#still very normal about the Euphoria episodes

[just-tell-him-you-love-him]

I say the phrases that keep it all going, and everybody plays along.

House MD, s2e19, Euphoria (Part 1) (2006) // Romeo + Juliet (1996) // Richard Siken, Planet of Love

[thebestofoneshots]

Gilded Constellations | (wolfstar x reader)

Series Masterlist | Previous episode

Pairing: Wolfstar x Reader Word Count: 8.5 K Warnings: None Prompt: Who said potions class was meant to be boring? This IS a Wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it. Proofread by lovely: @aremuslupinsimp

Chapter 32: Come A Little Bit Closer

You groaned the second your alarm went off, placing a pillow over your eyes as you winced from the light being extremely harsh to your rather sensible senses. You checked the clock, you were pretty sure you had half threatened Sirius with making his life miserable through Moony last night and blinked a couple of times to force yourself awake. 

After checking the time one last time, trying to convince yourself that the clock said 4:30 instead of 5:30 so you could sleep another hour, only to realize it wasn’t, you raised yourself until you were sitting on your bed “fuck,” you whispered as you felt the ache on your legs and back. You had rolled yourself into a ball, and while initially, the pain had been drawn out by the stress of the water spirit and the euphoria from the party, it wasn’t anymore. Just when I had started to feel fine, you thought. 

You yawned and went to change, rolling your shoulders a couple of times, at least the shoulder wound was a lot better now, and the painkiller potion for that one would also help for the fall, which meant, by the time you were ready, and the meds had kicked in you felt a lot better, except for the fact that you were half tempted to wear a pair of sunglasses even if it was cloudy outside. When you walked down, Sirius and James were already there. 

Sirius gave you a look, taking in your demeanour in an instant and smirking, “You sure you still want to fly, Vix?” 

You gave him a look and huffed, “Very.” 

He chuckled as he walked towards you and placed his arm around your shoulder, “If you say so then.” 

James, who had no idea you had threatened Pads but had gotten a threat of his own in the morning from Sirius, to not go hard on you because of the fall –that he still had to speak his mind to you about– was a little confused with the interaction, but decided that it was probably something to do with being in a relationship. And since he had barely gotten Lily to go on one date with him, he really wouldn’t know. 

Once you got to the pitch Sirius pulled out a small notebook from his pocket and opened it, handing it over to you, “Memorise this.” 

You frowned, trying to figure out why Sirius would give you a notebook, but then you read some of the words and understood, it was the counterspell he had mentioned the previous night. You smiled, at how neatly he had written it down, at how he’d separated his cursive more than normal and paid attention to adding the extra dots and lines he sometimes left out.

Sirius had written it for you, and he wanted you to pay attention so he had been extra careful with it. And you, being as naturally curious as a fox, decided to snoop around the notebook a little more. There were a few silly doodles and for a minute you worried that he had given you his sketchbook, but it was definitely not it, that one was a little wider, and the cover was black, this one, on the other hand, had a wine red cover, a very Gryffindor notebook. 

There were lists of songs, with names for mixtapes at the top on some pages, and a few movies some muggle friends had recommended, including some you and Remus had told him about. On some of the pages you spotted your name written on the edges, and you smiled, you didn’t know boys did that too. 

“You done?” He asked as he turned to you, he had been pulling out some stuff from the shed with James. You quickly changed the page to the one you had to be on and smiled. 

“Almost,” you said before trying to fully focus on the page and the words. They weren’t tricky, in fact, it was kind of a combination of protection spells you already knew, but it was rather long. His thick and delicate handwriting occupies the entire page and then some of the next one. 

After a few more minutes you took a deep breath and nodded “I think I’m ready.” 

“Good,” Sirius said, “Take your broom and hover for a bit.” You did as told. “Not so high silly, what if you fall?” he asked as he saw you float a few feet above his head. 

“I won’t fall,” you said confidently. 

“Vix, lower,” James said rather sternly, it was his captain’s voice. You were a little angry at his demanding tone but after a huff, you did as told. They were right anyway, you weren’t looking forward to falling again. You had enough bruising and soreness for the rest of the fucking year. Scratch that, for the rest of this one and the next one, you only had like thirty days left of 1976 anyway.

“Ready?” Sirius asked, you nodded. And then he started mumbling something, at first, there was nothing, you just continued hoovering peacefully, but then you felt it, a soft yank to the side. Slowly the movements got worse and worse and you felt like you were on a mechanical bull. Sirius looked at you concentrated, a small frown on his soft features as he did. Like he didn’t want to push too hard, but he knew whoever kept trying to push you off your broom –Barty– wouldn’t be merciful so he pushed on.  

That’s when you started muttering the counterspell, tightening your grip on the handle and focusing your magic on your palms, letting it flow through your body and onto the item that was being jinxed. It wasn’t easy, wandless magic always held a small degree of complication, especially the more advanced it was, and counterspells were no easy feat. 

Eventually, you lost the battle and ended up on the floor. Sirius rushed to help but you shook your head, raising your hand to indicate that he stayed in place, and then took a deep breath, “Again.”

“But…” 

“Again,” you insisted “I have to master this one,” you added as you mounted your broom and nodded for Sirius to start again. James was watching attentively and allowed it to continue. Even after you fell over the second time, gritting your teeth and whispering “again.” 

After a couple more times, it was James the one that stepped in. “How about we call it for today and continue trying tomorrow?” he suggested. You had just fallen from your broom and were sitting on the floor looking impossibly tired. 

“But the spell…” 

“James is right, we can practise more tomorrow, we’re not playing until next year anyway, we’ve got enough time to master it.” 

You sighed but nodded, not even attempting to move from the floor for a bit while James and Sirius batted the bludger over each other a couple of times. You took Sirius’ notebook out of your pocket and went over the spell again, recalling if perhaps you had missed some words on the incantation or maybe it was the execution that wasn’t working properly. So you went over the words, reading them in your head and practising the spell as many times as you could. 

“Hey Vix, let that go and come over, I need you to practise this,” James said when he noticed your overly concentrated stance. 

It took you a second to pull your gaze from the paper but you nodded, feeling thankful that you’d get a distraction and then guilty for feeling thankful over it. Either way you pocketed the notebook, grabbed one of the beater bats and mounted your broom, flying towards them. After a while of beating the iron ball with as much force as you could muster, and using exclusively your good arm, you felt a lot better. 

When you were done, you helped the boys with the equipment and walked alongside them all the way to the common room, where you parted ways to change into your respective uniforms. The entire day went by rather uneventfully, McGonagall had paired you with Remus on the transfiguration project and you were still going over crystal ball reading on divinations, although a bit boring, at least it was something you hadn’t any particular talents with. 

Although, and you didn’t want to think much about it, there was definitely something dark surrounding the Ravenclaw tower. You decided that maybe you’d ask Sybil about it later, she had been taking extra classes with Spellman, so she’d probably know if something was up. You considered asking Spellman directly, but you were scared he’d end up blowing it off proportion and decided to just pretend you had seen a field with colourful flowers. 

“What colour?” 

“All the colours,” you said, knowing that if you said a particular one he might end up finding a deeper meaning behind your lie. 

November 30th, 1976 

The following day, you also woke up in time for morning practice, this time around you managed to stay on the broom for longer, but fell either way, and James didn’t allow you to practise as much as the previous day since he wanted to focus on dodging that morning, which had ended up on a very fun practice. 

Sirius had almost gotten a bludger in the shoulder before you pulled him to the side and James barely managed to dodge one that had flown straight to his head. You were all laughing merrily by the time you were meant to go back to the dorms for breakfast. 

Once you reached the common room you spotted Remus on one of the couches and plopped beside him, Sirius doing the same on the other side. “Ugh, you’re both sweaty,” he complained. 

You pouted, “It’s magically cleaned,” you said dismissively as you sank a little deeper, neither you nor Sirius were actually sweaty since outside was so freezing cold. Well, perhaps just slightly. And Remus wasn’t bothered by you sitting next to him either, if anything, he loved it, he had to keep up appearances regardless. 

“The couch is, I’m not!” 

Sirius leaned his head on Remus’ shoulder, “Aww come on Moony, you’ll smell like your two favourite people all day. What’s there to complain about?” 

Remus almost pushed the boy off him when Prongs intervened, “What do you mean his two favourite people, where does that leave me?” 

Remus frowned at James, clearly interested in where the conversation was going, but it was Sirius who spoke, “On the armchair.”  

James gasped, “Yeah, I don’t think you’d fit in here,” you teased further, a tiny smile spreading on your lips while you pointed at the little space of couch there was left. Now, if you and Sirius had been sitting like normal people, and Remus hadn’t had his legs spread wide, perhaps you could’ve found a way to fit Prongs in, but none of you seemed interested in changing position. 

“I refuse to be left out!” he said with a frown. 

“So what? You’ll use engorgio on the couch?” 

“Too much trouble,” James said as he walked towards you and let himself fall on top of the three as if laying on the couch but using your legs instead. 

“Oi, watch where that elbow goes,” Sirius complained. 

“When was the last time you washed those?” you said with a frown as you stared at his murky-looking socks. 

“They get washed every day!” James complained, “That’s their original colour.” 

“No way in hell.” 

“No,” Remus said as he shook his head. “that really is their original colour, we’ve been teasing him about them since he got them.” 

You leaned over to look at James’ face, it was lying on top of Sirius’ legs “Why did you keep them?” 

James went red, and Sirius responded, “Lily gave them to him, last Christmas I believe.” 

“Yeah,” James said proudly. “They arrived at my house by owl mail. She even wrote a note that said they reminded her of me.” 

You threw a side glance at Remus, clearly seeing the irony in Lily’s note, that seemed to completely slip past James, back then and even now. 

“We’ve got potions,” you sighed, leaning back just a little and allowing James to accommodate his feet better. They were a bit heavy, but at least they weren’t crashing against any bruises. 

“Thought you liked potions,” Sirius said. 

“I like hanging out with Rem at potions, but the potion we’re working on is so tedious I swear you need to add another gram of something new every couple of minutes.” 

“At least it hasn’t blown up on your face,” James said with a shrug, remembering the way it had exploded on Tom the previous class, and Tom was actually good at potions. Thought, perhaps he had been a little distracted that day.

“We could skip…” Sirius offered. 

“No, we can’t!” Remus said, “She’s lost enough classes with last week’s drama!” He then turned to you. “And don’t you dare leave me alone with the veritaserum!” 

You took a deep breath and nodded “I wasn’t thinking of skipping,” you defended. “I was merely informing.” 

“James Fleamont Potter!” You heard Lily’s reprimanding voice from the stairs. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

James seemed a little confused, leaning up just a little to try and spot the redhead, “uh… Resting?” 

“On top of your two freshly injured friends?!” 

Both you and Remus started a chorus of “I’m fine” and “Oh… It’s okay Lily, I’m healed now, it doesn’t hurt anymore” but she took none of it. Walking all the way to the couch and forcing James to roll off of it. He fell on the floor and turned, looking at the kneeling figure with his charming little smile, like she was the only witch in the world. 

You could tell Lily was fazed by it, especially when a little bit of red started to spread over her cheeks, you smiled, raising an eyebrow towards Remus who clearly had noticed too. 

“Enough of that!” She told him with a slap on the arm. “Let’s get some breakfast, you must all be starving.” 

“I second that,” you said with a nod. 

“Yeah, me too,” Remus agreed. 

“Hungry beasts, that’s the kind of people I surround myself with,” Sirius joked. 

“If anyone’s a hungry beast here Sirius…” you started and threw him a look that had him gasp “Anyway… breakfast.” 

All of you stood up and started walking towards the Great Hall, Peter was fast to catch up with you and Lily told you the girls were already there. Breakfast was as delicious as always, and you were so hungry you even took an extra slice of toast with jam and peanut butter to munch on on your way to potions. 

“Pass me the Stewed Mandrake Root, would you? Sweetheart?” Remus asked as he stared at the cauldron with a bit of a frown.

“We’ve already added that,” you responded, leaning forward to look as well, the potion was a weird murky brown colour, not the mossy green that the book described it would be. “Did we measure wrong?” 

“Maybe we spun it the wrong way around?” Remus said, just as puzzled as you, “You measured that one, you never measure wrong.”  

“Yeah, I checked twice,” you agreed, that was something you had learned from Remus near the beginning of the year. And you were especially careful with longer and more tedious potions like this one. 

You saw Snape snigger from the side as he stared at your cauldron, and you were about to flip him off with two fingers when Remus placed a hand over your forearm and gave you a look. You gave him a reproachful stare in response but he just raised an eyebrow at you and tilted his head a little. You huffed in response but held back the insults you had in store for Snivelus. You understood why Remus did it, getting in petty fights with the Slytherins had already gotten you almost killed once.  

You sighed and went back to look at your potion, suddenly remembering, “There’s a troubleshooting guide at the end of each chapter, perhaps we can find something there?” you suggested and the two of you went straight to look through the book. 

“I think… the only thing that could’ve happened is someone sabotaging the potion…” Remus said with a frown, “If we had added too much of any ingredient the result would be different colours. It would be red with too much Mandrake root, blue if we had undercooked the Syrup of Hellebore, and purple if it were because of the Bicorn Horn powder, but none of these mention brown.” 

You bit your lip as you analysed the situation and looked around, if someone had actually sabotaged your potion, you’d have to figure out exactly what they had used to do it, to attempt and revert it, if it was even possible.

You started looking at people’s tables and the ingredients they had placed on them, Alison Prewet and Archie McMillan had a few ingredients that didn’t go in the recipe but neither of them was particularly good at potions so you couldn’t be sure it had been them.

Tim Klum also had some suspicious-looking ingredients, but by his nervous stance and recent rash, you assumed he was trying to brew something to counter it instead of sabotaging anyone else. Besides, you had barely crossed words with him, and you were certain he didn’t have anything against Remus, regardless you wrote down all the ingredients he had on his stable, identifying them by texture and looks. 

Then you spotted something mysterious by Sirius’ table. Of course, Sirius would never sabotage you or Rem, but Severus? You wouldn’t put it past him, he could be a jealous little snake, although he had never done such a thing, and you weren’t sure why he would be sabotaging you now, the fact that he had Shivelfig, which was normally used for draught of living dеath made no sense. Unless he wanted to steal it for himself that is. 

You turned to Remus “I have a hunch of who might have done it,” you mumbled, almost inaudibly, but he heard, and you knew he’d be able to hear it. He gave you an attentive look, “But I want to test my theory before we make a mistake.” 

“What do you need?” 

“Just a bit of someone else’s potion, that’s at the same stage as ours.” 

Remus nodded, “I can do that, you?” 

“I’ll get some Shivelfig.” 

Both you and Remus nodded as you looked attentively at the other, he grabbed a small vial and started walking towards James and Lilly while you walked towards Sirius’ table. 

“Hi Pups,” you said with a smile. 

“Sod off,” Snape said when he spotted you. 

“You do it.” 

“This is my table.” 

“Argh, c'est un idiot, comment tu le supportes?” You asked, looking at your boyfriend.

“I’m intelligent enough to know you’re calling me an idiot,” Severus said impassively.

"Très bien, casse-toi alors."

Sirius laughed at your crassness and Severus just rolled his eyes, not understanding what you said but figuring out you were either telling him to fuck off or piss off, which wasn’t that far from the real thing. “How come you’ve come to visit, Kit?” Sirius asked. 

“Missed you,” you said simply, Sirius saw the mischievous smile you gave him and knew instantly you were up to something. 

“Aww, you did?” he asked as he placed his hands on your hips and pulled you slightly closer to him, Slughorn was near the back of the classroom helping some Slytherins with a fire they had accidentally caused, which was enough distraction for you to be able to be all over Sirius at that moment. 

“Oh, please, I’m going to puke…” Severus said as he rolled his eyes and turned to the side. 

You forced yourself to hold back a laugh, Sirius, whose back was turned to Severus, and who had the least serious face you’d ever seen, wasn’t helping. “Devrions-nous lui donner un spectacle?” You asked in a low voice, trying to make it sound like you were flirting rather than just asking Sirius if you should annoy Severus further. 

Sirius bit his lip, looking at you with a small frown before nodding, “Mh-hum,” he replied before leaning in to give you a kiss. 

“Ugh please, we’re in class!”

“Go be jealous elsewhere, Snivelus,” Sirius pulled himself from the kiss just for a second to say that, going back and deepening the kiss a second after. Severus looked at the two of you in disbelief and then back at Slughorn, but he was way too busy with the fire in the back. Who would have thought adding a little bit of dragon breath to the potion would cause such a complicated mess? 

You deepened the kiss, pushing Sirius back just a little and his back crashed against Snape’s shoulder, Snape pushed back and Sirius had to tighten his grip on you so you wouldn’t fall. You could feel he was about to laugh because of Severus’ reaction and you squeezed his arm just a little to get him to focus and he did, even let out a small, rather performative grunt, just to piss Severus further. 

Severus was about ready to go get the teacher, or a prefect, or someone to get you to stop snogging in front of his face when you leaned in again, this time pushing Sirius’ arm strategically so it pushed their leftover Syrup of Hellebore, it wouldn’t do any harm to him since it had been cooked, but it would make his uniform stink after a couple of hours, and you knew he knew about it. 

“Ugh!” he complained, “You pair of dimwitted animals!” 

You pulled back from the kiss, just to give him a side glance, looking only mildly apologetic “Oops, sorry…” 

Snape gave you a disgusted glance and stood up. “I’m off to clean this up, Black,” he glared at the boy, Sirius turned to him with an uninterested glance. “Please, for the sake of our passing grade, make sure our potion stays boiling at a steady temperature while I’m gone.” 

“Sure Snivelus, I’ll make sure,” Sirius said with a rather indifferent shrug just to piss Severus off a bit more. Severus gave him an untrustful glance, but stood up and left. While he was leaving you went back to kissing, which seemed to piss Severus off even further, which made both you and Sirius smile in the kiss, you were half still kissing, half using each other’s mouths to hold back a laugh. 

When you finally stopped, Sirius was biting his lip to hold back a grin while you were looking at him with lips pursed, still trying to hold back a laugh. 

Sirius cleared his throat “Now that the crow’s gone, would you care telling me why you’re really here?” 

“What? Kissing you passionately in the middle of class is no good excuse?” 

Sirius raised his eyebrow “Oh no, I think it’s an excellent excuse, but I’m waaay more likely to use it than you are.” 

You gave him a small smile, “I think Severus might have sabotaged my potion,” you admitted, “and I think he used this,” you took a hold of the jar with Shivelfig , “to do it.” 

“We should ruin his potion then,” Sirius said instantly. You gave him a look, he raised an eyebrow “What?” 

“Sirius, he’s your partner. If we ruin his potion…” 

Sirius frowned, “Well, it’s not fair if he gets out scot-free.” 

“Remus and I are trying to fix it.” 

“And you can do it?” 

You shrugged, “If he really did use shivelfig, we could try and find a way to counter its effect, or at least neutralise it.” 

“So you came to get some.” 

You nodded, “The kisses were a great bonus though.” 

“I can give you many more bonuses, darling,” he said and leaned in again, but you felt a hand on your shoulder and turned around to see who was there, thankfully, it wasn’t Slughorn.  

“You got that?” Remus asked. 

“Yeah,” you said as you pulled a small flask with shivelfig from your cloak.

“Hold up! When did you even…?” Sirius asked, confused. 

“I’m a girl of many talents,” you told him with a wink. “See you around, Puppy!” You gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and walked back to your table alongside Remus. “You got the potion?” You asked Remus, who seemed tense for some reason. He had seen the whole thing happen, and his head had started going haywire with so many thoughts running through his head.

“Yeah,” he responded, “James and Lily.” 

Once you were both on your table, he poured half of his little flask on a crystal vase and you used a pair of tweezers to add the tiniest bit of shivelfig to the potion. Nothing happened and you frowned. “Maybe it wasn’t Snivelus in the end…” 

“No wait,” Remus said, placing a hand on your forearm and taking a small stick, sipping it in the flask and turning clockwise three times, the potion turned the same murky brown as yours in an instant. 

“Remus, that’s brilliant!” you said with a smile “The potion didn’t go brown until we spun it, and Severus probably knew, he could have added the shivelfig a while ago, that way we wouldn’t have noticed, and we would have just assumed we did something wrong.” 

Remus nodded, “He’s an asshole, but he’s a competent one.” 

“So now we know what he used, how do we neutralise it?”

“I’m not sure,” Remus said as he bit his lip. 

“Sopophorous bean?” you asked. “Isn’t it used on draught of living dеath to neutralise the shivelfig’s poisonous nature?” 

Remus shook his head “Yeah, but combined with Mandrake Root it can be dеadly, our veritaserum would end up being Baneberry Potion instead.” 

“Shit, you’re right,” you said almost in a whisper. You frowned, racking your brain trying to find a solution only for it to clash against the rest of the ingredients. Your face started to fall when you started running out of ideas. No matter how much you thought about it, it seemed like there was no solution, which left you dejected since even if you had figured out exactly how they had sabotaged you, you wouldn’t be able to fix it.

“I might have an idea,” Remus said then, he had the same face he made when he was focused on a task, preparing a complicated potion or working on the details of a plan, it was that of absolute concentration. His eyebrows were slightly furrowed, his lips pressed tightly against the other, causing one of his scars to move along with his mouth. He looked cute. 

“Wait… really? How?”

“I’ll go get some Moonstone… Do you have the charms book with you?” He asked. 

“We… don’t have charms today…” you said. You used to carry it around all the time but after your shoulder wound carrying as little as possible was a lot more manageable, even with the floating spell you had placed on your bag. 

“It’s fine, it’s somewhere in my bag, look for it, will you? Find the magnetism spell.”  

“The magnetism…” you started with a slightly questioning look and then gasped. “Remus, that’s… has it even been tested before?”

Remus shrugged in response, “It’s either that or we do it over. Besides, we could test it with this,” he said as he pointed at the little vial that you had used to see if it really had been shivelfig what they had used to ruin your potion. He then leaned down and placed his bag –that he had carelessly thrown on the floor– on the table right in front of you. “Just be careful, there’s an extending spell inside so I can keep all my stuff. Might take you a while to find it,” he added right before he walked towards the ingredients cabinet. 

He hadn’t been exaggerating, his bag was absolutely filled with things. You dug inside and could feel several books, you pulled them out, one by one, he had some books for classes, some library books that had gone overdue, the copy of The Godfather he had been reading you and Sirius, the copy you had given him of The Portrait of Dorian Grey when you discovered he was a Werewolf. 

You’d told him he could keep it one time he mentioned he wanted to get a copy to annotate, which made you wonder if he had annotated the sides and you opened it, you had written some notes on the pages, notes he hadn’t erased, writing around the edges and under your own handwriting. And on ink, it was absolutely clear who had written what, and he’d even responded to some of the things you had annotated. You smiled, you’d have to ask him to borrow it to you one day, just so you could see what he wrote. 

As you flipped the pages, something called your attention. Sirius’ name was written on one of the corners of the book, you frowned and looked at the page, there were a few highlighted quotes here and there, but there was something about Sybil calling Dorian prince charming and you chuckled. Yeah, you too would have considered Sirius a Prince Charming. You closed the book and placed it back on his bag, completely missing how Sirius’ name repeated over and over through the pages, how your name was doodled alongside his too. 

How in one of the quotes from Basil, he had pointed out that Basil was just like him, fallen in love with the impossible, but that Basil had been lucky enough to only find one of those people rather than two, how miserable would Basil be if he had loved not only Dorian, but Sybil too? Perhaps half as miserable as Remus felt sometimes. 

You continued to rummage through Remus’ bag, and you felt a small plastic bag, you assumed it was chocolate and took a hold of some of them out to ask him for one when he came back, you knew he would say yes anyway, but when you pulled your hand out, you were met with a strip of condoms instead.  You quickly put them back in, trying not to think of the fact that they were size L or the fact that he had so many of them. Does he not know about the potion? No, he definitely knows about the potion, I mentioned it at the Quidditch party. You swallowed thickly, you were sure you had flushed at least a little when you felt a hand on your back. 

“You found it?” Remus asked. You were startled, and had to cough a couple of times to compose, Remus felt a lot taller to you at that minute, as if the size of the… nevermind, erase that thought, erase that thought. 

“No, I– you keep a lot of stuff in your bag, Rem.”

“You didn’t find anything weird, did you?” 

“Weird?!” you were sure your voice had gone an octave higher by that point. “No,” you coughed again, “Nothing.”

He looked at you as if he wasn’t convinced, “Cause if you did it was probably Sirius’ he leaves a lot of stuff in my bag.” 

The idea of them being Sirius’ instead of Remus’ made you gulp, you were sure your cheeks would warm if you didn’t change the subject immediately, so that’s exactly what you did, “Found the moonstone?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, “back pocket,” he added as he dug his hand through his bag, “On the left, my left,” he added then, “where you’re standing.” 

“Oi! I know where the left is!” you argued as you went for it. 

“You didn’t know last time.” 

“Though we settled on the fact that I just wanted to grab your ass.” 

He chuckled, “You really can’t lose, can you?”

“I jumped off my broom to get the snitch, what did you expect?” 

Finally, he pulled out the book, one of the condoms falling on the floor. He looked at it, and then at you, you were also looking at it “That’s…” 

“I know what that is,” you said. “Spent last summer on muggle London, remember?” It had been pretty hard to forget the safe sex campaigns all over the bus stops near the biggest schools as you walked past them. And of course you, being naturally curious, had gone and read all the details they offered. At least you had learned a few things in the end.  

“Alice gave them to me,” he said as he leaned down and grabbed it, placing it back in his bag as fast as possible. 

Remus seemed genuinely flustered about it, which is why you couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tease him. “Oh, so you’re definitely having fun,” you said with a teasing smile. 

“What?! That’s–” 

“Hey! I don’t judge,” you added with a shrug, “I told you when I found your stash.” 

“That wasn’t–” 

“It’s fine Rem,” you said as you placed a hand on his arm. “You deserve to relax every now and then, if anything, you should use them up before they go bad… Although you do know the potion exists, right?” 

“Please stop,” Remus said as he placed both hands over his face and leaned down on the table. He was flustered over you insinuating such things, more because he always thought about you when he did them with Alice than because you insisted on teasing him about her. If only you knew, heck, you would probably break off your friendship with him. As if anything Remus did would make that happen. 

You only laughed and placed a hand on his back “All right big boy,” you didn’t say that on purpose, but it did make you think back on the size of the… no. “Back to the potion…”

“Yes,” Remus stood, the flush on his cheeks fading away slightly. Although the bits of red still made him look adorable, you almost wanted to get a picture of it. And then you wondered what he would look like if he were looking at a person he liked, little did you know that was exactly what he was doing. 

All the while, Remus was flipping through the pages. “Here!” he said and pointed at the page, leaning closer to you so you could see the book, “So… the idea is to use the spell on the moonstone, but somehow make it attract just the shivelfig.”

“We could do it by combining it with a locating spell?” 

“It was my idea too, but… how?”

“Hold up,” you said as you pulled a parchment from your bag, he pulled the quill closer to your hand and you dipped it in some ink before drawing some runes inside a small triangle. It looked a lot like what the muggles thought whichcraft looked like, and it was a little archaic, inexperienced wizards would say it was dark arts -it wasn’t- and regardless, it was still the easiest way to combine spells. 

“Are you drawing a Nimueh diagram?” 

You nodded, and he stared as you continued to add symbols and runes and lines around your paper. Once it was done you placed the stone on top. “You’re better with location spells, how about you say that one and I go for the magnetism one?” 

“Have you ever done it?” 

You shook your head “But I haven’t done a location spell either, you have,” you added with a shrug. 

“Okay, let’s do this,” Remus said with a nod and offered his hand. You gently placed your hand over his and gave it a soft squeeze. “In three… two… one…” 

Little did you know that while you chanted the spell, and almost with the whole previous interaction, Sirius had been looking at the two of you with absolute fascination. At the incredible team you made, at how cute Remus looked flushed and at how much fun you seemed to have around him, teasing him.  It was in those genuine, carefree smiles that you managed to pull out of his best friend, your best friend too, he remembered. It was in the chuckles he pulled out of you, in the way you moved around the table to get the ingredients, in the way you grabbed your parchment and he passed you a quill. 

Sirius was so enthralled by the two of you that he didn’t notice Severus returning to his sit right next to him, “I told you to check on the potion you stu-” 

Sirius turned around to look at the boy, annoyed. “The potion’s fine,” he said carelessly. “No one messed around with it while you were gone. Vix would never stump as low as that.” He said that last bit with venom, looking straight at Severus who narrowed his eyes. There was no way Sirius could’ve known, and yet…

“Do you think it’ll work?” You asked Remus, you had just finished chanting the spells, your hands sliding off each other a little too fast for his taste and the moonstone -that shone as you infused it with magic- seemed to be slowly fading into its natural state. 

“There’s only one way to know,” Remus said as he took the small milky stone and dropped it straight onto your cauldron. You peered in, and slowly, the murky water took back the mossy green colour it should have had initially. Both you and Remus smiled relieved. 

“You did it!” you said almost jumping in joy, placing your hand over his arm and squeezing lightly, “You’re absolutely fantastic!” 

 Remus turned to you, his expression mirroring your own, “We did it,” he remarked “It was a team effort, you guessed what they’d used to sabotage us.” 

You were both smiling brightly at each other when Professor Slughorn approached the two of you, “Are you finished with your potion?” he asked, “You seem rather thrilled.”  

“We had a bit of a setback,” you admitted, “but we’ve managed to fix it, the veritaserum should be finished before the class.” 

“A setback? Of what kind?” 

“We got sabotaged, Professor,” Remus explained. 

“Outrageous! Who would dare do such a thing, to such brilliant students?” 

You were about to speak but Remus intervened “We do not know, but (Y/N) managed to figure out what they had used shivelfig, we used the knowledge for a spell on the moonstone and magnetised the unrequired ingredient to it.” 

You gave Remus a look but decided to follow along, whatever reason he had not to rat Snape out, must have been good. You used your wand to pull the moonstone out of your cauldron, it was no longer white and seemed to be covered with a murky slippery substance. The shivelfig clearly had reacted with some of the other ingredients. You levitated it closer to your face to give it a look before letting it fall back down on the table. 

“And you used a Nimueh diagram so that the shivelfig would adhere to the moonstone, clever!” He said as he pulled out the paper from the table and inspected it. He could see it was your handwriting, which is why he looked at you when he said it.

“Thank you, sir,” you responded, “But it was a team effort.” 

He turned back to Remus as if just remembering he was there too, you narrowed your eyes at him, “Of course, of course,” he said dismissively, which pissed you off a little bit too much. “Please stay after class is over, I need to have a word with you.” 

You looked at him, frown deepening but nodded. “Of course, Professor.” 

“Excellent, so.. get on with it. I want to see how your potion comes out in the end,” And with that, he was gone, off to talk to some other students. 

“The hell was he going on about?” 

“It’s probably about the slug party,” Remus said with a shrug. 

“The what?” 

“His exclusive Christmas dinner, he only invites the best students.” 

“You must have gone several times then,” you concluded. 

Remus tensed, “No. Never been invited.” 

You turned to him with a frown, “What but that doesn’t–”

 You were cut off by James, “You done, kids?” 

“Almost,” Remus said, you passed him the last ingredient you had to measure and he placed it on the cauldron, stirring the potion three times to the right, finally the colour was transparent. 

“You think it worked?” 

You shrugged, “Only one way to find out,” you said as you grabbed a pipette, dipping it in the liquid and placing your finger on the hole at the top, moving it to your mouth and releasing your finger, allowing just a drop to fall on your mouth. You didn’t want the effect to last overly long. “Go on then, ask me something.” 

“How many fingers do I have up?” James asked, raising his hand. 

“Six,” you responded, “that was a stupid question, Prongs.” 

James gasped at your reply “Rude.” 

“What did you get on your transfiguration mock quiz?” Remus asked with a teasing smirk.

You groaned, not wanting to respond to this one. “I got a Dreadful,” you said, despite yourself.

“Wait, really?! Is that why you wouldn’t show it to me?” James asked as he leaned a little closer to the two of you.

You nodded, “I couldn’t transform the pot into a swan, I made something close to a chicken.” 

“Close to a chicken?” James pressed.

“That was actually a dreadful animal,” you replied, trying to find a bit of humour in the situation. 

“Well, our trickery worked, the potion’s great,” Remus said pleased as he pulled out a vial to place it in and hand it over to be graded. Pulling out a tag he had previously prepared and lacing some string on it to attach it to the top of the potion. It had “Veritasetum” and then both of your names at the bottom. All in a perfectly elegant-looking handwriting, he’d used caligraphicus to make it extra neat. He always did like the way your names looked beside each other. 

You pulled a flask from your bag and also served some inside. “In case it comes in handy,” you told the boys, who both looked at you with rather impressed expressions as you placed it back inside your bag, now filled. 

Lily called for James and it was you and Remus alone again, he leaned over, you might be pissed after what he was about to do, “Hey little witch,” he said softly. You were cleaning things around but turned to look at him, his expression unreadable. “Are you really not scared of me?” 

You gave him a look, something between a frown and a comprehensive sigh. You took the pipette and let a few other drops fall in your mouth, more than you had done initially, “In case you thought that perhaps it had already worn off,” you said. “And no, Remus, I’m not scared of you, or Moony for that matter.” The boy seemed apprehensive, “Must I drink the entire cauldron for you to believe me?” 

Remus sighed, a relieved chuckle escaped from his mouth. He knew you weren’t, you had been reassuring enough at the infirmary when you cuddled him as Vixen, but he needed to make sure. To make sure you weren’t lying just for his sake like he had discussed with Sirius the night before the prank. He smiled, diverted and decided to tease further, “So you definitely still want to be friends?” 

You smiled. “Best friends,” you replied, “You couldn’t get rid of me even if you tried.” 

“I have, it didn’t work, remember?” You hummed in response. And then he looked at your shoulder, biting his lip, the next question might actually piss you off, “Does it still hurt?” 

You thought your answer through, “Less than before,” you replied eventually, it was true.

“But it does hurt.” 

“Yes.”

“How much?” 

You looked at the side, not wanting to answer, closing your eyes and sighing when you realised you wouldn’t be able to hold back. “I don’t know, like getting clawed at by a huge wolf, I suppose?” 

“Do you resent me?” 

You frowned. “Of course not! And I don’t resent Moony either, before you ask,” you said that last bit with an accusing finger towards him.

“And the fall?” 

“More scary than painful.” 

“Scarier than me?” 

“You’re not scary!” You turned to him. 

“Scarier than Moony?” he corrected. 

“Yes.” There was silence. “The water monster… it was… nothing like Moony, frightening, hungry, unreasonable. Moony’s different, he– you are beautiful.” 

There it was again, you calling him beautiful, you kept doing that over and over, and he thought it was just your protective nature, you wanting him to feel better about it, but with veritaserum, it was impossible to lie. Remus cleared his throat, looking to the side as he felt a flush going up his neck and you smiled, pushing him just a little. “Now stop asking me questions that make me sound all sappy!” 

“Does it bother you?” 

“Does it bother you?” 

“That’s not an answer.” 

“Told you to stop making me sound sappy, how would you feel I had you drink some and ask you questions?” 

“I never had you drink anything!” he replied, offended. 

“Right, you only took advantage of the fact that I had drunk it to ask your silly questions.” 

“They were legitimate.” 

“Most of them I had already answered Remus.” 

“Only half answered,” he corrected. “You’ve said time and time again that you were fine.” 

“I AM fine!” And that was true, again, you couldn’t lie. Did everything hurt? Yes. But other than that, other than the pain, other than the soreness, you were perfectly fine. 

“And you truly believe it,” Remus said, surprised. 

You smiled and pushed him again “No more questions,” you warned with a smile on your face. 

“And here I was thinking of asking you if Sirius was good in bed,” Remus joked.

“I wouldn’t know,” you said before you could stop yourself. 

Remus looked at you surprised, “You mean you haven’t–” 

“That’s none of your business Moony,” you said as you started to flush. “We said no more questions.”

“Oh, but you’re always teasing me about things like this,” he said as he poked your arm with a sneaky little smile. “So you really never have?” 

“Remus!” You reprimanded again and then sighed. “No, have not. We haven’t gotten there yet, okay? We’ve been busy with other things, if you can tell. Now do I have to go into details for you to stop it or…” 

“No, it’s fine. I’m sorry.” 

You huffed, “you’re too curious for your own good.” 

You were right in more than one way. “If that isn't the cauldron calling the kettle black.” 

You smiled and shoved him to the side again, he enjoyed the feeling of your hand on his shoulder, he was wondering how much he could tease you before you actually got pissed at him when the bell rang. 

“I’ll take this to him and see what he wants,” you said as you grabbed the potion you’d finished. 

“I’ll tell Nightshade why you’re going to be late,” he said as he placed the rest of his books in his bag, “I’ll take your bag too,” he said as he picked it up from the floor.

You frowned, “I can take my own bag, Moony.” 

“I know, but it still hurts, doesn’t it?” he asked as he pointed at your shoulder. 

You narrowed your eyes at him, he knew you’d have to tell him the truth still, you had taken more drops than you needed, you huffed out a “Yes” as you rolled your eyes, “But I’m perfectly capable of–” 

“I know, and I don’t care,” he interrupted as he slung your bag on his shoulder. “I made that,” he said as he pointed at your shoulder, “Now I carry your bag.” 

You scoffed, now diverted at your friend’s resolution more than anything, you were about to say something when Sirius shouted from the door, “You coming Moons, Starshine?” 

“You fill him up, yeah?” You asked Remus just before you gave Sirius a wink, he blew you a flirty kiss in response. 

Remus nodded when you turned back to him, and you gave up on fighting for your bag, after one last sight. “See you in class,” you told him with a wave and walked straight to talk to Slughorn, potion in hand.

“You’ve demonstrated to be a remarkable student the few months that you have been here darling.” 

“Thank you, sir.” 

“And not only in potions, you were brilliant at the Quidditch game and I’ve heard good things from Professor Bins and Seraphina. Flitwick also speaks highly of you.” 

You tilted your head slightly, a small “hum” escaping your lips, you were sure  Slughorn wasn’t done with whatever he was about to say. 

“And you’ve demonstrated time and time again to me that you are more than well-trained on potions.” 

“It’s only been thanks to my pairing with Remus.” 

“Ah… yes, your pairing with Mr. Lupin,” he said. “The way you switched the papers was undoubtedly clever.” 

You gasped, “You realised?” 

He just smiled, as if it had been obvious, “I picked the partners for everyone, of course, I knew. I just wasn’t sure how you’d managed to outmagic my spell. All at Potter’s request, I believe. He must have convinced you, that boy has been madly in love with Miss Evans for a while now.” 

“But you didn’t say anything then.” 

“If you had been smart enough to switch my charms, I assumed you’d be able to cope with Remus’ speed at potion making.” 

“So you know he’s good.” 

“Of course, Remus has always been remarkable.” 

“Then why has he never been invited to the–” 

“So you know why you’re here.” 

“He might have mentioned something like a Christmas dinner.” 

Slughorn nodded, “Yes, this is my cordial invitation to our dinner on the 20th of December. I know there’s still some time, but I thought you might want to know since you are always welcome to bring a guest along.” 

“Could I bring Remus?” 

“You may bring whomever you want.” 

“But why isn’t he invited?” you pressed. 

Slughorn gave you a look, you didn’t want to press too much, you had the suspicion it might have been due to bIood status, either that or Slughorn knew about his lycanthropy, either way, it just didn’t make sense to you that he wouldn’t invite Rem.

“For reasons that you are not and will not be aware of, I’m afraid,” he responded eventually. 

“But I could bring him as my guest?” 

“Yes, although I expected you to bring Mr. Black.” 

That got you to pull your head back just a little, you had been so defensive over Remus, you had forgotten that the most logical person for you to bring along would be your actual boyfriend. 

“Think about it,” Slughorn said with a small smile. “And tell me when you’ve made your choice. Now I don’t want to keep you for too long, it’s time to get to your next class.” 

You gave him a courteous nod and left. You’d have to talk to Sirius about this. 

Series Masterlist | Next Chapter

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[astranva]

Andrew Garfield talking about his girlfriend for 8 minutes video

Word Count: 1.2k

Category: Fluff

Warning: None

Summary: A fan makes a YouTube video of Andrew Garfield talking about you for 8 minutes straight.

..

When the news of you and Andrew dating got out three years ago, fans and the media had a field day.

It wasn’t because you were anyone famous—quite the opposite. Being someone with a normal job, you and Andrew had basked in finally going outside as a couple, and it was how adorable the pictures looked that had everyone freaking out.

One picture was of you laughing, Andrew’s arms around you from behind as he wrapped his coat around you as he wore it, a grin on his face.

Another picture was of you looking at him, eyes set on one another with his hands tangled in your hair, while the other was of him kissing you and despite the photo not being one in high quality, everyone could still see the small smirk he had as you kissed.

It was no surprise when fans posted edits of you together, and although the content they got was minimal, considering your lack of presence in interviews and public press, it was always a field day when you appeared beside him on a red carpet or when you both did as little as grab yourselves some coffee.

Andrew Garfield talking about his girlfriend y/n for 8 minutes straight

The 8-minute and 29-second video started with lofi music over an advertisement for marvel hoodies that everyone seemed to promote, before a sound of glitching television sounded and the video started.

The video started with Andrew and Zendaya’s Actor on Actor interview when they first started talking about Zendaya’s performance on Euphoria.

“Makes me want to cry. I didn’t feel like there was any acting. It felt like you were living through something in such an authentic way,” Andrew said, “And I remember I watched episode 5 with Y/N—with my girlfriend, and she was just like, ‘Andy, can you check up on Zendaya?’”

Zendaya smiled, being her usual self who got flustered at any compliment or praise, “She did text me that night, I remember.”

“She did,” he nodded, “She was so heartbroken over the episode.”

The video then moved to show Andrew during his Wired Autocomplete interview, the foam board in his hand as he took off the sticker that hid the question.

“Does Andrew Garfield sing in Tick, Tick…Boom?” He read, “So, Andrew Garfield does sing in Tick, Tick…Boom, yes. Thank you,” he answered, “I worked very, very closely with an amazing vocal coach, Liz Caplan, and all of Lin Manuel Miranda’s amazing musical direction team. They enabled me to open my voice up to the point where I could honor Jon’s songs and feel confident enough to belt them out as he always did when he was doing his one-man show,” he nodded slight, “It was a privilege to be able to learn a skill that I’ve always wanted to attain but my girlfriend wouldn’t really agree,” he chuckled, looking at the camera, “Y/N’s had enough of my singing, because every time I’d learn something new, it’d be the only thing I’d be doing around our home and she’s incredible, she has a job that she needs to focus on and rest from, but I was always there singing and annoying her,” he laughed, “She’s a gem for putting up with me.”

Another clip then played as Andrew read Buzzfeed’s thirst tweets, headphones on his ears.

“Andrew Garfield if you see this on your secret Twitter account, I’m free this weekend if you want to get lunch or drinks or something, just let me know. If you want to do it earlier, I can do dinner during the week,” he chuckled as he read the tweet, “But I’m usually busy before six,” he finished with a laugh, leaning back in his seat, “I love that. That’s very, very—I like hyper-vigilance. I like specificity of plans,” he said, “But I’m going to have to give you a rain check on that because I’m actually busy on the weekend, unless you want to join in on my girlfriend and I’s date, then it’s fine by me,” he laughed, “I can do lunch during the week though, but we’re going to have to have that at Y/N’s office because that’s where you’ll usually find me having my lunch.”

The clip then moved to Andrew on the Ellen show, getting asked about Spider-Man: No Way Home, and having to lie to people.

“Who knew? Beside your agent, who knew that you were doing this? I mean, how hard is that? To keep it to—I mean, your family knew?” Ellen asked him.

“Yeah, my dad, my brother, and my mother at the time,” he answered with a smile, “Yeah, just kind of us. It was fun to keep it secret,” he grinned, “Because you know when you’re planning a surprise birthday party for someone, and then you’re like, tell me, you know I hate surprises, but I can see it on your face that you’re just like ‘I’m not gonna tell you’,” he shook his head with his wide grin, “So it felt like I was part of organizing a surprise birthday party for a bunch of people whom I knew would appreciate it.”

“Did your girlfriend know?”

Beaming even more, “Y/N had no idea,” he said, laughing, “And—lying to the media, to the fans, that was easy and fun, but lying to my girlfriend has got to be—it was one of the most agonizing and terrible things I have ever done.”

“You lied to her for what? Two years?”

“Technically, it was a year and a few months,” Andrew pointed.

“And how—how did she take that? I’d be pretty offended.”

He laughed, shaking his head, “She wasn’t, she wasn’t. I knew she’d appreciate it because she knows how I feel about my experience with the character, and it was—I’ll tell you something,” he sat up, smiling, “It was worth every single moment where I had to tell her I was shooting for another movie when I saw her reaction when we went to watch it together,” he said, “We had to watch it again because she couldn’t really focus after I was on screen,” he laughed, “But yeah, it—it was definitely hard having to lie to her, and it definitely made her tease me about trust for a while, but she supported me throughout without even knowing.”

The clip then moved to the last one, being from a recent interview with GQ of 10 things Andrew can’t live without.

In a t-shirt and sporting a full beard, he held a silver necklace with a compass on it.

“This is a necklace with a compass on it,” he said, holding the necklace in his hands before the camera zoomed on it before it showed him again, “My girlfriend Y/N gave this to me in a period where I needed to trust the direction I was going, even if I didn’t know where I was going,” he chuckled, looking at it, “It’s become such a symbol of our relationship because in a way, to me, it feels like it navigates us both back to where we have always met, toward our common interests and our differences that initially made us attracted to each other. But she’s always been very persistent on her support for me and my journey in my career, and my journey as a person, so this necklace is just a reminder from her that the direction I’m headed in is always one I can find value in,” he smiled, “My relationship with Y/N is very essential to me. She’s just—She’s truly my person, and this necklace is a symbol of the deep connection we have with each other.”

[icedbatik]

I saw this opinion piece in the New York Times and, while I don't normally copy and paste entire newspaper articles, this is an excellent (if scary) read.

Aside from the sections on how much lack of consent there is in today's sexual landscape, hockey fans -- who should be well aware of the dangers of concussions -- might take particular note of the section in which "choking" during sex is linked to brain damage on par with concussion damage.

The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex

April 12, 2024

By Peggy Orenstein

Debby Herbenick is one of the foremost researchers on American sexual behavior. The director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University and the author of the pointedly titled book “Yes, Your Kid,” she usually shares her data, no matter how explicit, without judgment. So I was surprised by how concerned she seemed when we checked in on Zoom recently: “I haven’t often felt so strongly about getting research out there,” she told me. “But this is lifesaving.”

For the past four years, Dr. Herbenick has been tracking the rapid rise of “rough sex” among college students, particularly sexual strangulation, or what is colloquially referred to as choking. Nearly two-thirds of women in her most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 students at an anonymized “major Midwestern university” said a partner had choked them during sex (one-third in their most recent encounter). The rate of those women who said they were between the ages 12 and 17 the first time that happened had shot up to 40 percent from one in four.

As someone who’s been writing for well over a decade about young people’s attitudes and early experience with sex in all its forms, I’d also begun clocking this phenomenon. I was initially startled in early 2020 when, during a post-talk Q. and A. at an independent high school, a 16-year-old girl asked, “How come boys all want to choke you?” In a different class, a 15-year-old boy wanted to know, “Why do girls all want to be choked?” They do? Not long after, a college sophomore (and longtime interview subject) contacted me after her roommate came home in tears because a hookup partner, without warning, had put both hands on her throat and squeezed.

I started to ask more, and the stories piled up. Another sophomore confided that she enjoyed being choked by her boyfriend, though it was important for a partner to be “properly educated” — pressing on the sides of the neck, for example, rather than the trachea. (Note: There is no safe way to strangle someone.) A male freshman said “girls expected” to be choked and, even though he didn’t want to do it, refusing would make him seem like a “simp.” And a senior in high school was angry that her friends called her “vanilla” when she complained that her boyfriend had choked her.

Sexual strangulation, nearly always of women in heterosexual pornography, has long been a staple on free sites, those default sources of sex ed for teens. As with anything else, repeat exposure can render the once appalling appealing. It’s not uncommon for behaviors to be normalized in porn, move within a few years to mainstream media, then, in what may become a feedback loop, be adopted in the bedroom or the dorm room.

Choking, Dr. Herbenick said, seems to have made that first leap in a 2008 episode of Showtime’s “Californication,” where it was still depicted as outré, then accelerated after the success of “Fifty Shades of Grey.” By 2019, when a high school girl was choked in the pilot of HBO’s “Euphoria,” it was standard fare. A young woman was choked in the opener of “The Idol” (again on HBO and also, like “Euphoria,” created by Sam Levinson; what’s with him?). Ali Wong plays the proclivity for laughs in a Netflix special, and it’s a punchline in Tina Fey’s new “Mean Girls.” The chorus of Jack Harlow’s “Lovin On Me,” which topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for six nonconsecutive weeks this winter and has been viewed over 99 million times on YouTube, starts with, “I’m vanilla, baby, I’ll choke you, but I ain’t no killer, baby.” How-to articles abound on the internet, and social media algorithms feed young people (but typically not their unsuspecting parents) hundreds of #chokemedaddy memes along with memes that mock — even celebrate — the potential for hurting or killing female partners.

I’m not here to kink-shame (or anything-shame). And, anyway, many experienced BDSM practitioners discourage choking, believing it to be too dangerous. There are still relatively few studies on the subject, and most have been done by Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues. Reports among adolescents are now trickling out from the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland, New Zealand and Italy.

Twenty years ago, sexual asphyxiation appears to have been unusual among any demographic, let alone young people who were new to sex and iffy at communication. That’s changed radically in a short time, with health consequences that parents, educators, medical professionals, sexual consent advocates and teens themselves urgently need to understand.

Sexual trends can spread quickly on campus and, to an extent, in every direction. But, at least among straight kids, I’ve sometimes noticed a pattern: Those that involve basic physical gratification — like receiving oral sex in hookups — tend to favor men. Those that might entail pain or submission, like choking, are generally more for women.

So, while undergrads of all genders and sexualities in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys report both choking and being choked, straight and bisexual young women are far more likely to have been the subjects of the behavior; the gap widens with greater occurrences. (In a separate study, Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues found the behavior repeated across the United States, particularly for adults under 40, and not just among college students.) Alcohol may well be involved, and while the act is often engaged in with a steady partner, a quarter of young women said partners they’d had sex with on the day they’d met also choked them.

Either way, most say that their partners never or only sometimes asked before grabbing their necks. For many, there had been moments when they couldn’t breathe or speak, compromising the ability to withdraw consent, if they’d given it. No wonder that, in a separate study by Dr. Herbenick, choking was among the most frequently listed sex acts young women said had scared them, reporting that it sometimes made them worry whether they’d survive.

Among girls and women I’ve spoken with, many did not want or like to be sexually strangled, though in an otherwise desired encounter they didn’t name it as assault. Still, a sizable number were enthusiastic; they requested it. It is exciting to feel so vulnerable, a college junior explained. The power dynamic turns her on; oxygen deprivation to the brain can trigger euphoria.

That same young woman, incidentally, had never climaxed with a partner: While the prevalence of choking has skyrocketed, rates of orgasm among young women have not increased, nor has the “orgasm gap” disappeared among heterosexual couples. “It indicates they’re not doing other things to enhance female arousal or pleasure,” Dr. Herbenick said.

When, for instance, she asked one male student who said he choked his partner whether he’d ever tried using a vibrator instead, he recoiled. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

Perhaps, she responded, because it would be more likely to produce orgasm without risking, you know, death.

In my interviews, college students have seen male orgasm as a given; women’s is nice if it happens, but certainly not expected or necessarily prioritized (by either partner). It makes sense, then, that fulfillment would be less the motivator for choking than appearing adventurous or kinky. Such performances don’t always feel good.

“Personally, my hypothesis is that this is one of the reasons young people are delaying or having less sex,” Dr. Herbenick said. “Because it’s uncomfortable and weird and scary. At times some of them literally think someone is assaulting them but they don’t know. Those are the only sexual experiences for some people. And it’s not just once they’ve gotten naked. They’ll say things like, ‘I’ve only tried to make out with someone once because he started choking and hitting me.’”

Keisuke Kawata, a neuroscientist at Indiana University’s School of Public Health, was one of the first researchers to sound the alarm on how the cumulative, seemingly inconsequential, sub-concussive hits football players sustain (as opposed to the occasional hard blow) were key to triggering C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease. He’s a good judge of serious threats to the brain. In response to Dr. Herbenick’s work, he’s turning his attention to sexual strangulation. “I see a similarity” to C.T.E., he told me, “though the mechanism of injury is very different.” In this case, it is oxygen-blocking pressure to the throat, frequently in light, repeated bursts of a few seconds each.

Strangulation — sexual or otherwise — often leaves few visible marks and can be easily overlooked as a cause of death. Those whose experiences are nonlethal rarely seek medical attention, because any injuries seem minor: Young women Dr. Herbenick studied mostly reported lightheadedness, headaches, neck pain, temporary loss of coordination and ear ringing. The symptoms resolve, and all seems well. But, as with those N.F.L. players, the true effects are silent, potentially not showing up for days, weeks, even years.

According to the American Academy of Neurology, restricting blood flow to the brain, even briefly, can cause permanent injury, including stroke and cognitive impairment. In M.R.I.s conducted by Dr. Kawata and his colleagues (including Dr. Herbenick, who is a co-author of his papers on strangulation), undergraduate women who have been repeatedly choked show a reduction in cortical folding in the brain compared with a never-choked control group. They also showed widespread cortical thickening, an inflammation response that is associated with elevated risk of later-onset mental illness. In completing simple memory tasks, their brains had to work far harder than the control group, recruiting from more regions to achieve the same level of accuracy.

The hemispheres in the choked group’s brains, too, were badly skewed, with the right side hyperactive and the left underperforming. A similar imbalance is associated with mood disorders — and indeed in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys girls and women who had been choked were more likely than others (or choked men) to have experienced overwhelming anxiety, as well as sadness and loneliness, with the effect more pronounced as the incidence rose: Women who had experienced more than five instances of choking were two and a half times as likely as those who had never been choked to say they had been so depressed within the previous 30 days they couldn’t function. Whether girls and women with mental health challenges are more likely to seek out (or be subjected to) choking, choking causes mood disorders, or some combination of the two is still unclear. But hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation — judging by what research has shown about other types of traumatic brain injury — could be a contributing factor. Given the soaring rates of depression and anxiety among young women, that warrants concern.

Now consider that every year Dr. Herbenick has done her survey, the number of females reporting extreme effects from strangulation (neck swelling, loss of consciousness, losing control of urinary function) has crept up. Among those who’ve been choked, the rate of becoming what students call “cloudy” — close to passing out, but not crossing the line — is now one in five, a huge proportion. All of this indicates partners are pressing on necks longer and harder.

The physical, cognitive and psychological impacts of sexual choking are disturbing. So is the idea that at a time when women’s social, economic, educational and political power are in ascent (even if some of those rights may be in jeopardy), when #MeToo has made progress against harassment and assault, there has been the popularization of a sex act that can damage our brains, impair intellectual functioning, undermine mental health, even kill us. Nonfatal strangulation, one of the most significant indicators that a man will murder his female partner (strangulation is also one of the most common methods used for doing so), has somehow been eroticized and made consensual, at least consensual enough. Yet, the outcomes are largely the same: Women’s brains and bodies don’t distinguish whether they are being harmed out of hate or out of love.

By now I’m guessing that parents are curled under their chairs in a fetal position. Or perhaps thinking, “No, not my kid!” (see: title of Dr. Herbenick’s book above, which, by the way, contains an entire chapter on how to talk to your teen about “rough sex”).

I get it. It’s scary stuff. Dr. Herbenick is worried; I am, too. And we are hardly some anti-sex, wait-till-marriage crusaders. But I don’t think our only option is to wring our hands over what young people are doing.

Parents should take a beat and consider how they might give their children relevant information in a way that they can hear it. Maybe reiterate that they want them to have a pleasurable sex life — you have already said that, right? — and also want them to be safe. Tell them that misinformation about certain practices, including choking, is rampant, that in reality it has grave health consequences. Plus, whether or not a partner initially requested it, if things go wrong, you’re generally criminally on the hook.

Dr. Herbenick suggests reminding them that there are other, lower-risk ways to be exploratory or adventurous if that is what they are after, but it would be wisest to delay any “rough sex” until they are older and more skilled at communicating. She offers language when negotiating with a new partner, such as, “By the way, I’m not comfortable with” — choking, or other escalating behaviors such as name-calling, spitting and genital slapping — “so please don’t do it/don’t ask me to do it to you.” They could also add what they are into and want to do together.

I’d like to point high school health teachers to evidence-based porn literacy curricula, but I realize that incorporating such lessons into their classrooms could cost them their jobs. Shafia Zaloom, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, recommends, if that’s the case, grounding discussions in mainstream and social media. There are plenty of opportunities. “You can use it to deconstruct gender norms, power dynamics in relationships, ‘performative’ trends that don’t represent most people’s healthy behaviors,” she said, “especially depictions of people putting pressure on someone’s neck or chest.”

I also know that pediatricians, like other adults, struggle when talking to adolescents about sex (the typical conversation, if it happens, lasts 40 seconds). Then again, they already caution younger children to use a helmet when they ride a bike (because heads and necks are delicate!); they can mention that teens might hear about things people do in sexual situations, including choking, then explain the impact on brain health and why such behavior is best avoided. They should emphasize that if, for any reason — a fall, a sports mishap or anything else — a young person develops symptoms of head trauma, they should come in immediately, no judgment, for help in healing.

The role and responsibility of the entertainment industry is a tangled knot: Media reflects behavior but also drives it, either expanding possibilities or increasing risks. There is precedent for accountability. The European Union now requires age verification on the world’s largest porn sites (in ways that preserve user privacy, whatever that means on the internet); that discussion, unsurprisingly, had been politicized here. Social media platforms have already been pushed to ban content promoting eating disorders, self-harm and suicide — they should likewise be pressured to ban content promoting choking. Traditional formats can stop glamorizing strangulation, making light of it, spreading false information, using it to signal female characters’ complexity or sexual awakening. Young people’s sexual scripts are shaped by what they watch, scroll by and listen to — unprecedentedly so. They deserve, and desperately need, models of interactions that are respectful, communicative, mutual and, at the very least, safe.

Peggy Orenstein is the author of “Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the New Masculinity” and “Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape.”

[strbymacaroon]

✿ S1 E2: The Jean Situation! ✿

✿ Roomie Series!: Eren Yeager x Reader!

❥ S1 E2. 10:00 mins remaining, 2246 words.

❥ Previous Episode: S1 E2: You New Normal

❥ Y/n now forced to deal with two, extremely attractive, boys.

You always imagined being sandwiched between two very hot guys was going to be way more filling than… this. Literally. But, no. Maybe, it’d be hotter if the two of them were actually looking at you, rather than glaring at each other. But… whatever.

Jean had his arm wrapped around your shoulder, leaning into you, while Eren leaned back into the couch. His eyes flickering to Jean’s arm, seeing how it was holding you. Was the situation hot? Kinda. But, you still couldn’t help, but feel suffocated between the two of them. 

“Uhm, how about we–” 

“Miss Y/n?” 

You flinched, twisting your head to your maid. “Yes!” You immediately pushed yourself off the couch, leaving the heavy tension. A weight literally being lifted from your shoulders. You made your way to your maid. 

“Could you be a dear, and help me?” She placed her hand on her back, “You know what old age can do to the body.” 

You eagerly nodded your head, moving towards her. Looking back at Eren and Jean, before getting tugged into the room she was hiding in. You were going to say something, when she hushed you. “What is going on?” She whispered. 

You shook your head frantically, “I don’t know, I honestly have no idea!” You whispered back, glancing back at the door. “I think Jean’s mad at me, but then again he’s just been galring at Eren, so I think he’s mad at Eren. I– I just don’t know.” 

You watched the two of them, eyebrows mushed together. Why do you guys hate each other? You looked back at your maid, “Do you think they’re going to have a man off?”

She laughed, “I don’t know what that is, but absolutely.” 

Jean let his eyes drift to the room you walked into, trying to get a peek at you. But, unfortunately, he couldn’t see anything. “Are you guys no longer arguing? Finally made up?” Jean asked, not bothering to take a glance in Eren’s direction. 

Eren narrowed his eyes at Jean, tapped his fingers against the couch. “Something like that.” Eren leaned his head back, “You know, she’s thinking of breaking up with you. Still mad about the whole cheating thing.” 

Jean snapped his head at Eren, “With this again. When will you let shit go? You and Mikasa were taking a break, and so was Y/n and I. I didn’t cheat.” He defended. “Things just happen.”

Eren laughed bitterly, rolling his eyes. “You know what you sound like right now?” He mocked, “That one bitch from Euphoria. You were supposed to be my best friend, Jean. Not the guy who fucks the girl I love, because we were in an argument and not talking.” 

Jean tilted his head, smiling at Eren. “Sounds like a ‘you’ problem, Yeager.” 

“When will you learn to shut the fuck up. I swear, one day I’m going to beat your ass.” Eren pushed himself off the couch, walking into the kitchen. Which was connected to the living room. “I can’t do this sober.” 

You laughed to yourself silently, me. 

Jean pulled out his phone, texting someone. “So, you wanna explain why Y/n was at practice with you?” Jean twisted his head to the side, peering at Eren over his shoulder. “Or, is that another thing you’re not going to tell me?” 

Eren down a shot, the glass clinking against the marble tabletop once he placed it down. “You should try to figure it out on your own, since you love playing detective so much.” He poured himself another one. 

You finally came back out, finding the situation becoming tense. You took the drink from Eren, slowly pouring it back into the bottle. Eren wasn’t going to argue, he like you looking out for him. “I was signing up for colorguard, that way I can spend more time with Ere–” You cleared your throat, “Outside of the house.” 

Jean glared at you, his fingers tapping against the headboard of the couch.“So you can spend more time with Eren?” He repeated, “Hm.” He said thoughtfully. 

You flashed him a sheepish smile, your face going hot. “Yes,” Your eyes danced to Eren for a second, embarrassed Jean caught your slip up. “To spend more time with ‘Ren.” You forced out the next words, “And, you too. I mean, you are in the same marching band.” You didn’t even look at Eren for his reaction, you didn’t want to see it. 

Jean bit the inside of his cheek, “Yeah.” His response was too dry for your liking. 

“Yeah.” You repeated, “It works out.” You sweetly smiled at him, head tilting to the side for a moment. Hand pressed on your chest, presumably over your heart. 

Jean’s eyebrows twitched together, almost in confusion. His heart speeding up while his cheeks turned hot– what the hell? Jean cringed at himself, feeling uncomfortable with the reaction he body had to you smiling. Hell, had he ever seen you smile? You’re also so stoic and rude, never kind enough to smile at a child. What the hell was happening to him?... Was he getting sick?

Eren smiled to himself, his eyes softening at your sweet gesture and expression. “Work for me too, I get to see Y/n all the time now.” Eren wrapped his arm around your shoulder, placing his head over yours. 

You looked up, and smiled.

Jean grit his teeth, “And, I get to see Y/n’s face when she’s cumming.” 

Woah. Okay. You could feel your smile slowly drop, “Okay, let’s not—“ 

Eren looked away from you, “Yeah, and I get to hear her moaning when you leave, desperately trying to finish because your tiny dick couldn’t do the job.” Eren shot back, eyes boring into Jean. 

Woah, okay. That’s— hot. It shouldn’t be. But, it is. You pulled away.

Jean licked his teeth, smiling as he rolled his eyes. “Sure, whatever you say.” He flashed his phone at Eren, “If you want, I can show you one of the video’s of her cumming on my dick.”

Eren’s eyes twitched, “Fuck off, Horse face.” 

So, that also exists here. “Can we not?” You groaned, “I’m supposed to be having fun here, not stressing over stupid drama.” You whispered, going into the pantry and grabbing some popcorn. “Let’s watch a movie, or something.”

Jean stood up, his hands shoved into his pocket. “Can we not, what?” he groaned, “Argue? Isn’t that what we do everyday?” 

You furrowed your eyebrows everyday, hating how he was raising his voice. “I don’t know, fighting me is pointless.” You respond, leaning on the counter. “Why can’t we just do this?” You gestured between you and Jean, smiling slightly. “We’re not fighting, we’re just talking about how we feel.” 

“Bullshit.” Jean barked back, making you flinch. 

Your eyebrows mushed together, “Excuse me.” Your voice hardened, pushing yourself away from the pantry. “If you yell— or so much as raise your voice at me again, I’m kicking your ass out of my house.” You asserted, “Speak to me the way you would speak to your mother. Do not yell at me.” 

Jean felt taken aback. You were literally screaming at him last week, what’s with the sudden attitude change. Jean looked at Eren, only to see holding a satisfying smile. Like he knew this was coming. Eren mouthed, “I love this new version of her.”

You pointed at the couch, “Now sit down, we’re talking about this.” You glared at Eren, “And you too, you don’t you can get away scot free.” 

“But, I didn’t do anything.”

Your expression shut him up. 

“Jean boy.” You spoke, something that made him snap his head at you. “Can you just please calm down, I just want to know why you’re so mad. In my eyes nothing happene–” 

“How do you know that?” 

You blinked a few times, confused. “Wait? How do I know what?” You tilted your head, more than confused,  

Jean couldn’t look away from you, almost like you were a magnet pulling his attention to you. “That name. How do you know that name?” 

You didn’t move, your face falling into one of pure despair. Shit, I assumed all the nicknames used in Attack on Titan applied here. “Uhm, I was just giving you a nickname.” You slowly spoke, the words almost lodged in your throat. “Is– Do you not like it?” 

“No.” Jean sighed, “It’s nothing.” He pushed himself off the couch, “I think I’m going to go.” 

You grabbed his hand, stopping him from leaving. “Jean, if something is bothering you, you can tell me.” You brought his hand in-front of your face, your lips dusting over his knuckles. “If you just need time to breathe, or think. Tell me that, so I can understand you better.” 

Jean’s eyes stayed on your lips ghosting his hand, such a kind and warming gesture. It almost felt foreign, you two had never done anything so intimate and sweet before. Sure, you’ve had sex, but sex didn’t hold meaning anymore. 

Jean slowly nodded, “Okay.” He slowly moved his hand to cup your cheek, his thumb slowly rubbing the smooth skin. Has he ever held you like this? “I need time to breathe.” He could feel his throat slowly constricting. Why?

You smiled, nodding your head. “Good, thank you for telling me. When you’re ready to talk, call me.” You wrapped your hand around his, toying with the bracelet he was wearing. 

Jean nodded again. “I’m sorry.” 

You kissed his palm, “Don’t be, you just don’t know how to express your emotions.” 

His next action caught you off guard. He hugged you. His arms wrapping around your body, tighter than anyone has ever held you. “What the hell happened to you?” 

You placed a hand on his forearm, smiling weakly. “I matured.” How the hell were you supposed to answer that?! You could tell your face was expressing your thoughts.

When Jean left, the room echoed with silence. Until Eren broke it. “What the hell was that!?” He stood up from the couch, grabbing your shoulders and shaking you. “How the hell did you do that? I don’t–”

You giggled, wrapping your hands around Eren’s hands. “I just had him talk to me.” You looked to the side, “I mean, it was hot seeing you two argue over me, but it wasn’t ideal.” You shrugged, leaning back, Eren kept his grip on you. 

Eren raised an eyebrow, “Hot?” 

You nodded frantically, “Very.” 

“You know, maybe you’re not as mature as you think you are.” Eren voiced, letting go of you. He laughed watching you panic for a second, before hitting the couch below you. 

You smiled, leaning back into the couch. Grabbing Eren’s wrist and tugging him down with you, only to be upset he didn’t move an inch. “I’m very mature, ‘Ren.” 

Eren rolled his eyes, slowly bringing himself down to your level. Kneeling in front of you. A small smile on his lips. “One day, you’re going to need to prove it to me.” 

You rolled your eyes, “Yeah, maybe when we’re fending off for war, I’ll take a bullet for you.” You tilted your head, “Even that’s a big if, I don’t know if you’re worth a bullet to the head.” 

“Woow.” Eren’s eyes widened, “I’d take one, I’m hurt you wouldn’t do the same.” 

Leaning back into the couch, you loudly groaned. “Eren, don’t tell me you’re one of those; Would you love me if I was a worm–” 

“Yes!” He shouted, “Y/n, would you love me if I was a worm?” 

Yes. Absolutely. Definitely. “No.” 

Eren sighed, leaning his head onto your shoulder. “Fine..” He mumbled, “I’d still love you.”

You laughed, “Eren, kinda’ out of the blue but, how toxic were me and Jean.” You placed your head on Erens, “I mean, it really seems like we’ve never had a calm discussion.”

Eren sighed, pulling his head back. “Very toxic. I wasn’t a fan of hearing you cry every night about him. And, I hated hearing him vent about you when he was at practice.” He laughed, “Even with how much I hated you two.”

You blinked a few times, tilting your head. “You could hear me?” 

Eren tapped your foot, smiling slightly. “I always hear you, Y/n.” He looked around the house, “These walls are surprisingly thin.” 

You glared at him, “You perv.” You laughed at his panicked expression, “I'm joking.” You brought your hands to his face, playing with the bangs that decorated it. “I’m going to break up with Jean.” You mumbled, “He obviously has issues that he’s projecting onto me.” 

“Jean has a lot of issues.” Eren sighed, his face falling. “So does Mikasa, maybe they’re made for eachother.” 

You pushed a strand of hair behind your ear, a part of your heart clenching. “You really liked Mikasa, huh?” 

“I loved her.” Eren shrugged, “I don’t care anymore, it happened forever ago.” 

You nodded, “Eren?” 

“Yes, Y/n?” Eren leaned into you, giving you his full attention. 

It pained you to ask, “Tell me about Mikasa.” You placed your cheek on the cushion of the couch, “What’s she like?”

Eren sighed, leaning back into the capet. “She–” He shook his head, “I’ll tell you some other day.” 

You nodded your head, taking his hand and playing with his fingers. Eren admired the way your hand looked around his, but didn’t say anything. All you did was whisper a small, “Okay.” 

[mikuni14]

Playboyy Ep 3

"Does sex have to be violent, Dad?" "Can't we just have normal sex?"

These two sentences brought me back to Playboyy after a rather weak episode 2 🥳

The series still has the same flaws for me, that is, it's not hot at all, the plot is all over the place, there are a lot of scenes I don't know where they came from, but I decided to change my perspective and look at this series differently.

Perhaps due to my age, my approach to Playboyy was, um, less favorable, but hearing these two sentences and especially watching the scenes with Soong made me realize that maybe I do not understand this series, because it is a series not "about me", but about young people living in the modern world and that it's a bit like Euphoria, which I watched with curiosity, a bit like a nature program about some exotic spieces 😃 with a mix of horror and compassion.

And I decided to look at Playboyy in the same way, I started analyzing this series ignoring let's call it "shockness" of the sex scenes and focusing on something else.

And what is it? The fact that these kids (sorry, for me they are kids, especially the rich twinks) are modern, well-educated sexually, know the appropriate vocabulary, are familiar with trends, freely navigate the Internet, social media and everything related to it, but THEIR EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE DOES NOT TRANSLATE TO REAL LIFE. Their professional sex vocabulary does not translate into COMMUNICATION. They are so free in their approach to sex that they are unable to create any real relationship with another person, because each of them is acually blocked in some way, the declared sexual freedom does not translate into freedom IN actual sex. Sex is treated nonchalantly, as something obvious, which results in tension, expectations that "you have to do it", that "everyone does it and they do it WELL", being "boyfriend ready" means being "sex ready", that good sex is kinky sex and necessarily penetration. They study sex and vocabulary diligently to be good at it and they think that all this is enough, that using the "safe word", "consent" will replace… the trust that should be simply developed. They do all this to avoid problems in sex and relationships, and it turns out that knowing all trends and professional vocabulary and behavior actually leads to disaster. What else catches my eye is that almost no one starts "vanilla", everyone immediately jumps into the deep end of the pool 😃 Not only that, no one is dating. I've already seen this in Only Friends, where dating, once it appeared, was also kind of "task-oriented" and had to be "perfect". In fact, everything has to be perfect and if it isn't, everyone, especially rich kids, folds like origami. In my opinion, Zouey should first go to a therapist, because his visible from space physical recoil from touch, combined with a relatively relaxed approach to other sexual behaviors, indicate something and it would be good for him to calmly deal with it before starting a new relationship and get himself hurt. (I hope that Zouey's approach to sex will be more understandable than Mew's, who considered himself a virgin until anal sex) Again, what I see in young people today, and what TV series are starting to show: recording, taking photos, using it to humiliate others, living on social media… tbh, I feel very sorry for young people. And finally, the rich kids and their complete detachment from reality, living in a sparkly world of illusions and fantasies. Watching Soong and First was painful.

For me, this series is an insight into the world of a group of young people. This reality is, of course, exaggerated, but it shows how much everything has changed. We were also lost because we lacked proper education and had to cope by "trial and error". We simply had no idea about many things because we didn't even know about them! Now young people are also lost, only this time they have ALL the knowledge at their disposal, they are held accountable for this knowledge, they have access to the most hardcore porn. Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe that's what this series is trying to show us? Or am I looking into it too much? 😊 Anyway, after episode 3, this is how I decided to approach it (it can of course change, for now my opinion about Playboyy changes after each ep, it's wild)

Just like in Euphoria and Only Friends, here too, it's difficult to really like any of the characters...🤔

[someone-will-remember-us]

Debby Herbenick is one of the foremost researchers on American sexual behavior. The director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University and the author of the pointedly titled book “Yes, Your Kid,” she usually shares her data, no matter how explicit, without judgment. So I was surprised by how concerned she seemed when we checked in on Zoom recently: “I haven’t often felt so strongly about getting research out there,” she told me. “But this is lifesaving.”

For the past four years, Dr. Herbenick has been tracking the rapid rise of “rough sex” among college students, particularly sexual strangulation, or what is colloquially referred to as “choking.” Nearly two-thirds of women in her most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 students at an anonymized “major Midwestern university” said a partner had choked them during sex (one-third in their most recent encounter). The rate of those women who said they were between the ages 12 and 17 the first time that happened had shot up to 40 percent from one in four.

As someone who’s been writing for well over a decade about young people’s attitudes and early experience with sex in all its forms, I’d also begun clocking this phenomenon. I was initially startled in early 2020 when, during a post-talk Q. and A. at an independent high school, a 16-year-old girl asked, “How come boys all want to choke you?” In a different class, a 15-year-old boy wanted to know, “Why do girls all want to be choked?” They do? Not long after, a college sophomore (and longtime interview subject) contacted me after her roommate came home in tears because a hookup partner, without warning, had put both hands on her throat and squeezed.

I started to ask more and the stories piled up. Another sophomore confided that she enjoyed being choked by her boyfriend, though it was important for a partner to be “properly educated” — pressing on the sides of the neck, for example, rather than the trachea. (Note: There is no safe way to strangle someone.) A male freshman said “girls expected” to be choked and, even though he didn’t want to do it, refusing would make him seem like a “simp.” And a senior in high school was angry that her friends called her “vanilla” when she complained that her boyfriend had choked her.

Sexual strangulation, nearly always of women in heterosexual pornography, has long been a staple on free sites, those default sources of sex ed for teens. As with anything else, repeat exposure can render the once appalling appealing. It’s not uncommon for behaviors to be normalized in porn, move within a few years to mainstream media, then, in what may become a feedback loop, be adopted in the bedroom or the dorm room.

Choking, Dr. Herbenick said, seems to have made that first leap in a 2008 episode of HBO’s “Californication,” where it was still depicted as outré, then accelerated after the success of “Fifty Shades of Gray.” By 2019, when a high school girl was choked in the pilot of HBO’s “Euphoria,” it was standard fare. A young woman was choked in the opener of “The Idol” (again on HBO and also, like “Euphoria,” created by Sam Levinson; what’s with him?). Ali Wong plays the proclivity for laughs in a Netflix special, and it’s a punchline in Tina Fey’s new “Mean Girls.” The chorus of Jack Harlow’s “Lovin On Me,” which topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for six nonconsecutive weeks this winter and has been viewed over 99 million times on YouTube, starts with, “I’m vanilla baby, I’ll choke you, but I ain’t no killer, baby.” How-to articles abound on the internet, and social media algorithms feed young people (but typically not their unsuspecting parents) hundreds of #chokemedaddy memes along with memes that mock — even celebrate — the potential for hurting or killing female partners.

I’m not here to kink-shame (or anything-shame). And, anyway, many experienced BDSM practitioners discourage choking, believing it to be too dangerous. There are still relatively few studies on the subject, and most have been done by Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues. Reports among adolescents are now trickling out from the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland, New Zealand and Italy.

Twenty years ago, sexual asphyxiation appears to have been unusual among any demographic, let alone young people who were new to sex and iffy at communication. That’s changed radically in a short time, with health consequences that parents, educators, medical professionals, sexual consent advocates and teens themselves urgently need to understand.

Sexual trends can spread quickly on campus and, to an extent, in every direction. But, at least among straight kids, I’ve sometimes noticed a pattern: Those that involve basic physical gratification — like receiving oral sex in hookups — tend to favor men. Those that might entail pain or submission, like choking, are generally more for women.

So, while undergrads of all genders and sexualities in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys report both choking and being choked, straight and bisexual young women are far more likely to have been the subjects of the behavior; the gap widens with greater occurrences. (In a separate study, Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues found the behavior repeated across the United States, particularly for adults under 40, and not just among college students.) Alcohol may well be involved, and while the act is often engaged in with a steady partner, a quarter of young women said partners they’d had sex with on the day they’d met also choked them.

Either way, most say that their partners never or only sometimes asked before grabbing their necks. For many, there had been moments when they couldn’t breathe or speak, compromising the ability to withdraw consent, if they’d given it. No wonder that, in a separate study by Dr. Herbenick, choking was among the most frequently listed sex acts young women said had scared them, saying it sometimes made them worry whether they’d survive.

Among girls and women I’ve spoken with, many did not want or like to be sexually strangled, though in an otherwise desired encounter they didn’t name it as assault. Still, a sizable number were enthusiastic; they requested it. It is exciting to feel so vulnerable, a college junior explained. The power dynamic turns her on; oxygen deprivation to the brain can trigger euphoria.

That same young woman, incidentally, had never climaxed with a partner: While the prevalence of choking has skyrocketed, rates of orgasm among young women have not increased, nor has the “orgasm gap” disappeared among heterosexual couples. “It indicates they’re not doing other things to enhance female arousal or pleasure,” Dr. Herbenick said.

When, for instance, she asked one male student who said he choked his partner whether he’d ever tried using a vibrator instead, he recoiled. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

Perhaps, she responded, because it would be more likely to produce orgasm without risking, you know, death.

In my interviews, college students have seen male orgasm as a given; women’s is nice if it happens, but certainly not expected or necessarily prioritized (by either partner). It makes sense, then, that fulfillment would be less the motivator for choking than appearing adventurous or kinky. Such performances don’t always feel good.

“Personally, my hypothesis is that this is one of the reasons young people are delaying or having less sex,” Dr. Herbenick said. “Because it’s uncomfortable and weird and scary. At times some of them literally think someone is assaulting them but they don’t know. Those are the only sexual experiences for some people. And it’s not just once they’ve gotten naked. They’ll say things like, ‘I’ve only tried to make out with someone once because he started choking and hitting me.’”

Keisuke Kawata, a neuroscientist at Indiana University’s School of Public Health, was one of the first researchers to sound the alarm on how the cumulative, seemingly inconsequential, sub-concussive hits football players sustain (as opposed to the occasional hard blow) were key to triggering C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease. He’s a good judge of serious threats to the brain. In response to Dr. Herbenick’s work, he’s turning his attention to sexual strangulation. “I see a similarity” to C.T.E., he told me, “though the mechanism of injury is very different.” In this case, it is oxygen-blocking pressure to the throat, frequently in light, repeated bursts of a few seconds each.

Strangulation — sexual or otherwise — often leaves few visible marks and can be easily overlooked as a cause of death. Those whose experiences are nonlethal rarely seek medical attention, because any injuries seem minor: Young women Dr. Herbenick studied mostly reported lightheadedness, headaches, neck pain, temporary loss of coordination and ear ringing. The symptoms resolve, and all seems well. But, as with those N.F.L. players, the true effects are silent, potentially not showing up for days, weeks, even years.

According to the American Academy of Neurology, restricting blood flow to the brain, even briefly, can cause permanent injury, including stroke and cognitive impairment. In M.R.I.s conducted by Dr. Kawata and his colleagues (including Dr. Herbenick, who is a co-author of his papers on strangulation), undergraduate women who have been repeatedly choked show a reduction in cortical folding in the brain compared with a never-choked control group. They also showed widespread cortical thickening, an inflammation response that is associated with elevated risk of later-onset mental illness. In completing simple memory tasks, their brains had to work far harder than the control group, recruiting from more regions to achieve the same level of accuracy.

The hemispheres in the choked group’s brains, too, were badly skewed, with the right side hyperactive and the left underperforming. A similar imbalance is associated with mood disorders — and indeed in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys girls and women who had been choked were more likely than others (or choked men) to have experienced overwhelming anxiety, as well as sadness and loneliness, with the effect more pronounced as the incidence rose: Women who had experienced more than five instances of choking were two and a half times more likely than those who had never been choked to say they had been so depressed within the previous 30 days they couldn’t function. Whether girls and women with mental health challenges are more likely to seek out (or be subjected to) choking, choking causes mood disorders, or some combination of the two is still unclear, but hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation — judging by what research has shown about other types of traumatic brain injury — could be a contributing factor. Given the soaring rates of depression and anxiety among young women, that warrants concern.

Now consider that every year Dr. Herbenick has done her survey, the number of females reporting extreme effects from strangulation (neck swelling, loss of consciousness, losing control of urinary function) has crept up. Among those who’ve been choked, the rate of becoming what students call “cloudy” — close to passing out, but not crossing the line — is now one in five, a huge proportion. All of this indicates partners are pressing on necks longer and harder.

The physical, cognitive and psychological impacts of sexual choking are disturbing. So is the idea that at a time when women’s social, economic, educational and political power are in ascent (even if some of those rights may be in jeopardy), when #MeToo has made progress against harassment and assault, there has been the popularization of a sex act that can damage our brains, impair intellectual functioning, undermine mental health, even kill us. Nonfatal strangulation, one of the most significant indicators that a man will murder his female partner (strangulation is also one of the most common methods used for doing so), has somehow been eroticized and made consensual, at least consensual enough. Yet, the outcomes are largely the same: Women’s brains and bodies don’t distinguish whether they are being harmed out of hate or out of love.

By now I’m guessing that parents are curled under their chairs in a fetal position. Or perhaps thinking, “No, not my kid!” (see: title of Dr. Herbenick’s book above, which, by the way, contains an entire chapter on how to talk to your teen about “rough sex”).

I get it. It’s scary stuff. Dr. Herbenick is worried; I am, too. And we are hardly some anti-sex, wait-till-marriage crusaders. But I don’t think our only option is to wring our hands over what young people are doing.

Parents should take a beat and consider how they might give their children relevant information in a way that they can hear it. Maybe reiterate that they want them to have a pleasurable sex life — you have already said that, right? — and also want them to be safe. Tell them that misinformation about certain practices, including choking, is rampant, that in reality it has grave health consequences. Plus, whether or not a partner initially requested it, if things go wrong, you’re generally criminally on the hook.

Dr. Herbenick suggests reminding them that there are other, lower-risk ways to be exploratory or adventurous if that is what they are after, but it would be wisest to delay any “rough sex” until they are older and more skilled at communicating. She offers language when negotiating with a new partner, such as, “By the way, I’m not comfortable with” — choking, or other escalating behaviors such as name-calling, spitting and genital slapping — “so please don’t do it/don’t ask me to do it to you.” They could also add what they are into and want to do together.

I’d like to point high school health teachers to evidence-based porn literacy curricula, but I realize that incorporating such lessons into their classrooms could cost them their jobs. Shafia Zaloom, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, recommends, if that’s the case, grounding discussions in mainstream and social media. There are plenty of opportunities. “You can use it to deconstruct gender norms, power dynamics in relationships, ‘performative’ trends that don’t represent most people’s healthy behaviors,” she said, “especially depictions of people putting pressure on someone’s neck or chest.”

I also know that pediatricians, like other adults, struggle when talking to adolescents about sex (the typical conversation, if it happens, lasts 40 seconds). Then again, they already caution younger children to use a helmet when they ride a bike (because heads and necks are delicate!); they can mention that teens might hear about things people do in sexual situations, including choking, then explain the impact on brain health and why such behavior is best avoided. They should emphasize that if, for any reason — a fall, a sports mishap or anything else — a young person develops symptoms of head trauma, they should come in immediately, no judgment, for help in healing.

The role and responsibility of the entertainment industry is a tangled knot: Media reflects behavior but also drives it, either expanding possibilities or increasing risks. There is precedent for accountability. The European Union now requires age verification on the world’s largest porn sites (in ways that preserve user privacy, whatever that means on the internet); that discussion, unsurprisingly, had been politicized here. Social media platforms have already been pushed to ban content promoting eating disorders, self-harm and suicide — they should likewise be pressured to ban content promoting choking. Traditional formats can stop glamorizing strangulation, making light of it, spreading false information, using it to signal female characters’ complexity or sexual awakening. Young people’s sexual scripts are shaped by what they watch, scroll by and listen to — unprecedentedly so. They deserve, and desperately need, models of interactions that are respectful, communicative, mutual and, at the very least, safe.

[inebriatcd]

introducing trevor myers

(  harris dickinson,  cis man,  he/him  )  —  🎬  just  announced,  trevor  myers  has  been  cast  as  jasper  hale  in  the  upcoming  twilight  reboot.  the  twenty five  year  old  is  trending  as  people  are  debating  if  the  bleached blonde hair, wasting champagne bottles, avoiding family reunions, a starvation for the unconventional, and showing up late to everything   that  they  are  known  for  is  enough  to  make  them  as  good  as  original.  a  quick  google  search  shows  that  their  fans  call  them  idealistic,  but  internet  trolls  think  they’re  more  impulsive.  i  guess  their  newest  interview  for  variety  where  they  talk  about  how he is definitely not a nepo baby  will  let  people  to  know  them  better.

about:

trevor's mom was a child actress, along with her two other sisters. (think like the richards sisters)

his parents met when they were in college, and people thought it was pretty sus because his dad was considered like a normal average dude, so the public wondered why the two ended up together.

fast forward ten years, trevor's their first born. he always liked being the center of attention, which made his mother very nervous. she did not want him to become a child actor, though he kept insisting on auditioning for things after seeing her in some films when she was little.

his mom got cast in the rhobh, and that was trevor's first taste of being in front of the camera. he loved it, and actually his dad was the one who convinced his mom to let him audition for things. he only got two parts, after a few years of auditioning. it made him actually pretty resentful of his mother because he knew that she could help him get his foot in the door way more than how she said she could help him. he also just wasn't that good, it didn't come naturally at all for him.

during the next few years, he focused on taking some acting lessons, trying to actually put in some effort to get what he wanted rather than letting it get handed to him. he was still in the spotlight, appearing in a lot of episodes of real housewives and on a lot of game shows, etc.

his real breakthrough role was when he got cast in euphoria, without his mother's help.

he definitely feels a sense of entitlement to things. #privilege

nowadays, he tends to avoid his family because of the resentment that he's built up towards his mother. she was literally just trying to protect him but he doesn't care. now he's so petty he wants to be considered the more famous myers.

wanted connections

everything

exes

friends

childhood friends

party friends

bad influences, etc.

[threewaywithdelusion]

Nos Armários dos Vestiários: Roy Kent

This is a transcription/translation of the podcast Nos Armários dos Vestiários, episode 4: A Base de Tudo. (Note: I have no translation skills besides speaking both English and Portuguese. This is a very rough translation and I have paraphrased in some places, but the message has remained the same).

This episode talks about youth academies (idk the proper term, feel free to tell me) and it made me think of Roy. The podcast is about Brazilian football, so I'm sure there are some major cultural differences, but given that locker rooms around the world are fairly similar (and given that players play for clubs outside their own countries), I think it's still valuable knowledge

Interview:

Douglas Braga (who went to the youth academy for Botafogo, a Brazilian club): I can't talk about now, I can only speak about my own time, but there was no such thing as a person who determined how things in the housing would work. It was like this: you were in there, your bed is this one, your closet is this one, and you look after yourself. There was a guy who did security for the place but no one you could go to and say "listen, this is happening. What should we do about this?" That didn't exist. You had to look after yourself and make your own relationships in that place. And then you start seeing survival of the fittest, the rule of man. The stereotypical man, the angry man, he gets to rule. This is going to seem strange, but it's not different from what you see in a police movie about people in prison. A stronger man will arrive, who has more contacts, who's played for longer, and he dominates. He dominates in the sense of saying "go buy this for me. Do this for me." It's like this. "Oh, you're younger. You have to do this. You have to clean this."

You grow up with the idea that this is normal and natural.

You have to show your testosterone to everyone. That's what counts and that's what gives you credit to be places. Because it's not just about making friendships off the pitch. This goes onto the pitch. If you're a guy who doesn't participate in the same things, the ball won't reach you on the pitch. There are ways you go about excluding that guy and if you can't get the ball on the pitch, you aren't seen. So, you don't really have a choice. Either you play the game, literally, or you're out. And not out just in the "we don't like you, stay isolated" way. It's "we don't like you and if you're a striker, the ball won't reach you."

Joanna (podcast host): A highly competitive environment doesn't open space for a lot of types of emotions.

Douglas: The years I played... we lived with two models of emotions. As if there were no other feelings. There was the euphoria of masculinity and a few rare times when you could be frustrated by loss. I talk about frustration about loss because everyone lived far from home, so some news always arrived saying you lost someone from home. It was a moment where you were looked at with kindness because you were crying. For just a few moments, because the next day you had to go out and play. Outside of this, I don't remember a single moment -- and that's given that people had smaller groups of more intimate friends -- I don't remember a single moment of sentiment where someone said they were sad about missing home. Because the idea that's created is that talking about all this is showing some kind of weakness.

Joanna: Football configures itself in this way, with this exercise of self-affirmation, of needing to be manly, needing to be strong. There isn't space for anything else. From Douglas's story we can tell that if you express any sort of weakness, like any feeling, you can compromise your dream. A dream that doesn't only belong to the boy who is there, but also to a family who many times rests all its hopes on this boy.

[sylvies-chen]

The show has never been as good as it was in s1 and 2, those two seasons were very good procedural fun ensemble cop show but I'm gonna need them to get to s7 I'm begging because I need a chenford wedding, logically we might get it at the end of 6 and then them with kids or pregnant( something they both want) in s7 because I need crime procedurals which are basically the ONLY form of television still doing slowburns and relationships that actually develop over the years to stop f*cking me over( especially Chicago fire which has burned me so badly I have no words) bc they're almost entirely my only source of good ship material, every other show has 8 episodes every 2 years so there is no actual development of anything whatsoever and so I'm tired

Wow ok so uh a lot to unpack here lol, wild from start to finish let’s get into it:

I actually really like this season so far. Is it anywhere close to what the show started out? No, not really. But different doesn’t mean bad. I’ve actually quite enjoyed the darker, more intense tones to this season. The Rookie did the “good procedural fun ensemble cop” thing really well, and it still does. But just because The Rookie is a show that knows it’s place and doesn’t act like more than it is, doesn’t mean they’re not allowed to tinker around and toy with new things, new ideas, new motifs, new levels of intensity. I think this is a show that knows how fun experimenting can be and how sometimes it’s just necessary in order to play the long game and have many, many seasons. I also feel like, if you’ve seen anything on my blog over the past few weeks, you might have seen that I actually am enjoying this season?? So I don’t know if you thought I was going to agree with you on this, but I am most definitely (yet respectfully) disagreeing.

I definitely feel your pain from Chicago Fire. That show has fucked up one too many times now, relying too much on their fans to keep coming back for more no matter what. I’ll say it now and forever.

But your take on other television??? On there not being slowburns or any development in fictional ships??? STONE COLD TAKE. We are in a golden age of television, anon!! I don’t know what television you watch but I personally find there is still a lot of good slowburn ships out there. Obviously, procedurals and cable television is a format better suited for slowburns because the for-profit motive is stronger. They want to tell a story, but it’s more about taking a set of characters and a premise and playing with them for as long as possible. They stretch it out, which breeds a perfect environment for those insanely long and fantastically torturous slowburns (Suits, Bones, etc.), whereas shows in the newer format you’re describing have a very specific story to tell and want to tell it in a certain way. It’s why The Good Place, like other shows, actively chose not to be renewed for another season: because they know where they want to end.

Just think of how many fucking AMAZING tv shows follow that format!!! Succession, The Morning Show, Outer Banks, Our Flag Means Death, Euphoria, Barry, Ted Lasso, Heartstopper, Normal People. The list is ENDLESS. And these shows gets awards. Just because you see the development differently over 8 episodes doesn’t mean there isn’t still some really solid development of fictional couples. If you’re really against this format, I encourage you to dig deeper and question that feeling a bit.

But anyway, circling back to Chenford and The Rookie: I don’t know what Chenford’s development is going to look like moving forward. I don’t know how many seasons there will be or what’s going to happen. But I like where this show is at right now and I personally am happy and excited to see Lucy and Tim fall in love!

[the-void-and-the-mirror]

A Cycle With Grief

In the very recent past, a lot has happened. I'd been struggling to cope with life. My car is still in the repair shop, needing thousands of dollars of repair work, while I rent a car I also don't have money for. And my insurance won't cover any of it. (We found a way to file through the state, and it should work, but that's to the side.) It left me wondering how I'm supposed to see the better side of things when life keeps throwing me curve balls like this. How am I supposed to feel like the universe isn't against me when things keep happening? When nothing seems to align despite my efforts? I keep trying and trying to be kicked when I'm down.

…Yet, that same day, I had another realisation.

I'd been dealing with the rage I felt when thinking of my mum would resurface, as it does. The hundreds of things that still sting, making me wonder why I wasn't good enough for them while my sister remained the golden child. Even if she did the same things I did, she was still revered while I was belittled. There's a lot of hurt there. As the rage surfaced over and over, again and again, I found myself desperately craving one thing: justice. I wanted vengeance for what I was put through, I wanted them to suffer in a million ways. I hated them. I hated their lies. And I'd been holding onto this rage because I didn't know where to put it, what else to do with it.

This day, I came to the slow realisation that my rage was hurting me more than anyone else. And I mean that. I had a million revenge plots I would never act on, I had no way to justify myself, and no matter what I did, it would never be enough. So just where was I supposed to put my anger, justified as it was? I told myself it wasn't like karma was doing anything.

Except… then I realised I was very much firsthand witnessing it in action. My dad is always sick nowadays, constantly in and out of the hospital. My mother is miserable without me in her life. And both of my parents became the very people they hated, who they swore to never become. Karma is not fast, not in the way that many would like, me included. But I did see it very much happening right before my eyes. And with my mum, my power was back in my hands. I can withhold whatever I want and I will be impacting her.

I also noticed, very abruptly, that my rage had dissipated with this realisation. I kept an eye on it, in case it might resurface. But it's been two weeks, and I still feel the same neutrality. I wouldn't go so far to say I'm fine with everything, but I'm not burdened by fury that I can't wield. And it's started bearing fruit recently.

In the last few days, I've had a string of surprisingly very good days, something I haven't felt in such a very long time. I'm so used to everything being negative, disappointing, or maybe neutral at best. I'd learnt not to get my hopes up because I'd just be let down. The first day, the school janitor I thought I put off used my pronouns. The next, I got my first hug from one of the kids who has a struggling home life. The second of a book I loved came in the mail. I wasn't getting stressed out by the minor inconveniences I normally did. And I noticed all of this. On the third day, I got my hair cut. I expected to be meh about it, but I had been struggling with sensory issues with my long hair that I just couldn't do anything with and resolved to cut it short. When I got the cut down, I was filled with euphoria. The, "Oh, there you are" moment. I love the haircut. I dyed it red. It looks so good and I can easily style it multiple ways with just a little bit of product. I think I'll keep this hairstyle forever. Even today, after a rough moment, I decided to cheer myself up by spending time with my boyfriend. We went to a candy store, got some comfort food, came home and splurged a few episodes of a show on Hulu. And even then, one of my hobbies has really brightened my day.

I'm noticing this impossible string of good days, despite the negative moments. And I noticed that I've decided, "Just because it's a bad moment doesn't mean it has to be a bad day." And it's making all the difference.

The biggest difference I've noticed? I feel genuinely happy. For the first time since I can remember. Through all of my muted emotions, I finally found what I've been chasing. I feel HAPPY. I feel great, and in control, and how to handle myself when I'm having a time. I'm making it through, step by step.

And I wanted to share that today. I broke through. I made it to the next step in the large chunks of my life that have been covered in muck and shadow. After learning to love myself, learning to set boundaries, I have finally learnt to feel genuine happiness. With all of my heart.

Life is a struggle, and we can't always see how we're going to get to where we want to be. But if we keep trying, and put in the little things to work, and keep our eye on the goal, just maybe it clicks someday. The pieces add up, and the thing we worked so hard for is something we finally achieved. And we can be truly proud of ourselves in these moments, because… You made it. You did it. Even when the world told you that you were damned to suffer, you made it one step further. You made the world a little brighter for yourself. You persevered when it might have been easier to quit. You made it. You did it. And you did it with all of that weight on your shoulders that you should never have had to bear in the first place.

You've made it so far. And you'll continue to get there. And I'm proud of you. I believe in you. Even if things don't manifest the way you're expecting, you're still trying. And that's all I can ask you do, for yourself. Because you deserve love, and respect, and happiness. Despite what the world tried to do to put that light out. Keep going, even if sometimes that love for yourself means that you need to focus on resting. Love yourself enough to take the time you need, and the care you deserve. You've got this.

[kvetcher2]

Debby Herbenick is one of the foremost researchers on American sexual behavior. The director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University and the author of the pointedly titled book “Yes, Your Kid,” she usually shares her data, no matter how explicit, without judgment. So I was surprised by how concerned she seemed when we checked in on Zoom recently: “I haven’t often felt so strongly about getting research out there,” she told me. “But this is lifesaving.”

For the past four years, Dr. Herbenick has been tracking the rapid rise of “rough sex” among college students, particularly sexual strangulation, or what is colloquially referred to as “choking.” Nearly two-thirds of women in her most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 students at an anonymized “major Midwestern university” said a partner had choked them during sex (one-third in their most recent encounter). The rate of those women who said they were between the ages 12 and 17 the first time that happened had shot up to 40 percent from one in four.

As someone who’s been writing for well over a decade about young people’s attitudes and early experience with sex in all its forms, I’d also begun clocking this phenomenon. I was initially startled in early 2020 when, during a post-talk Q. and A. at an independent high school, a 16-year-old girl asked, “How come boys all want to choke you?” In a different class, a 15-year-old boy wanted to know, “Why do girls all want to be choked?” They do? Not long after, a college sophomore (and longtime interview subject) contacted me after her roommate came home in tears because a hookup partner, without warning, had put both hands on her throat and squeezed.

I started to ask more and the stories piled up. Another sophomore confided that she enjoyed being choked by her boyfriend, though it was important for a partner to be “properly educated” — pressing on the sides of the neck, for example, rather than the trachea. (Note: There is no safe way to strangle someone.) A male freshman said “girls expected” to be choked and, even though he didn’t want to do it, refusing would make him seem like a “simp.” And a senior in high school was angry that her friends called her “vanilla” when she complained that her boyfriend had choked her.

Sexual strangulation, nearly always of women in heterosexual pornography, has long been a staple on free sites, those default sources of sex ed for teens. As with anything else, repeat exposure can render the once appalling appealing. It’s not uncommon for behaviors to be normalized in porn, move within a few years to mainstream media, then, in what may become a feedback loop, be adopted in the bedroom or the dorm room.

Choking, Dr. Herbenick said, seems to have made that first leap in a 2008 episode of HBO’s “Californication,” where it was still depicted as outré, then accelerated after the success of “Fifty Shades of Gray.” By 2019, when a high school girl was choked in the pilot of HBO’s “Euphoria,” it was standard fare. A young woman was choked in the opener of “The Idol” (again on HBO and also, like “Euphoria,” created by Sam Levinson; what’s with him?). Ali Wong plays the proclivity for laughs in a Netflix special, and it’s a punchline in Tina Fey’s new “Mean Girls.” The chorus of Jack Harlow’s “Lovin On Me,” which topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for six nonconsecutive weeks this winter and has been viewed over 99 million times on YouTube, starts with, “I’m vanilla baby, I’ll choke you, but I ain’t no killer, baby.” How-to articles abound on the internet, and social media algorithms feed young people (but typically not their unsuspecting parents) hundreds of #chokemedaddy memes along with memes that mock — even celebrate — the potential for hurting or killing female partners.

I’m not here to kink-shame (or anything-shame). And, anyway, many experienced BDSM practitioners discourage choking, believing it to be too dangerous. There are still relatively few studies on the subject and most have been done by Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues. Reports among adolescents are now trickling out from the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland, New Zealand and Italy.

Twenty years ago sexual asphyxiation appears to have been unusual among any demographic, let alone young people who were new to sex and iffy at communication. That’s changed radically in a short time, with health consequences that parents, educators, medical professionals, sexual consent advocates and teens themselves urgently need to understand.

Sexual trends can spread quickly on campus and, to an extent, in every direction. But, at least among straight kids, I’ve sometimes noticed a pattern: Those that involve basic physical gratification — like receiving oral sex in hookups — tend to favor men. Those that might entail pain or submission, like choking, are generally more for women.

So, while undergrads of all genders and sexualities in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys report both choking and being choked, straight and bisexual young women are far more likely to have been the subjects of the behavior; the gap widens with greater occurrences. (In a separate study, Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues found the behavior repeated across the United States, particularly for adults under 40, and not just among college students.) Alcohol may well be involved, and while the act is often engaged in with a steady partner, a quarter of young women said partners they’d had sex with on the day they’d met also choked them.

Either way, most say that their partners never or only sometimes asked before grabbing their necks. For many, there had been moments when they couldn’t breathe or speak, compromising the ability to withdraw consent, if they’d given it. No wonder that, in a separate study by Dr. Herbenick, choking was among the most frequently listed sex acts young women said had scared them, saying it sometimes made them worry whether they’d survive.

Among girls and women I’ve spoken with, many did not want or like to be sexually strangled, though in an otherwise desired encounter they didn’t name it as assault. Still, a sizable number were enthusiastic; they requested it. It is exciting to feel so vulnerable, a college junior explained. The power dynamic turns her on; oxygen deprivation to the brain can trigger euphoria.

That same young woman, incidentally, had never climaxed with a partner: While the prevalence of choking has skyrocketed, rates of orgasm among young women have not increased, nor has the “orgasm gap” disappeared among heterosexual couples. “It indicates they’re not doing other things to enhance female arousal or pleasure,” Dr. Herbenick said.

When, for instance, she asked one male student who said he choked his partner whether he’d ever tried using a vibrator instead, he recoiled. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

Perhaps, she responded, because it would be more likely to produce orgasm without risking, you know, death.

In my interviews, college students have seen male orgasm as a given; women’s is nice if it happens, but certainly not expected or necessarily prioritized (by either partner). It makes sense, then, that fulfillment would be less the motivator for choking than appearing adventurous or kinky. Such performances don’t always feel good.

“Personally, my hypothesis is that this is one of the reasons young people are delaying or having less sex,” Dr. Herbenick said. “Because it’s uncomfortable and weird and scary. At times some of them literally think someone is assaulting them but they don’t know. Those are the only sexual experiences for some people. And it’s not just once they’ve gotten naked. They’ll say things like, ‘I’ve only tried to make out with someone once because he started choking and hitting me.’”

Keisuke Kawata, a neuroscientist at Indiana University’s School of Public Health, was one of the first researchers to sound the alarm on how the cumulative, seemingly inconsequential, sub-concussive hits football players sustain (as opposed to the occasional hard blow) were key to triggering C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease. He’s a good judge of serious threats to the brain. In response to Dr. Herbenick’s work, he’s turning his attention to sexual strangulation. “I see a similarity” to C.T.E., he told me, “though the mechanism of injury is very different.” In this case, it is oxygen-blocking pressure to the throat, frequently in light, repeated bursts of a few seconds each.

Strangulation — sexual or otherwise — often leaves few visible marks and can be easily overlooked as a cause of death. Those whose experiences are nonlethal rarely seek medical attention, because any injuries seem minor: Young women Dr. Herbenick studied mostly reported lightheadedness, headaches, neck pain, temporary loss of coordination and ear ringing. The symptoms resolve, and all seems well. But, as with those N.F.L. players, the true effects are silent, potentially not showing up for days, weeks, even years.

According to the American Academy of Neurology, restricting blood flow to the brain, even briefly, can cause permanent injury, including stroke and cognitive impairment. In M.R.I.s conducted by Dr. Kawata and his colleagues (including Dr. Herbenick, who is a co-author of his papers on strangulation), undergraduate women who have been repeatedly choked show a reduction in cortical folding in the brain compared with a never-choked control group. They also showed widespread cortical thickening, an inflammation response that is associated with elevated risk of later-onset mental illness. In completing simple memory tasks, their brains had to work far harder than the control group, recruiting from more regions to achieve the same level of accuracy.

The hemispheres in the choked group’s brains, too, were badly skewed, with the right side hyperactive and the left underperforming. A similar imbalance is associated with mood disorders — and indeed in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys girls and women who had been choked were more likely than others (or choked men) to have experienced overwhelming anxiety, as well as sadness and loneliness, with the effect more pronounced as the incidence rose: Women who had experienced more than five instances of choking were two and a half times more likely than those who had never been choked to say they had been so depressed within the previous 30 days they couldn’t function. Whether girls and women with mental health challenges are more likely to seek out (or be subjected to) choking, choking causes mood disorders, or some combination of the two is still unclear, but hypoxia — judging by what research has shown about other types of traumatic brain injury — could be a contributing factor. Given the soaring rates of depression and anxiety among young women, that warrants concern.

Now consider that every year Dr. Herbenick has done her survey, the number of females reporting extreme effects from strangulation (neck swelling, loss of consciousness, losing control of urinary function) has crept up. The rate among those who’ve been choked of becoming what students call “cloudy” — close to passing out, but not crossing the line — is now one in five, a huge proportion. All of this indicates partners are pressing on necks longer and harder.

The physical, cognitive and psychological impacts of sexual choking are disturbing. So is the idea that at a time when women’s social, economic, educational and political power are in ascent (even if some of those rights may be in jeopardy), when #MeToo has made progress against harassment and assault, there has been the popularization of a sex act that can damage our brains, impair intellectual functioning, undermine mental health, even kill us. Nonfatal strangulation, one of the most significant indicators that a man will murder his female partner (strangulation is also one of the most common methods used for doing so), has somehow been eroticized and made consensual, at least consensual enough. Yet, the outcomes are largely the same: Women’s brains and bodies don’t distinguish whether they are being harmed out of hate or out of love.

By now I’m guessing that parents are curled under their chairs in a fetal position. Or perhaps thinking, “No, not my kid!” (see: title of Dr. Herbenick’s book above, which, by the way, contains an entire chapter on how to talk to your teen about “rough sex”).

I get it. It’s scary stuff. Dr. Herbenick is worried; I am, too. And we are hardly some anti-sex, wait-til-marriage crusaders. But I don’t think our only option is to wring our hands over what young people are doing.

Parents should take a beat and consider how they might give their children relevant information in a way that they can hear it. Maybe reiterate that they want them to have a pleasurable sex life — you have already said that, right? — and also want them to be safe. Tell them that misinformation about certain practices, including choking, is rampant, that in reality it has grave health consequences. Plus, whether or not a partner initially requested it, if things go wrong, you’re generally criminally on the hook.

Dr. Herbenick suggests reminding them that there are other, lower risk ways to be exploratory or adventurous if that is what they are after, but it would be wisest to delay any “rough sex” until they are older and more skilled at communicating. She offers language when negotiating with a new partner, such as, “By the way, I’m not comfortable with” — choking, or other escalating behaviors such as name-calling, spitting and genital slapping — “so please don’t do it/don’t ask me to do it to you.” They could also add what they are into and want to do together.

I’d like to point high school health teachers to evidence-based porn literacy curricula, but I realize that incorporating such lessons into their classrooms could cost them their jobs. Shafia Zaloom, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, recommends, if that’s the case, grounding discussions in mainstream and social media. There are plenty of opportunities. “You can use it to deconstruct gender norms, power dynamics in relationships, ‘performative’ trends that don’t represent most people’s healthy behaviors,” she said, “especially depictions of people putting pressure on someone’s neck or chest.”

I also know that pediatricians, like other adults, struggle when talking to adolescents about sex (the typical conversation, if it happens, lasts 40 seconds). Then again, they already caution younger children to use a helmet when they ride a bike (because heads and necks are delicate!); they can mention that teens might hear about things people do in sexual situations, including choking, then explain the impact on brain health and why such behavior is best avoided. They should emphasize that if, for any reason — a fall, a sports mishap or anything else — a young person develops symptoms of head trauma, they should come in immediately, no judgment, for help in healing.

The role and responsibility of the entertainment industry is a tangled knot: Media reflects behavior but also drives it, either expanding possibilities or increasing risks. There is precedent for accountability. The European Union now requires age verification on the world’s largest porn sites (in ways that preserve user privacy, whatever that means on the internet); that discussion, unsurprisingly, had been politicized here. Social media platforms have already been pushed to ban content promoting eating disorders, self-harm and suicide — they should likewise be pressured to ban content promoting choking. Traditional formats can stop glamorizing strangulation, making light of it, spreading false information, using it to signal female characters’ complexity or sexual awakening. Young people’s sexual scripts are shaped by what they watch, scroll by and listen to — unprecedentedly so. They deserve, and desperately need, models of interactions that are respectful, communicative, mutual and, at the very least, safe.

[saneinthissociety]

How would my day look like if I was a heroin addict?

I wake up in the morning, later than I would prefer to, but my sleep is not restful, sometimes I get hyperactive before midnight and find it hard to fall asleep at a normal hour. Plus, I still feel the effect of the drugs I overdosed throughout the day. But coming back to the morning, I wake up, restless, wishing I hadn't woken up at all. The willingness to start over with a new day faded away with my sluggishness and lack of energy. I get myself to the kitchen, trying to pull off some of the healthy habits that I established for myself. If I don't do them now, when I'm sober, I will not do them later in the day.

And that's when it strikes me, I see it somewhere on my table, I can smell it, I feel my blood starting to boil and the scars on my wrists itching. I take it out, my heroin, I melt it on my kitchen spoon, take out a syringe and a needle, I don't care if the needle was used already and touched dirty surfaces. I am doing all this automatically, I don't think, I don't control myself. I inject it into my body and the moment I squish in the last drop, I start to regret doing that. But the numbing effect comes quickly and any last rational thought I had disappears. I wanted to do so much today but now I am only able to lay down and give into my hallucinations. And for a moment I stop caring about all these things I was supposed to do but never will.

I wake up from my intoxication after an hour. My head still hurts and I have a bad taste in my mouth. I don't know what was happening for the past 60 minutes, I was far away from here, in another reality. I start feeling the regret, disgust and disappointment. But there's also this discomfort that never leaves me, coloured with fear, anxiety, pain and a sense of emptiness. I can't stand it, I can't let myself feel it. I blindly reach out for another dose, I inject it in without even looking. And I lie down again. I don't feel like going out, if I do, I always come back exhausted anyway. I break my souvenir mug I received from my dear friend, back then, when meeting people did not seem like an activity requiring abnormal strength. I step on the shattered glass, but I am high so I don't care.

This time, my euphoria has some distortions, I start seeing events and people from my past, so I take fentanyl in a pill. After all, it's used by doctors for pain relief and anaesthesia. The episodes of my high are disturbed by quick breaks when I need to inject more heroin or switch to another position. The worst is when someone calls me on my cell, or when I receive a Whatsapp message I should reply to. I have nothing to say, I do nothing interesting and I need to pretend I am feeling normal and upbeat... As soon as I start gaining any sense of reality, I numb myself with another pill.

The day passes and I don't know what was happening. I was drugged and alone. It's already Sunday evening, a workweek starts tomorrow and I'm not ready. I wing it, lunch, ironing, cleaning. Sometimes I skip it altogether, I will worry tomorrow, when I'm sober. If I'm sober... I go to the bathroom, should take a shower. My tshirt smells like drugs, I spilled some melted heroin on me. Because I am very thrifty, I licked it off the cotton fabric. After all, it's almost like rubbing it into one's gum. But the stain and smell stayed there. I look at myself in the mirror, at the dark circles under my eyes and bad complexion and I realise I have not rested at all. I haven't recovered from the daily stresses of my life. And now I'm going to bed to get my restless sleep only to wake up tomorrow, ashamed and awaiting till I am alone with my syringe to get myself high again.

[benxsamuel]

Best of: 2022

It’s hard to try and sum up 2022 in any meaningful way aside from saying that, like every other year for the last however many years, it was a lot. And come to think of it, that applies to some of the best things I discovered this year too.

What would it be like to regard Everything Everywhere All at Once without the hype train that followed in its wake, all the way up to this year’s Oscars? Well, let me tell you. Because the experience of watching it in the June of 2022 (not once but twice in the span of two days) remains one of those hyper vivid, ultra real moments of total movie magic. Granted, it’s no longer the Weird Little Indie That Could that it was at the time of its release, but Everything Everywhere is still an astonishing and altogether special accomplishment. As it turned out, there was another film from 2022 that evoked a similar sense of euphoria: Jackass Forever. Which makes sense when you think about it, given that it also traffics in gloriously juvenile antics patched together with deepfelt emotion. 

Now, there’s no appropriate segue from Jackass Forever to Tár that makes the least bit of sense, except perhaps for its totally audacious ending, which left me equally giddy. Everything leading up to it was cold and austere, richly textured and surgically precise, which probably made its ending feel even more surprising: I couldn’t help but laugh, more in amazement than anything else. Months later, I still don’t know exactly what to make of it. All I know is that, quite like Jackass Forever, whatever Todd Field is doing in Tár, is very much my jam (look, there was absolutely no need to compare the two—I just wanted to have them both in the same sentence again).

A good year for movies, then—but an even better one for television. Like every TV critic out there, I can’t shut up about The Bear. The thing I keep coming back to is its pilot episode’s opening sequence, how it felt like it had found a new language, like punk made television. Everything about it was just *chef’s kiss.* Severance pulled off a similar triumph in making a show that was so uniquely its own thing right out of the gate. There were the mysteries, yes, so many questions, but what it did above all else was thoroughly plumb the implications of its ingenious premise, while making you care deeply about each of its characters and their dilemmas. It goes without saying that I can’t wait for where they go next.

And then there were the shows I discovered last year that were totally out of time. A random Letterboxd review (shoutout to a real one) led me to Nirvanna the Band the Show. Which I’m not even going to try and fail at describing. There’s probably only a handful of people for whom this deeply, deeply weird and wonderful show is for, but if you happen to be one of them, man, you’re in for something special. Speaking of weird and wonderful, I finally got around to watching Nathan For You and, well, I couldn’t stop until I devoured all four seasons. I have nothing remotely original to say about Nathan Fielder that hasn’t been said already, but I will say this: I think the reason everyone that watches it feels weirdly protective of this strange little man is because he is basically our inner child, our shadow manifested on a TV screen (shoutout to Barry Michaels and er, Jung, I guess).

A Youtube sneaker show and a menswear newsletter: normally these two things would be out of place in a more traditional year end review, but here they sync up nicely. I binged tons of episodes of Full Size Run, the universe’s best sneaker show, during an especially stressful month. But the show was equally fun all year round (waiting for Season 16 as we speak). And I was lucky to discover Blackbird Spyplane, the profoundly blessed and popping menswear newsletter, a totally hilarious, extremely original treat. Make sure to sign up if you’re not already on the global Spyplane community.

And now for some deep thoughts on what these all mean. Just kidding, I’ve refrained from trying to analyse any of this in previous editions, so I won’t start now. But one thing that strikes me is that what this (and previous Years in Review here and here and here) really is, more than anything else, is a catalog of delight. Which is a worthwhile project, I think. And something worth tending to, even almost half a year into 2023, as it were. If there’s one thing I can guarantee, it’s that if you do see one of these again, it will be reliably late, sometime deep into 2024. You have my word.  

[notes-of-a-bpd-addict]

WHY I NEVER CAN BE NORMAL insane words off a very high cunt with a personality disorder

tw/ s-word attempts , mention s/h mention , mania mention , drug sex and booze mention

BPD is such a weird thing to explain to people who just don't really get mental illness , people are getting better but small towns are a nightmare the never ending gossip everyone knows someone who knows someone there's no silence no peace you have a manic episode everyone in your circle knows people spoke to you as you broke down in paranoia about everything you love not being real and it actually wanting to hurt you being in such a horrible place you mutual yourself to give you grounding and than its over its just done you don't feel that anymore and then you forget until it haunts back up nagging at you replaying every mental break you've had all the terrible things you've done just for more or because you were caught up in a teenage dirt bag fantasy or sex drugs drinking driving stealing staying out vandalising you let it ruin you every had years for the fantasy got to have their teenage bad years while you started late now your an adult and everyone even the worse ones have cleaned up their act and are doing actual things but you can't get out you talk such a big game but in the ned your trapped in your own brain flung between states of euphoria and crippling fear wasting the very small amount of money you have even trying to turn your life around you're trying to find ways to justify drugs not only pot trying to justify pills and being the only stoner left in a group of friends who don't you can't be the only one who's constantly high even shaggy had the dog for fuck sake this is all a stupid tangent so far to basically some up I don't think I can ever be a person I've always been weird I've never had a healthy realtionship Ive never been single for a long period in time I need someone to love me some to be able to talk to 24/7 someone I can trust more than anything I don't think I can be a person bc I think I have no personality im bad at making friends so I just get a boyfriend and become part of his friend group or his friends girlfriends I always just fall into a fuck mom role im there to be as pretty as I can for one person and play mummy be the calm voice of reason while still a bit fun care for everyone make food for people offer rides be there etc im sick of not getting to be a person I honestly can't remember my life half the time I don't know if its from the insane mood swings and mania of the drug induced vision and probable liver damage from drinking and trying to harm myself I don't feel like a person and everyone is leaving me and I can't follow im going to be back at square one alone

[misrepresentedmedia]

In HBO’s second most watched series, Euphoria hits milestones with the inclusion of the LBGTQ community and portraying the real-world issues of drug addiction. Two of the leading roles was a lesbian couple and Jules (Hunter Schafer) is a transgender which is groundbreaking for such a popular show. “The diversity in the character backgrounds and storylines enhances the show as it allows its viewership to relate and empathize further with the characters. Media and television have always lacked diversity and the progressiveness of the show makes normally underrepresented groups feel welcome.” Another lead role Kat (Barbie Ferriera) is a plus sized woman who has scenes where she embraces her size and creates a body positive image for woman. Although the show did a fantastic job at inclusion of minority groups some fans were still upset at again the stereotypical casting. Although Rue (Zendaya) is mixed and Maddy (Alexa Demie) represents a Latina role, McKay (Algee Smith) is the only Black role and is cast as the athlete who is only focused on football.  

With that said if we look at previous shows from past decades like Beverly Hills 90210, the progression is drastically different. The backstories of these characters are very deep and examine issues that few directors can exemplify correctly. In most series significant issues like drug addiction, abortion, and mental illness are touched on for an episode and then glossed over. In euphoria I find the characters showed raw emotion and what it is genuinely like to go through these traumatic experiences. “This concept helped scholars to move beyond understanding media messages as simply a portrayal or reflection of reality. Instead, representations are embedded in the 24-hour saturated media stream and establish norms and common sense about people, groups, and institutions in contemporary society.” The idea of representation according to this specific academic journal explains how media was analyzed to better understand society socially. This is why it is critical to get these scenes correctly to accurately represent these real-world problems.  

Although this show is a drama series it differs greatly from the other shows I have talked about within this blog. It touches deeper issues and includes and the cast contrasts in so many aspects. This demonstrates how as societies views change the whole style of media changes. Especially with TV and films you want to make the plot relatable to the entire audience. Making everyone happy is impossible, but I feel Euphoria was inclusive and did an excellent job portraying sensitive topics.