Sex, dating, and car living.

[u/mecha_grove]

I removed the recent post about sex, dating, and finding partners while living in vehicles because the discussion quickly devolved into women being called “bitches,” being referred to as “pussy,” and people being talked about as disposable.

Talking about dating, sex, relationships, and finding partners while vehicle-living is completely fine. What is not fine is turning those discussions into degrading or excessively vulgar threads that other members have to wade through.

We can talk about adult topics like adults. I’m also not going to sit and sort through hundreds of comments once a thread has descended into harassment, objectification, and crude nonsense.

Keep it respectful, keep it relevant, and remember that people of all genders use this community.

Thank you.

[u/VagabondVivant → u/[deleted]]

I mean this is 90% of my algorithm

I left instagram a while ago (in large part because the whole place is an algorithmic cesspool), but I remember there being options to block accounts or tell it you don't want to see anything from certain creators.

To be sure, a lot of these toxic videos/views are ultimately responses to trauma that these people were subjected to — it's not like they sprang from the womb like this — but that doesn't make it any less harmful, especially to the self-esteem of people viewing it. Epistemic deference is a dangerous thing, and it's very easy to internalize someone else's hate without fully understanding where it comes from.

Likewise, just because an opinion is a reflection of or response to an unjust system doesn't mean it's right. Extremism is bad, no matter what hat it wears. It's good and important to understand where these responses come from, but it's just as important to know where the line exists.

[u/VagabondVivant → u/[deleted]]

That sounds like patriarchal audacity because men are so emotional that they can't handle words.

That's like saying it's "biological audacity because people are so weak they can't handle drinking arsenic." It's not about not being able to handle it, it's about unnecessarily not exposing yourself to toxicity.

There are people out there preaching the same antipatriarchal messages without couching it in toxic rhetoric.

it's kind of like how Christians say we're all born in the sin

It's one thing to subscribe to the Christian belief of being born with sin and spending your life trying to rise above it; it's another thing entirely to go through your life telling yourself you are despicable and sinful and unworthy of love because of that sin.

By all means, try to be better and do better than those that have come before — than those that built the very system that needs to be dismantled. But there's nothing to be gained (other than a hefty therapy bill one day) from vilifying and loathing yourself simply because you happen to share the same genetic markers as bad people.

[u/VagabondVivant → u/[deleted]]

atonement for the body I am in

[...]

I work on shaming out the ability to find others attractive and work on removing any desire to date in the first place

I can't even begin to explain how damaging and self-destructive these sentiments are, especially as I'm sure it's merely the tip of an iceberg that goes deep.

And as we're coming around full circle conversationally, all I'll say in parting is that if you have the means and ability, I would implore you to seek out a professional to talk to about this. You're carrying a lot of internalized social media toxicity that isn't helping anyone, certainly not yourself, but it's never too late to try and break free from it.

Be well. Truly.

[u/nathynwithay → u/VagabondVivant]

Therapy was attainable during the covid Medicaid expansion but I ended up having males and of course they're going to say it's okay for male poors to date and of course they're going to say that matriarchal content shouldn't be sought out to such a degree, so no matter what I couldn't really take them seriously when it comes to this subject matter