to experiment on my own).
with some missteps and WTFs along the way.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah. Grownups tend to forget that, when we don’t give kids proper sex ed, they will go learn everything from porn.
Porn is not like real sex. It’s highly stylized; it’d be like trying to learn human social interaction by only watching Kabuki theatre.
Everything I know about social interaction is from watching Kabuki theatre.
And the Three Stooges.
you’re saying that’s……wrong?
I’m saying your dinner parties may be very dramatic, and your coworkers are in for some surprises, especially if there’s a ladder around. 😀
You just made me LOL a lot. Awesome comments! And for reals, I like the Kabuki/porn comparison.
Probably. But in this case maybe also awesome?
or the American version, pro wrestling.
Once again, most of my experimenting in that style has been going “Huh, people think this is hot? Guess this just confirms that I’m not the generally on offer sexualities.”
Odd. Strap-ons are a rarity in my viewing experience without specifically searching for them. But, then, despite growing up in Indiana in the public school system, I knew of bisexuality in the 90s. Maybe I just don’t live under the right rocks.
You my friend need to try more “hot and mean”, they’ve got the cure for what ails ya
I’m afraid to ask – what is life-play?
24/7 arrangements, I imagine, where you are -always- behaving the roles of master and slave or whathaveyou, not just during sexytimes. Most people who talk about 24/7 simply have it as a fantasy, but there are folks who set up their lives that way. Takes all kinds.
It’s dangerous for obvious reasons, and would not be a good idea for some teenagers to try.
Ohhhhh, a Total Power Exchange or Master/slave stuff (I believe when it goes outside the bedroom, it’s considered Master/slave, obviously excepting chosen terminology choices). Yeah, I’ve known of folks who’ve been in perfectly happy and healthy ones, but those are intense and know exactly where boundaries are and won’t cross them because they aren’t large diameter assholes. Definitely not something beginners or minors should try.
What Leorale said and yeah, they’re hard enough to make work for people very experienced in BDSM and have very strong consent practices.
People just starting to figure themselves and what they want should stay far far away from it but I see too many teens and new adults fall into it because the fantasy is hot and there’s little information and thus have things go painfully disastrously wrong because they are not at all ready for that kind of dynamic.
Maybe those folks should try life-play fantasy- like, pretending to be in that dynamic for sex fantasy playtime purposes. That seems like it’d be the reasonable way to scratch that itch without diving into a new pool head on without knowing the currents or even much about swimming.
Yes, I’d bet that the vast majority of people who fantasize about 24/7 arrangements fulfill it that way; like they’d talk about being enslaved forever during play, but actually it’s a fun fantasy, not a major lifestyle decision.
Oh they should and a lot of the folks who get burned on that eventually do do that, but when they’re young, the only depictions of anything D/S are “always forever” things like Twilight, 50 Shades, or most D/S porn, so young kinky folks assume that’s what fulfilling those fantasies looks like.
And the worst part is there are way too many predatory rapist fucks in the kink community only too willing to prey on a young 18 year old’s naivety to get a relationship they don’t have to be “as strict on the consent with”.
*cough*ChristianGrey*cough*
But yeaaaaaahhhhh, a lot of predators hang out there and I imagine that things like those books make it much easier. And oh lord, TPE’s don’t have limits or safe words oh lord (which is why it’s so important the dom(me) not be a large diameter asshole).
TPE’s = Thermoplastic elastomers
What?? (Google is not my friend)
Jhon: Total Power Exchange, mentioned by BBCC further up. ^
Best and worst punchline
Dude, no, please don’t use that word. It’s really not cool.
i sometimes forget other people with mental schtuff aren’t as cool with it as i am. apologies!
Thank you!
Two words: euphemism treadmill.
Come on, Ruth, take her up to the room and show her what you mean
Bad idea. Sir is still about.
We wouldn’t want Ruth and Billie to act on bad ideas, now would we?
That boy is obviously hiding something. I just finished watching Rick and Morty, so of course my default assumption is that the same sort of madness defines the relationship between Howard and his grandfather.
Howard is hiding the Mulan Szechuan chicken sauce!
I was posting this as a reply but it wasn’t really relevant, but since there are a bunch of american sex ed horror stories I thought I’d post a Canadian (grad 2011) comparison.
My parents mostly left it to the school and like one puberty book but let me ask questions from them, and admittedly my mom talked to me a bit. Then again, I’m Canadian and my schools actually did sex ed, formally so in grades 5, 7, 9 and less so but touched upon in planning 10 (required to graduate here). My district had elementary (K-5), middle (6-8) and high school (9-12).
Fifth grade (~10yo) we had one day where we spent a block (maybe two, it didn’t feel super short) with some sex educator from outside our school. We learned mostly about puberty and what to expect, but also the basics of sex, eg names for genitalia, how the sperm fertilizes the egg, etc. I don’t think we really went into zygotes or any of that until the biology segment in a middle school science class, although we talked more generally about pregnancy. They talked about what condoms and birth control were. Parents were allowed to stop their kids from attending, but they had to opt out on paper.
Seventh (~12yo) or so grade it was ‘peer led’ by people who were several years older than us and we didn’t really consider our peers at all. We talked about when we considered something illicit (like, whether kissing was sexual, or laying next to each other on a bed, or hugging while laying down, and so on), lots of body image stuff. Also learned more about STDs and birth control options. Throughout that year the older students (I don’t remember if they were eighth grade or high schoolers or what) came back several times to do activities with us on those topics.
9th grade (~14yo) we had a mandatory health fair. Older students who were part of a volunteer group to teach sex ed, health, drug awareness, etc (they were students at my school, but this program was separate of school, run by a clinic) set up booths, and there were ones for each common STD (not super fear mongery) and most forms of birth control (on the perfect use statistics, what proper use was, etc).
Planning 10 was some basics on things that might help you function as an adult. I have no recollection of learning anything. By definition this had to include a tiny bit of sex ed.
So, not a lot of consent talk, or gender, or queer topics (though we did at least briefly talk about gay men, part because the age of consent for anal is or was higher than the age of consent for any other sexual acts here (18 and not flexible rather than 16 with romeo and juliet laws), but I don’t recall what class it was in, and I don’t think we talked about lesbians except maybe vaguely when talking about dental dams).
As I mentioned yesterday, everyone I know knew about homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, in early middle school, and pansexuality by eighth or ninth grade. I guess we educated ourselves and each other, or something. I have no memory of first learning those things, just that we were all aware of them as we started trying to figure out our sexuality.
I went to a public elementary school (K-8) and then a Catholic high school. Had to have sex ed from 5-9. It was all split from boys and girls (except 6th and 7th I think) sounds much similar to yours.
5th – Talking about basic anatomy (boys and girls), and mostly about puberty and what to expect and that people were different and it was okay for certain normal deviations to happen (like being irregular for a long time).
6th – Learned how babies are made, more general anatomy.
7th – I think this was very much about how sex worked and the way that those systems worked.
8th – Largely about pregnancy and getting comfortable talking about specific body parts.
9th – Holy shit, here’s where we hit the mother load – Consent (they made us write responses to a scenario where we didn’t want sex and the other person tried to pressure us until we were all ready to say ‘No’ over and over to all the common tactics), body image and eating disorders, drug awareness, contraception in so many forms, STIs (the teacher went over the common ones – symptoms, treatments, prognosis, etc. and we got to research whichever ones we wanted to go into more detail), pregnancy and adoption and what each entailed, and heavy information about pregnancy and anatomy. This was a Catholic school so LGBT+ content, kink, and abortion were off the table, but most of the information was transferable and I believe they mentioned ‘a girl can give you an STI as easily as a guy can, USE PROTECTION ALWAYS – DENTAL DAMS AND FEMALE CONDOMS ARE A THING YOU SHOULD INVEST IN AND ALWAYS GET TESTED WITH A NEW PARTNER’. Abortion was a quick two second ‘You COULD do that because it is a thing that exists and it is legal and covered by insurance, but the Catechism says it’s a no-no, here, let’s watch a video about adoption instead!’ A little bit of ‘real love waits’ bullshit, but it was very much under the ‘kids will do what kids will do, but by god, do so safely’. I have no idea if grade 10-12 physical education went into more detail.
Of course, my school went into LGBT+ content and abortion in other classes – history (especially ancient history, we got to learn about Alexander the Great and his relationship with Hephaestion), psychology (which taught us about intersex folks and that trans folks were valid), sociology (LGBT+ families and different gender arrangements), law (I believe Moregentaler was taught as a ‘landmark case’), politics (contraception and abortion fights, I believe LGBT+ rights), possibly more info in biology, I was allowed to play an actress who had an abortion in drama (but only because she regretted it – my teacher said she liked it, but couldn’t be allowed to let me perform it if she didn’t), and religion (where my teachers were generally empathetic but sided with the church on abortion, and holy shit, God may have mercy on you but they would NOT if they heard you drop a homophobic slur) and my school’s counselling office had a ‘safe space’ LGBT+ sticker on one of the counsellor’s doors. So, overall, not the best education ever, but the teachers did their best to be inclusive and I have a feeling they pushed where they could without getting in trouble.
One thing I find interesting about this comic is that Billie and Ruth seem to have never talked about this with each other before.
My first glance this comic, the second panel jumped off the screen and said, “Hi, I look like Blaine!”
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/grounds/
…Is it just me, or is this an artistic foreshadowing that Howard is at risk for growing up awful?
Yeah, Howie and Blaine have unfortunately similar designs, it’s the glasses
I… That’s weird, I related more to Billie when I thought she was aware of her own bisexuality.
Yeah, even the “everyone is a bit bisexual” crap she pulled on Joyce: I used to think that when I was her age.
howie, theyll buy strap-ons if they wanna do stuff like that
Billie already said she was going to buy one for Ruth in the Slipshine.
This is information I should not have.
…ohmygod Howard is probably the most knowledgeable in the cast about bisexuality………
That’s really sad
Nah, it sounds like Ruth knows whats what.
No, Ruth’s perfectly knowledgeable, and Dorothy. And Danny, after he had his talk with Dorothy. Even Becky got a clue pretty quick (even if she personally finds the idea unappealing). Joyce’s most recent appearance suggests she’s actually grokked the idea, since she feels fine shipping Billie with both Ruth and Walky.
No data on Carla, Amber, Ethan, Marcie, or the Walkertons beliefs on the matter, that I remember, but that includes none of them actually denying the existence. Nobody else is major enough it could be expected their beliefs would be known. Though Walky and Sal are the only ones in that I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to not grasp it. (Hell, I expect Amber clung to the idea that Ethan might be bi for a while after he came out.)
At this point, Billie’s the only one who’s still demonstrating a resistance to the idea.
Sierra, Dorothy, and Roz have all shown pretty strong awarenesses of bisexuality and comfort with the topic. And I feel Ruth, Carla*, Marcie, Grace, and Mandy have been hinted at being fairly aware of the concept as well even though we haven’t seen as much on-camera to fully support.
*Carla, especially as she went out of her way to refer to them as queer girls in love instead of lesbians in love.
Also – if Marcie knows about it (and she is bi and seems fairly experienced so she very possibly might), Sal probably does too.
Did Ruth get her SexEd in Canada?
European ideas about the US tend to be oversimplified, but was SexEd always bad over there or did it decline since the beginning of the 90ties and the rise of fundamentalism?
Ruth’s years when that was a school subject were spend in Ontario, so I’m pretty sure it’s “yes”.
In the USA individual states do a lot of determinating about sex ed. My own firsthand was in a pretty liberal state, but I am not-so-young, and don’t have kids, so all I can say is that this is one more area the wall between church and state is threatened.
Evidence, in the form of some public health outcomes, and state bills and laws allowing discrimination against LGBT+ folk, suggests it is getting wrse in those places.
John Oliver dedicated one of Last Week Tonight’s episodes to US sex ed – if you feel like you can hold back the inevitable urges of burning the entire country to the ground, you should watch it.
Yes…she moved to the US when she was 16…at that point in my schooling, sex ed (part of the health curriculum) was actually finished.
And, despite going to a Catholic school, we got the whole shebang – safe sex, LGBT, etc.
Wait
does
does Billie not know what Bisexuality is
My American sex ed was conducted in 6th grade, when we were about 12. It was mostly things like “this is the name of this body part, and that’s what it does.” Also, they split us up based on our sexes. Girls learned how to use tampons. I do not know what boys learned.
As far as I remember, everything I learned about having sex, sexuality identity or preferences, and contraceptives was from the media and peers.
Flaming brexit means shipping to the UK alone is twice the price of the book. All because morons are working on 23 year old misinformation and prejudices.
Do the printings stay around long on the store, because I just cannot afford that?
I feel like this is a subtle call for Willis to draw Billie with a ding-dong. Do it, pornlord, do it.
Uuuuhhh, I’m not so fond of the whole “Oh, Billie with a penis it’d be so hottt” when trans women in reality are super vilified everywhere…
Srsly. That kind of chasery bullshit can go piss up a rope.
You’d be surprised at the number of gay/lesbian folks who ALSO don’t believe that bisexuals exist. I used to date a bisexual girl and she told me some horror stories where if she mentioned she was bisexual, she either got accused of just “faking it so that guys will be more into you” (from her straight friends), or that she “was a lesbian who just didn’t have the courage to fully come out of the closet” (from her gay/lesbian friends). The takeaway lesson? Ignorant/hateful people exist among all communities.
I keep hearing about bi folks getting told that they’re “Just gay and afraid to fully come out” and I’m seriously wondering if that’s seriously a Thing That Happens (at least often enough to basically bug ever bi person ever about).
Like I know that some people who used to ID as bi suddenly realized their attraction to the opposite gender was just compulsory heterosexuality and move to ID as gay, but… that’s not quite the same thing as being afraid and in the closet. I really don’t know where this myth comes from
Sort of. From what I understand, many gay people initially identify as bi because they perceive it as more socially accepted (okay). Then they assume their stance applies to everyone. Similarly, bisexuals identify as straight or gay to fit in. This is just secondhand from gay friends explaining the phenomenon, though.
I’ve seen one case of it.
I have also seen a boomerang version… One of my exes identified as bi, for most of the time I knew her, until a while after we broke up. At which point, she began to identify as a lesbian. Then we drifted apart for a while, and the next time I spoke to her, she was identifying as bi, again.
I’ve also had a friend who identified as gay when I first met him, then after a while realized he was bi. (I don’t THINK he identified as bi before we met, but never asked.)
It sometimes happens, folks will use bi for a period of time before coming out as gay or lesbian, though I’ve far more often seen people use gay/lesbian for a time before coming out as bi.
Like all stereotypes, there’s a small handful of people they actually describe, but it’s definitely become something of an urban legend that’s been used to harass bi people about their orientations with gay/lesbian folks assuming that applies to all bi people and then getting angry when the bi people they bullied into identifying as gay/lesbian end up coming out as bi later because that’s what they always were.
Since all of you are so interested, I thought I’d share my experiences. I first heard the words “hetero” and “bi” and “homo” (same in Hungarian) was from a classmate in a camp around the age of 12 when he was bullying another classmate for not knowing them (I felt so wise back then not letting it slip that I didn’t know them either). It was a Catholic school, but we got proper sex ed on puberty, pregnancy and how to avoid it and things like that, but nothing about possible orientations. In high school they took it as an evidence we were well informed. I learned about the Kinsey scale in college, because I majored in psychology, and I am pretty sure those who majored in other things only could have known about that from journalism.
On a personal note, up until lately (1-2 years ago) I was in denial about liking girls too. With my previous boyfriend we would joke about having a threesome and I was insistent that the 3rd would be a guy. After braking up with him, he came out as bi. And from that moment it slowly came to me that it is not as big a deal (no offence intended, I know it is very hard for many) as I thought it was. I realized I had internalized the view that “it is okay to have a nonhetero orientation as long as it’s not me”. So, that’s it I am free to like girls too
*hugs of support*
omfg
I dunno, I’m kinda gonna have to back Howard up here. That’s how it happened with me and my wife. Kinda like to get rid of the thing though, honestly.
You know, people tend to give Tumblr a lot of shit, and some of it is justified, but I really have to be thankful for tumblr for giving me the 101 on sexuality I really could’nt have gotten anywhere else
word
YUP.
I’ll agree to some point, though I have to say that they’ve made me even more confused on what asexuality is or isn’t
They’ve made *me* more confused on what asexuality is or isn’t, and I’m asexual.
Gah. I just steer clear and do my own thing.
Yeah, I tend to do the same, if only because of how aggressive people can get about stuff on Tumblr. Though I mean I avoid like all the Major Social Communities on the internet.
This comics comment section is pretty cool though.
I would never have heard the word ‘asexual’ if not for Tumblr, so… yeah. I’m grateful to it.
Actually, Billie, you said almost all of that, just with a slightly different emphasis.
Yeah, but the emphasis is important.
The emphasis is very important, because Howard is shifting it from a confused attempt to find language for one’s own experiences into a dismissal of the importance of the relationship. Which is definitely not how Billie meant it.
Blah “as long as I keep to myself” lived that situation…balanced out by discovering the word “weenus”.
Typo in first whateveryoucallthescenesofacomicstrip
“priate” should be “private” I assume.
Unless you meant “inappropriate pirate questions” which, I would assume has to do with booty
I think the word you are looking for is ‘panel’.
No, it’s correct. “Innappro-priate” is just split over two lines.
Though I’m amused by “inappropriate pirate questions”?
“The Inappropriate Pirates” would be like the opposite of “The Pirates who Don’t Do Anything.”
I love when a persons own existence proves the existence of something and yet they are all “I am not sure that exists”
Dear god….did we just establish that Howard is more informed on sex than Billie? I think we just established this…
On some terminology. I think he then established he didn’t know more with the weenus question.
Nah, he just encountered bi representation whereas Billie has not. He’s still deeply ignorant about what that means, but he’s at least had something that reflected that reality he can point to.
In short, someone needs to get these two a Legend of Korra box set or else that one episode of Ultra Car where the friend with dark standard bisexual hair came out as bi.
…standard bisexual hair?
Standard bisexual haircut:
http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/145747766072/itswalky-itswalky-ironbloodaika
Ruth’s hair actually looks incredible there. Maybe because for some reason she looks like Korra but with Ruth’s color palette. But I am for Ruth getting that haircut.
I wonder if Jess coming out helped cause Ultra Car’s cancellation – the ratings really weren’t that bad in the target demographic until that happened. Could be a One Million Mom’s kinda thing.
Or if they were being cancelled anyways so the writers said ‘Fuck it, what do we have to lose?’
Yeah, between that and the whole dropping of the asexual term, the conservative backlash was pretty strong. The writers really did try to make the best of it by the end though. It was all just a little too ahead of its time.
At least they put out the episodes that weren’t released, if you know where to look. You can tell that once they got word they were cancelled they decided they had nothing to lose and so did what they wanted.
Oh, jeezuz, Howard, you poor kid. When I think of your future…
As a teenager, I was lucky to find a copy of Everything you always wanted to know about sex (but were afraid to ask) by Dr. David Reuben. For the early seventies it was a pretty good intro to a lot of topics, and miles better than what I was getting in school. It sure as hell didn’t come from my parents but I’m saying, parents, make sure to leave some good books around.
If growing a weenus was that easy, everyone would be doing it.
are you kidding, it’s such a easy weak point in a fight. Plus, just looks weird swinging around down there
Wait, so Billie doesn’t know what bisexuality is…? Didn’t she have a girlfriend before? Does she just think she’s sometimes gay and sometimes straight?
Strange isn’t it?
I always thought Billie was the last person to be in the closet, but as it seems she’s closeted bisexual, and thinks she’s straight with few expections to some girls.
One girl expection I can belive, more than one you’re bi.
It’s not end of the world to realise that, sadly mainstream media and porn works made female bisexuality as disgusting stigma of cheaters and nymphomaniacs variable who need to constantly fuck anyone ;(
No wonder no one wants to admit they are bi.
Yeah, she’s just assumed that “everyone gets curious”, including nominally straight folks – like her! – and is now being confronted with and working through the idea that, no, actually…
Everyone gets curious and gets into long emotional relationships with the girls they’re curious about. Sure.
seemslegit.jpg
What is it with these bisexual characters questioning bisexuality.
Come to think of it, has anyone in DoA who’s not bi questioned the existence of bi people?
Becky did
Well there’s Ruth for one, but also Sierra, Grace and Mandy.
We’ve not seen Marcie explain her sexuality, but it seems like she was out already and she seems *ahem* fairly confident in expressing herself.
Marcie is Malayasexual. She is attracted to people named Malaya.
And as to how it helps men, culturally enforced gender roles hurt men too. Men who express their feelings, who are gentle, sensitive, etc get ostracized. Boys are taught that they have to be strong, stoic, brash, and of course, constantly pursuing sex, or else they’re “not really a man”.
Just like how girls are shut down if they express interest in traditionally masculine pursuits like athletics, leadership roles, or careers male-dominated industries, boys are shut down any time they express interest in traditionally feminine activities or careers.
Men aren’t hurt by sexism anywhere near as badly, but they’re definitely hurt. It attempts to force people to conform to arbitrary standards of behavior, even if that makes them unhappy.
There’s no reason women can’t be courageous, independent, and assertive. There’s no reason men can’t be gentle, empathetic, and sensitive. There’s no reason a person of any/no gender can’t be all of those things.
Because they’re all good qualities to have, and it doesn’t make sense to say any of them is better for one gender to have than it is for another.
^^ This was a reply to someone who – let’s say – “didn’t understand how feminism helps men”
tag yourself, i’m the one who hasta grow the weenus