#gross never do it again

[kusuokisser]

oomf reblogged a bunch of aro stuff and in honor of pride hour (i made it the fuck up Dont ask me any questions i dont talk to paparazzi) i want to talk about MYYY experience being arospec because it is Isolating and even if this reaches literally no one id rather at least have tried to share my feelings. Spreading love! 💝

growing up i very quickly realized that i wasnt getting crushes like the other kids were. as early as second grade i started trying to force myself to like the boys in my class. id, like, look around the classroom at the start of every new school year and look for the next boy to have a "crush" on. It sounds kind of funny looking back but like i remember how desperate i felt doing it. i remember one year i genuinely hated every boy in my class with a burning passion and, if nothing else, i remember the feeling of being wrong. i, a 4th (maybe 3rd?) grader, felt isolated and gross because i couldnt force a crush for a year.

i had known none of the other ones were really crushes, but it wasnt the romance i wanted it was the connections. i wanted to be able to join the girls talking about their crushes and i wanted to have a reason to try talking to boys; i wanted to be liked.

in 6th grade i think was the first time i didnt try to force a crush. i dont remember much from that year but i know that i didnt feel good. youd think that, as an arospec, i would have enjoyed the break from faking romance but at that point i didnt understand that my feelings werent quite real. i knew they werent like everyone elses, but i really wanted them to be even if it meant lying a bit to myself on the way. i felt wrong and weird.

in seventh grade that was when covid hit and everyone was quarentined, and also that is the year that holds my worlds most obvious example of my aromanticism ever. genuinely think back to this and go "how didnt i figure it out sooner"

i convinced myself i had a crush on my at-the-time best friend. there was no crush by the way, i judt knew i liked him more than all my other friends and to my socially deprived brain that meant it had to be romantic right? well he didnt like me back and literally i went, watched like two YouTube videos on something or other, and was over it. because the feelings were never genuine. it was never love it was a desire to be close with someone

8th grade was the first time i actually fell in love. by then i had figured out im a lesbian, and i met this girl named Jane. She was literally everything you could want in a girl and i fell HARRDDDDDDD i was so in love dont even. but I found that my capacity to love her fluxuated. the love was always there, but some days it was more platonic than anything. sometimes thr platonic periods would stretch for weeks. sometimes it would switch between platonic and romantic multiple times a day. it confused me and honestly? it scared me a lot. i distanced myself from her and eventually we broke up (for seperate reasons but this def contributed)

that really messed with me because now i was left with two understandings: i can definitely experience romantic attraction, and the romantic attraction can change at the drop of a hat.

after a lott of time and research i finally realized and accepted that im aromanticflux (will go into detail if necessary) and you know what? it didn't make me feel better. if anything it made me feel worse; i felt like such an asshole for getting in a relationship if it was always going to end.

now i am. Still coming to terms with my identity but i am learning to love and be kind to myself. the point of this whole thing is. youre never alone. there are eight billion people on earth, at least one of them is going through the exact same thing as you right now. you are not any less of a person because of your attraction or lack thereof

[lazylittledragon]

ok i swear i'm not going to talk about my breakup forever but the thing that just keeps bothering me:

i know that not getting what you need in a relationship is a COMPLETELY valid reason to end it but also. i feel like having a very vulnerable moment where i opened up about my struggles with intimacy and being relieved that i didn't have to keep doing things i wasn't comfortable with, then being dumped a YEAR later because of my lack of intimacy. is something i should be allowed to be very hurt by???

[sukibenders]

The way people are becoming anti-children nowadays is really sad. And I'm not talking about people not wanting to have kids of their own, that's fine and something that shouldn't be shamed nor up to someone else to debate. No, I'm talking about the people who adamantly hate these little humans for simply existing, wanting to ban them from spaces due to them having emotional reactions that they are still learning to understand (you know, the kind of lessons that everyone had to learn and figure out at one point). It's gotten to the point where I've even seen these types of people genuinely support children being harmed and deny their hurt under the consensus of "Well then maybe they shouldn't be there," in your average public space. Like, imagine thinking hating on children, people who need assistance and guidance, is something to be proud of.

[sparklingchim]

sos how do i get over a boy

[batsplat]

casey's story breaks my heart. im reading your post about amatriaín and jorge now as well and i just........ these were only kids :( this isn't to assume that all parents/caregivers/people in their lives are negligent and/or abusive but i always wonder who is protecting child/teen/younger adult riders and drivers esp when they are in the highest levels of their sport at such a young age. it seems like, especially in years gone past, there was just so much scope for these kids to be abused. although i remember a couple years ago that clip of a young rider getting hit by mechanics so that kind of stuff isn't even in the past rly.

yeah not much to say really, I mean honestly it's... I'm not going to say every guardian of a professional athlete is abusive because that'd be a crazy thing to say, but I would say that the process that makes these kids so good at what they are does also in many, many cases not reflect particularly well on the parents. tbh a lot of the safeguarding has to be taken more seriously way before these kids even get to a grand prix paddock, but that also isn't easy to do... I can only speak to my own experiences, but as someone who spent a lot of my teenage years hanging around tennis clubs, it is pretty horrifying how normalised parental abuse is in sports circles. it's just something you see all the time - and this is obviously still only the public stuff, the gossip you hear, where you can read between the lines. though honestly, a lot of the times you really don't need to be reading much between the lines. the most extreme example was when a father of a kid I trained with went so far he had the cops called on him when they were at a tournament, but again. obviously this is only the extreme. even a lot of the public abuse is tacitly accepted, and there's a lot of parental behaviour that might not qualify for the 'abusive' label but sure isn't in line with what I view as acceptable. and that's just the parents - you essentially get a lot of cases of them outsourcing this stuff to the coaches, who often get a carte blanche to do with their kids what they please. obviously I'm only familiar with this stuff personally on the juniors circuit, but unhealthy coaching relationships is also a recurring and troubling talking point on the pro circuit. especially in women's tennis you get some pretty horrifying stories. the whole thing just feels pretty rotten

ideally what you've got to do to at least TRY and stamp this stuff out is having a zero tolerance policy - whether it's in clubs or in paddocks. a system of consequences in place where physical or verbal abuse comes with repercussions... I know the risk is you just take this stuff behind closed doors, but to me the starting point problem is that it's also the culture of juniors sports - where if anything treating your kid like absolute shit is almost celebrated at times. you have to make this stuff more shameful. I have no clue to what extent motorcycling juniors clubs look like what I was accustomed to, but in all honesty I reckon you'd see a lot of the same behaviour from parents/mentors - and that at least you've got to address. but obviously that doesn't just like. fix the problem. with someone like jorge, you very obviously did need someone else to step in... but if you don't have very visible, obvious abuse, then how do you enforce that? talent spotters like amatriain have immense power within the system - jorge's father was practically begging this bloke to take jorge on, jorge wouldn't have thanked you for getting rid of him until towards the very end of their partnership, he very likely wouldn't have the career he did without the guy. and it's one of those jobs that (like sports parent) tends to attract the exact type of person you really don't want to give power over kids. again, I'm not saying they're all like that, I wouldn't know, but so many of these managers just have so many stories that raise an eyebrow... even when it's not actively related to how they're treating children, but the fact that so many of them have a history of being aggressive to reporters? the thing is, if they're being awful to these kids in all likelihood we'll never hear about it - but reporters are obviously way more likely to tell people about it. which means that every time I read one of those stories, my main takeaway is that these managers are blokes who will get aggressive when things don't go their way. also not ideal

and below that is a layer that becomes increasingly impossible to even begin to address. I mean, look at casey. I have no reason to accuse his parents of being abusive towards him. I'm not trying to make it sound like I think they're horrible people. and I do think we do always need to be clear here - like yes, I'm talking about a general concern I have here about the relationship between mentor figures and the kids in their care, but obviously that covers a very wide variety of sins. I am not drawing any equivalences between them. there's 'being a bad mentor' and then there's 'having a restraining order filed against you'. so with that massive caveat in place... I agree with you, anon, that I also feel sad about casey's story, and yeah, it makes me uncomfortable

casey does think his parents pushed their dream onto him and ensured that his future would always lie in motorcycle racing... which, I mean. god. if you read him saying it was always his parents' dream side-by-side with him saying they always put pressure on him to work for his dream, then it's just one of those parental dynamics that read as achingly familiar - kids who have been convinced they're doing this for themselves and are then made to feel guilty when they're not living up to their parents' standards. we've sacrificed everything for you, right, you need to make it worth it... casey was told that this was his dream, and the stakes for success and failure were horrifyingly high. he had his entire family's livelihood on his shoulders from age fourteen... his family invested everything into him, told him it was all for his sake- and ensured that he would feel like he was letting them down every time he didn't perform. by some miracle, he had the talent to make it through the system, but think about how precarious his journey was despite being perhaps the most talented motorcycle racer in the history of the sport. how many turning points in his career easily could have gone the other way. for every casey, there are so many more kids who won't make it, and will somehow have to live with the consequences of that failure. and these dynamics... again, I'm not going to label them outright abusive, but think about the kind of stress they place on the parental relationship. idk. it might be a reality of professional sports... parents do often have to sacrifice a lot for their children's career - and given how early kids need to start out to succeed these days, inevitably quite a bit of that desire and drive will come from the parents. but it isn't a reality that sits comfortably with me

so, what do you do about any of this? well, again, I do think you need to do the bare minimum and not tolerate clearly abusive behaviour in sporting environments. which feels like stating the obvious, but this is a low bar that often just isn't being cleared. and yeah - that recent example within the motogp paddock of a rider being assaulted by a team member... definitely not going to be a one-off. just feels inevitable that this will be happening behind closed doors, especially when you get to the lower rungs where the competitors have less power and are less likely to be willing to risk anything (+ are also generally younger)

there's other safeguarding measures you could put in place, but it probably won't happen because people just don't care enough. first off, you need a riders' union - an organisation that's there solely to listen to riders' problems and act on them, advocate on their behalf etc. a big reason why young riders simply are not going to report any abuse is that this will almost certainly cost them professionally. you are essentially asking them to cut off their already limited support network, often the people providing them direct financial support or even employing them. if you cannot build up trust by having the mechanisms in place to take action against the abusive party (through cooperation with the series organisers), as well as provide support to the rider, then the reality is that basically none of them would ever come forward. secondly, you simply need stronger regulation of the career ladder. there's too many of these big name talent spotters who just coast through the paddock by having accumulated influence over the years, with zero reason to believe they have their charges' best interests at heart... often former riders themselves, but that's not exactly a pedagogical qualification. look, it's tricky to regulate because the exact roles these blokes play in riders' lives is so malleable and comes associated with all kinds of job titles - maybe you're a rider coach or manager or team boss or something else entirely. but ideally you want a system where certain privileges - like even entry to certain areas of the paddock - has to come along with accepting a certain level of regulatory oversight. make these blokes directly accountable and force them to uphold a professional code, in line with what you'd expect of any other professional who hold power over a vulnerable population. make it clear to them that they're being watched. I also don't think it's crazy to suggest that if you let minors race in a grand prix paddock, you should have some sort of system in place where the series organisers directly and regularly check in with the minors in their care. there will be a lot of behaviour that children do not themselves see as abusive - obviously it's very plausible that they just won't tell you the truth, but you have to start somewhere. motorcycle racing does actually have an advantage over many other individual sports in how centralised it is, how everyone is constantly going to the same location. they would have the power to enforce some of these standards

thirdly, and this is even less likely than the others to gain any traction. ... man, you've got to make sure these kids have options. this is becoming worse and worse the more professionalised sports become, the more they all chase their youthful prodigies... but, y'know, think about how early so many of these children drop out of school, how it's increasingly unlikely they've had the time to foster any sort of other interest (another theme of casey's account, "I don’t know if I was allowed to have any other attraction"). how motorcycle racing is the only thing they've ever known, how it's their whole world. you're raising a group of young people to whom leaving that world would basically feel like dying. it makes the stakes of everything so enormous, it twists these parental relationships, and it also ensures that certain figures have so, so much power over these kids. obviously nobody is forcing them at gunpoint to race - but in reality, it feels like they don't even have the option of walking away. again, this is obviously a massive problem to address that no sport has entirely sorted out, and the series organisers can rightly say it's not their responsibility to make kids go to school. honestly, my first step would be to just... do something about these age limits. they're too low! too many of these kids are too young for grand prix racing! a starting point is to try and make it so that kids aren't being actively penalised for attempting to pursue an education. this feels another area where you'd really want to have an actual union - even to just have someone to talk to. and again, as long as the series organisers let children race, then I do think it's actually also some of their responsibility to look out for them. realistically, a lot of these kids don't actually want to walk away from racing - however you get to that point, it is also very much their dream. but anything you can do to lessen the influence of the worst people in their lives, anything you can do to at least remind them they can walk away... idk. it's the right thing to do. especially for the kids who aren't succeeding, help them on their way out

now look, this isn't a detailed manifesto. I do know that some other sports have implemented similar-ish measures to the ones above but I couldn't give you a breakdown without some research. I'm not an expert on preventative measures for child abuse, and I'm sure some of these could come with unintended consequences I'm unaware of. I also know all of these things range from 'desperately unlikely' to 'never going to happen'. and even if you did, it's really only taking a pickaxe to the tip of the iceberg. or something. to reiterate what I said at the top, I don't want to make it sound like I think all parents of athletes are abusive. I also don't think the mentors are either. I do think a lot of them are... and even beyond that - the way sports is structured, the way the ladder to professional sports is structured, you are going to see a lot of unhealthy dynamics involving very young people in vulnerable positions. and I don't think that's in any way easy to address... but y'know. sometimes it'd be nice if somebody were at least trying. the sport is doing less than the bare minimum. and for every story we hear, there's going to be so so many more where we'll remain entirely ignorant

[slooshee]

Oh… that’s Sunday’s ENG VA doubling down on his support for Chris Niosi

[feline-evil]

Dick or no dick confirmation Pickles was always going to be trans to me anyways; if he's swingin' somethin that's phallo babes, if he's not then his t-dick fat. What's not to get.

[changelingsandothernonsense]

2002 was a time for the Nerevarine

Fuck no!

[goldkirk]

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[aikuse]

hey uh just as a reminder if you’re polyamorous/non-monogamous and you don’t allow your very monogamous partner the chance to leave the relationship if they find it doesn’t work for them and they’re not okay with the relationship dynamic then you’re a shit human being

[vroomian]

Well that was the most disgusting hour of my life! I need seven showers and a memory wipe!

[inkbagel]

This collab I joined like eight months ago that I didn’t really enjoy being in finally got posted today but for some reason only on twitter and I don’t go there so I can’t even see the whole thing :/

[unproduciblesmackdown]

(genderly) chill as hell if i was only ever glimpsed / detected like this

[front-facing-pokemon]

[thats-sir-dyke-to-you]

When it comes to hygiene tasks and self care with disability and chronic illness, its pretty much a constant case of: don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.

Basically: it's better to do something, than to do nothing at all.

TLDR: Just because you can't do something "properly" doesn't mean you shouldn't do it at all. Do it half-way. Do it shitty. Do it barely. Do it on a technicality. But do what you can. Just try, because doing something will help you.

If you don't have the energy to scrub your body with a sponge, just rub soap over your skin with your hands.

If you don't have the energy to wash your whole body with soap, just hit the places where sweat accumulates, or where you're smelliest.

If you don't have the energy to wash with soap AT ALL, just sitting in water is better than nothing. It will wash away dirt and oils.

If you can't bathe or shower at all, a warm wash cloth is your new best friend. If that's too much, then try bath wipes. They're a bit bigger than regular wet wipes, and a bit more heavy duty. They're designed to help keep bed ridden patients clean in hospitals.

If you don't have the energy to dry yourself after a bath or a shower, just put on a bathrobe and get into bed. If you don't have the energy to get dressed afterwards, just don't. It can wait until you can.

If you don't have energy to brush your teeth for two minutes, honestly, just a cursory scrub is better than not doing anything.

If you can't brush your teeth twice a day, brush in the evenings. It will help take away the build up of food from the day.

If you don't have the energy to brush AT ALL, honestly, just take a cloth and wipe the plaque off your teeth. Rinse with mouth wash after if you'd like. Something is always better than nothing.

If you can't floss twice a day. Try once. If that's too much, try a few times a week. If that's too much, try setting aside a day once a week as a goal. If you can't keep a schedule, do it when you're able to. Hell, I keep some floss next to my bed so that if I forget and don't have the energy to go get it, I can just reach over.

If you can't iron your clothes, don't bother. Wrinkles are fine. Wear jumpers over wrinkly t-shirts. No one will know, and honestly, most people won't even care. If it's really wrinkly and it's A Big Deal And It Needs To Be Ironed, here's my life hack. Step 1: take a spray bottle, and spritz the item of clothing (while you're wearing it is easiest) until it's lightly damp. Step 2: use a hair-dryer on the clothes until they're dry. It gets rid of creases like nobody's business, it's easier than lugging out the iron and ironing board, and you get to have nice toasty warm clothes afterwards.

If you can't fold your clothes, try just hanging them up. It's less commitment. It's quicker to do. Granted, you need to have the space in order to do this, but it is also good at helping you downsize, and lets you visualise exactly what you have.

If you can't put your clothes away, invest in a couple of laundry baskets, and then just keep your clean clothes in the baskets. You can then separate washed clothes into underwear, pants, and shirts baskets. You can just leave them like that. I'm giving you permission to never fold your laundry again if you can't. Just leave it unfolded. Who's going to care? Something is better than nothing. If you can, try to put those baskets into your closet so that you can keep the clutter out of sight, and give yourself a more restful environment.

If you can't separate your clothing out into different categories and wash them "properly" (whites, warm tones, cool tones, darks, delicates / switching between hot & cold washes / paying attention to laundry instructions on the label) then just don't worry about it. If you cold wash your clothes, colours won't bleed. Maybe gradually over the course of dozens of washes there'll be some changes in hue, but it's really not as high stakes as the One Red Sock In The Whites Turns Them Pink trope makes it out to be.

I've pretty much come to the point in my life where if a piece of clothing can't survive the washer and dryer, then it's just not meant to be. I colour separate my clothes, and if I have the energy/remember I'll take my bras and jumpers out of the washing machine to drip dry. But otherwise, I leave it to the universe.

If you can't separate out your recycling, then don't. If you have a large amount of rubbish you need to get rid of but the idea of separating it out properly is stopping you from doing so, then just don't worry about it. I know it's not ideal, but if you have garbage in your room/house and you need to get rid of it, please just get rid of it. Don't let the problem get bigger and harder to deal with. Don't let "doing something properly" get in the way of keeping your living spaces clean. Please. Give yourself understanding.

If you can't wash your dishes, get paper plates. Obviously, it's not ideal, but it is better that you eat food than skipping meals. It is better that you have a clean kitchen, rather than having dishes piling up and making it harder to look after yourself.

If you can't prepare meals for yourself keep making the tasks easier and easier. If you can't do recipes, then simplify. Use pasta sauce from the jar instead of making it. Eat canned soup. Buy food you can just stick in the oven. If you eat fish fingers and microwave veggies every night, it's better than not eating anything at all. It's better than having to fork out money on take-out. If you need ready-made meals, then get them. If you're literally just eating a raw cauliflower for dinner; 1) I see you, 2) me too, sis, 3) something is better than nothing.

These are the basic things you need to do every day to function as a person. They are your activities of daily living. Brushing your teeth. Bathing or showering. Using the bathroom. Getting dressed. Eating. Drinking. Sleeping. Keeping your environment clean. You don't need to do these things perfectly, but they need to happen in order for you to have a decent quality of life.

And it breaks my heart, because I know that so many disabled people can't do these things every day. I'm not saying this to guilt or judge, I'm saying that these are basic needs; you deserve these things. These things bring dignity. If a disabled person is unable to do these things, it diminishes their quality of life. It robs them of dignity.

If you need help to do these things, Its okay to ask for help. It's okay to need help. But if you can't get that help and you have to do these things by yourself -- or you just plain want to be independent and do it without help-- then don't hold yourself to standards you can't meet.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Doing something is always better than doing nothing. Even if it's not perfect. Even if it's not done well. Do what you can.

[125storejuice]

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