#and there's an article on sex

[maaarine]

Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? (Celeste Davis, Oct 6 2024)

"White flight is a term that describes how white people move out of neighborhoods when more people of color move in.

White flight is especially common when minority populations become the majority. That neighborhood then declines in value.

Male flight describes a similar phenomenon when large numbers of females enter a profession, group, hobby or industry—the men leave. That industry is then devalued.

Take veterinary school for example:

In 1969 almost all veterinary students were male at 89%.

By 1987, male enrollment was equal to female at 50%.

By 2009, male enrollment in veterinary schools had plummeted to 22.4%

A sociologist studying gender in veterinary schools, Dr. Anne Lincoln says that in an attempt to describe this drastic drop in male enrollment, many keep pointing to financial reasons like the debt-to-income ratio or the high cost of schooling.

But Lincoln’s research found that “men and women are equally affected by tuition and salaries.”

Her research shows that the reason fewer men are enrolling in veterinary school boils down to one factor: the number of women in the classroom.

For every 1% increase in the proportion of women in the student body, 1.7 fewer men applied.

One more woman applying was a greater deterrent than $1000 in extra tuition! (…)

Since males had dominated these professions for centuries, you would think they would leave slowly, hesitantly or maybe linger at 40%, 35%, 30%, but that’s not what happens.

Once the tipping point reaches majority female- the men flee. And boy do they flee!

It’s a slippery slope. When the number of women hits 60% the men who are there make a swift exit and other men stop joining.

Morty Schapiro, economist and former president of Northwestern University has noticed this trend when studying college enrollment numbers across universities:

“There’s a cliff you fall off once you become 60/40 female/male. It then becomes exponentially more difficult to recruit men.”

Now we’ve reached that 60% point of no return for colleges.

As we’ve seen with teachers, nurses and interior design, once an institution is majority female, the public perception of its value plummets.

Scanning through Reddit and Quora threads, many men seem to be in agreement - college is stupid and unnecessary.

A waste of time and money. You’re much better off going into the trades, a tech boot camp or becoming an entrepreneur. No need for college. (…)

When mostly men went to college? Prestigious. Aspirational. Important.

Now that mostly women go to college? Unnecessary. De-valued. A bad choice. (…)

School is now feminine. College is feminine. And rule #1 if you want to safely navigate this world as a man? Avoid the feminine.

But we don’t seem to want to talk about that."

[mxjackparker]

"Having worked in a hotel both as a hospitality worker and as a hooker, I feel as though I'm in a particularly good place to discuss interactions between the two. Sex workers will often spend time in bars, restaurants and particularly hotels with our clients in ways that may make our profession obvious. Once we're spotted, hotel workers have to decide whether they're going to do anything about it."

A breakdown of the training that hotel workers get to spot sex trafficking, why it harms sex workers and fails to help victims of paid sexual abuse in equal measure, and what hotel workers should do instead.

After seeing so many people react to this post I made about leaving sex workers alone when you spot them in hospitality environments, I thought I'd provide a more comprehensive look into the supposed red flags and the reasons it's a bad idea to report those you suspect are being trafficked (not least because you're probably wrong)!

[canonicallysoulmates]

There's been too many cases of abusive men using BDSM as a way to gaslight their victims and excuse their abuse and I think one of the reasons why they get away with this so often is because, from what I have seen, they target women who are either new to the community or have no knowledge, or an erroneous idea, of what BDSM is and what healthy dom/sub dynamics are like so when they're confronted with their abuse they throw the BDSM card and take advantage of that lack of knowledge to get away with what they do. Which is why I know there's at least one person out there who needs to hear the following:

BDSM always involves consent.

You should be encouraged to share what you are into, what you aren't into, and what you're willing to try and if any of those things change. You can have boundaries and limitations. These can change.

A big part of BDSM is communication. If the person you're with makes you feel bad about this, or like you can't say that you don't like or don't want to try something they are not a dom, they are abusive.

Safewords and signals are things that should be discussed and their use encouraged. If the person you are with makes you feel bad about using your safeword or pausing the scene, they are not a dom, they are abusive.

You could have spent hours/days/months eagerly planning a scene that involves doing the kinkiest, freakiest things if at any point you change your mind you can revoke your consent. If the person, or people, you are having sex with doesn't stop that is not BDSM. That is abuse, that is rape, that is assault.

BECAUSE BDSM ALWAYS INVOLVES CONSENT.

And if a man who claims to be into BDSM and that they're a "dom" tries to tell you any different run in the opposite direction. They are not dominant, they are abusive.

[sidsinning]

HELP

ON LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR'S WIKIPEDIA PAGE

WHAT THE FUCK WEDHFCGDHSJEDFVGHFDESW

I'M CRYING WHO WROTE THIS

[fob4ever]

patrick, 2007

[eyelinerandmcr]

something i love about gerard way is that you're always going to find out some new freaky thing about him no matter how long youve been in the fandom. like for example i just read an article where he said he enjoys a guy grabbing his ass but it depends on how they grab it

[william-snekspeare]

gender is (little guys) vs (BIG!).

[boasamishipper]

the question isn’t whether helly/helena is going to find out she’s pregnant. the question is going to be which one of them is the mother.

[maaarine]

Why are British teenage girls so unhappy? Here’s the answer (Caitlin Moran, The Times, Sep 13 2024)

"The report, by the Children’s Society, found that British 15-year-old girls are the most unhappy in Europe.

British girls aged 10-15 are “significantly less happy” with their life, appearance, family and school than the average boy — and their happiness is still declining.

Boys’ life satisfaction, meanwhile, remains broadly stable. (…)

But I still didn’t have an “aha!” moment about why this so disproportionately affects girls until… I talked to some teenage girls.

It was at a party, and I went to vape with them on the patio. Because I take my nicotine like children do.

“Duh — it’s the boys,” one said when I brought it up, as all the others agreed.

“The boys?” I asked.

My last book, What About Men?, had been all about how much boys struggle these days: their loneliness; their suicide rates. I’d spent the past year feeling very sympathetic towards boys.

“Yeah, well, who do you think they’re taking out their unhappiness on? It’s us,” another girl said.

“One boy at school used to draw a picture every day of how ugly I was,” a third girl said. “Every day for two years.”

“They’ve all got ‘Rate The Girls’ polls on their WhatsApps,” the first said. “They mark you down for weight gain, haircuts, what you say.”

“But then, if you’re hot, it’s just as bad, in a different way, because they’ll be talking about how they want to f*** you.”

The girls discussed coping techniques. Bad news: none of them worked.

“The only way you can stop them is if you become ‘one of the boys’ and hang out with them. But then,” the second girl said with a sigh, “all the other girls call you a slut. Because you’ve gone over to the boys’ side.”

“Surely it’s not all the boys?” I said. “There must be some nice boys?”

“Oh, yeah,” one girl said. “But they keep their heads down. Because… well, look.”

She showed me the Instagram account of her friend. Under every picture she posted of herself — smiling in a new dress; with her dog — dozens of anonymous accounts had replied with the most rank abuse.

“Fat.” “Slut.” “You gonna try and kill yourself again, for attention?”

“They’re all boys from her school,” she said. “And look, this one boy tried to defend her.”

I saw a series of messages from a brave teenage boy, posting things like, “You’re all big men, leaving these replies under anonymous accounts.”

As I could see, this boy immediately became a target too. Mainly accusations that he was “white knighting” this girl: “You wanna f*** her, bro?”

“So,” I asked, “you don’t think it’s social media pressure to be beautiful, or the economy, that’s making girls so sad?”

“Well, yeah, them too,” the first girl said. “But, Monday-Friday, 9-3, I’m not on social media. I’m not… in the economy. I’m just with these boys. And no one talks about how horrible they are.”

I thought about another recent report, showing a 30 per cent ideological gap between Gen Z men, who are increasingly conservative, and Gen Z women, who are increasingly progressive.

I thought about Andrew Tate, who has nine million mostly young male followers — and faces human trafficking charges, which he denies.

And I thought: maybe these girls are on to something. Maybe more people need to vape with teenage girls and ask them for the school gossip."

[conundrumoftime]

My fellow Haladriels I do not know who has told you that according to The Lore elves can only love once, but a) this is not The Lore, and b) also in Tolkien 'The Lore' does not really work like that anyway.

In the words of Galadriel's grandfather Finwë:

It is unlawful to have two wives, but one may love two women, each differently, and without diminishing one love by another. Love of Indis did not drive out love of Míriel, so now pity for Míriel doth not lessen my heart's care for Indis.

What is rare is elf remarriage, and this is partly because of the absolute drama that Finwë's led to.

Also: the law on when remarriage is and isn't allowed is set down by the Valar in Valinor to the elves living there. What the elves living in Middle-earth made of this - if they even heard of it, and how would they? - is unrecorded. Many of us have written fanfic that plays around with a culture clash on this issue!

Also also: the Noldor do not always do what the Valar explicitly tell them to do Or Else, which is how come Galadriel and many of her extended family are back in Middle-earth anyway.

Also also also, and (for me!) most importantly: there is no The Lore anyway, in the sense that people citing it in that sense mean (i.e. a rulebook for this fictional universe setting out what is true and what isn't and how everything works). There is a massive collection of notes, thoughts, essays, letters, stories finished and unfinished and drastically revised, much of it contradicting other bits earlier or later, some of it managing to contradict itself.

Also also also also, much of what is there is in this posthumously published material is presented (explicitly or by implication) within a framing narrative of something reported by a fictional character - as indeed are LOTR and The Hobbit. For example, there's an essay on how elf marriage works as part of 'Laws and Customs among the Eldar' in the History of Middle-earth; it's very unclear whose perspective this is written from; it's associated with a narrator called 'Ælfwine', who in some versions of some Tolkien things is a human who wrote about what an elf called Pengolodh told him about the history of Arda. Also there are Vikings but they're not important.

None of this means 'The Lore' is not important - it's fascinating, I recommend it to everyone, there's some amazing stuff in there - but it's not 'important' in the sense of being like a list of what is and isn't True. It's important in the sense of being mythology, being a collection of texts we can write stories about and frown at and go "I feel like Melian is getting away with far too much nonsense here" about and occasionally send each other snippets of saying things like "fyi there's a version where Maedhros and Earendil and Elwing all end up in the flying ship together, thought you'd appreciate this one" and so on.

[queeringclassiclit]

Sherlock Holmes & John Watson

from the Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle

[ukrfeminism]

One morning in 2007, Frances Harper was taking a bath and listening to the local news on BBC Radio Suffolk when one story caught her attention. A young woman, Louise, was being interviewed about her life as a sex worker in Ipswich. “I couldn’t see how this interview was helping her situation at all,” says Harper, who was 60 at the time. “I got out of the bath and made some notes. I realised she needed a documentary to tell her story properly and I thought perhaps I could try to make it.”

Harper had never owned a video camera and had no idea how to shoot a film. She had spent the past four decades working in secretarial jobs, as well as raising her son and supporting her husband in his construction business. “I was busy but something was always missing,” she says. “Something I could do for myself.”

Armed with a sudden sense of purpose and without a current job to keep her occupied, Harper rushed out to buy a basic camera, read the manual and began looking up ways to contact Louise. The police wouldn’t share her details, but after finding the name of her solicitor in the local paper, she left a letter with the firm to be passed on. “Soon after, Louise phoned me and we decided to meet in a cafe in Ipswich,” Harper says. “I told her I’d like to make a documentary to share her story and help her. She agreed, and that was my entry into an entirely new world.”

Following Louise most days for weeks, Harper documented her life on the streets, her drug addiction and sex work, all while learning how to shoot and interview. “She told me that no one had motivated her or really cared about her life,” she says. “She was interested in art and history, so we went to galleries together and I even took her to an afternoon tea – all things she’d never done before. We spent a lot of time together because I had the time to spare.”

The more Harper got to know Louise, the more concerned she became about her life and especially her living situation. “She was basically sleeping in an electrical cupboard on the streets of Ipswich,” she says. “I started booking her into bed and breakfasts to keep her off the streets. It really showed me how lucky I had been. It’s changed my thinking ever since.”

Once she had enough footage, Harper put together a taster of the film and contacted the local BBC News office in Norwich. The idea of an older Ipswich resident befriending a young sex worker and producing a film was so unusual that Harper was invited to a meeting and commissioned to shoot a half-hour special for BBC East, which aired in February 2008. “I couldn’t believe that Louise’s story would be out there,” she says. “I hadn’t told too many people about it so my friends were shocked when it came out. Once it did, I also managed to battle with the council to finally get Louise a proper flat.”

Sixteen years later, Harper, 76, is fully immersed in film-making. After her experience with Louise, she became interested in the world of drug addiction and produced a film for Sky, which was narrated by Davina McCall and followed two mothers coping with the impact of their sons’ drug abuse. She has also completed a commercial film for the seaside town of Southwold and a charity short for an emergency response service. She is now working on a series about women in horticulture as well as a film about the life of female fighter pilots.

“I just can’t stop,” she says. “It really feels like I’ve found my calling. I get ideas all the time, although I can’t make all of them because I fund my own projects and it’s hard to come by funding for older people.”

But age does have some advantages. “I think people are more inclined to be polite around me because I’m older,” she says. “I’ve also gained newfound confidence through this work. I didn’t know whether I’d achieve anything but I just kept going. I weaved around the obstacles in my way.”

As well as changing her life, Harper has recently learned how her films have had a profound impact on other people too. “Louise contacted me last year and we just carried on talking as if no time had passed,” she says. “She told me: ‘You were the only person who believed in me.’ It made that decision to pick up the camera completely worth it.”

You can watch Harper’s films via the link below:

[waitmyturtles]

(Source)

The Lower House (House of Representatives) will be hearing Thailand’s marriage equality bill at 9:30 am Bangkok time (10:30 pm Eastern for those of us in the States). The bill, if passed, would still have to be approved in Thailand’s Senate.

(Source and source)

Below the fold is Bloomberg.com's report on the happenings (source):

Bill to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage in Thailand Heads to Parliament

Bill is supported by most major parties, needs king approval

Thailand would be first in region to codify marriage equality

By Patpicha Tanakasempipat, March 26, 2024 at 2:00 PM PDT

A bill to legalize same-sex marriage could face a vote in Thailand’s parliament as early as Wednesday. If it passes, the country will be the first in Southeast Asia to establish marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.

The House of Representatives will take up the legislation, technically an amendment to the Civil and Commercial Code, for second and third readings when it meets at 9 a.m. Lawmakers may vote later in the day.

The bill would legalize marriage for same-sex partners aged 18 and above, along with rights to inheritance, tax allowances and child adoption, among others. Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s administration has made it a signature issue, and advocates say it would also burnish Thailand’s reputation as an LGBTQ-friendly tourist destination.

Taiwan and Nepal are the only places in Asia that currently recognize same-sex marriage, and recent efforts elsewhere in the region have had mixed results. Hong Kong has yet to comply with a 2023 court order to establish laws recognizing same-sex partnerships, and India’s Supreme Court refused to legalize same-sex marriage, saying it’s an issue for parliament to consider.

The Thai bill would change the composition of a marriage from “a man and a woman” to “two individuals,” and change the official legal status from “husband and wife” to “married couple.”

Thai laws have protected LGBTQ people from most kinds of discrimination since 2015, but attempts to formalize marriage rights have stalled. In 2021, the Constitutional Court upheld the law recognizing marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman. Last year, a bill to recognize same-sex civil partnerships failed to clear parliament ahead of elections.

Rights advocates have higher hopes for the bill pending now, noting that it has broad support from most of the major parties. If it passes, it will need to be approved by the Senate and endorsed by the King. Then it would be published in the Royal Gazette and take effect 120 days later.

Srettha’s government has also promised to work on a bill to recognize gender identity, and the health ministry has also proposed legalizing commercial surrogacy to allow LGBTQ couples to adopt children. Thailand is seeking to host the WorldPride events in Bangkok in 2028.

Legalizing same-sex marriage could have positive effects on tourism, which contributes about 12% to the nation’s $500 billion economy. In 2019, before the pandemic froze international tourism, LGBTQ travel and tourism to Thailand generated about $6.5 billion, or 1.2% of gross domestic product, according to industry consultant LGBT Capital.

Formal recognition could boost the reputation of a place already considered one of Asia’s best for LGBTQ visitors, said Wittaya Luangsasipong, managing director of Siam Pride, an LGBTQ-friendly travel agency in Bangkok.

“It will become a selling point for Thailand and raise our strength in the global stage,” Wittaya said. “It will create a relaxed and safe atmosphere for tourism and help attract more and more LGBTQ visitors. We could also see more weddings by LGBTQ couples, which could generate income across industries and local communities.”

[cazluvsu]

they’re 10000% fucking Btw

[not-the-coffee-machine4]

Me: *tries to see what the Queen fans on TikTok have to say*

*Jim hate*

*”facts” that may or not be actually true*

*”Freddie Mercury was bisexual-“*

*Using Barbara Valentin as evidence*

*thinking things that happened in the movie actually happened irl*

*general misinformation about everyone and everything*

Me: aaaaand back to Tumblr I go

(open tags at your own risk, there’s a whole essay in there)

[micamicster]

Point Break (1991) dir. Kathryn Bigelow

If desire is the differential between need and demand, desire always exists outside of the corporeal wants and wishes that have a pressing agenda all their own--desire becomes its own project, indeed yanking at the sometimes wayward, resistant body to which it's tethered in the effort to fulfill its unfulfillable, limitless agenda... Desire floats and fluctuates above, below, beyond us, always goading us, never revealing, satisfying, or fulfilling us.

-David Greven, Contemporary Hollywood Masculinity and the Double-Protagonist Film (2009)