Cripple. History Major. Irritable and in constant pain. Vaguely Left-Wing.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 21st, 2023

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  • What’s that old JFK quote? Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable?

    The state draws its legitimacy from the social contract. When people no longer feel like the social contract is beneficial to them or to society - ie as one might feel with a healthcare system that is 100+ years out of date and has received one (1) bandaid for normal folk in the past 50 years - the state can no longer expect individuals to uphold their end of the social contract (adherence to laws, norms, and peaceable conduct).

    This doesn’t mean “the overthrow of the government is coming tomorrow”, but rather means that the social contract is beginning to fray, and a failure of those in power to recognize and accede to that fact (by making major concessions) will result in this sort of incident continually intensifying until… well, until the social contract is gone to a large swathe of people, and then at that point, the overthrow of the government will be imminent, for better or worse.

    All interactions between state and citizen are implicitly negotiated. Negotiations require leverage. Violence has always been a form of leverage. But assassinations are far more powerful leverage than riots.







  • PugJesus@lemmy.worldto196@lemmy.blahaj.zone95% male platform go brrrrrrule
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    1 day ago

    That would be way cuter than downvoting someone for a good faith disagreement!

    With all seriousness, while I do actually wish I had that kind of power, the more likely explanation is that you’re in the uncomfortable position of speaking truth to power. There IS a sexism problem on Lemmy and it DOES need to be addressed, and that you’re vocal in attacking it is inevitably unpopular. I generally take the more moderate side in our disagreements, but that also means that there are inevitably shitheads ‘agreeing’ with me not because they share my opinion, but simply because I’m commenting in opposition to an opinion they hate even more.

    Fact is, while I absolutely believe everything I say, it’s also true that nothing would get done if everyone was part of the ‘shake hands and make nice’ brigade. I definitely stiffen the quills and get pissed when I see sexism that I think is deliberate, but unintentional sexism is still something that must be driven out. Hell, I’m part of the problem in a sense - I’ve definitely seen edge cases where I thought “Fuck, is this sexist or am I being sensitive?”, and left it entirely without comment, not even a “Just wanted to let you know it sounds a bit” or “Could you clarify…?” because I didn’t want to wade in.

    It’s something I criticize others often on other subjects, but the fact is that everyone has issues that they are harder and softer on. People who are part of the asspat brigade may be useful for eventually reaching out and bridging the shitheads to a less shitheaddy mode of existence, but we’re fucking useless in driving the fuckers out of places where decent people congregate, and both are necessary - in varying proportions according to the state of a given community. Lemmy needs more people who take a hard line against sexist behavior, not more guys who see where the prickly reaction button is being hit - Lemmy has plenty of us already.

    Keep doing what you’re doing, spujb. Someone sure as hell has to.



  • PugJesus@lemmy.worldto196@lemmy.blahaj.zone95% male platform go brrrrrrule
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    1 day ago

    Okay agree.

    Cool, we’re in agreement. 🙏

    It’s not appropriate (as the context of the selfie originator is unavailable, and absent that context or other signifiers, any selfie should be assumed to be non-sexual), but it is dependent on an assumption of or misreading of context (presumably in good faith) rather than a sheer bloody-minded determination to give a passing woman the metaphorical wolf-whistle.

    Just please approach this “well technically” rhetoric with caution. Can be easily misread, as I did, just in the opposite direction.

    I mean, it’s more than a technicality considering your response was to accuse him of having his first thought upon seeing a woman to comment on her breasts unprovoked. “This your first time on the internet?” implying that such comments are inherently acceptable is a dick response from him, so fuck him, but a defensive response of some sort was going to be inevitable given the (ha) context.

    If I mess up cleaning a pan because I rarely use pans (tinfoil brigade reporting), messing up cleaning the pan is not made okay by the fact that I do it rarely (I should have been prepared, I should have been more attentive, etc), but if someone accuses me of having left the pan dirty on purpose, I will absolutely respond with vitriol, when otherwise I would have inquired as to what I did wrong or been apologetic (not to imply that that’s the average response from someone objectifying someone else inappropriately, simply pointing out that IF they’re reachable, they then become less reachable by that human reaction). Because then it’s been transformed from a mistake to a deliberate offense.


  • Okay… let’s back up. Forget the text on the shirt— A woman’s clothes do not make an invitation to objectification. Period. Other context might, but just clothes does not do it. Hope this is clear haha.

    Sure, which is why context is important, and why rando selfies uploaded by someone other than the rando are difficult to place in context and pretty inherently uncomfortable to me. Sexual jokes about other people are also generally uncomfortable to me, but I also recognize that it’s a form of humor that is not inherently illegitimate.

    My point here is only that “On a pic of someone with a shirt with a sexual joke on it, a commenter makes a sexual joke related to the shirt’s sexual joke” is not entirely out of left field. There is a clear chain of thought that is not inherently absurd, not just “The first thing thought of when they saw a woman is ‘comment on her breasts for no reason’”. Your view is that he misread the context - that the context is NOT sexual and humorous, his view is that the context was sexual and humorous to begin with; mine is that these contextless selfies who aren’t posted by the, uh, self, lend themselves to this kind of clash.

    (To answer your question yes it is a double entendre in the video but this isn’t the video. Fans wear merch all the time, and merch that has suggestive content still doesn’t give an OK to sexualization.)

    I know this is secondary to the main point, but I can’t held but return to it - if it’s a double entendre in the video and a double entendre in common usage, how is its usage on the shirt not a double entendre?


  • Nope, rare PugJesus L I’m sorry. It’s not a double entendre, it’s an obvious Madonna reference.

    … is it not a double-entendre when she wore it in that video? I’ve only ever heard it (and adaptations) used in the context of a double-entendre, and the song’s lyrics and visuals don’t seem to contradict any such interpretation. I mean, it’s literally used in the scene where the boy who presumably impregnates the girl of the lyrics/video/Madonna’s depiction first catches her eyes in a clear depiction of a sexually charged first meeting/attraction/whatever.

    Wearing Madonna’s clothes, especially clothes that reference a pretty serious non-sexual video, is not a reasonable invitation to body objectification.

    I mean, commenting on a rando’s selfie that’s not posted by said rando is so devoid of context that I often have trouble discerning what is and is not appropriate (regarding the behavior of the commenters, not myself - I generally don’t have the urge to comment on said photos), so it’s more of a general observation, but, absent all that, “Woman wearing a shirt with a sexualized message gets a sexualized joke directly related to the content of that message” does not seem, on a first reading, absurd, other than in general crassness that can be applied to sexualized jokes about people in any circumstance.

    If she was uncomfortable with it, it would be unambiguously wrong instead of just lacking in context that would make it appropriate (ie an offense rather than a mistake). But, as I said - unless a rando’s selfie is uploaded by said rando, there’s no context, so my observation of whether the comment is appropriate is in a vacuum, and may not fit the context of the conversation or atmosphere of the comment thread.

    (edited for clarifications)


  • PugJesus@lemmy.worldto196@lemmy.blahaj.zone95% male platform go brrrrrrule
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    1 day ago

    “Italians do it better” is an intentional double entendre, so I feel moving to a more sexual commentary is not wholly out of the ballpark of reasonableness.

    Fuck “Is this your first day on the internet” response, though, and the other two weird comments.

    We really 95% male here, though? I thought it was more like 70-30.