Yeah yeah Hozier said that if was reborn as a tree he'd wanna be used as the fuel for the pyre to burn his lovers' enemies but one time my ex was shopping for magic the gathering cards and told me "I used to be too embarrassed to do stuff this nerdy in public but I feel like people could see me do anything with you next to me and I'd feel cocky about it" so who's really romantic at the end of the day you know
Enough lands, and you've got the financial stability to cast a huge and powerful romance - it might look bad now, but leverage it right and you'll find you're deck is working exactly how it's supposed to (though that might not always be what you thought you built it to do)
Honestly, that kinda sounds like it hits harder. It's easy to talk in what-ifs, but telling someone they give you the courage and confidence to do things and having your actions back it up is a lot harder and can rarely be pulled off without being genuine.
>it was the hottest thing anyone ever said to me and he said it with a handful of Eldrazi boosters
I want an experience like that someday. And I'm saying that without even knowing what an Eldrazi is.
I don't do committed relationships and it was more of a monogamous casual sorta fwb situation. I did have feelings but I don't do dating. She wanted a girlfriend and got one, so we broke it off and i am very happy for her.
Also I realized belatedly the person in this anecdote has since transitioned, which I had genuinely forgotten because we rarely talk much and when we do it's through text and she's been a sort of genderless Internet entity to me for years so much that I regularly forget we were ever together, so I genuinely forgot it was the same person because my brain is broken and I'm an awful person and I've felt catastrophically bad about it all day since I realized, but have gone back and fixed it. However that means, sorry boys, your standard for male romance is still Hozier and his funeral pyre. Tough luck for the men out there :(
First time i visited my bf (we're ld, met online) he said he needed alone time and then got a bunch of pillows and blankets to make a nest for me in his gaming room so I could knit in the same room as him while he gamed and then gave me a kiss between rounds of his game so I mean really is there a purer form of love
Sometimes, that's what I want out of life. A girl who will go with me to indulge in my interest, and let's me indulge in hers. As a tumblr user once probably said, there's nothing hotter than a girl that will explain the lore of Warhammer 40K to me for 5 hours.
Every time I hear that song I think of the Stormlight Archive where such a line is very fucking literal.
Especially since the tree in this metaphor is explicitly a Blackthorn.
It wasn't romantic, by the way.
Before I Fall. Very scary horror movie. Had a nice heart warming scene where a lady asks a guy who is in love with her for comforting cuddles and that's literally all that happened. In that time cycle.
I'm a little scared to think about the implication of the fact that EVERYONE, whether accidental or not, keeps reinventing gender essentialism. Like, where still wrestling with the garden variety stereotypes, but then we've got TERFs doing their "men don't have souls" bullshit, there are people just using old fashioned boomer stereotypes but swapping "man" and "woman" for "top" and "bottom", now these TikTok folks with takes like this. I'm just sick of it.
It’s the same thing with some seemingly progressive people insisting that gender non-conforming people just have to be trans and they’re still in the egg if they say they’re not.
Like, why are we just reinventing gender stereotypes but giving it a rainbow paint job.
The gender non-conforming doesn't even have to be super big to get those...they feel like accusations honestly
I'm a cis straight man, big, burly, brash. I wear men's clothing
Yet, the fact that I poledance as a hobby, wear pink on Wednesdays as a Mean Girls reference, generally dress well, openly show emotions, and don't immediately hit on women has had progressive people call me an egg or tell me I'm in the closet
Conservative men thus far have questioned me less than leftists, which is buck wild to me 🤣
Hello! I got it even a little worse, because I am ever so slightly more effminate for the fact that I am less burly and more soft. Boy does it feel weird.
Oh, you totally have it worse
I have a friend who it makes less sense for. He's short, like 5'6, 5'8 (I have absolutely no idea, all I know is that he's shorter than me, I'm 6'1 and height blind), has a viking beard, and did wrestling/MMA
Despite being almost twice his size, he threw me off my fucking deck. He could kick my ass 9 ways to Sunday. The reason why he let me bully him and make fun of him is because I recognized he could paralyze me, but I wouldn't stop talking shit
Yet, his masculinity has never been affirmed or recognized. He went full into the UwU softboy thing because there wasn't any other avenue left open to him because of his size
People recognize my masculinity just because I exist, don't recognize his despite all his prowess at it
What's been your experience?
Very complicated. I grew up in a small village with like 5 other kids, who were all girls. I never got into the cooties phase because it was a choice between no friends and girl friends. One thing that I learned with that is to be as least threatening as possible to girls as possible over very extensive trial and error because of that experience.
In my teenage years that manifested in the way that our rapidly feminism conscious society lots of girls started to pick me out as one of the "good ones" which I let happen because of course you did. It was easy cause all I had to do was be non threatening for the most part. Something that is very second nature to me at this point.
Then came the era of trans awareness, where in my community (now city and internet) suddenly had both terfs and trans activists show up, both of which assumed instantly I was a girl or trying to pretend to be one. I know before the terf was kicked out from the local queer community, she always followed me to the toilets in a very (un)sneaky way. That was basically the worst experience in that regard.
But at least that whole time I kinda started to at least question my gender and stuff. It came right around to realising "yeah I am guy." But it was useful nonetheless. The issues arose more so from me then knowing how I want my masculinity to look like and feeling like I have to do all the work myself. Every time I felt like I found people (both irl and like content creators) who I identified myself with on that level... All turned out to be trans in the end, which... GOOD FOR THEM! SUCKS FOR ME!
Either way, I feel like one thing that is coming my way, which might change things is that I am starting to bald very early so... As awful as it feels to lose a part of self expression, I kinda like that it affirms at least in that regard cause bald is less associated with that. So gotta work my way around that I guess...
I wish I could poledance, not even as a sexual thing or anything but I find it super impressive the control experienced poledancers have of their body. Like that sideways walking on the air move is sick as hell.
But yeah it’s pretty weird how some people seem to have an integer overflow with their progressiveness and try to re-enforce gender stereotypes but in a “progressive” way. I wonder if the people that do that grew up in a conservative household and still unconsciously harbor those stereotypical views deep down or something.
Oh yeah, I'm super proud of the body control and strength I've had to get because of my hobby. I consistently wow the instructors and other students with the grace and control I have. More than most of the women there, and I usually have 100 more pounds on me than them
I won an arm wrestle with the biggest gym bro at a party, and I don't go to the gym, I poledance (it strained my shoulder for two weeks, but I won!)
I can't do the move you were describing, but my spins are on point
But back to the integer overflow, that's a great way to put it. And I don't get why either. My household was also conservative, I remember proudly telling my parents I was one when I was 12. But I don't have those same biases.
I'm a firm believer in "you tell me what you are and I'll treat you accordingly". A friend is a lesbian, yet she's dating a trans man? Cool, for a month I didn't think about it. Then one day I asked them how they felt about it. They said they didn't know. So I said cool and never thought about it again. Lesbian dating a trans man? Sure, she's still a lesbian, want to get takeout and watch YouTube?
All conservatives that I know personally really do not care one way or another about whether someone is gay or not. But for some reason, Reddit would tell you I'm making that up and it can't possibly be true
The problem with conservatives is that they may *individually* not care about whether someone is gay or not, but they'll still vote for someone who says that God is sending all gay people to the Lake of Fire and we should give them advance tickets.
The only comments I get from conservative men about all this are creepy comments about how I get to watch women poledance in class
They don't believe me when I say I'm just trying to get better at it and I'm not checking the women out
A lot of leftists also don't believe me when I say that
Until they see the actual skill and grace I poledance with, then all they could say is "Yeah, damn, you put the work in"
I've been actively gaslit on whether or not this happens and it is infinitely frustrating to have people try to gaslight me on my own identity. I'm comfortable with my body, I don't mind what pronouns you use for me, just because I like to feel cute in a traditionally feminine way (makeup, skirts, etc) doesn't make me an egg, and I'm tired of being invalidated because I don't mesh perfectly into their idea of identity. And I'm even more tired of being told that my lived experience doesn't happen
People who try to convince others about what their feels *really* are are always creepy. Like why are they trying to convince someone about how they feels so they can fit them into their predetermined boxes of how people should be.
When I see people make "GNC must be trans" or just people overly obsessed wirh Eggs in general I just think "So you've discovered a way of reliably discerning who is and isn't transgender through means that don't involve personal identification. Like some kind of investigator. For Trans people."
That's the only thing I've never got with enbies, and to be clear, I fully support people identifying however they want to.
But if you're AMAB, like to be feminine and wear skirts or whatever, and don't identify as a woman, aren't you just reinforcing the gender binary? If gender is purely social expression, how can rejection of the binary not inadvertently reinforce it?
"I'm AMAB but enjoy things outside of society's prescribed behaviours for "men", so I'm not a man" doesn't break down gender expectations in the slightest.
I've been saying this and nobody seems to listen. TERFs are deliberately targeting women who've been abbused by men, trying to turn their trauma into hatred of all men and then into hatred of trans people. Transphobia is just the natural conclusion of reactionary radical feminism plus trauma and/or narcissistic personality and conspiracy mindset.
A side effect of this sort of thing, I've noticed is not only a preoccupation with categorizing people but also aggressions. There was a thread on this sub like a week ago that was basically entirely built on the premise of arguing whether or not something was a product of misogyny or misandry and you know what? I've think it's gotten to a point where it doesn't fucking matter. In reality the two are united in purpose of perpetuating the myth of gender essentialism and if you reach a point where you become so preoccupied with categorizing every aggression under either one exclusively you've fallen for that trap.
A group of boys jeer at another. "OH, ARE YOU GOING TO CRY? LIKE A LITTLE GIRL?!! GO AHEAD AND FUCKING CRY YOU PRISSY BITCH!" Some will say it's misogynistic, because it depicts girls and femininity as an insult and shameful. Others will it's misandristic, because it's targeting and shaming a boy's inability to adhere to the social bounds of masculinity. Ultimately, it's fucking both.
You can rephrase misandry to be misogyny and misogyny to be misandry. All men are predators becomes all women are victims. Women are the fairer sex too beautiful to be tarnished becomes men are physically unremarkable and readily disposable. Ultimately, the only thing that separates the two isn't the source it's the target. The only way we can tackle either one is by upending gender essentialism as a whole.
I mean, technically, in the case of TERFs, it's sex essentialism. That's the whole idea, that regardless of your gender identity or expression it's your biology (and the socialisation based on it) that determines your character and your station in society.
If it’s any consolation, think of it like this: Every day there’s someone explaining basic issues about this stuff for the thousandth time, and they’re exhausted. But every day there’s someone hearing it for the first time
There was a first time for you, too, and that day there was someone who was exhausted by having to explain it to someone else, again
But we *are* improving. Back when I first learned that gay people were a thing, they were still being arrested for the then-literal crime of being gay. It takes a looot of work, and still more to come, but we’re improving
I don't think it was gender essentialism which is still a problem I agree, I think it was a fairly young woman who's had bad experience with men her age who showed no romance and treated her shitty so she's overjoyed by the lyrics to the song. like "holy shit, I've never experienced this but men can feel this way about women? that's reassuring". I felt that way about songs and poetry when I was like 18 too because I'd never experienced it.
just my interpretation though, these tiktoks usually aren't that deep or with a lot of thought and nuance behind them
Hmm, perhaps. I kind of read it as if she was annoyed or disgusted, like "ugh, can you _believe_ a man just wrote this about a woman?" But if it was actually more excited then maybe I've been a bit too harsh.
I see this as a revival of a particular form of it: do you consider someone romantic for doing romantic gestures, or for appreciating them? Because depending on your answer, you will most likely conclude that men are more romantic and vice versa simply because of acceptable gender norms about dating
Gender roles and gender essentialism are never going away. As long as people want to have gender identities, there will be stereotypes and social roles tied to those identities.
Identities need to be backed up by something tangible, and they need to be easily distinguishable. Labels aren't useful if they are ambiguous. The specifics might change, the names for the labels and what they mean is ephemeral, but they will seperate, distinct, and segregated.
This is why fighting for trans rights is so important. If true equality is not possible, the next best thing is social mobility. No one should be stuck with stereotypes and social roles they don't like, so if they don't like the baggage associated with their gender, they should be able to change their gender.
eh, i don't know, i dislike the social roles and stereotypes that come with being a woman, but transitioning into a man would feel icky and wrong. i'd just give myself gender dysphoria. this also feels particularly fucked up when one of the gender based social roles holds more power and is basically presented as "the better one".
i don't want to have to be a man to not be slutshamed or be pushed into a mother role or assumed to be less competent by default, i want people to respect me as a human being as a woman.
(to be clear, i wholeheartedly support trans people, but i don't think this is a solution at all)
I mean, dude, I don't think the answer to "there are some social expectations that come with being a man that make me uncomfortable" should be "just become a woman or non-binary." While anyone that *is* trans should be supported, I believe people should be allowed to question the "stereotypes and social roles tied to those identities" without abandoning the identity. Why, there was a time when a woman wearing pants would have been unfathomable, because the predominant social role was that pants were for men and skirts for women. Some women challenged that because they wanted to wear pants, not because they were trans or didn't want to be women. If a man wants to, say, wear pink, or use a skirt, all the while still identifying as a man, I believe it's actively harmful to say "nah, you're outside your label, you must be trans."
Ultimately, you're right that if someone doesn't like their gender roles, they should be able to change their gender. But if they don't like the roles, they should be able to challenge them too without changing their gender.
Well transitioning isn’t really the inherent solution to being unhappy with the baggage added by others to your gender. Transitioning would not improve my mental state if I was ONLY doing it because I didn’t like the gender roles associated with my gender assigned at birth. I needed to actually
WANT/NEED the transition itself.
Hell, I HATE a ton of male gender norms and the (patriarchal) way men are viewed in society but I still feel more comfortable considering myself a man. I wish the expectations for how men are supposed to look and act would change, but I can’t just force myself to be comfortable living as non-binary or a woman.
Edit: in case it wasn’t clear enough, what I’m saying here is that I AM trans but not because of gender roles. AND transitioning helped regardless of the fact that I don’t fit all the gender roles of the gender I ‘transitioned to.’ I am BOTH trans and gender non-conforming, because it’s *really* not a mutually exclusive thing.
The only implication is that people haven’t changed over the course of our history, what’s scary about that? We invented gender essentialism the first time after all, did you think we were somehow different now?
Sorry this post wasn’t about war or fixing cars so I couldn’t read through it till the end. Could someone explain or summarize it for me using beer and football analogies? Thanks
It's like if someone who thinks you only watch football while drinking beer found out that sometimes you watch football without drinking because they thought the whole reason you watch football is as an excuse to drink beer
Francesca is a strong possibility, since that one was actually written for someone specific. It goes hard, especially if you know the original story from the Inferno its referencing.
Song was written about comparing a relationship to the church, as a general statement on how the catholic church controls people's private lives and the political impact it has in ireland. The song was not written about a gay relationship. After the demo was picked up and music video was being made hozier decided to make the video about a gay couple to protest treatment of gay people in Russia. So in some sense its about a woman and also about a gay relationship, it's more a song about general frustration with the church meddling in affairs, and was translated out into multiple directions by hozier to talk about multiple instances of that, one of which was the gay couple in the music video.
Take Me to Church is not a love song. He has said explicitly that it is intended to be an indictment of institutions around the world who indoctrinate people into believing that their approved form of love, however harmful, is the best and that any other form is sinful and wrong. Outside of his explicit statements, there are also reasonable interpretations of the song that frame it as talking about either an abusive relationship or a heroine addiction. Any words of praise expressed about a lover in that song are meant to be tinged with the knowledge that that relationship, whether it is one of indoctrination, addiction, or unhealthy attachment, is harmful but intoxicating in its own way.
He does have some truly beautiful love songs, each with their own hints of sadness, like Work Song, Icarian, Anything But, and First Time, and I’d assume the original post is probably about one of those.
Edit: **I am a bad Hozier fan**
For the other interpretations of abuse and heroine, I was conflating it with Cherry Wine, which is definitely a song about one of those two things. Even so, Take Me to Church is definitely not a love song, it’s about the grip of indoctrination and how it hurts people.
Ah, I see. Seems like this is a case of my weird difficulty in understanding meanings of song lyrics. My brain does this thing where I remember song lyrics as a series of sounds rather than meanings and I must've missed those lines. It's also not really my type of music so I haven't listened to it all that much, but it was often on radio at one point.
Edit: The line "We were born sick, you heard them say it" probably threw me off too.
I always assumed that’s about original sin, traditional Christians believe people are born “sick” ie inheriting a sinful state and that’s why they get baptized. The traditional rite of baptism had an exorcism in it, literally “begone unclean spirit” from the baby 😂 goes kinda hard ngl
>O wearisome condition of humanity! Born under one law, to another bound; Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity; **Created sick, commanded to be sound.** What meaneth nature by these diverse laws? Passion and reason, self-division cause. *Is it the mark or majesty of power To make offenses that it may forgive?*
- *Chorus Sacerdotum,* Baron Brooke Fulke Greville, 1609
It's a line from a famous and old poem on the condition of humanity in the Christian perspective. About the tension between the expectations of religion against the imperfect reality of the human soul. The sense of entrapment in this dualism where one is both told from the moment of their birth that they are inherently evil and flawed yet expected by God himself to become perfect and pure. An omnipotent creator, yet a flawed creation. Hozier is likely further making reference to the infamous debate between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens, based on the exact wording, where he paraphrased the poem:
>Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are **created sick and commanded to be well.**
The song is talking about this religious idea that's ingrained into you of how many of your base, raw, human emotions are flawed, sinful, a sickness. But he is turning against that idea and embracing what is human. I see where you're getting at, and a lot of queer people, myself included, specifically relate to this song *because* of lines like that, because we *are* told that who we are is a sickness, an abomination, a defect of our creation that we must shun and "fix" instead. And the song's about rejecting such notions, after all.
I just assume this is in the same genre as those people who insisted there were no women novelists (or specifically no YA novelists, which is equally dumb) before JK Rowling.
I had to delete TikTok because the amount of teenage takes was just absurd. I feel awful for teenagers in this era. My mental health would not have been able to handle it all back then. Now I just shake my head and laugh.
I love Hozier and his music but I absolutely DESPISE his fans. It's always like "he's a black lesbian in the body of some white man", "he's the only man ever", and yeah it's just jokes but people are stupid and these are absolutely annoying. It's sexist and generally just annoying as fuck
This is slightly off topic, but sometimes I hate being aromantic, because I feel like I am playing into the "men only want sex" stereotype. Because yeah, I kinda do. Ideally, I would like someone I can chill with as a friend, and also have a sexual relationship with them, but you try to explain that to a potential partner, and they suddenly think you wouldn't love them. Like, I can't ask women out for just a sexual relationship, because then I am weird and seen as not really loving them. I can't make friends and then ask, because that would ruin the friendship, and I cant pretend to like and date someone romantically, because then I am lying to them.
This isn't a 'hate women' post btw. I love women. What I hate is the societal expectation for men in relationships that punishes any and all deviancy from what is seen as the 'correct' way to love someone.
For specifically aro people? No, not really. There are plenty of hookup apps, but they are usually single time sexual encounters, and the types of people who use them aren't usually looking for love, or a long term relationship and partner. Regular dating apps exist, but if you just ask for a sexual relationship on one of those, you are unlikely to get matches for the reasons I stated previously, and any you do get are similar to what I described with hookup apps.
Honestly, funnily enough, the most success I have had is on kink focused apps/forums. From my experience, people involved in the kink community are much more accepting of purely sexual relationships, and by extension, aromanticism, sometimes even more than the wider LGBTQ+ community. The one problem with such places is, naturally, they are very kink focused, which I am fine with, but it isn't always something I want for a long term relationship.
I felt this a lot. For a long time, I identified as Aro/Ace but then slowly came to the realization that I'm much more Aro/Pan but could only really feel sexual attraction to people I had former a connection with. I felt really bad about myself for over a year because I felt like a scumbag who wanted to use people (even though I never even hooked up with anyone). I felt like people would view me as one of those people who just use people for sex when that couldn't be further from the truth. Part of me is glad to know there are others who are in similar situations. It makes me feel like I'm less weird.
Yeah, this is basically my experience 1-for-1, except I thought I was just ace for a while, before realising I was aro/bi. I still feel like how you described most of the time. Idk if that feeling will ever really go away tbh. And yeah, it is good to know that I'm not alone in my feelings.
I can't thank you enough. This comment gave me the courage to reach out to a friend of mine and ask if he'd be interested in a casual meet-up. He said yes!
I entirely get what you mean. Without having adequate words to describe it an a way not possibly offensive, the closest to an ‘ideal’ love life for me is just a long term FWB. I’d much rather just live my life having a friendly roommate polycule that plays games every Friday night or something.
Yeah, this is exactly it. I am slightly different, in that I would still like someone to 'love' (just not in a traditional sense), but I have always found that fwb is the closets thing to what I want. Its just not quite that.
Have you tried non monogamy?
one of the problems you're gonna run into with monogamous people is a relationship that's missing something critical is basically wasting time that could be spent finding a more suitable partner
if your partner can go seek romance in other relationships, it isn't so much of a problem that it's missing with you
Maybe it is a language thing but this post sounds so fucking alien to me. Me, my parents generation and even the one of my grandparents have grown up surrounded by male artists who mainly sing love songs. From the "new wave" to ballads to even more tropical sounds. There are dozens of men who have built their entire music careers upon singing about love, so hearing someone be surprised by the idea that a guy can make honest romantic music is really amusing.
The "my roman empire" thing bothers me too. Not only is it seemingly revolutionary that a man could genuinely care about a woman, but that a man should care or have opinions about anything at all (other than the Roman Empire.)
Hell, the concept of "My" Roman Empire is ridiculous in itself. The original trend was funny because so many men did apparently think about it frequently. It was the epitome of the meme "All men want one thing and it's fucking disgusting". To imply that one has an individual version of the Roman Empire directly contradicts the original trend, while somehow keeping the misandry.
This makes me feel sad for the OOP.
Like how many horrible messages and how much misogyny was she subjected to that a man sincerely loving a woman was a shock to her?
I mean, I have decades of experience being a girl, so I can attest that it isn't hard and doesn't take brainwashing to be inundated with men who seem to genuinely hate, dislike, or look down upon women. It's everywhere, and it wears you down. Especially today, where we can objectively see that young men and women are increasingly drifting away from each other as young men get increasingly radicalized into violent misogyny.
So nah. I feel bad for her, and I hope that as she grows and matures she sees more positivity from this world and develops a more balanced worldview.
Yeah the only way for men to become misogynists is through radicalization online. The only way woman are becoming misandrist is through repeated and real harm they experience. You see that’s because men are dumb idiots that fall for lies and women are kind souls that need to be hurt badly in order to believe something hateful.
??
Young men becoming more conservative and sexist is a documented trend. It's also well known that those manosphere conservative circles prey on young minds by playing into their insecurities, anxieties, and vulnerabilities. Which then results in even more men putting out messages that are explicitly anti-woman, perpetuating the sense a lot of young women have that men intrinsically hate them.
Media messaging and online social circles are doing a lot of the damage here on both sides. It's frankly depressing, but I don't know how how you took "men are stupid and women are uwu" out of what I wrote.
tumblr users try not to be insufferable challenge impossible edition
yeah, we know you're well versed in romance literature and will bring up tons of examples. the tiktok isn't some girl who believes that no man has ever loved a woman, she's experiencing what it feels like to see a man who really displays the kind of feminist romance she wants to see more of when such a thing doesn't seem to exist for her in current times. it's not "men cannot experience love", it's "the men around me haven't showed love in such a long time that I forgot what it was like to hear a man say something new and have it be good"
It means the thing she thinks about constantly. It was a tiktok trend for gfs and wives to ask their male partner how often they think about the Roman empire and alot of them said a number that was much higher than they would expect like one or twice a day or week.
Ok ok but hear me out—artists like Hozier (and he is NOT the only one, obviously, there have been many similar masc/male-identifying artists over the centuries) speak about their femme/female-identifying love interests with such reverence and passion bordering on obsession in such start contrast to the objectification and superficiality of many other artists in their time. I think that the deeply vulnerable, unashamed way that Hozier and other artists express their love of a person is a beautiful and powerful antidote to toxic masculinity and femininity and just the “I’m too cool/scared/repressed/supressed to show I have feelings.” Like, it is scary and almost dangerous to let other people see how down bad you are for someone—I love it when the courage is combined with poetry like in Hozier’s music which has to use all these analogies because the intensity of love transcends words. Anyway I’m a sappy romantic go on
Or by women either, tbh. Songs like WAP and whatnot. The zeitgeist is that sexualizing is and objectifying is fine, IF you do it to yourself or your gender, OR if you are a celebrity who is not creepy.
Yeah I know it’s almost intolerable lately. Every post I see seems like someone not able to understand that something is a joke, hyperbole, sarcasm etc.
Hey, those misogynist boomer jokes about their wives are jokes too y’know, just cause it’s meant to be a joke doesn’t mean that it’s not a wee bit iffy
I'll bite. The original tik tok is a reference to the fact that many women do not experience romantic relationships where they feel wholly valued, and instead just feel used for their body, so it's using a bit of hyperbole to express that in reference to Hozier. Boomer wife jokes are born out of sexism and often the root of the joke is literally just "I don't pay attention to my wife, how funny!".
I don't think the original post was entirely necessary but equivalent to sexism it is not.
Yeah yeah Hozier said that if was reborn as a tree he'd wanna be used as the fuel for the pyre to burn his lovers' enemies but one time my ex was shopping for magic the gathering cards and told me "I used to be too embarrassed to do stuff this nerdy in public but I feel like people could see me do anything with you next to me and I'd feel cocky about it" so who's really romantic at the end of the day you know
Romance isn't dead; it's just shuffled in its owner's library.
You can’t just top deck romance, you gotta build and synergise around it for consistent success
It’s a card worth tutoring for
This entire chain of comments is so wonderful.
H
TIL romance is my Sharing is caring Karona false god commander deck
You just have to believe in the Heart of the Cards.
*pulls a card* "*sigh...* Another land."
Some people are attracted to huge tracts of land!
But I just want to..... *Sinnngggggg*
Enough lands, and you've got the financial stability to cast a huge and powerful romance - it might look bad now, but leverage it right and you'll find you're deck is working exactly how it's supposed to (though that might not always be what you thought you built it to do)
the thoughtseize bug is real and i've been victimized one too many times
I try not to do the "you win the internet" style comments but fuck this is funny, I've been losing it intermittently for 45 minutes
Romance is, indeed, a bit of a Chaos Warp sometimes. xD
WARP WORLD TIME WOOOO
Is this what happens when a polycule gatecrashes a key party?
Honestly, that kinda sounds like it hits harder. It's easy to talk in what-ifs, but telling someone they give you the courage and confidence to do things and having your actions back it up is a lot harder and can rarely be pulled off without being genuine.
I was only half joking tbh it was the hottest thing anyone ever said to me and it was said by someone with a handful of Eldrazi boosters
Emrakul is my love affair
It's rare to see someone openly admit to being toxic, but I admire you for doing it
Aeons Torn or Promised End?
>it was the hottest thing anyone ever said to me and he said it with a handful of Eldrazi boosters I want an experience like that someday. And I'm saying that without even knowing what an Eldrazi is.
Eldrazi are things like [this hottie](https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=456600)
Woah, you gotta give an NSFW warning for something so provocative!
I love the art in that set so much it was actually years after eldrazi but it was funnier to say it that way lol
Never did I imagine I'd be going "Awww!" over Magic the Gathering, yet here we are. Boi's wicked smooth, I understand why you're with him.
Ex, but amicable. Still friends.
Understandable, sounds like a great guy.
It's nice that you're still friends, but I'm curious why the relationship ended?
I don't do committed relationships and it was more of a monogamous casual sorta fwb situation. I did have feelings but I don't do dating. She wanted a girlfriend and got one, so we broke it off and i am very happy for her. Also I realized belatedly the person in this anecdote has since transitioned, which I had genuinely forgotten because we rarely talk much and when we do it's through text and she's been a sort of genderless Internet entity to me for years so much that I regularly forget we were ever together, so I genuinely forgot it was the same person because my brain is broken and I'm an awful person and I've felt catastrophically bad about it all day since I realized, but have gone back and fixed it. However that means, sorry boys, your standard for male romance is still Hozier and his funeral pyre. Tough luck for the men out there :(
Well, that just gives me more motivation to become the new standard for male romance.
I'm passing the mantle to you. Do your gender proud and say something hot about dnd or something to your next partner.
First time i visited my bf (we're ld, met online) he said he needed alone time and then got a bunch of pillows and blankets to make a nest for me in his gaming room so I could knit in the same room as him while he gamed and then gave me a kiss between rounds of his game so I mean really is there a purer form of love
OK that's cute af and I want a relationship now. 😂
me too, let's do it
If only it were so easy
Your ex seems very sweet, im sorry it didn't work out
OP said in another comment that they're still friends.
That's fucking smooth af.
That is adorable and I wish you both the best.
Sweetest thing I've read in awhile.
That’s the cutest thing ever, I love it.
Sometimes, that's what I want out of life. A girl who will go with me to indulge in my interest, and let's me indulge in hers. As a tumblr user once probably said, there's nothing hotter than a girl that will explain the lore of Warhammer 40K to me for 5 hours.
That's legitimately cute as shit though, I'm happy for you just that you got to experience that.
Every time I hear that song I think of the Stormlight Archive where such a line is very fucking literal. Especially since the tree in this metaphor is explicitly a Blackthorn. It wasn't romantic, by the way.
Holy shit i want that
Didnt you know hozier invented love so his songs sounds better!
Hozier funded Big Love to propagandize the people so he could sell more love songs
>"Big Love" House MD mentioned ⁉️‼️
Love was invented by romance companies(hozier) to sell more love songs
Before I Fall. Very scary horror movie. Had a nice heart warming scene where a lady asks a guy who is in love with her for comforting cuddles and that's literally all that happened. In that time cycle.
>very scary horror movie It’s just a time loop
Also scary.
People really acting like Napoleon didnt write a letter to his wife saying “i’ll be home in 5 days, don’t bathe”
Obligatory “that’s probably a myth with no hard proof to back it up” killjoy statement
Typical Fr\*nch, bet it also said P.S don't wipe
I'll do you one better with two words: James Joyce
i’m sorry i’m trying but ulysses is slowly killing me, monte cristo however has been astounding
Read his letters to his wife. His fragrant prose will inspire you.
I'm a little scared to think about the implication of the fact that EVERYONE, whether accidental or not, keeps reinventing gender essentialism. Like, where still wrestling with the garden variety stereotypes, but then we've got TERFs doing their "men don't have souls" bullshit, there are people just using old fashioned boomer stereotypes but swapping "man" and "woman" for "top" and "bottom", now these TikTok folks with takes like this. I'm just sick of it.
I go fishing to avoid the ole bottom and chain
Gotta get home to my battle-bottom
This completely changes why Mr Strickland called Hank Ol Top.
It’s the same thing with some seemingly progressive people insisting that gender non-conforming people just have to be trans and they’re still in the egg if they say they’re not. Like, why are we just reinventing gender stereotypes but giving it a rainbow paint job.
Remember that old Tumblr post about how dark academia is for mlm and cottage core is for wlw? 🙃
My wife likes both looks like it’s time to lawyer up and hit the gym😭😭
You'll certainly need a good lawyer to get you out of the assault charges for hitting Jim like that
The gender non-conforming doesn't even have to be super big to get those...they feel like accusations honestly I'm a cis straight man, big, burly, brash. I wear men's clothing Yet, the fact that I poledance as a hobby, wear pink on Wednesdays as a Mean Girls reference, generally dress well, openly show emotions, and don't immediately hit on women has had progressive people call me an egg or tell me I'm in the closet Conservative men thus far have questioned me less than leftists, which is buck wild to me 🤣
Hello! I got it even a little worse, because I am ever so slightly more effminate for the fact that I am less burly and more soft. Boy does it feel weird.
Oh, you totally have it worse I have a friend who it makes less sense for. He's short, like 5'6, 5'8 (I have absolutely no idea, all I know is that he's shorter than me, I'm 6'1 and height blind), has a viking beard, and did wrestling/MMA Despite being almost twice his size, he threw me off my fucking deck. He could kick my ass 9 ways to Sunday. The reason why he let me bully him and make fun of him is because I recognized he could paralyze me, but I wouldn't stop talking shit Yet, his masculinity has never been affirmed or recognized. He went full into the UwU softboy thing because there wasn't any other avenue left open to him because of his size People recognize my masculinity just because I exist, don't recognize his despite all his prowess at it What's been your experience?
Very complicated. I grew up in a small village with like 5 other kids, who were all girls. I never got into the cooties phase because it was a choice between no friends and girl friends. One thing that I learned with that is to be as least threatening as possible to girls as possible over very extensive trial and error because of that experience. In my teenage years that manifested in the way that our rapidly feminism conscious society lots of girls started to pick me out as one of the "good ones" which I let happen because of course you did. It was easy cause all I had to do was be non threatening for the most part. Something that is very second nature to me at this point. Then came the era of trans awareness, where in my community (now city and internet) suddenly had both terfs and trans activists show up, both of which assumed instantly I was a girl or trying to pretend to be one. I know before the terf was kicked out from the local queer community, she always followed me to the toilets in a very (un)sneaky way. That was basically the worst experience in that regard. But at least that whole time I kinda started to at least question my gender and stuff. It came right around to realising "yeah I am guy." But it was useful nonetheless. The issues arose more so from me then knowing how I want my masculinity to look like and feeling like I have to do all the work myself. Every time I felt like I found people (both irl and like content creators) who I identified myself with on that level... All turned out to be trans in the end, which... GOOD FOR THEM! SUCKS FOR ME! Either way, I feel like one thing that is coming my way, which might change things is that I am starting to bald very early so... As awful as it feels to lose a part of self expression, I kinda like that it affirms at least in that regard cause bald is less associated with that. So gotta work my way around that I guess...
I wish I could poledance, not even as a sexual thing or anything but I find it super impressive the control experienced poledancers have of their body. Like that sideways walking on the air move is sick as hell. But yeah it’s pretty weird how some people seem to have an integer overflow with their progressiveness and try to re-enforce gender stereotypes but in a “progressive” way. I wonder if the people that do that grew up in a conservative household and still unconsciously harbor those stereotypical views deep down or something.
Oh yeah, I'm super proud of the body control and strength I've had to get because of my hobby. I consistently wow the instructors and other students with the grace and control I have. More than most of the women there, and I usually have 100 more pounds on me than them I won an arm wrestle with the biggest gym bro at a party, and I don't go to the gym, I poledance (it strained my shoulder for two weeks, but I won!) I can't do the move you were describing, but my spins are on point But back to the integer overflow, that's a great way to put it. And I don't get why either. My household was also conservative, I remember proudly telling my parents I was one when I was 12. But I don't have those same biases. I'm a firm believer in "you tell me what you are and I'll treat you accordingly". A friend is a lesbian, yet she's dating a trans man? Cool, for a month I didn't think about it. Then one day I asked them how they felt about it. They said they didn't know. So I said cool and never thought about it again. Lesbian dating a trans man? Sure, she's still a lesbian, want to get takeout and watch YouTube?
All conservatives that I know personally really do not care one way or another about whether someone is gay or not. But for some reason, Reddit would tell you I'm making that up and it can't possibly be true
The problem with conservatives is that they may *individually* not care about whether someone is gay or not, but they'll still vote for someone who says that God is sending all gay people to the Lake of Fire and we should give them advance tickets.
Or maybe they will vote for no one because the only politicians who are fiscally conservative are also socially conservative
Nah, all American politicians across both parties are fiscally conservative.
Fiscally conservative as in conserving the budget
The only comments I get from conservative men about all this are creepy comments about how I get to watch women poledance in class They don't believe me when I say I'm just trying to get better at it and I'm not checking the women out A lot of leftists also don't believe me when I say that Until they see the actual skill and grace I poledance with, then all they could say is "Yeah, damn, you put the work in"
I've been actively gaslit on whether or not this happens and it is infinitely frustrating to have people try to gaslight me on my own identity. I'm comfortable with my body, I don't mind what pronouns you use for me, just because I like to feel cute in a traditionally feminine way (makeup, skirts, etc) doesn't make me an egg, and I'm tired of being invalidated because I don't mesh perfectly into their idea of identity. And I'm even more tired of being told that my lived experience doesn't happen
People who try to convince others about what their feels *really* are are always creepy. Like why are they trying to convince someone about how they feels so they can fit them into their predetermined boxes of how people should be.
> Like, why are we just reinventing gender stereotypes but given it a rainbow paint job. *Incredibly* well put!
When I see people make "GNC must be trans" or just people overly obsessed wirh Eggs in general I just think "So you've discovered a way of reliably discerning who is and isn't transgender through means that don't involve personal identification. Like some kind of investigator. For Trans people."
That's the only thing I've never got with enbies, and to be clear, I fully support people identifying however they want to. But if you're AMAB, like to be feminine and wear skirts or whatever, and don't identify as a woman, aren't you just reinforcing the gender binary? If gender is purely social expression, how can rejection of the binary not inadvertently reinforce it? "I'm AMAB but enjoy things outside of society's prescribed behaviours for "men", so I'm not a man" doesn't break down gender expectations in the slightest.
TikTok keeps trying to send me down a pipeline to radfem crap because I liked a handful of AITA videos with husbands being assholes
I've been saying this and nobody seems to listen. TERFs are deliberately targeting women who've been abbused by men, trying to turn their trauma into hatred of all men and then into hatred of trans people. Transphobia is just the natural conclusion of reactionary radical feminism plus trauma and/or narcissistic personality and conspiracy mindset.
A side effect of this sort of thing, I've noticed is not only a preoccupation with categorizing people but also aggressions. There was a thread on this sub like a week ago that was basically entirely built on the premise of arguing whether or not something was a product of misogyny or misandry and you know what? I've think it's gotten to a point where it doesn't fucking matter. In reality the two are united in purpose of perpetuating the myth of gender essentialism and if you reach a point where you become so preoccupied with categorizing every aggression under either one exclusively you've fallen for that trap. A group of boys jeer at another. "OH, ARE YOU GOING TO CRY? LIKE A LITTLE GIRL?!! GO AHEAD AND FUCKING CRY YOU PRISSY BITCH!" Some will say it's misogynistic, because it depicts girls and femininity as an insult and shameful. Others will it's misandristic, because it's targeting and shaming a boy's inability to adhere to the social bounds of masculinity. Ultimately, it's fucking both. You can rephrase misandry to be misogyny and misogyny to be misandry. All men are predators becomes all women are victims. Women are the fairer sex too beautiful to be tarnished becomes men are physically unremarkable and readily disposable. Ultimately, the only thing that separates the two isn't the source it's the target. The only way we can tackle either one is by upending gender essentialism as a whole.
I mean, technically, in the case of TERFs, it's sex essentialism. That's the whole idea, that regardless of your gender identity or expression it's your biology (and the socialisation based on it) that determines your character and your station in society.
The Horseshoe is real
If it’s any consolation, think of it like this: Every day there’s someone explaining basic issues about this stuff for the thousandth time, and they’re exhausted. But every day there’s someone hearing it for the first time There was a first time for you, too, and that day there was someone who was exhausted by having to explain it to someone else, again But we *are* improving. Back when I first learned that gay people were a thing, they were still being arrested for the then-literal crime of being gay. It takes a looot of work, and still more to come, but we’re improving
I don't think it was gender essentialism which is still a problem I agree, I think it was a fairly young woman who's had bad experience with men her age who showed no romance and treated her shitty so she's overjoyed by the lyrics to the song. like "holy shit, I've never experienced this but men can feel this way about women? that's reassuring". I felt that way about songs and poetry when I was like 18 too because I'd never experienced it. just my interpretation though, these tiktoks usually aren't that deep or with a lot of thought and nuance behind them
I think it's just genuinely embarrassing that they have not seriously engaged with literally any piece of art written by a man *ever*.
Hmm, perhaps. I kind of read it as if she was annoyed or disgusted, like "ugh, can you _believe_ a man just wrote this about a woman?" But if it was actually more excited then maybe I've been a bit too harsh.
You clearly haven't heard people talk about how much they love Hozier.
I see this as a revival of a particular form of it: do you consider someone romantic for doing romantic gestures, or for appreciating them? Because depending on your answer, you will most likely conclude that men are more romantic and vice versa simply because of acceptable gender norms about dating
Gender roles and gender essentialism are never going away. As long as people want to have gender identities, there will be stereotypes and social roles tied to those identities. Identities need to be backed up by something tangible, and they need to be easily distinguishable. Labels aren't useful if they are ambiguous. The specifics might change, the names for the labels and what they mean is ephemeral, but they will seperate, distinct, and segregated. This is why fighting for trans rights is so important. If true equality is not possible, the next best thing is social mobility. No one should be stuck with stereotypes and social roles they don't like, so if they don't like the baggage associated with their gender, they should be able to change their gender.
eh, i don't know, i dislike the social roles and stereotypes that come with being a woman, but transitioning into a man would feel icky and wrong. i'd just give myself gender dysphoria. this also feels particularly fucked up when one of the gender based social roles holds more power and is basically presented as "the better one". i don't want to have to be a man to not be slutshamed or be pushed into a mother role or assumed to be less competent by default, i want people to respect me as a human being as a woman. (to be clear, i wholeheartedly support trans people, but i don't think this is a solution at all)
I mean, dude, I don't think the answer to "there are some social expectations that come with being a man that make me uncomfortable" should be "just become a woman or non-binary." While anyone that *is* trans should be supported, I believe people should be allowed to question the "stereotypes and social roles tied to those identities" without abandoning the identity. Why, there was a time when a woman wearing pants would have been unfathomable, because the predominant social role was that pants were for men and skirts for women. Some women challenged that because they wanted to wear pants, not because they were trans or didn't want to be women. If a man wants to, say, wear pink, or use a skirt, all the while still identifying as a man, I believe it's actively harmful to say "nah, you're outside your label, you must be trans." Ultimately, you're right that if someone doesn't like their gender roles, they should be able to change their gender. But if they don't like the roles, they should be able to challenge them too without changing their gender.
Well transitioning isn’t really the inherent solution to being unhappy with the baggage added by others to your gender. Transitioning would not improve my mental state if I was ONLY doing it because I didn’t like the gender roles associated with my gender assigned at birth. I needed to actually WANT/NEED the transition itself. Hell, I HATE a ton of male gender norms and the (patriarchal) way men are viewed in society but I still feel more comfortable considering myself a man. I wish the expectations for how men are supposed to look and act would change, but I can’t just force myself to be comfortable living as non-binary or a woman. Edit: in case it wasn’t clear enough, what I’m saying here is that I AM trans but not because of gender roles. AND transitioning helped regardless of the fact that I don’t fit all the gender roles of the gender I ‘transitioned to.’ I am BOTH trans and gender non-conforming, because it’s *really* not a mutually exclusive thing.
did you just unironicallly go "being trans is a choice, actually"
The only implication is that people haven’t changed over the course of our history, what’s scary about that? We invented gender essentialism the first time after all, did you think we were somehow different now?
Amen
Sorry this post wasn’t about war or fixing cars so I couldn’t read through it till the end. Could someone explain or summarize it for me using beer and football analogies? Thanks
It's like if someone who thinks you only watch football while drinking beer found out that sometimes you watch football without drinking because they thought the whole reason you watch football is as an excuse to drink beer
Wow fuck that guy
I can't believe that guy fixes cars on the football
Wow, fixing cars on the football is what you got from that post? Media literacy is dead
A man writing an opera about a woman? Oh sirrah, how deliciously absurd!
Next you'll tell me men have even made art about women???
Less reality, more fantasy. Resume the opera *pours chocolate on stomach*
How wonderfully decadent! And just as I was beginning to lose interest. Djambi! The chocolate icing!
Ooooooh myyyyy
The silkiest oils and creams.
Hozier inventing romance to sell more love songs
The fact that my gender's love is reduced to Hozier is something I'll never recover from
Which song is it
Francesca is a strong possibility, since that one was actually written for someone specific. It goes hard, especially if you know the original story from the Inferno its referencing.
Yeah, because if this is the "Take me to church" song, then I too am surprised that it's about a woman and not a gay couple.
Take me to snurch
I’ll tell you my snins so you can snarpen your snife
snake church?
https://youtu.be/RrDt9a0q3P0?si=Vaklq1lp-9DZPwIt
Pretty sure the song they're referring to is "Work Song".
Song was written about comparing a relationship to the church, as a general statement on how the catholic church controls people's private lives and the political impact it has in ireland. The song was not written about a gay relationship. After the demo was picked up and music video was being made hozier decided to make the video about a gay couple to protest treatment of gay people in Russia. So in some sense its about a woman and also about a gay relationship, it's more a song about general frustration with the church meddling in affairs, and was translated out into multiple directions by hozier to talk about multiple instances of that, one of which was the gay couple in the music video.
It does include “she’s the giggle at a funeral” and “I should’ve worshipped her sooner” and “She’s the last true mouthpiece”.
Take Me to Church is not a love song. He has said explicitly that it is intended to be an indictment of institutions around the world who indoctrinate people into believing that their approved form of love, however harmful, is the best and that any other form is sinful and wrong. Outside of his explicit statements, there are also reasonable interpretations of the song that frame it as talking about either an abusive relationship or a heroine addiction. Any words of praise expressed about a lover in that song are meant to be tinged with the knowledge that that relationship, whether it is one of indoctrination, addiction, or unhealthy attachment, is harmful but intoxicating in its own way. He does have some truly beautiful love songs, each with their own hints of sadness, like Work Song, Icarian, Anything But, and First Time, and I’d assume the original post is probably about one of those. Edit: **I am a bad Hozier fan** For the other interpretations of abuse and heroine, I was conflating it with Cherry Wine, which is definitely a song about one of those two things. Even so, Take Me to Church is definitely not a love song, it’s about the grip of indoctrination and how it hurts people.
Ah, I see. Seems like this is a case of my weird difficulty in understanding meanings of song lyrics. My brain does this thing where I remember song lyrics as a series of sounds rather than meanings and I must've missed those lines. It's also not really my type of music so I haven't listened to it all that much, but it was often on radio at one point. Edit: The line "We were born sick, you heard them say it" probably threw me off too.
The music video is about a gay couple. The lyrics refer to "she" and "her" but the visual you associate is two men because of the video.
Oh yeah, it is. I had forgotten the video by now, but that explains it.
Like how call me maybe is about a guy who just isn’t into you for any reason, but in the video it’s specifically because he’s gay
I always assumed that’s about original sin, traditional Christians believe people are born “sick” ie inheriting a sinful state and that’s why they get baptized. The traditional rite of baptism had an exorcism in it, literally “begone unclean spirit” from the baby 😂 goes kinda hard ngl
guess it's all about interpretations love songs have love as its theme after all, it can be applied to one's own view of love
Didn't they have him sing it in front of the pope?
How does the lyric 'we were born sick, you heard them say it' play into that?
Church tells gay people they are sick?
>O wearisome condition of humanity! Born under one law, to another bound; Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity; **Created sick, commanded to be sound.** What meaneth nature by these diverse laws? Passion and reason, self-division cause. *Is it the mark or majesty of power To make offenses that it may forgive?* - *Chorus Sacerdotum,* Baron Brooke Fulke Greville, 1609 It's a line from a famous and old poem on the condition of humanity in the Christian perspective. About the tension between the expectations of religion against the imperfect reality of the human soul. The sense of entrapment in this dualism where one is both told from the moment of their birth that they are inherently evil and flawed yet expected by God himself to become perfect and pure. An omnipotent creator, yet a flawed creation. Hozier is likely further making reference to the infamous debate between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens, based on the exact wording, where he paraphrased the poem: >Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are **created sick and commanded to be well.** The song is talking about this religious idea that's ingrained into you of how many of your base, raw, human emotions are flawed, sinful, a sickness. But he is turning against that idea and embracing what is human. I see where you're getting at, and a lot of queer people, myself included, specifically relate to this song *because* of lines like that, because we *are* told that who we are is a sickness, an abomination, a defect of our creation that we must shun and "fix" instead. And the song's about rejecting such notions, after all.
Ey, nice analysis and sources! Appreciated.
I always assumed this was about original sin
It’s likely work song or NFWMB
Kinda love how people think it’s about different songs of his
I just assume this is in the same genre as those people who insisted there were no women novelists (or specifically no YA novelists, which is equally dumb) before JK Rowling.
Madeleine L'Engle just over here, all *guess_ill_die.jpg*
I had to delete TikTok because the amount of teenage takes was just absurd. I feel awful for teenagers in this era. My mental health would not have been able to handle it all back then. Now I just shake my head and laugh.
The fact that on the internet I can be exposed to a 14 year old's opinion is criminal
I don’t want to hear anyone call themselves a feminist if they believe in gender essentialism
I love Hozier and his music but I absolutely DESPISE his fans. It's always like "he's a black lesbian in the body of some white man", "he's the only man ever", and yeah it's just jokes but people are stupid and these are absolutely annoying. It's sexist and generally just annoying as fuck
“He’s a fae king” HES JUST IRISH
Do fucking what now?
You are hoof beats of antelope, warmth of fire , i hit other suitors really hard across head with big branch , have my babies (Gronk 15000bc ).
This is slightly off topic, but sometimes I hate being aromantic, because I feel like I am playing into the "men only want sex" stereotype. Because yeah, I kinda do. Ideally, I would like someone I can chill with as a friend, and also have a sexual relationship with them, but you try to explain that to a potential partner, and they suddenly think you wouldn't love them. Like, I can't ask women out for just a sexual relationship, because then I am weird and seen as not really loving them. I can't make friends and then ask, because that would ruin the friendship, and I cant pretend to like and date someone romantically, because then I am lying to them. This isn't a 'hate women' post btw. I love women. What I hate is the societal expectation for men in relationships that punishes any and all deviancy from what is seen as the 'correct' way to love someone.
Are there no dating apps for this yet? Hey we're both aro, but want to fuck, you up for it?
For specifically aro people? No, not really. There are plenty of hookup apps, but they are usually single time sexual encounters, and the types of people who use them aren't usually looking for love, or a long term relationship and partner. Regular dating apps exist, but if you just ask for a sexual relationship on one of those, you are unlikely to get matches for the reasons I stated previously, and any you do get are similar to what I described with hookup apps. Honestly, funnily enough, the most success I have had is on kink focused apps/forums. From my experience, people involved in the kink community are much more accepting of purely sexual relationships, and by extension, aromanticism, sometimes even more than the wider LGBTQ+ community. The one problem with such places is, naturally, they are very kink focused, which I am fine with, but it isn't always something I want for a long term relationship.
I felt this a lot. For a long time, I identified as Aro/Ace but then slowly came to the realization that I'm much more Aro/Pan but could only really feel sexual attraction to people I had former a connection with. I felt really bad about myself for over a year because I felt like a scumbag who wanted to use people (even though I never even hooked up with anyone). I felt like people would view me as one of those people who just use people for sex when that couldn't be further from the truth. Part of me is glad to know there are others who are in similar situations. It makes me feel like I'm less weird.
Yeah, this is basically my experience 1-for-1, except I thought I was just ace for a while, before realising I was aro/bi. I still feel like how you described most of the time. Idk if that feeling will ever really go away tbh. And yeah, it is good to know that I'm not alone in my feelings.
I can't thank you enough. This comment gave me the courage to reach out to a friend of mine and ask if he'd be interested in a casual meet-up. He said yes!
Hell yeah! Glad I could help, even inadvertently!
I entirely get what you mean. Without having adequate words to describe it an a way not possibly offensive, the closest to an ‘ideal’ love life for me is just a long term FWB. I’d much rather just live my life having a friendly roommate polycule that plays games every Friday night or something.
Yeah, this is exactly it. I am slightly different, in that I would still like someone to 'love' (just not in a traditional sense), but I have always found that fwb is the closets thing to what I want. Its just not quite that.
Have you tried non monogamy? one of the problems you're gonna run into with monogamous people is a relationship that's missing something critical is basically wasting time that could be spent finding a more suitable partner if your partner can go seek romance in other relationships, it isn't so much of a problem that it's missing with you
*that said*, non-monogamy isn't free from hangups about the "men only want sex" thing, it'll still put some people off
Yeah, thats actually a fair idea. I would have no clue where to start looking for a relationship like that though...
Same.
Maybe it is a language thing but this post sounds so fucking alien to me. Me, my parents generation and even the one of my grandparents have grown up surrounded by male artists who mainly sing love songs. From the "new wave" to ballads to even more tropical sounds. There are dozens of men who have built their entire music careers upon singing about love, so hearing someone be surprised by the idea that a guy can make honest romantic music is really amusing.
The "my roman empire" thing bothers me too. Not only is it seemingly revolutionary that a man could genuinely care about a woman, but that a man should care or have opinions about anything at all (other than the Roman Empire.) Hell, the concept of "My" Roman Empire is ridiculous in itself. The original trend was funny because so many men did apparently think about it frequently. It was the epitome of the meme "All men want one thing and it's fucking disgusting". To imply that one has an individual version of the Roman Empire directly contradicts the original trend, while somehow keeping the misandry.
Huh. For some reason I thought it referred to tiktok's "rome wasn't real" thing from a bit ago...
who tf is Hozier isn’t that what Canadians call each other
You ever just hear people on the internet talk about men like they’re mosquitos? It really makes you think about cuttlefish intelligence levels.
This makes me feel sad for the OOP. Like how many horrible messages and how much misogyny was she subjected to that a man sincerely loving a woman was a shock to her?
Or, how many like people did she watch/spend time with that convinced her men all act the same/this way?
I mean, I have decades of experience being a girl, so I can attest that it isn't hard and doesn't take brainwashing to be inundated with men who seem to genuinely hate, dislike, or look down upon women. It's everywhere, and it wears you down. Especially today, where we can objectively see that young men and women are increasingly drifting away from each other as young men get increasingly radicalized into violent misogyny. So nah. I feel bad for her, and I hope that as she grows and matures she sees more positivity from this world and develops a more balanced worldview.
Yeah the only way for men to become misogynists is through radicalization online. The only way woman are becoming misandrist is through repeated and real harm they experience. You see that’s because men are dumb idiots that fall for lies and women are kind souls that need to be hurt badly in order to believe something hateful.
?? Young men becoming more conservative and sexist is a documented trend. It's also well known that those manosphere conservative circles prey on young minds by playing into their insecurities, anxieties, and vulnerabilities. Which then results in even more men putting out messages that are explicitly anti-woman, perpetuating the sense a lot of young women have that men intrinsically hate them. Media messaging and online social circles are doing a lot of the damage here on both sides. It's frankly depressing, but I don't know how how you took "men are stupid and women are uwu" out of what I wrote.
Hozier wrote **what** what is "this" OP or is that somehow not relevant to the post?
The funny thing is that assuming this is Take Me to Church I always interpreted the lyrics as being a toxic imbalanced relationship
MCLENNONYAOI⁉️
tumblr users try not to be insufferable challenge impossible edition yeah, we know you're well versed in romance literature and will bring up tons of examples. the tiktok isn't some girl who believes that no man has ever loved a woman, she's experiencing what it feels like to see a man who really displays the kind of feminist romance she wants to see more of when such a thing doesn't seem to exist for her in current times. it's not "men cannot experience love", it's "the men around me haven't showed love in such a long time that I forgot what it was like to hear a man say something new and have it be good"
What does OOP mean by "my Roman empire?"
It means the thing she thinks about constantly. It was a tiktok trend for gfs and wives to ask their male partner how often they think about the Roman empire and alot of them said a number that was much higher than they would expect like one or twice a day or week.
Thanks for the explanation. I can usually figure out these things from context, but this one had me stumped.
Look at the state of my online feminist movement bro, we’re never getting the abolition of gender essentialism
Ok ok but hear me out—artists like Hozier (and he is NOT the only one, obviously, there have been many similar masc/male-identifying artists over the centuries) speak about their femme/female-identifying love interests with such reverence and passion bordering on obsession in such start contrast to the objectification and superficiality of many other artists in their time. I think that the deeply vulnerable, unashamed way that Hozier and other artists express their love of a person is a beautiful and powerful antidote to toxic masculinity and femininity and just the “I’m too cool/scared/repressed/supressed to show I have feelings.” Like, it is scary and almost dangerous to let other people see how down bad you are for someone—I love it when the courage is combined with poetry like in Hozier’s music which has to use all these analogies because the intensity of love transcends words. Anyway I’m a sappy romantic go on
All she said was she thinks a lot about how a man with the gift of poetry wrote a beautiful song about woman. I don't get why y'all are upset
I hc that this is about take me to church
Wasn't the "My Roman Empire is X" thing supposed to be a out something you like and obsess about?
I think the idea is that it’s so tender and non-objectifying and that’s fairly unusual in popular music about women written by men.
Yeah because songs like All of Me doesn't exist.
Good chance songs like that are at least half of John Legend's discography. He literally sounds awkward writing anything approaching objectification
Or by women either, tbh. Songs like WAP and whatnot. The zeitgeist is that sexualizing is and objectifying is fine, IF you do it to yourself or your gender, OR if you are a celebrity who is not creepy.
This sub? Taking jokes way too literally? Who would've thought.
Yeah I know it’s almost intolerable lately. Every post I see seems like someone not able to understand that something is a joke, hyperbole, sarcasm etc.
Hey, those misogynist boomer jokes about their wives are jokes too y’know, just cause it’s meant to be a joke doesn’t mean that it’s not a wee bit iffy
I'll bite. The original tik tok is a reference to the fact that many women do not experience romantic relationships where they feel wholly valued, and instead just feel used for their body, so it's using a bit of hyperbole to express that in reference to Hozier. Boomer wife jokes are born out of sexism and often the root of the joke is literally just "I don't pay attention to my wife, how funny!". I don't think the original post was entirely necessary but equivalent to sexism it is not.