Weekly Free Talk Friday Thread!

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• u/AutoModerator·1·Jul 31, 2026, 6:00 AM

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• u/Fun-Guitar-8252·5·Jul 31, 2026, 6:08 AM

  I've been rewatching some Criminal Minds lately and there is one thing that bothers me: The idea, that sexual sadism doesn't exist in women. There are many episodes, where the team literally says "The victim wasn't raped, we're probably looking for a female unsub". That idea has not only been disproven by real cases, but also by the show itself. The girl from "The thirteenth step" or the wife from "Mr and Mrs Anderson" clearly got some sexual arousal from torturing and killing.

  • u/mr-s4nt4·3·Jul 31, 2026, 1:57 PM

    This is one of those things that make me think that a good way to achieve a good intuition of sex ed and feminism / gender politics, at least for me, has been the baseline truth that men and women are biologically not very different at all in the grand scheme of things, especially psychologically speaking. That notion I think dispels something like what you described After all, the great majority of both bodies is exactly the same down to the genes, couvade syndrome exists, and sexual orientations that are not heterosexuality are a thing. We don't even have sex-specific gonads until up to 7 weeks of gestation I feel like this should be taught, because we're routinely led to believe that men and women are intrinsically, biologically way different when in reality it's just socially acquired. And the relevance to this is that I think the mental aspect is where this disparity between actual biological difference and perceived difference is most evident

    • u/[deleted]·1·Jul 31, 2026, 3:28 PM·1 reply

  • u/ThestorytellingDemon·5·Jul 31, 2026, 4:22 PM

    A lot of what they do in the “ profiling “ sections of the episodes is just going off from statistical averages so sometimes it really comes across as the characters sitting around the room saying " we are looking the the usual suspects because it's usually then ".

• u/[deleted]·1·Jul 31, 2026, 8:12 AM

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• u/mr-s4nt4·9·Jul 31, 2026, 12:36 PM

  Not very long-text-worthy, I know, but... why are pretty women so damn scary? It doesn't make any sense for even the idea of talking to one with romantic intent to feel exactly like skydiving off a high-rise buinding or diving into freezing water It's really good that there's awareness nowadays about women being approached in horrible ways and how exactly to approach someone without making them feel threatened, creeped out or in danger but I have realized seeing hundreds and hundreds of instances of man-hating in gender-wars-adjacent social media around those instances of creepiness has made me extremely scared of making any advances at any point during the initial stages of a romantic relationship, even for asking / assessing consent itself. How the hell am I supposed to find and develop my first romantic relationship like this So I guess the TL;DR is the vast majority of social media sucks. I already know I should quit it and the symptom will probably fade with time, so this is more like something I wanted to write somewhere. Thanks for reading :D

  • u/LookOutItsLiuBei·8·Jul 31, 2026, 3:07 PM

    Yeah, the nature of these algorithms means the more you view that stuff the more it pops up in your feeds. Purely anecdotal on my part, but as a leftist guy who lives in a liberal college town, I simply do not come across people talking about this stuff except online.

  • u/MirrorMaster33·5·Jul 31, 2026, 3:42 PM

    Thank you for sharing this. I share the same fear and concern. I wish there was genuine dialogue possible on this matter but I'm on the verge of giving up.

• u/Oregon_Jones111·2·Jul 31, 2026, 5:45 PM

  This is what being autistic is like.

• u/ElectricProcession·2·Jul 31, 2026, 7:48 PM

  I am thinking that I would like to see the band members who recently removed me from the live lineup (see my recent comments on the Tuesday mental health threads) and have a talk about why it went down the way it did. I guess I'd like to do it because I wish I could get better at this whole having hard conversations thing and also I want them to hear some honesty from me that maybe could give them pause in some ways. Of course I'm likely to just freeze if I ever saw them together having drinks at a bar or wherevs. Still, I hope I could strike a balance between confrontation and freezing up. So this is how I would imagine a hypothetical meetup with these people: "Hey there. So I've noticed you've started playing shows again. And I am under the impression that you have a new live guitarist in your ranks and you would prefer to move forward with the new guy rather than with me. Would you mind telling me as to why things didn't actually work out between us and how much of that was actually down to any shortcomings on my end?" And later down the line if I do get some inconvenient messaging about how neither my playing nor my personality was up to whatever standard they seem to have, I could maybe drop a little of: "I am not disputing your right to choose who gets to play with you on stage. However, the way this whole dismissal was seemingly handled was a little on the...shall we say, strangely roundabout side of the equation. And I am wondering if maybe that simply came down to any conflict aversion on your end. Which is understandable, conflicts are super scary to me as well and I get that you genuinely want to come across as likeable as possible. But I'm not convinced that the way it went down represents a preferable alternative to just sending me a message that my services are no longer required and the band will proceed with a new guitar player for upcoming live dates."

• u/sgifox·3·Jul 31, 2026, 8:41 PM

  Slowly been realizing that obsessively reading TERF shit when I was a teenager really fucked me up. I knew that transphobia was bad, but I still kept obsessing over it because I felt obligated to read it. It made me feel like shit, but I felt like I needed to do that to myself in order to be a better male ally. Now all I have to show for that effort is internalized transmisogyny and mental illness.

  • u/[deleted]·1·Jul 31, 2026, 10:10 PM

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• u/[deleted]·1·Jul 31, 2026, 10:15 PM

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• u/[deleted]·1·Aug 1, 2026, 9:03 AM

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• u/[deleted]·1·Aug 1, 2026, 5:35 PM

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