Everyone Dunking On That Automated Fleshlight Sex Toy Needs To Remember That Disabled People Get Horny

On of the less intuitive things about love, I've found, of any kind, is the importance of needing things.

I didn't realize it until recently, but I've always seen love as something requiring sacrifice, selflessness, patience, and generosity- to ask for nothing is to be the best person I can be, small and quiet and never in the way, always happy and helpful, self-sufficient and present when desired.

It's only as an adult, now, that I'm beginning to see the selfishness of wanting nothing.

I cut my friend's hair in my kitchen the other day. They wanted a trim and I had the skills, so I offered, and was genuinely excited when they stopped hesitating over "bothering me" and took me up on it. It was a peaceful afternoon, and we had tea and chatted for an hour or more.

My brother and I shared popcorn at the movies a while ago. When I came time to pay, I pulled my card out like a wild western sheriff and slapped it on the machine before he could fight me for it first. The satisfaction was delightful.

Someone called me crying on the phone the other day. Kept apologizing for disturbing me at work, talking about how they were bothering me on my lunch break. I was telling the truth when I told them that really, I was flattered and honored and relieved, knowing that if they were hurting I would know, that I didn't have to worry in silence. It felt good to hear them slowly come down, and to know that they knew it would be better soon, and to hear them laugh wetly on the other end. We're getting together for a visit next week.

It's hard to need things, if you've trained yourself not to. It's hard to want things, when you don't know how to want anymore. Trusting people is difficult, and so is relying on them, but I don't know where I'd be without the people who rely on me.

I've heard a lot of people say, "Nobody will love you unless you love yourself". I've had a lot of thoughts about it. It's not right, but it's not wrong, either, I think.

"Nobody will love you unless you love yourself"... I've always taken that to mean, "You will not be lovable until you develop a positive view of yourself as a person".

Now, I think it's sort of inside-out.

"Nobody will love you unless you love yourself"... because nobody can show their love to you in a way that you can accept until you treat yourself kindly, and learn what you need, and what you want, and how to ask for it, and then give that vulnerability away.

Love, for me, is someone I ask for a ride to the airport. Whether they end up doing this or not is irrelevant.

It's not needy, or selfish, or taking up energy. It's giving the gift of being wanted, and needed, and thought of. It's giving someone the security of being part of someone's life.

kill the imposter syndrome in your head because not only is there someone out there doing it worse than you, they’re also using chat gpt to do it

Have been doing this for years without realizing it was an actual technique and it freaking works:

Do NOT say: “I think I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.”

Instead, say: “My best friend wanted me to ask you about something. I don’t even think it’s a thing, but she thinks I might have something called EDS. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, I think? I don’t know. It’s probably rare. But have you heard of it? Do you think I might have it?”

Here’s another example:

Do NOT say: “I think I have ADHD.”

Instead, say: “So my wife said I had to ask you about something. I don’t know if she’s right, but if I don’t bring it up with you, she’ll be really mad at me. She thinks I might have something called attention deficit disorder. And she said you might be able to help.”

Yes, it is wrong that patients have to use passive aggressive techniques just to get an MRI. But, as my mom always says, it’s better to be wrong than to be dead right. Sure you could insist on being more direct with your doctor, but if that doesn’t work — and the doctor dismisses your symptoms when they should be treating them — the choice could literally leave you dead. You’d be right, but you’d be dead right.

This is not part of the article but it also works:

It works especially well for psychiatrists instead of saying "I think I have this" or "I've been looking at x and I have x, y and z symptoms". Instead just say your symptoms and let them come to the conclusion on their own.

Pain News Network

A Weird Trick to Get Doctors to Listen to You — Pain News Network

By Crystal Lindell, PNN Columnist There’s a lot of advice out there on how to get a doctor to take you seriously. Most of it is wrong. Lu

So I taught my students during the first few weeks of class that for their paper, they needed to cite profusely. They needed to cite more than they thought they should cite. They needed to cite multiple times per paragraph. I told them that it was literally impossible for them to over-cite. I showed them an example of my own published papers. It was in the rubric.

At the end of the term, I graded their papers. Most of them did ok. Some of them only cited 2-3 sources even though their References section had 6 sources. And some of them... some of them didn't cite a single time in their entire paper. They had their citations in the References section, but didn't cite them in the paper even once.

Some people just do not follow directions. It's baffling.

And that doesn't even get into all of the APA style errors. Those I can forgive because citation styles are confusing. Citing enough and citing correctly are two separate parts on my rubric to account for this fact, actually.

BUT - it just gives me data for how to teach this even better next semester. I don't have any way to require them to use a citation manager, but the students who used one did MUCH better than those who didn't.

...what is the "sex is just rock climbing" category

It was kind of a joke between me and a friend ("you wouldn't judge someone for having gone rock climbing with a bunch of different people") but honestly the more I thought about it the more I bought into it unironically because:

It is a physical activity done with one or more partners

You should only go rock climbing with people you trust not to let you fall

You should not go rock climbing with someone who is drunk or currently incapable of rational decision-making

Some people get super super super into rock climbing and do not shut up about all the places they have climbed and how many are left on their bucket list and these people are usually men between the ages of 20 and 35 and like it's fine dude I'm glad you're happy but I don't know what most of those mountains even are

While many consider it a fun activity, pressuring someone into climbing when they don't want to (or ignoring their feelings and just dangling them off a cliff,) could cause both psychological and physical trauma

There is no moral value to it whatsoever. Who you have gone rock climbing with (or whether you have rock climbed at all) has no bearing on who you are as a person. Imagine telling someone "it's not that heights make you nauseous, it's just that you haven't found the right person to belay you!" or "you need to save your first time rock climbing for someone special." That would be absurd.

historically I have not asked myself "will this aggravate my hip flexer injury" before participating when perhaps I should have 😔

Growing up is actually all about realizing people don’t inherently dislike you and it’s a bit odd to assume they do

Imagine if you met someone who can't eat watermelon. Not that they're allergic or unable somehow, but they just haven't figured out how to do that. So you're like "what the hell do you mean? it works just like eating anything else, you open your mouth, sink your teeth in, take a bite and chew. If you can bite, chew and swallow, you should be able to eat a watermelon."

And they agree that yes, they do know how to eat, in theory. The problem is the watermelon. Surely, if they figured out where to start, they'd figure out how to do it, but they have no clue how to get started with it.

This goes back and forth. No, it's not an emotional issue, they're not afraid of the watermelon. They can eat any other fruit, other sweet things, and other watery things ("it's watery?" they ask you). Is it the colour? Do they have a problem eating things that are green on the outside and red on the inside?

"It's red on the inside?"

Wait, they've never seen the inside? At this point you have to ask them how, exactly, they eat the watermelon. So to demonstrate, they take a whole, round, uncut watermelon, and try to bite straight into it. Even if they could bite through the crust, there's no way to get human jaws around it.

"Oh, you're supposed to cut it first. You cut the crust open and only chew through the insides."

And they had no idea. All their life this person has had no idea how to eat a watermelon, despite of being told again and again and again that it's easy, it's ridiculous to struggle with something so simple, there's no way that someone just can't eat a watermelon, how can you even mange to be bad at something as fucking simple as eating watermelon.

If someone can't do something after being repeatedly told to "just do it", there might be some key component missing that one side has no idea about, and the other side assumed was so obvious it goes without mention.

My chronic pain doctor suggested I exercise more

I asked him “how?”

He looked confused. Said I should try a bit every day

I said “not when, how?” I asked what exercises I should do

He suggested half a dozen options that had all been explicitly banned by other doctors. I’m not allowed to run. I’m not allowed to bike. I’m not allowed to use my rowing machine or my punching bag.

I walk my dog whenever I have the energy and when it doesn’t hurt too much

What else can I do?

He told me I should exercise more

And then he changed the subject.