#for context my therapist is jewish

[gxlden-angels]

Sometimes working through religious trauma is a heartfelt hour talking about reclaiming your bodily autonomy after being sexualized and shamed from a young age with your religious trauma coach and other times it's this text message from your therapist then a caption suggestion to "show my tumblr friends":

[historic-meme]

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. This whole week l have been thinking alot about the Holocaust. So last night I re-read maus. One panel really stuck out to me during this reading. For context this is in Maus 2 when Art is talking to his therapist, a Holocaust survivor, about how he feels he could never measure up to his father who survived Auschwitz. At this point in the story his father had already past. May his memory be a blessing.

The dialogue, “but you weren’t in Auschwitz. You were in Rego Park,” hit me like a punch to the chest. I have no better way to explain the paradoxical guilt I felt and continue to feel as the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. I did not live during the Holocaust. It had ended before my grandmother reached eighteen years old. And yet, the Shoah seems to loom over me. Forever a reminder, that I am alive by sheer luck. My great grandfather’s parents as well as two of his brothers were murdered in Auschwitz. My great grandmother’s twin sister was also murdered in the Holocaust. Despite hours of research, I still have no idea where exactly she died.

Using the term guilty for what I feel doesn’t seem exactly right but there is no better word in the English language. Maybe if I was smarter or more articulate I could find better words.

A key theme of this chapter is intergenerational trauma. This is the same chapter that has this iconic image.

On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, I simply want to acknowledge the real and extremely painful intergenerational trauma and inherited survivors guilt felt by descendants of Jewish survivors. I know I struggled in the past with feeling like I even have any right to feel this way considering I am three generations removed from any of my family that were murdered in the Holocaust. If any other Jews struggle with thoughts like this, I want to assure you that your feelings are valid and real. Intergenerational trauma is complicated and the feelings that come with it don’t simply disappear once a certain number of generations from the event pass.

This post is specifically about the Holocaust and jewish intergenerational trauma stemming from our persecution and genocide. If this post resonates with you as a non-Jew who has intergenerational trauma I am glad, but please do not derail this post.

[frances-baby-houseman]

oh y'all-- I think I have to find a new therapist. DO NOT JUDGE ME FOR THIS, but-- she's not Jewish. She's not even jew-ish. I met her for the second time this week and I mentioned Joe's bris and she had never even hear of a bris! she fully stopped me to ask what a bris is!

I just think there are some cultural norms about being jewish that i am dealing with and I don't know that someone who has zero context for that can help me! She doesn't have to be Jewish! but like, to at least know what a bris is? in a practice in fucking highland park?

I wasn't sure she was a great fit anyway-- she's quite young and feels very like, present day therapy speak to me-- but I think this is kind of a dealbreaker. I don't know how to find the right therapist but I do think I need someone who understands the context of my life at least a little bit!

[phoenixyfriend]

I liked hearing your post about hearing Israelis out and I'm Jewish with Israeli friends but I have one issue and I'd like to hear your opinion on it. Unsurprisingly extremism especially after something as traumatic as oct 7th is rampant, the ensuing violence in Gaza and less so throughout Israel and the West Bank has ensured that civilians everywhere more easily fall victim to extremism in the face of desperate and scary times. I know these friends and I know where their hearts lie however I have a hard time drawing the line between allowing the processing of trauma and calling out bullshit because they become defensive really fast. At this point I'm really tired and it feels like there's so many more important issues that should be talked about, not just the same old feelings that are based on paranoia. I don't know.. Its really hard to avoid extremism in general online right now and I just want to know how to better confront people on their traumas. Sighs.

Hey anon.

I feel for you, but a general rule of the internet is: do not trauma dump on strangers. I know you framed it as asking for advice, but just reading this ask ratcheted up my anxiety.

I do not know you. I do not know your friends. I am not a professional, and I try to be very clear on that front. This is a situation that needs to be handled delicately, and I am just not anywhere near close enough to it to give advice on what you can do here. Delicate interpersonal relationships need details and context, and I am an internet stranger.

My post is about propaganda and how it can affect policy, because I have been talking a lot about geopolitics. I am not a psychologist, or a relationship therapist, or anything in that vein. I am not qualified to give advice, especially in something like this.

Please, please talk to a professional for guidance. If you're in school, talk to a guidance counselor. If you're not, maybe your employer offers mental health benefits. I don't know and I cannot know, because you are an online stranger.

Please, people, do not ask me for advice on your personal lives. I am very bad at personal lives. It's also just... inappropriate.

[emphasisonthehomo]

My brother is watching some movie w/ Steve Carell and idk the context or the plot but in the movie Steve Carell has an orthodox Jewish son and he’s talking to a therapist about it??? and I guess he’s missing, the son is looking for him, and there’s a lot of like. Parental Guilt and anyways I’m crying about a movie I saw maybe 10 minutes of while I was making myself ramen for dinner.

[jeffchats]

To the anon who explained about the sex therapy/fantasy comment thing in Matt kings podcast, ill add a little more context. Jeff said :' i don't wanna fall in love with my therapist like Tony Soprano' is referring to the tv show Sopranos, it has the main character of Tony Soprano who is a mafia tough guy who is married with kids - but cheats on his wife alot. He starts going to therapy which in his world is frowned upon. His therapist is a woman called Dr Melfi. Because Tony sees her so much, he fantasizes about having sex with her but doesn't actually have sex with her in real life. He was never physical or even kisses her as it was all a fantasy thought of in his head. Thats what Jeff is refering to and is comparing himself to Tony. So when Jeff said: "oh well i was fantasizing about her being my therapist" (her being Verika) is weird. Tony & Dr Melfi's connection is strictly professional like Doctor client, so Jeff thinking about Verika in a professional light and not a romantic light is strange. Or the fact that they hooked up in Vegas and was thinking of the sex they had again.

The only explanation i can think of when jeff said 'can i marry a jewish girl as a non jew?' is that Mike Sheffer is jewish so would be able to answer that question. And Jeff was asking because Verika maybe jewish?, i dont think she even disclosed that info, so maybe not. If Jeff is 'dating' her to hopefully settle down thats probably why he would have bought up that question.

Jeff comparing himself to a fictional character is so on brand for him. He thinks life is a movie and his problems are fake but they are very much real. To compare Verica to a professional therapist is crazy, they have the same mental age.

Jeff possibly alluding to marriage but can't name one thing he likes about her that isn't physical. Real love right there.

[in-her-aspect]

I've been doing some (literal and figurative) unpacking from my time spent in Christian "counseling", and in my pursuing of my old journals, I have been thinking a lot about my own thinking. I was paralyzed by guilt for over a decade. Almost every entry is a confused mess, pleading for G-d to "fix" me, searching my interactions for the sin I'd committed. Which,

1. Should have been a sign of my own OCD traits--obsessive thoughts, ritualized compulsive journalling anyone?

2. Is a huge red flag from the religion I was embroiled in. While it's clear my therapist was attempting to mitigate some of the messaging we received as clients in the sermons and devotionals we did, it was simply insufficient. The notes are filled with references to sin, and how sin produces all the symptoms I experienced. I mean, even my own emotional display was criticized as not being "correct". Once that was "fixed", they began discussing discharge.

3. Gives a lot of context for why I feel so conflicted over my own identity and sense of self. Not only do I contend with a dissociative disorder that causes my sense of self to be tenuous at best, but I have been criticized and policed for being my own self. Which, if you really want to use Christian/Jewish logic, is counterproductive if we're made in the image of G-d. If I, too, am a part of Their image, then that's ridiculous to try and "fix" that!

I think it's time I start asserting who I am, and reclaiming it as neither sinful nor righteous, but neutral; and address the lifelong guilt as not being tied to any sin or decision I've made, but as a reminder that I've been dealing with trauma for a while, and that can cause feelings of guilt.

[tigger8900]

The Nobodies, by Alanna Schubach

⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

Nina and Jess are the closest of friends, sharing a secret: simply by touching their foreheads together, they can swap their consciousnesses, each inhabiting the other's body until they choose to swap back. After a falling-out in senior year of high school drives them apart, they reconnect in their 20s, quickly beginning to share their adult lives in the same way they had as children. But what are the consequences of two souls intertwining in such a way as to become one indivisible pair?

This is a heartbreaking story about the wonders and horrors of deep friendship. I'm not really sure how much I can say about it without spoiling the plot, only that the relationship between Nina and Jess felt so horribly authentic to me. The instinctive pulling together, the constant blurring of boundaries(should you have them? can you?), the hurt recoil as you go too far again, and again and...it almost hit too close to home. For those of us who've had the experience of being on one side of an ampersand, one half of a pair that can only be considered as a unit, this novel is familiar and the final confrontation inevitable. Neither character is likeable. Both are flawed and behave badly, repeatedly. But none of it is pointless cruelty. Everything comes from a need, whether it's fallout from childhood trauma, a desire to be loved, or even just a misguided attempt to love another. Check content warnings before reading, because this goes to some dark places. I liked the way the story followed two timelines, one when they were 9-17 and another when they were around 25-30. I also appreciated Schubach's exploration of Nina's Jewish culture, while at the same time being disappointed that we didn't get anything of the same for Jess's Mexican culture. I did notice that Nina never experienced any on-page racism while inhabiting Jess's body, only noting that Nina-as-Jess was seen as beautiful and desirable. Maybe the author wasn't comfortable with the subject matter(fair), but it stuck out to me as a notable omission to not acknowledge it being a thing at all, especially given context around the sexualization of latinas. The other thing that bothered me was that I sometimes found myself struggling to follow the narrative when the two were body-swapped. But the fault lies not with the book(it was consistent in using the name corresponding to the consciousness, rather than the physical body), but rather with my own reading attention. I also believe it was deliberate in a way, throwing the reader off-kilter and blurring the line between the two characters. So, read carefully! I can't quite bring myself to give this one four stars. I think this might be a fault on my end rather than the book's, part of the visceral reaction I had to the subject matter. Elevating it from an "it was alright"+ to an "it was good" is a mental step that I just can't take right now. This book makes me need a therapist.

[tryalittlejoytomorrow]

I know it's still in progress but - when it's too heavy to carry, remember this moment with me (they say love is a journey) for the fanfic director's cut

Ah, this fic. THIS FIC. this monster of a fic that was never meant to be that big and yet, it seems that every time I say "oh, I just have this idea, but it doesn't have to become a huge thing" IT DOES. fucking #oops

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning, a Very Good Place to Start.

A little bit of context:

I wrote my first cursebreaking fic right after the finale, which took me over a month and a half to write and post. Many braincells were lost in the war, and I swore to myself I was done with big, elaborated plots and cases.

(In that era, I also wrote out the entire plot of my massive future murder on a plane fic, so, you know - promises I make to myself, lmao girl)

I was also in a weird place emotionally then, as I was on sick leave, about to quit my job, and yet I also had all the time in the world to write. And, as it happens, to start plotting this next big thing, my "undercover as a married couple in the moth curse era"

And thus it began.

At first, I didn't imagine how much of the story would revolve about the actual plot and haunting. I was like - a wellness therapy center, that's my wheelhouse since I'm a therapist, Imma gonna put years of experience into this. Make Nancy and Ace The Ultimate Couple™ that everybody wonders why they're here since they're so perfect for each other and make it deliciously torturous since it's in the curse-era and Nancy can't tell Ace why she's been so distant.

But then, you know me...a wild plot appeared. So I started filling my spreadsheets, figuring everything out. The idea stayed a bit dormant for a week, until...

PSA: I get my best ideas in the shower and the subway.

Honestly, this visual launched the whole fic for me. I started writing the first chapter that day and posted it the following day.

Bringing a family heirloom from Ace was very personal to me. Being of Ashkenazi descent myself, it's always very important to me to stay true to that heritage, especially for a character like Ace. The show did a pretty good job of including Judaism, in subtle, cute ways, but never as the butt of a joke or just in passing like other shows do (see: my forever rage over Arrow never giving more than two minutes about Felicity's faith). I feel like, to non-Jewish people, some references are subtle enough that you wouldn't mind not getting them, but to me, they always feel extra important. My grandma's kugel recipe is a beautiful childhood memory, and that scene between Thom and Ace at the preccinct always warms my heart. Ace's grandfather being a Holocaust survivor, his grandparents speaking Yiddish, oy vey, all of these are very personal to me and to a lot of Jewish people and I love that the show gives such representation: Jews by choice, people identifying as half-Jewish like Tamura, Jews with a disability...

And so that's why I included a lot of that in this story. In most of my stories, really (especially the Hanukkah and Pessah fic, but everywhere, really). And Ace giving Nancy that ring was his way of saying - I'm giving you my all. I feel like that's a lot, especially coming from the man who believes himself unworthy and not enough for her. More than once in the show, his Judaism and his knowledge have saved the day; in this story, it's the love that comes with it that does.

Anyway! that was a lot! thanks for the ask @winterlovesong1 ! 💜

[lord-shitbox]

ok fucker gimme ur soul eater opinions & what you think about uh. inugami 🙏

SOUL EATER

Favorite character: death the kid or crona. stein also. bro that chainsaw leg dude ,

Least Favorite character: i havent watched or read this series in a while so i dont remember too well....fuckin mosquito dude ig

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): uhh..maka and soul obv.. maka and crona also.....in the anime justin law and chainsaw leg dude are kinda... Kinda...yk....... stein and medusa but ONLY as like a divorced couple (toxic vibes u get me) black star and tsubaki

Character I find most attractive: trying to rembr. chainsaw leg dude. black star gets black sleeveless shirt and biceps bonus points (short trans king outfit) stein when he takes that coat off

Character I would marry: tsubaki . maam your number pls

Character I would be best friends with: crona or death the kid ....

a random thought: was death the kid created by asexual reproduction

An unpopular opinion: idk what's popular and not popular.. DtK i dont ship w anyone tho. aspec king. i love crona in the manga EXCEPT FOR THEIR ENDING..SOMEBODY GO SAVE THEM (have not and will not read soul eater not)

my canon OTP: idk if any of my favorite ships r canon or not.. i dont really ship from this series too much

Non-canon OTP: dont got one

most badass character: crona or tsubaki. stein maybe hes got a titful shirt on under that coat

pairing I am not a fan of: idk what does and doesnt get shipped out here...Blair the cat and Soul.

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): justin law in the manga what the fuck was that bullshit why is the jewish character evil for insinuated religious reasons

favourite friendship: ALL OF THEM............. black star and DtK have the most potential for Mean Banter which i am always down for. but crona. crona and everyone. crona is my BABTY

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: shinigami is cool id like to know more about him. also id like to be adopted by medusa so i can KILL HER IN HER SLEEP

INUGAMI (nurarihyon no mago)

How I feel about this character: i love him i love him i love him i love him I LOVE villains that are awful and hateful until they die and theyre suddenly much more human. i love villains driven by resentment because theyve been hurt i love scooping them gently out of canon context and into a sandbox to watch them cope

All the people I ship romantically with this character: mm...... tamazuki... (the eyelashes fuck) but only in hypothetical situations that wont exist in canon

My non-romantic OTP for this character: tamazuki and puppygami (ITS FUCKING HIM OK ITS LITERALLY IMPLIED TO BE HIM) post shikoku arc them is so,,

My unpopular opinion about this character: mm idk . i dont think anyone likes him all that much except to have made doujins abt him and tamazuki a bajillion years ago but like. he did nothing wrong hes my meowmeow. barkbark if you will

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: TAMAZUKI SAY SORRY CHALLENGE.

my het ship: theres like 1 woman in his vicinity sorry no

my fem/slash ship: no also

my OTP: inugami and tamazuki . If He Says Sorry

my OT3: ngl those 2 are the only ones i care about/r deep characters from shikoku. id jump on polyam ship but theres nobody id like to shove in their direction

my cross over ship: inugami and a therapist

my kink: nahh

a head cannon fact: ?? but puppygami i will literally throw hands for this its IMPLIED SO HEAVILY. AND bro i will not go on this rant rn ask me about it i will compile receipts.

my gender bend: no genderbends only transgenderification beam

[magnetothemagnificent]

So I saw a new therapist and she's a lesbian and Jewish and it is such a breath of fresh air to be able to talk to someone who understands both my queerness and its context in Judaism. Who understands my transness in relation to my Judaism. Who understands that my trans identity is intrinsically tried to Jewish ideas and traditions of gender and masculinity and different from mainstream American ideas. It really feels incredible.

[jasper-tarot-reader]

Hello, Jasper!

Firstly, I want to thank you for your tarot readings! I would be grateful to you to let me get one for me. As I understood, it's free.

You can call me Lilou. My pronouns are she/they.

Let me introduce you to my story.

Now I'm a senior in high school. In a few months, I'll go to university. At least, my family expect this. And I understand that in the country where I live, people more often become successful having a university degree. Maybe it's not a big problem for other countries. I don't know much about it. Well, back to my thing. Now I need to choose what profession I want to get. It's not easy for me at all. That's why I'd like to have advice from tarot if I'm allowed to.

So, my question is, what profession does fit me most? Or, maybe, in what profession do I have the biggest potential to be successful?

Thank you, again. I hope I fulfilled all the conditions.

Wishing you peace and best luck,

Lilou💛

Hey there Lilou!

Yes, my readings here are free, but if you want to tip for my services, please consider donating to a relief fund for Mayfield, KY or Edwardsville, IL! Both were recently hit by intense tornadoes, so anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated!

I understand the confusion and frustration. Here in the US, people are pushed to go to college and get degrees that they're never actually able to end up using because having a degree doesn't guarantee you a job (especially not here in the Midwest).

I poked your blog a bit to get a better gist of who you are as a person and noticed that you seem to really love astrology, so I used Arcane (the Arcana of Astrology oracle) for this reading! To hopefully help alleviate some of the fear you may be feeling, I drew a card for both questions you asked - because these are not the same question, even if you think they are.

Question 1: What profession may fit Lilou the most? Answer 1: Lilith, the Shadow

The keywords of this card are shadows, darkness, power, equality, mystery, wild, and pettiness.

In astrology, Lilith is a comet that shows us where we should not compromise. In Jewish text, she is a demon who refused to sleep with Adam if they were not equal and then went on to become a baby-eating demon.

And in a reading, this card shows that when we stand up for ourselves, we're often faced with backlash and further punishment. This card tells us to not back down - you have the capacity to downright destroy those who continue to oppress you. But remember that strength sometimes is just walking away from the goals and expectations others have set for us.

So there are two ways to read this card in this context.

One is "fuck what everyone else says, fuck even going to college, do what makes you happy". While that's a fantastic message, it doesn't exactly answer your question.

The second way is as an advocate. Someone who stands up for others and gets them the help and resources they need. A lawyer, a therapist, a nurse, any of these could be indicated by the Lilith card in this deck. If you find yourself to be a very people-oriented person, these could be good careers for you.

Question 2: In what profession does Lilou have the biggest potential to be successful? Answer 2: Hygeia, the Purifier

This card's keywords are healing, cleaning, hygiene, and medicine.

In astrology, this comet (or asteroid, whichever term is actually right) is the ultimate proponent of health, ruling over eating habits, health issues, exercise, and how we interact with our environment. In Greek mytho-religion, she is the goddess of good health, daughter and attendant of Asklepios, companion of Aphrodite, and granddaughter of Apollo.

This card usually indicates a "spring cleaning" of one's mind, body, and physical space. We can only run on empty for so long before we get struck down. It can also mean a search for help on the medical front due to health issues. Like everything, this has the potential to spiral out of control, so self-restraint and critical thinking are still necessary.

More than with Lilith, this card is giving me major nurse or other medical practitioner vibes. Emergency medical services, nurses, doctors, even psychologists for more mind-focused healing - this could be a field you could be successful in if you really put your mind to it.

Gosh, I wish more querents would be like you and give me such amazing information to work with so I could make my reading as accurate as possible! As with everything, remember that the future is always changing, and your future is ultimately up to you.

Leave feedback as another ask that I can publish publicly and tell me what parts felt right, if anything felt off, stuff like that. Until you do, you will be added to my greylist. Please reblog my reading guidelines!

~Jasper

[ofdreamsanddoodles]

if you don't mind me asking, how do you deal with consuming content with 'problematic' aspects? for example, i see you reblog posts criticizing things like racism in tma, and you can still make content while being able to recognize those things. it's hard for me to continue enjoying something when it has even 1 thing slightly bad in it, but i know that's not a healthy way to consume content. is there anything you keep in mind when interacting with a given series? u don't need to answer ❤️ ty

also a note on my ask -- of course you don't need to answer, and you aren't a therapist & etc. i just admire your ability to both recognize flaws in works but still enjoy them, and thought since you seem to have critical thinking skills you might have a perspective that you could offer. being on tumblr from a young age seems to have affected my ability to separate things in my mind, lol. thanks so much for reading even if you don't feel comfortable answering.

I mean... you’ve kind of answered your own question? The only way to consume media is to remember that everything has flaws. My brother came by while I was typing this up and told me the answer is to “just vibe” because everyone is more or less terrible in one aspect or another but obviously, that’s not the answer you’re looking for.

I guess the short answer is just... you have to learn how to trust your own set of morals and understand that you shouldn’t feel guilty if a story you like betrays you. And yes, that’s hard, especially when you grow up surrounded by very rigid rules on what’s “okay” to watch, but if you’re just looking for some tips, here’s a list that I hope will help:

Find people you trust and see what they think of the situation. Think about whether or not they’re coming from an informed place. A friend of mine asked me if I knew about a Jewish tradition a while back. I had no idea what they were talking about. Turns out, it was something popular with German Jews. None of my family is from Germany. Sometimes, just being Jewish doesn’t mean I’m the right person to ask.

Find people who are complaining & see why they’re upset. Think about who is annoyed by this and how many of them there are. Think about what they think the proper response is, if any. Think about whether you have the right to wave off their concerns. Think about how those concerns are treated, both in-fandom and by creators. I saw a lot of people in the tma tag complaining about twitter “overreacting” to MAG 185, but if Jonny felt the need to issue an apology and specifically say that he realizes he’s crossed a line, chances are, the complaints were probably warranted (a thing I’d like to add is that apparently, RQ also issued an apology for a fluff episode they released, which I thought was kind of silly, because the episode was essentially just joking about martin forgetting a word. But also, as a neurodivergent person who sometimes struggles with speech, I do understand why that might upset people. not all apologies have to about incredibly important topics, but even the ones who aren’t show a lot about the cast behind it. Alternatively, if RQ had only apologized for this episode, and not MAG 185, that also says a lot about where there priorities are, and what fans they care about keeping)

Think about what will happen if you continue watching/reading etc. It’s not so much “is it okay if I keep watching this?” but “if I continue to watch this, will I convince myself that this problematic aspect isn’t actually a big deal? Is it so ingrained in the show that I can’t watch an episode without seeing the problems in it? What will I say to others, if they want to watch this?” For example, if someone sees you’ve reblogged a scene from a show you like and asks what it’s about, how many excuses are you going to give? How many trigger warnings are there, and can you justify them? There’s a difference between a piece of media having a character say homophobic slurs, and a piece of media saying a gay person should have homophobic slurs thrown at them.  Also: If you think you cant justify getting someone else interested, you probably shouldn’t justify contributing to the show. This might be obvious, but there’s a very big difference in pirating a tv show and buying its merch. 

Think about the fandom. If you continue talking about this, who are you surrounding yourself with? Like, there are a LOT of weirdos making content for kids shows, but that doesn’t always mean the show itself is weird. What it does mean, though, is that you should be careful navigating your enjoyment. Sometimes, the only way to enjoy something is to talk about it with a select few friends. Sometimes, it’s to enjoy it by yourself. I do believe it’s possible to enjoy a show in spite of the canon, but at the same time, if you’re watching a show that’s attracting a lot of racists, think about why that might be. 

some more thoughts under the cut, because I already wrote them out before I realized I could just make a list.

The thing about consuming media is that it’s very subjective. I know a lot of people who have given up on tma recently and while that’s not wholly because it’s “problematic,” it definitely plays a part in it. People have different meters for what they can excuse in media. The important thing to remember is WHY they left, and if you’re able to keep that in your mind while also continuing to engage in contact with the media. Will you be able to remember that Daisy traumatized Jon more than any other avatar if you consume context calling her Basira’s hot murderwife? Can you talk about the Flesh and acknowledge the racism in the creation of the Haans?

Personally, I don’t think you can produce positive content about Daisy and also acknowledge the harm she causes. You can’t point at a character and say, yes, she has committed actual police brutality, but I think she deserves a cute lesbian romance anyway. That’s not really a thing tma has done wrong as much as it is a problem with the fandom, but like, at the end of the day, it’s all just a matter of critical thinking. Who is being hurt by these portrayals of the characters? How? Most of the problems with tma aren’t things that are, like, baked into the actual worldbuilding and for a lot of people, that’s enough for them to still justify making content for the show.

If your complaints sound like “oh, if only they didn’t do xy, this would make for a good show,” then you’re probably fine. But if it goes into “i like this, but only if I can ignore (major plot point)” think about why you feel the need to keep watching. There are shows I’ve stopped watching based on principle. There’s manga I read that I only talk about with my brother and no one else, because I don’t want to be exposed to the fans. It doesn’t have to be as simple as “well, this artist did a bad thing, so now I’m going to ignore it forever.” If you think the creators of something are bad people, don’t support them. You can still pirate it or whatever, but if it’s something like hetalia, where the point of the show is just “let’s put all these stereotypes in a room and see how they react” then yes, for your own sake, you should stop watching because this is how stereotypes become normalized, and no one should be consuming media where nazi germany as the protagonist.

Really, at the end of the day, it’s just a matter of becoming media literate and that’s a process that takes time. Remember that being interested in something that isn’t 100% doesn’t make you a bad person, and listen to the people around you. Try and be a safe space for the people who do have complaints and remember not to place your enjoyment of something over the comfort of others. Other than that, just... do your best, I guess?

[lastsonlost]

So I was half-right.

Instead of misogyny it's Nazis because of course it is.

If you spend a lot of time in certain Extremely Online corners of the internet ecosystem, you’ve likely stumbled onto #NoNutNovember, or just #NNN for short. An annual challenge encouraging men to refrain from masturbating (or even, for many, having any sex) for the month, No Nut November was initially created as a parody of internet-borne phenomena such as the Ice Bucket Challenge or Movember, skewering the silliness of viral internet challenges along with the more extreme claims made by proponents of NoFap, an anti-porn subreddit with half a million members. (According to one of the moderators of the NoNutNovember subreddit, /u/yeeval, the subreddit has no connection to NoFap, though the two are often conflated.)

For most participants, the challenge is essentially an excuse to shitpost, as well as tweet memes skewering some of the more exaggerated purported benefits of abstaining from masturbation. But there are many who take it seriously, with at least 52,000 people as of this writing diligently documenting their day-by-day progress (and setbacks) on the subreddit r/NoNutNovember. Per /u/yeeval, “I’d say 90% of the posts are from people actively participating and also there’s the occasional fallen member who stays on the subreddit for the community and laughs.”

On its surface, No Nut November is a fairly innocuous challenge: while it may seem silly to abstain from masturbation for virtually no reason, some of the memes are pretty funny, and a month of abstinence (whether it be from sex or masturbation) certainly isn’t going to kill anyone. u/yeeval says the goal isn’t to demonize porn or masturbation per se, but to prompt men to examine their own masturbation habits and whether or not they’re healthy. “In my opinion, most originally participate in NNN for the meme aspect of the challenge but as the days go on people begin to see how big their porn or masturbation dependency is,” he says.

"Neither of those things are bad or immoral in themselves but just like any outlet can become excessive in times of depression and loneliness.” Yet it would be naive to ignore that there’s significant overlap between the general anti-porn ideology behind NoFap — and, to a degree, No Nut November — and that of the far right, which has increasingly coopted the movement. (NoFap’s website states that, with the exception of a small number of users who may abstain for religious or moral reasons, they do not have an anti-masturbation stance.)

Because the challenge is  associated with abstaining from porn, some people associated with the movement have taken the extra step of harassing adult performers on social media, giving it an additional layer of troubling implications. “In the past [No Nut November] has always been like, ‘Oh, look at this ridiculous thing some people are participating in,'” says adult performer and director Casey Calvert. “This year, people [in the industry] are talking about, ‘Oh, actually this is connected to the far right and maybe we shouldn’t just be saying hahaha, No Nut November.'”

A new meme brings these implications into sharp relief. Coomer is a reference to a meme of an unkempt, skeezy-looking bearded man in a white tank top with vaguely Semitic features, accompanied by descriptive text like “doesn’t even know anything about politics,” “extremely aesthetic right arm (huge muscle),” and “has never heard of NoFap"

It’s been circulating on 4chan for the past year, but Alex Hawkins, the vice president of the porn tube site xHamster, says he started seeing it in the replies on his company’s Twitter feed back in September, when presidential candidate Andrew Yang tweeted about limiting access to pornography. At first, “we didn’t really know what it meant and thought it was funny,” he tells Rolling Stone. Then, in late October, the coomer resurfaced thanks to a Twitter campaign led by a user named TeapotLad, in which users vowed to change their avatars to the coomer should they fail No Nut November. PewDiePie shouted out the campaign in a recent YouTube video, as did far-right YouTuber Paul Joseph Watson, who is perhaps best known for being one of the many extremist figures, including Milo Yiannopolous and Alex Jones, to be banned from Facebook. “No Nut November and the Coomer meme represent a deeper meaning,” he said in a tweet. “Porn is evil. It literally re-wires your brain and causes erectile dysfunction. Take the pledge. Don’t be a Coomer.”

The term has also been used in the context of “OK coomer,” a play on the “OK boomer” meme, in response to tweets critical of No Nut November or masturbation abstinence in general. “It’s positioned as this epic battle between the weak beta masturbators and the strong, alpha NoFappers,” says Hawkins.

Like most memes, “coomer” carries with it more than a tinge of irony, and it’s not always easy to determine whether it’s being used flippantly or to actually deride men who masturbate. But the implication is clear: masturbating is an urge that should be resisted at all costs. David Ley, PhD, a clinical psychologist and sex therapist who studies pornography and mental health, saw the meme after he tweeted his criticism of No Nut November, referring to it as “a creepy little smorgasbord of insecurity-driven hate with anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia all rolled up in one,” he tells Rolling Stone. (Ley has partnered with the cam website Stripchat to do AMAs about sexual health, and plans to appear in one debunking some of the myths associated with No Nut November.)

The idea that there are significant health benefits from abstaining from masturbation is partially based on the (primarily internet-propagated) theory that semen retention is linked to an increase in testosterone and male virility, an idea that has been widely debunked. For the most part, however, the idea that masturbation is somehow feminizing is “rooted in extremely antiquated ideas of masculinity,” many of which are also promoted by far-right groups, says Ley. The Proud Boys, for instance, a far-right extremist group known for its propensity toward violence, has long advocated for its members to abstain from masturbation on the grounds that it boosts testosterone and makes them more appealing to women; indeed, founder Gavin McInnes gave a shoutout to NoFap in a 2015 article for the far-right publication Taki’s Magazine. (The organizers of NoFap have strongly refuted any connection to the Proud Boys.)

An even more extremist version of this far-right anti-masturbation philosophy has been promoted by David Duke, the former head of the Ku Klux Klan, who has propagated the conspiracy theory that Jews dominate the porn industry and use pornography as a way to control white men. On far-right threads on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, this sentiment is fairly widespread. “Jews not only control most of the pornography industry, they also rely on the goyim to maintain a routine of ejaculation in order to stay docile and non-violent,” one comment reads. Another shared a viral Pornhub tweet poking fun at viewers who’d failed No Nut November, writing, “the Jew mocks you as they poison the minds of millions.” (Pornhub is owned by the Canadian company MindGeek, the CEO of which, Feras Antoon, does not appear to be Jewish, even though there are numerous 4chan /pol/ threads speculating as such.)

This anti -Semitism is also often accompanied by healthy doses of homophobia and racism as well: on these threads, you’ll frequently see users deriding men who masturbate to heterosexual porn, on the grounds that being aroused by another man’s penis makes you gay (even if said penis is depicted going into a vagina). And because mainstream porn often features white women paired with black men, there’s also a virulently racist element to much of this discourse, such as the suggestion that interracial porn is intended to steer white women away from procreating with white men and toward men of color.

The irony of this strain of the anti-masturbation movement is that, while it’s ostensibly intended to fight the larger porn industry’s attempts to brainwash and emasculate white men, anti-masturbation ideology has historically been used as a tool by fascist figures to gain social control. Cultural stigma associated with masturbation, combined with the fact that pretty much everyone masturbates, invariably leads to a lot of men “developing a lot of internal shame,” says Ley. “And that makes them open to manipulation and social control.” As an example, he cited the National Socialist Party in 1930s Germany, which strongly discouraged Hitler Youth members from engaging in masturbation. Because anti-porn and anti-masturbation movements tend to be comprised of young heterosexual males, they could potentially be viewed by some on the far right as ideal recruitment grounds. The fact that something like No Nut November appears to be a joke on its face “appears to serve as this interesting front door recruiting kind of strategy to bring folks into this deeper, much more insidious and shaming movement,” says Ley.

Of course, it goes without saying that not everyone who participates in No Nut November or NoFap is a white supremacist or religious fundamentalist, and that the founders of these groups explicitly reject any suggestions of overlap between the two communities. u/yeeval says he has seen no hint of any anti-Semitic or misogynistic commentary on the subreddit, chalking any suggestions of Jewish porn conspiracy theories to “someone trying to make a bad / overtly offensive joke.” “NoNutNovember isn’t a political movement. We are not anti-porn. We are not anti-woman. We are not anti-masturbation or anti-sex,” he says. “In its most simple form NoNutNovember just a fun internet challenge that has grown in popularity due to many memes that circulate the internet…However, I also think that the reason that it has become so widespread is that it has given many the opportunity to look within themselves and realize that they might be relying on masturbation and porn for comfort.”

The  coomer meme is also, at least inherently, apolitical, says Alice Vaughn, host of Two Girls One Mic, a podcast about porn tropes. “The concept surrounding ‘Coomer’ is neither right nor left politically. The urge to shame those with higher sex drives is nothing new, and is a subject many are uncomfortable with, especially adolescents (which is predominately 4Chan’s user base),” she says. But the rise of “coomer,” with its distinctly conservative implications about male sexuality, would seem to refute that the anti-masturbation movement is totally innocent or entirely intended in jest. The fact that it’s often used in the context of “OK coomer,” a play on a meme intended to skewer boomers’ criticism of Gen Z, also indicates that this is primarily a youth-driven phenomenon. When you consider how younger generations have typically adopted a more healthy, progressive view of sexuality than previous ones, this doesn’t make a lot of intuitive sense — but it actually tracks with current data, which indicates that younger generations are having less sex, Ley says.

Usually, this phenomenon is attributed to male millennials and zoomers (members of Gen Z) spending more time watching porn, and to an extent this may be true; when it comes to determining the effects of pornography viewing on male sex lives, research is somewhat mixed. But it’s also just as likely that sociocultural factors like economic unrest and fear-mongering abstinence-only education have also played a role in these declining sexual activity rates. “We’ve spent decades telling these young kids be afraid of sex, and that only hereto monogamous sex is OK and moral,” says Ley. “Now all of a sudden they are really conflicted about sex and their own sexuality.”

That said, there’s also an awful lot of men who are not participating in No Nut November in earnest, and many more who aren’t participating at all. In an email to Rolling Stone, Pornhub vice president Corey Price said that traffic is virtually unaffected by No Nut November, and few of the adult performers Rolling Stone spoke with said that they hadn’t seen their engagement go down considerably during the month either. Considering that annual Pornhub traffic numbers are in the tens of billions, if there is indeed a wider porn conspiracy to sap men of their virility, that conspiracy appears to be working pretty well. But for those who are participating in the challenge, and may have stumbled along the way, Calvert has a comforting message: “I personally think No Nut November is very silly,” she says. “Not masturbating for a month does not make you a better man or a stronger man.”

............

Let me see if I got this straight.

Porn is evil

And not fapping makes you a racist homophobic Nazi

Did I... Did I fucking miss something?

[azdoine]

I think it’s no great secret that I have a pretty complicated relationship with my Judaism, to the point that it’s gotten me into a fair bit of trouble and it’s gotten me to say some pretty stupid shit. I am, to put it irreverently, a heretic, or just a dumb kid on the internet - that I’m now an adult seems of no consequence in the face of the desolate confusion and alienation I still feel towards my religion, have always felt since I really was a child, have been irrevocably characterized by. such is the scope of my big fat idiot mouth that I hesitate to say anything more, on these topics and on others.

But why the alienation, and what of its kind?

In many respects, it’s probably a common story, so I won’t belabor the point too far: I was raised performatively into my religion - at the behest of a mother I still have a complicated relationship with! - not to believe in it with all my heart, but to find a community and a culture in it, and even back then, I was already too much of a fag and a fuckup to ever fit in with the world that had been presented to me in bits and pieces. My experience with Judaism is a decade of passively absorbing Torah anecdotes that I didn’t even believe in while my peers ignored me or laughed at me for being the little bitch that we all knew I was. C’est la vie.

But if my disconnection from the Jewish religion feels embarrassing, my lingering attachment to it is even worse, because here we come up on the k-word - no, not that k-word. I’m talking about the Kabbalah, and perhaps no element of the Jewish religion is more charged, easily disrespected, or frequently misappropriated. Were I not so wounded in my attachment to Judaism, as it were, I would feel no such need to explore the Kabbalah as I do, and thus have nothing to rationalize, but were I not still ethnically Jewish, I would have no rationalization for it which I could accept. I would have turned back at the gate rather than be another idiot pretending he knew anything whatsoever about a tradition that wasn’t his to claim.

Why am I talking about this now? In part it’s nothing more or less than what it is: a rumination on some of my eclectic traumas and interests. (If you can’t use tumblr as a sounding board in the absence of a therapist or religious leader in your life, what good is it even for?)

But it’s also a disclaimer and a contextualization. Because although I would have no basis otherwise to comment on the appropriation of Kabbalah by various vulgar mystics, I wouldn’t feel confident or honest talking about that appropriation without also contextualizing my own place in that discussion, as someone who may indeed have participated in that appropriation.

Why is the Kabbalah so appropriated as it is, and what is the significance of its appropriation? Why did the Kabbalah catch my eye when the lore of a more mainstream or conventional Judaism could not?

In his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem speaks not as a vulgar mystic but as a dedicated Jew. And yet, although Scholem does not perhaps forgive the vulgar mystic for his trespasses against Jewish lore, Scholem’s profoundly and aggressively historical approach immediately forecloses the possibility that anything else could have come to pass:

The great Jewish scholars of the [1800s] whose conception of Jewish history is still dominant in our days... had little sympathy—to put it mildly—for the Kabbalah. At once strange and repellent, it epitomised everything that was opposed to their own ideas and to the outlook which they hoped to make predominant in modern Judaism...

It is not to the credit of Jewish scholarship that... the greater part of the ideas and views which show a real insight into the world of Kabbalism, closed as it was to the rationalism prevailing in the Judaism of the nineteenth century, were expressed by Christian scholars of a mystical bent.... It is a pity that the fine philosophical intuition and natural grasp of such students lost their edge because they lacked all critical sense as to historical and philological data in this field, and therefore failed completely when they had to handle problems bearing on the facts.

The natural and obvious result of the antagonism of the great Jewish scholars was that, since the authorized guardians neglected this field, all manner of charlatans and dreamers came and treated it as their own property.

Scholem and others similarly contextualize the “great Jewish scholars” in their own time, explaining their steadfast refusal to engage with the mystical discourses of Judaism, but we needn’t concern ourselves with the reasoning of those great scholars here, beyond acknowledging its existence and its essentially reasonable character. (We should by no means imply that the final “fault” for the appropriation of the Kabbalah by other religious bodies somehow lies with the Jews who dismissed the subject, after all.)

The more important and interesting takeaway here is that this “emergent” mythologization of the Kabbalah by non-Jews is, in fact, not so different in character from the mysticism of the Jews who formulated the Kabbalah in the first place! For Scholem likewise characterizes the formulation of the Kabbalah as, among many other things, a kind of metaphysically (rather than politically) reactionary response to the sterile rationalist discourses of the Judaisms that were predominant at the time: a historically-necessary and inevitable attempt to reclaim the possibility of a mythic theology and a personal (and mystical) experience of God, despite the oppressively transcendental and impersonal formulation of monotheism that held so much more authority. The Kabbalah is implicitly a heretical foil to a more traditional canon - an ecstatic and pre-Othered body of work which always threatens to dissolve and lose all integrity under the immense weight of the purpose it was created to serve. The unleashed spiritual thirst of the deprived devours beyond restraint.

In this respect, there is no strain of Kabbalah which we can isolate, shining and unsoiled, as the thing which was later appropriated by vulgar syncretists, because the Kabbalah itself was always vulgar, and both the creation and the appropriation of the Kabbalah are products of the same human drive for mystical experience. It’s heresy all of the way down! The phone call is coming from inside the house. The genie was always already out of the bottle. Lord English was always already here.

Scholem bitterly appreciates this problem, I suspect, for even in charting the self-destructions of mysticism and in identifying the psychic universality of the mystical experience - the mystic’s unmediated contact with an absolute - he rejects out of hand the notion that mysticisms are fungible, or that our study of mysticism should treat it as infinitely plastic. A Jewish mysticism is not a Christian mysticism, nor are they merely two different forms of some “pure” archetypal mysticism. A mysticism, however transcendental, can neither be divorced from or escape from the historical context that created it. And nor should it, at least in Scholem’s estimation.

So what, then, is the historical context which created the appropriated forms of the Kabbalah that proliferate western esotericism, and how does it still imprison or inform those mysticisms?

Answering such a question with any degree of depth is, at least for now, beyond me... but I wonder, sometimes, whether we can escape from the infinite plasticity and universality of mysticism any more than we can escape from its specificity and boundedness.

Such a dialectic is a thing that Scholem does not speak of, a reach his expertise does not want or need know.

[chaotic-archaeologist]

Any advice for an aspiring archeologist?

Greetings! 

I have a lot of advice, and I’m going to frame it with the preface that I spent two years figuring out that I needed to not be a psych major, so my path might look a little different than someone who started out as an anthro major.

Now let’s begin:

Narrow down your area of interest: Think carefully about what areas/ periods of history you like the best and resonate the most with. For example, Medieval Europe is a thousand years and a whole continent, so try to narrow it down to a specific region and time span (I specialize in Wales 800 CE- 1300 CE and England during the War of the Roses). Ancient Rome is very big and very long too. Break it into political periods (Republic/Empire/Rise/Fall) and geographic areas.

One thing I’ve found that helps a lot with this process is reading a lot of historical fiction. Read some books to see what kind of people you’re drawn to (peasants/royalty/merchants/aristocrats/etc). I can personally recommend a lot of books on England that helped me figure out who pulled on my heartstrings and who I didn’t care about.

Depending on what you choose you’ll end up in one of two categories 1) Prehistoric Archaeology, or 2) Historical Archaeology. These will be important for some undergrad classes but it’s mostly a grad school thing that you can sort out as you get on with your education.

Classes: There will be some classes that you need to take for an archaeology/anthropology major. They might vary depending on your institution, but expect to take at least an Introduction to Archaeology class (which is exactly what it sounds like), and a Methods class (how to identify what kind of artifact is what, and how to record and research. You will probably have to scratch ceramics with dental tools, which I personally hated). 

Now, it may not count towards your major, but I would strongly recommend taking at least one history class that focuses on your period and area of interest. It’ll give you better in depth knowledge and context and help with your research skills. These classes may not necessarily be found in the history department, for example: I’ll be taking a Jewish Studies class on Eastern Europe sometime in the next year or so because I plan on studying the archaeology of pogroms.

Field School*: I’m putting this in a separate category because field school is a doozy. This is something that will be required to grad school and for your major. Field school is where you learn the technical skills of how to dig and excavate. I personally loved it, but some people hate it. 

It is okay to hate excavation, and if you do you have two choices 1) suck it up for the field season or 2) choose to work on analyzing collections that already exist. The good news is that there are zillions of pre-existing collections out there that someone has already kindly dug up for you, but the bad news is that there’s way more funding for excavation than there is for lab work (this is messed up but everyone loves to find things and no one loves to catalogue them).

Because you might not like fieldwork, please, please, please take my advice and try to do your field school early in your undergrad years. That way if you don’t like it there’s plenty of time to take other classes or change your major.

Now there are a lot of options for field schools, and many of them are abroad in Fun Exotic Places. Personally, I steered clear of those because 1) they are more expensive, 2) they’re higher stakes because they’re more expensive and you are dealing with potentially Very Special Precious Things, and 3) you will be tempted to sightsee and consume alcohol and neither of those things are great to do during field season. I took my field school at the state university right next to where I live and it cost me around $4,000 USD, as opposed to perhaps $8,000 USD to go to Rome.

*Be advised that field school is much more like the movie Holes than it is Indiana Jones. 

Grad School: The bad news is that if you want to work as an archaeologist you’re going to have to suck it up and go to grad school, and it might steal a little bit of your soul. The good news is that your soul will grow back. 

Going into grad school you should know one thing: most archaeologists are not employed at a university teaching or doing research. Most of us will have jobs out in the real world working for companies that do contract archaeology for construction companies, the state or federal government, or some sort of private organization like a tribe.

Okay, good. You have two choices with grad school 1) a PhD, or 2) a Masters. If you want to be a professor and do research and teach you’ll need to get a PhD. You do not necessarily need a PhD to work in the private sector. There are some pros and cons to both. A Masters is faster but you’ll need to pay more, but because it takes less time you’ll be out in the real world making money sooner. A PhD takes a couple of years longer, but generally the university will pay you, so it’s cheaper and it means that you might have more chances for higher up jobs in the future. You can also start a PhD program and decide to leave with just a Masters instead, but it’s complicated.

Jobs: Being an archaeologist doesn’t always mean you dig. You can do survey work (radar, magnetic resistance, LiDAR). You can do stuff with computers like GIS (I know nothing about GIS because I hate computers with a passion, so go ask someone else.) You can work in a museum curating artifacts (there are museum studies degrees), or work analyzing things people have already found like I mentioned above. You can look at specialized fields (pollen analysis, pottery analysis, osteoarchaeology, etc)

If you do want to dig, you have to decide where. If it’s an exotic location like high altitudes in Peru, chances are that you’re going to need a University to back you up on that, so you’ll need to be a professor. But there are also places that will pay you to dig. England has an archaeologist for pretty much every country, and they get called in when construction finds something old. American construction companies also have similar clauses in their contracts, and if they find something they hire a private firm to come and mitigate the damage of said construction. 

Some counties/states will also have archaeologists on hand. Please check out @archaeologistproblems and @anglo-saxintrash because they both know quite a lot about digging.

Some disclaimers: You need to love this work, because it’s hard. Digging is hard on your body, and I know a lot of older professionals who have back, shoulder, elbow, or wrist problems because of it. I also know several who have skin cancer, so for the love of all that is holy please wear sunscreen. During field season you will be in pain, end of story. If you’re in a situation where you can’t dig for part of the year you’ll spend time sitting at a desk analyzing and writing about what you found.

You won’t get rich. The private sector can pay more than the university gigs, but no one is making bank off of this. The other day I had to inform a 9 year old at public outreach that 1) I wasn’t going to find any gold and 2) even if I did, I don’t get to keep what I find. 

Sometimes you won’t find anything at all (as one of my professors would say “absence is presence!!!”) and that’s very disappointing. I know of a dig that went on for two field seasons (two years) and the found one. single. coin. It’s a huge bummer but you can’t find a crystal skull every day.

People will endlessly mistake you for a paleontologist and ask you about dinosaurs. At some point this will make you want to stab your eyes out with a spork. Either tell them what your favorite dinosaur is and move on, or get good at patiently explaining that you research dead humans, not dead lizards.

Lastly, don’t give up: I know that this is a long post and it looks daunting, but if this is what you love, there’s no substitute. I dream of dirt at night. I make ooh and ahh sounds at little fragments of ceramics and get giddy when someone mentions that there might be a privy somewhere. I want to know about what people in the past ate and used and threw away, and even though it’s a lot less lucrative than being a therapist I wouldn’t chose anything else.

Keep your trowel sharp and your heart hopeful,

-Reid