#there's just no acceptable justification for their relationship otherwise

[the-sage-libriomancer]

try as i might, i simply can't make Kyoko and Katsuya's relationship work right in my head. Katsuya was apparently just an intern teacher when they met, so you could say that he was 18-19 at the time (even if it's a stretch bc he's implied to be in his mid twenties), but that still leaves Kyoko 15 going on 16 which is definitely not great. i just don't see how Katsuya would realistically fall in love with Kyoko unless he was a creep, which is obviously not the sort of person he's being portrayed as. it also makes Katsuya's family look a lot more sympathetic for opposing their relationship because uh. that actually is the sort of thing you would realistically have a problem with.

judging from the series' themes, the point of the age gap is likely to show how pursuing a relationship that society disapproves of can isolate the couple and cut off all potential support, thus sticking with the theme of cruelty creating more cruelty, or in this case simply more trauma. Tohru ended up taking on a huge emotional burden because apart from Katsyua's father, no one was around to help Kyoko through her grieving process, to the point that 3 y/o Tohru was literally all that she had.

(it might also be a semi-deconstruction of another shojo trope: the high school protagonist marrying her adult love interest. in this case, being a teenager who marries an adult isn't as easy as overcoming a parent's disapproval. you won't get any support from the rest of the family, especially not extended family, and you'll likely be treated as an outsider for the rest of your time with them. if something happens to rupture your idyllic life (like oh, say, your husband's untimely death), you won't have a safety net and life will get extremely tough. definitely not the triumphant leap into womanhood most teenage girls are dreaming of.)

anyway, i think if i had the opportunity to change one thing about Fruits Basket, i would reconfigure the age gap. the plot-mandated scandal is the biggest issue, but that could've been accomplished just fine by making Kyoko an 18 y/o high school student and Katsuya an 18-20 y/o intern teacher or tutor. still a bit iffy, but at least it's believable that they'd pursue a relationship and doesn't paint Katsuya in an unforgivably bad light. the fact that Katsuya is courting a former student (one who hasn't even officially graduated high school yet) would be enough to make tongues waggle, especially with her delinquent past. no need to make it any squickier than that.

[dross-the-fish]

Started hanging out with some new friends in a Discord server on days when work from home is slow but I'm not able to leave my desk to draw or write, and I'm honestly surprised by how good of a time I've been having, how at ease I feel. This is the first friend group I've had where most of, if not all of, the people in it are queer in ways that are similar to myself, and not just cisgendered gay or bisexual people, but people who are also non-binary/genderfluid and on the aro/ace spectrum. After a lifetime of being friends with people who were mostly straight or gay and almost all of them cis except for maybe the odd binary-transperson all of whom are allosexual. It also made me realize that I've been walling myself off from most of my old high school friends for the duration of our relationship and haven't even noticed it. I always tend to sit and let little comments slide because I don't want to get into a debate or call too much attention to aspects of myself I'm still figuring out. Dealing with behaviors that were vaguely phobic and excusing them as my friends just "not knowing better," because they seemed well intended otherwise and nothing said was overt. Feeling like before I presented ace characters to them that I needed to have some justification and explanation at the ready and brace myself for people to try and tell me that "well this character can still have sex right?" or "What's the point of making x aromantic?" because they were allosexual and alloromantic and couldn't enjoy characters that weren't "available" in that way. Debates about whether asexuality should even be part of the LGBTQ spectrum weren't common, but they happened. Being made to feel like not being attracted to my partner was unfair to my partner because "everyone deserves to feel attractive to the people who love them." "A stands for Allies" is a thing that came out of one friend's mouth. "Non-binary is trans-lite," is another. "I could never love someone I wasn't attracted to, it must suck so bad to have that part of you missing." When I eventually came out as gender fluid, they seemed accepting but never bothered to use masc pronouns because I still accept fem ones. So they just felt free to ignore my gender all together and one of them even slipped and tried to correct someone who called me "sir" because it was that easy for her to forget, even with me standing right there in a chest binder and men's clothing.

There was always been an element of being ready to defend myself, of weighing my words before I spoke them and agonizing over whether I'd have to hear empty platitudes, excuses of people just "not being used to it" and an obvious, palpable discomfort that no one was willing to unlearn, that would be left for me to bear and to feel like I was at fault for creating by simply existing. And I never noticed it because it was so prevalent and it was still preferable to the blatant hostility most of the conservative population around here has for the LGBTQ community. I can talk to these people about every other thing under the sun, call them when I'm in trouble and they'll help me and turn to them for advice and support in every other area...but the little things still matter. Even when I told myself they didn't. Being around people and feeling like I can be unguarded is such a bizarre feeling that I'm almost afraid of it. Hearing one person talk about how an aromatic character I write isn't broken and wanting strongly for that character to be told that by somebody made me want to cry. Being asked if I would prefer couple art to be sfw vs nsfw because the asexuality of one character was taken into consideration actually felt like a big deal because NO ONE HAS EVER DONE THAT BEFORE. I didn't know these things mattered so much until they happened and now I feel I'm at a crossroads and debating if I should make the effort to advocate more for myself among some of my old friends. Acceptance matters, community matters. I always knew this intellectually but it's a whole different level now that I've experienced it. I've learned that it matters to me.

[cinnamonest]

Will you ever make a list+thoughts of all the genshin men who are most likely to get a sister/mother/daughter wife?

The two most likely groups would be nobility/royalty or those with some detachment from humanity.

With the former it would be due to the tendency of such classes to really "keep things in the family". Diluc (and Kaeya, by extension of spending at least most of his life in that same environment), Xingqiu, and Ayato are all somewhat desensitized to it. Mondstadt in particular is known for being very "free" and all, so Mondstadt culture tends to be the most accepting of sexual deviancy of all sorts and forms, not only socially, but legally too, as Mondstadt allows legal marriage between closer of blood relations than some other nations. Thus, not only is it much more readily accepted by default, but also justifications and reasonings behind it are more readily accepted -- need to keep wealth within the family? Need to secure a business relationship and the best way to do so is marrying relatives? Well, that's acceptable. In fact, Mondstadt is notably more accepting of the exceptionally controversial, depraved forms, so you're more likely to see mother-son and father-daughter incest going on here.

Liyue and Inazuma, unlike Mondstadt, aren't nearly as readily accepting of incest for common people, but it's a pretty well-established, well-known traditional practice amongst elites and nobles, to the extent that it's expected and overlooked. Unlike Mondstadt, it's not actually legal, but authorities don't bat an eye or show any surprise to learn about it occurring amongst nobility. It's just sort of treated as one of those "it is what it is" matters, no one tries to do anything to change it as it's accepted as tradition. Hence, Xingqiu and Ayato in particular are also more likely to end up in an arranged situation as well... and neither has any qualms about that, even if the other party might.

Those who have less "humanness" to them also would be likely. For Tighnari and Gorou, there's two primary reasons; one, the animalistic genes just detach oneself from what are usually otherwise common reactions from human brains, and two, the sheer power of breeding instinct. Sure, he might consciously recognize you as a sister or mother or whatever, but at the wrong moments or if you're too exposed, instinct will easily override that conscious thought.

Razor of course takes a place on the list too, since as per usual, his lack of human socialization has led to complete absence of awareness of an alarmingly wide variety of ethical and social norms. And more importantly, he doesn't really care to know when it comes to "big stuff." You can get him to care about "small stuff," like telling him that it's normal for people to raise a hand in greeting when encountering someone, or that nudity in public is frowned upon, sure, he'll listen to that, but "big stuff," when you start using words he doesn't know and talking about more abstract concepts like ethics... that's when you lose him. If things get too complicated, he just sort of stops listening, and concludes that it can't be really important if it's so hard to understand, so he might as well ignore it.

And finally, Childe is on that list as well. No particular deeper psychological explanation or cultural norms or anything, boy is just a depraved little bastard who would hesitate at the absolute most maybe a millisecond over any ethical qualms with his desires and that must be acknowledged.

[sophieinwonderland]

"DARVO"

For the love of the gods!

You made an entire blog to attack me because you were upset at how I responded to a fakeclaimer who threatened to bash my head in by saying that bigoted anti-endos like them should be and will be ostracized.

You...

Wait... I need to screenshot that don't I? Because if I don't, people might think I'm making it up that this was the reason for the blog's creation!

There we go! (Also, "anyone who disagrees with me" was actually "anti-endos" and "people like the anon." Those were the groups I specified. But I digress.)

So you make a blog because of my comments that weren't targeted to or about you, then you immediately start attacking me, suggesting my comments could be considered criminal threats. (Again, not how the law works anywhere.)

And these false accusations of criminality are before I ever interacted with you.

Then when I completely debunked that ridiculous talking point, you quickly moved to calling my words violent, (not what that word means), "suibating," (also ridiculous,) accusing me of taking people's rights, and comparing the scenario presented to the torture of solitary confinement.

None of this is secret or happened behind closed doors.

Anyone can go over that thread and draw their own conclusions.

In my first post... what was the absolute meanest thing I said about the person falsely accusing me of criminal actions?

Most of it is just flat debunking.

I umm... I guess I said that accusing me of a crime was absurd. And I had one line saying "there are comically huge leaps being made to blow my comments to that anon way out of proportion beyond what any rational individual would."

And so I guess that implied that the person falsely accusing me of criminal behavior was being irrational, if you really want to look for an attack in that post.

But it's a pretty tame reaction to defamation by false criminal allegations.

And yes, in the subsequent post after they claimed my statements were literally the same as suibaiting, trying to take away people's rights, said my words were acts of violence and other ridiculous reaches, I did say this:

I'm going to be blunt. This reads like emotional manipulation. "People need to be friends with me and accept me no matter how dangerous or harmful I might be because otherwise I might harm myself" is an all-too common manipulation tactic.

I ALSO said immediately after that I wasn't suggesting they were an abuser or that this was intentional. Which is being conveniently ignored.

I don't mean to say that you're an abuser or that this is intentional. Only that I don't like the broader implications of what you're saying because I have seen a lot of abusers use this sort of tactic to keep loved ones, especially significant others, from leaving them. And I could easily see someone vulnerable reading this and using it as a justification to stay with someone who is toxic or harmful to them because they prioritize that person's health above their own. I want to be 100% clear that it is not morally wrong for people to reject someone because that person has dangerous beliefs which may harm them or others. Everyone has a right to choose who they associate with.

Because regardless of the intent, I do worry that this will be people's takeaway from this conversation. That if they're in a relationship they don't want to be in, they have a responsibility to maintain it for the benefit of the other person. Especially if that other person has a small support network or no support network besides them.

I don't think this was the how it was meant. I don't think it was a consideration at all how this might influence people in abusive or toxic relationships. But I do worry that it would be the result regardless.

But YOU, on the other hand, seem very intent on trying to paint me as an evil, abusive person.

Which brings us to "DARVO."

An acronym that typically is used to apply to sexual abusers, but you want to apply to a Tumblr argument with someone who literally didn't know you existed a week ago before you started spreading allegations of criminality about them, and said some slightly mean things online.

And I have to wonder... is this intentionally trying to draw an association between myself and sexual and domestic abusers? To an audience made up of many people who have suffered this sort of abuse??? Is that what we're doing in syscourse now to people we don't like???

DARVO is also typically used in he said/she said positions, where it comes down to the credibility of both sides. Again though, everything here is publicly available. Anyone can read all of my posts on the subject, and all of theirs. Nothing is being hidden. Nothing happened behind closed doors.

DARVO doesn't apply here because this isn't a matter of credibility. There's no Denial of any facts.

And this may be controversial, but I think DARVO does have some problems and can be used to shutdown legitimate natural defenses against false allegations if you use it as proof of wrongdoing.

For example, someone says "Hillary Clinton is secretly a cannibal eating babies in the basement of a pizza joint," and she's probably going to deny it, attack the people making the accusation, and present herself as the victim of obvious lies. And the more outlandish and heinous the accusation is, the more it's likely to invoke this sort of response. Basically, while being aware of DARVO is helpful when evaluating a situation so you don't automatically believe whoever is the most indignant, using it as proof of wrongdoing to discredit any defense people have of themselves is going to lead to a lot of false positives.

Back to the matter at hand, the mention of DARVO is obviously to portray themselves as victims.. So let's just recap the timeline of events...

I'm sent a hate anon threatening physical violence and/or death. I respond saying that people like them should and will be ostracized for bigoted beliefs as plural acceptance becomes more common.

A group of syscoursers immediately jump on this with absurd claims that my comments were worse than death threats, suibait, etc. This system, that claims not to be anti-endo and would therefore not even fall under the category of people I said would be ostracized, makes their entire blog to hop in to the dogpile wrongfully asserting it would be a literal criminal threat if made face-to-face.

I respond to this libelous claim in a post, thoroughly debunk it with reference to Californian law, and the absolute worst thing I've said up to this point is implying that reaches like these are irrational.

This system then compares my post that wasn't about them to suibaiting, violence and solitary confinement. They argue that ostracization is harmful to the people ostracized, so therefore my statements amount to threats of violence. (They seem unclear if this is criminal or not, saying in one line that I'm not a criminal, but in another that it would still amount to criminal threats. 🤷‍♀️)

I say this feels like emotional manipulation I've heard in other contexts, but also specifically make it clear that I'm not saying I think they're being intentionally abusive or manipulative.

Every single interaction I've had with this system has been in response to personal attacks against me.

And my own replies have also generally been kinder and less severe than the personal attacks and false accusations I'm responding to, IMO.

Oh! And then they went on to call my followers a cult!

Because I can't simply be a person online with some opinions that you find offensive or hurtful. No. I have to be an evil violent abusive suicide-baiting cult-leading criminal.

This might sound callous, but if you are having breakdowns because a stranger on the internet who you falsely accused of a crime implies you're being irrational and says you are acting in a way that comes off as unintentionally manipulative, you might need to take a step away from internet discourse.

I really do wish you the best healing.

At the same time though, I would encourage you to grow up and move on. Making an entire blog dedicated to a random blogger you dislike is weird, a little creepy, and I can't imagine it's particularly healthy.

[sheisadykewomon]

In discussions of what draws people to trans ideology, I have not seen anyone mention the role of childhood emotional neglect in priming children to accept the premises of the ideology and the dynamics of “trans culture”. Children who have been emotionally neglected are especially at risk of being drawn into gender ideology. (Below, I use the word “child” but the analysis also applies to “adult children”, or grown-up children of emotional neglect.)

Emotional neglect causes deep feelings of emptiness, extreme emotional loneliness, and the feeling that something is inherently wrong with you. An emotionally neglected child feels that she needs to change something about herself in order to be safe and happy, but she doesn't know what it is; she can't pinpoint what it is that is "wrong with her", so she is plagued by the constant, unyielding tension of living day-to-day with an unsolvable problem.

Emotionally neglected children are always looking for a way out of their unhappiness, but are frequently unable to consciously acknowledge what is causing their unhappiness. Because the parent may have provided adequate food, shelter, and clothing, the child may feel unable to blame her parents, worried that it makes her ungrateful, which would be evidence of her inherent “badness”. These children frequently blame themselves for not being able to consistently hold their parents' attentions and affections. They frequently self-harm as a result, may develop eating or substance use disorders, and otherwise struggle to regulate their emotions and maintain emotional stability. All of this makes a child susceptible to the kind of love-bombing attention that is characteristic of trans ideology: here's what's wrong with you (you are trans), here's what you need to change (gender identity), once you do it you'll finally belong somewhere and you'll have a "family" who loves you (the "trans community"). That's extremely appealing for someone who has grown up feeling like he or she does not belong and is not wanted.

Some parents of trans youth tend to wonder why their child has been drawn into this ideology, why the child is so eager to discard the family of origin and disown his or her parents. They believe that trans ideology turned their child against them. These types of parents would never stop to consider that perhaps their child had never been "with them" from the start, because they were never emotionally there for the child in any meaningful way. They are not and were never aware of the child's emotional needs, and so cannot empathize with the child's desperation to find emotional fulfillment elsewhere. Trans ideology gives emotionally neglected children a great excuse to extricate themselves from emotionally painful relationships with their family, without having to directly acknowledge the extent of the pain that the neglectful family has caused. The painful interactions can be reframed as "transphobia", as the parents oppressing the child because he or she is trans, rather than the more complex reality of the parents being emotionally unavailable to the child. 

This gives a more concrete excuse for the child to abandon the family of origin and seek out a life independent of the family. The child can more easily justify to herself the action of separating from the family of origin; trans ideology absolves the child of the guilt she might otherwise feel if she just "left for no reason". But this initiation into the ideology, and ticket away from the harmful family dynamics, comes at a price. The child must dedicate him- or herself entirely to the ideology, or lose the justification for individuation from the family of origin.

If transitioning should fail to fulfill its hefty promises for the child--i.e. eliminating the deep inner emptiness and emotional pain--the child feels panicky, and fears that “it’s not working”. She may begin to doubt that the ideology is the solution to her problems, but the only alternative she sees is to return to the previous (unpleasant) family role. The child must then double down on the ideology. Feeling that the failure to resolve her pain is her own fault, and not the result of the false promises of the ideology, she must mold herself further to fit this new role. The child feels unable to be completely individuated from either the parents or the ideology, and relies on the ideology as a kind of pseudo-parent; like the emotionally neglectful parent, the ideology dictates what the child can and cannot say, do, or think. It is the creation of another role under the guise of "personal freedom", when the child is only switching from one constrained role to another, from one dysfunctional belief system to the next. 

Trans ideology promises freedom, but trans culture tells another story: one of control. The culture of trans ideology is, on its face, about celebration of individual differences; however, only certain superficial kinds of differences are celebrated, such as clothing style or hair color. Deeper differences, such as differences in values, opinions, experiences, and perspectives, are not tolerated. In this way, the ideology replicates for the child the same conditions created by the emotionally neglectful parents. It feels familiar, and therefore safe. True individuation feels frightening for the child; the child is not able to think for himself and does not truly know himself. The ideology "protects" the child from confronting and resolving these fears by demonizing any members who express divergent opinions, perspectives, or ideas, thereby threatening the child into compliance in the same manner as the emotionally neglectful parents. It "protects" the child from growing into a true individual. As long as he or she goes along with whatever everyone else has agreed is "the right thing", all is well.

[that-gay-jedi]

The thing you have to realize about accelerationism is that it just doesn't work. Human behaviour simply doesn't go the way accelerationists think or claim or hope it will. It may sound like such a cynical position on paper but it actually relies on people on the whole being far more proactive, more practical, and less prone to intellectual or moral cowardice than they are. Our relationship to accelerationism is like conservatives' relationship to trickle-down economics.

No matter how bad anything gets, there are enough people who are simply never going to pay anything more than lip service to making the world suck less, or who will remain misguided, or are enthusiastically engaged with things that make it suck more, or otherwise serve as either obstacles or bystanders that things getting visibly worse just does not yield any real positive change in most real world cases. Human beings are so good at closing off reality when they want to, and so good at finding pseudo-ethical justifications for ignoring how bad things get, and are susceptible enough to propaganda in the other direction that there is no usable ideological choke point, there is no limit to what fresh hells people will continue to accept and allow and even actively contribute to out of either selfishness or ignorance even as their own lives become smaller and more stressful and will either never make the connection between the actions and their consequences or will willfully deny it.

Now I'd like to be confident and certain in saying that, conversely, making people's lives better snowballs into them having more energy/freedom/whatever else was needed to in turn make more people's lives better and that doing good for its own sake works the way accelerationism doesn't. Trickle-UP liberation, if you will. I would LIKE to be, but I'm not. Sure some days I believe that, but some days I very emphatically don't, and other days it's a fuckin coin toss. What I am certain of is that at least it's more effective than accelerationism, and that if you help one person hoping they will later help others but they don't, at fucking least you've still helped one person. A world that's 0.0001% less shitty tomorrow is better than one that stays exactly the same and an improvement of 0.00011% is still more improvement than 0.0001%.

And it's been hard for me to learn this and I'm not gonna pretend I even fully have learned it (yet?). There are some practices that never really become second nature and some lessons that we all have to grapple with to varying daily degrees for a lifetime, and maybe this is gonna be one of those for me. But I don't really have to fully believe in it to do it.

[ashenvein-gate]

A meditation on chaos and order in popular storytelling

Trouble with contemporary stories about law/order versus chaos: even when writers seek nuance by not positioning law as intrinsic good, they still accept the Christian definition of chaos. It's a bad faith distortion meant to paint law as the only reasonable option.

Chaos, in both its original Greek sense and actuality, doesn't mean "rejection/destruction of order", it refers to the full range of possibilities and potential. Chaos is only "against" the Christian order because that order seeks to choke out all alternatives, to deny possibility and change.

While I'm on the subject, rejection of chaos is inherently transphobic, as it necessarily entails rejecting the possibility, or at least the worth, of becoming something other than what one presently appears to be.

And this is the core: "order", to define itself, must reject chaos. As part of this rejection, order's inventers always try to portray a symmetrical relationship, a duality--but that relationship doesn't exist. Chaos isn't innately opposed to order. It can't be, because order is a possibility, a potential outcome, which means it is an expression of chaos. Namely, order is a form of chaos that rejects all other forms of chaos.

This is why I call order "a very narrow chaos"--at the root, that's all it is. What we call "order" is the chaos of possibilities solid enough to endure for a while.

But if you just come out and say "I want these possibilities to persist because I like them and they work for me", well--it's pretty hard to use that as a foundation for a superiority complex, nor as a justification to trample the possibilities others like. "Order" is a construct invented to ennoble oppression, to paint the erasure of others' desires and potential as important work that upholds the cosmos.

A story accurately depicting the relationship between order and chaos would start with a community of people happily going about their lives, minding their own business, doing what works for them without trying to control anyone else, only for a bunch of armed raving fanatics to stampede in screaming, "How dare you degenerate vermin violate the natural order?! Justice will be swift!" and murder everyone who refuses to do as these invaders command.

Ordermongers need you to believe that "chaos" means "angry psychopaths barging into your life and destroying everything" because otherwise you'd very quickly realize that's what they do. The narrative of order has, from its inception, been a propaganda tool of empire and of fascist regimes.

And your reflex, because this is what most of you have been taught to assume, will be to say, "but total chaos is completely random, everything changes so fast--"

But see, now you're echoing that Christian caricature again. That's. Not. What. Chaos. IS.

Well, it can be--but it doesn't have to! True chaos is the continuous emergence and fostering of potential. Persistence is just as real and solid a form of potential as randomness is. Want to see a perfect chaos? Look at the room you're sitting in as you read this. Perfectly-manifest possibilities.

These misunderstandings are the entire point of the Christian caricature. The whole point is to make you assume that chaos means "scary bad thing that will destroy my reality and kill me," so that even if you don't like law and order, you'll see favoring chaos as equally unappealing.

The obvious example here are all the "morally grey" depictions of the conflict between God and the Devil, where, reliably, both are portrayed as equally asinine... which, in fairness, most Christian depictions make them out to be!

But, see, they're both a very narrow chaos--both "orderly." God does indeed embody Order, in the sense that Order is an invention, a made-up thing central to the Christian religion as a justification for forcing itself upon other people, but it's a fallacy to assume the Devil thus represents Chaos just because he stands against God. In most stories about their conflict, the Devil doesn't hate Order, he just hates God's order. He wants God deposed so he can make everything follow his plans instead, so he can narrow Chaos to express only the things that he likes.

So in the modern "morally grey" version, the "good" option usually ends up being rejecting both of them, which I agree with, so as to pursue one's own possibilities... which, if you've read this far, you already know I'm going to tell you IS CHOOSING YOUR OWN CHAOS.

Buuuuut framing it that way might lead to serious questions about why, if that's what chaos can be, we're so heavily discouraged from pursuing it in our own lives, and that would make it very hard to package milquetoast centrism as "morally grey" instead of just submissive and amiably defeatist.

[godstrayed]

some romance + vaguely usfw headcanons about billy because his eyelashes are so pretty and got me thinking

billy has such pretty eyes and spends half his time glaring at people. super long eyelashes. i suspect he is a crier at times - mostly my justifications are he spends so much time emotionally repressed and angry that any time he feels anything else he is probably overwhelmed immediately. this side is probably more easily accessible when people are kind to him, praise him (praise kink certainly), and/or break him down a little. [ although i see this only in more romantic based dynamics and not merely 'fucking'. ]

he's also probably a chaotic bisexual & switch. i debating his sexuality for a while since his interactions with steve in canon were questionable and loaded within my interpretation of it, i was sitting pondering about it. but i think in reality, my billy is attracted to pretty people first. and the second phase is those who treat him well + understand him beyond the surface level stuff. he has a type (but also willing to venture from his usual type as well, just depends dynamics)

This being said his relationships with men is far more chaotic than women because he deals with a lot of internalized homophobia, stereotypes, fear of the repercussions since it wasn't really woke then and his dad is awful. He would also struggle with submitting to another guy 'cause that's so different than how he is and how he portrays himself. Depending on verse/dynamic it is possible but under certain circumstances otherwise Billy would probably be the 'top' or willing to 'switch' in most male x male relationships but nearly never exclusively bottom. He has a fragile ego and doesn't want to give out control to anyone else easily.

Billy probably would eventually come to like / accept being taken care of in aftercare scenarios and melt if he got comfortable of the idea of submitting over control (in any fashion & not just position wise). After enduring so much and trying so hard, having no worries + decision making required would probably be stress relieving for him. But in the end, I do not think he could really be controlled or tamed or even pacified for very long before he's back on his bullshit.

His type is pretty, kind, soft people typically. Those who pose little threat to him and treat him well, feel safe, etc. Also the sort of people he can protect. Although I think another sort of dynamic that goes well with him are people who are equally toxic, can hold their own with him, and can put him in his place. [ he has mommy and daddy issues, so please boss him around. ]

He is an extremely jealous partner and lover. I think this one probably goes without saying. It stems a lot from his own insecurities but he cannot stand the idea of losing those he is invested in/cares about. It branches off probably making him overprotecting and hovery as well at times. The type to wait up for his partner to get home so he can go to sleep without worries or show up randomly to pick his partner up from places to make his presence known. Insecure and stubborn. [ he probably often leaves a lot of marks on his partners, a visible reminder. ]

He is unlikely to cheat on any of his partners simply because his abandonment issues are so strong despite how he might seem or appear.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: James Lindsay

Published: Nov 11, 2023

We are not God. We cannot become God, make God, or speak with the authority of God. This is axiomatic and the beginning of wisdom and prosperity.

Because we are not God, we cannot know the full nature of God, or even for certainty whether God exists at all. As a result, we cannot know any purpose, including ultimate purpose, each of our lives may have. Because we cannot know the full nature of God, should He exist, nor any purpose our lives may have in His sight, we lack the authority to compel the beliefs of others, lest we lead them into ultimate error. In particular, we therefore lack the authority to alienate anyone, self or other, from the possibility of fulfilling that purpose. In short, lacking the authority of God, we lack justification for the compulsion of our fellow man.

In that we all lack the authority of God and thus any justification for the compulsion of our fellow man, all men are created politically equal. Nothing in the world, which is also not God, justifies an intrinsically limited human being to hold political or social authority over another without the consent of both parties to that relationship. Any authority we can hold over any other person must therefore be earned, provisional, temporary, and voluntarily given and accepted.

Men, by their morally limited nature, which is sometimes called “fallen,” often seek to compel the belief, speech, and action of other men, both for good reasons and bad. The primary mechanisms by which a man can successfully compel another man to belief, speech, or action are through credible threats to his life, liberty, and livelihood, generally recognized in the last case as his property. Further, because of the nature of the ultimate privacy of conscience, which men may have any number of good reasons to keep private from other men, undue violation of the privacy of man and the contents of his mind can coerce him. Any who can destroy another’s life, liberty, or livelihood, or sufficiently violate his privacy, can compel his belief, speech, and activity and thus alienate him through destruction or compulsion from any potential ultimate purpose he may have. Only God could possibly hold such authority, and we are not God. No man can justify claiming such authority.

Thus, we hold these truths to be self-evident: that we are not God, and by virtue of that, we have been endowed by that which led to our existence, our Creator, whether the Laws of Nature or Nature’s God, with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are his life, liberty, and property, including the property of the private contents of our minds, and the ability to make use of these to pursue our happiness, fortunes, and whatever purposes, ultimate or otherwise, there may be within and of our lives.

These rights and the privacy necessary to maintain them shall be set aside and therefore, in light of the original meaning of the word, regarded as holy.

Because men must nevertheless live among one another in as much peace and in pursuit of as much prosperity as we may attain, some political system—a just government—needs to be instituted among them not for their rule but for the securing of these holy and unalienable rights. The primary purpose of a just government is therefore to secure these rights and to facilitate the peaceful resolution of conflicts and disputes that arise between men as a result of them and their individual differences.

What must such a government abide by, then, so that it can achieve this sacred task without itself alienating man from that which is unalienable? Government, too, is not God, no matter in what way it is instituted among men. It cannot become God, neither can it make God, nor can it speak or act with the authority of God. It must abide by limitations of nearly every imaginable sort and must secure the inalienable rights of man from itself and others.

Because a government lacks the authority of God, a just government has no intrinsic political authority over the men among whom it is constituted. That is, a just government cannot rule, and it cannot govern except with the consent of those whom it governs. Since government cannot usurp the authority to rule, law must rule in its place, subject to mechanisms of production and amendment that guarantee the participation and consent of those over whom it rules. In that none possesses any special political authority, none can be exempt from the law that is instituted among men for their own just governance. 

All governments, including a just government, must possess and wield political authority, however, including to produce and enforce the law, which rules in its stead. That authority in a just government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, and as such it is all loaned political authority ultimately answerable at any time to the people it governs, is provisional, and subject to limits of time, scope, and checks and balances on its power.

A just government must be democratic in nature to obtain the consent of those it governs, but it cannot secure the rights of the few against the many unless the democracy is republican in application. Servants must be consented to by the people they represent. Fair and impartial elections must be held at intervals to loan political authority to public servants and to pass it to others at want or need, or else it usurps an authority greater than itself to which it can claim no right. The greater must be given a say and the lesser must be granted enough representation to counter the tide of opinion held prejudicially or negligently against it.

A just government must secure the rights of speech, press, protest, and petition or it cannot be held to account and the consent with which it governs cannot be duly informed. Its powers must be limited, divided, and placed into a system of checks and balances to prevent it from any illegitimate claim to rule with political authority it cannot have. Government is not God because we are not God. Just governments understand this and keep it. Unjust governments reject this and run afoul of it and the men they are meant to serve.

A just government cannot compel the beliefs, speech, or actions of men because it lacks any such authority, which cannot even be given on loan, and consequently it cannot deprive men of their lives, liberties, or properties, or a reasonable expectation of privacy, without the due process of law pursuant to its solitary sacred objective: to secure the inalienable rights of those whom it serves and protects. It therefore must secure the right to believe, speak, and worship as well as the rights to defend oneself against any and all attempts to alienate men from those fundamental rights which he retains inalienably.  It cannot punish cruelly or unusually, torture, or compel any man to profess his own guilt.

Because individual belief and conscience is self-evidently inviolate, just government consequently must also secure a right to privacy without interference in private spaces and a reasonable expectation of limited privacy even in public spaces. In that governments are not God, because we are not God and they are instituted amongst us, they have no authority to violate the inner sanctity of the human mind in any person, neither to torture, nor to surveil persons without justified suspicion or manipulate their beliefs, actions, or environments so as to coerce them against their self-determined will. Instead, as with our other unalienable rights, just governments have a duty to secure a reasonable right to privacy between citizens and hold no right to violate that right themselves. Because we also are not God, none of us individually has any such authority over one another either.

As with just governments, just individuals must obtain any social or political authority they hold over another man by obtaining his consent. Because none possess intrinsic authority over others, consent to hold political authority must not be absolute and should be given freely and under contract according to merits and on terms determined by both relevant parties to be acceptable to each. Political authority between adults is therefore extended by virtue of demonstrated competence that is compelling to those in the relationship. Just governments should secure these arrangements and establish courts of justice to facilitate the resolution of conflicts between parties. The courts must adjudicate the law with impartiality, favoring neither the greater nor the lesser, and only under such judicial restraint should just men submit to the court. Arbitrary power must be resisted, and any doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. Courts must therefore be impartial in carrying out the law.

Because belief cannot be compelled, likewise, none possess the authority to compel another to believe in any idea, right or wrong, true or false. Therefore, no proposition is to be regarded as true or good by virtue of he who made it. Every proposition earns its authority through processes of validation that demand it survive challenge by competing ideas that ultimately must be brought to bear against our best assessment of the laws of nature of objective reality or of God’s Creation, which by definition cannot be wrong or false and rest outside of but are accessible to each and every man. Men can establish themselves as authorities, to which others can consent or not, based upon their demonstrated capacities to determine that which is right and true through the successful applications of their talents and perceptions. In that every man is not God, which is to say he is limited and finite, no man obtains special or final authority on any of his proclamations of rightness or truth and must consent to seeing his own ideas challenged by those of others.

Because our right to our own property is inalienable, so is our right to do with our property what we will so long as it doesn’t violate the inalienable rights of others. In other words, we have the right not only to hold our property but to engage in commerce with it according to the principles of free enterprise under the law. Property can be exchanged by any two parties who mutually consent to the terms of the contract of exchange without undue interference by third parties, and a just government should secure this right to engage in commerce under its duty to secure the rights of each citizen’s property.

In summary, we are not God. The consequences of this self-evident proposition are vast. None of us possesses the authority to compel another or his belief because we lack in our limitation understanding of the significance of any error against his intrinsic value and potential purpose made in that way. We therefore self-evidently start the project of organizing our society from a position of political equality with certain rights that are inalienable, among these life, liberty, property, capacity for their use toward our happiness and purposes, and a reasonable expectation of privacy in which we can maintain their sanctity. Lacking authority to rule over one another, we are ruled instead by law and merit and lend social and political authority in limited ways as such through processes that are open in their nature and that may best determine these as objectively as we may. Individual belief is sacrosanct not because any man is God but because every man is not. The individual is politically inviolate because he is the vessel of his own sacrosanct individual belief.

Together, these provocative and humbling ideas and the social and political project they define have a name. These are classical liberalism.

[agent-cupcake]

Ok now write her doing her damn hardest to please Sylvain and make him stop being so cruel towards her, unaware that the only reason Sylvain sticks around is to torment her out of anger towards her optimistic disposition, as every time she tries to improve the relationship the two have it only makes him angrier that she can stay so idealistic and give him so many chances that he deep down knows he doesn't deserve

Sylvain never getting over his issues and taking it out on reader is very good, I'll give you that. He's smart, he knows very well that you deserve better. But instead, you chose him. Your mistake. And there's no reasoning with him about it, it's not like he's ignorant of his actions. Sylvain is the reason why self reflection/awareness is not always a good thing because he's perfectly aware that his behaviors are bad and toxic and he hates himeslf for being this way, but instead of using that to better himself, he accepts the label as justification of his actions. He mistreats you, but he's a bad person, so that's only to be expected. You, so stupid and naive, should have figured it out and avoided him unless you wanted this to happen.

But what really gets to him is the fact that you're able to retain your kindness and idealism and love despite the way he treats you. It reveals that the cruel person he became wasn't entirely the fault of his trauma but rather a character flaw within himself that he never resolved. That, in the end, he's just like them. So he has to make you be like him to justify himself, otherwise his entire cynical worldview topples. That's the most interesting part of this type of self awareness, it acts as a scapegoat for actual growth. Acceptance and acknowledgement of his negative traits just means he doesn't have to work on them and even gives him an out for doing what he knows is wrong.

[sillyguyhotline]

it’s also kind of heartbreaking to me that ellie’s acceptance (and possible forgiveness) of joel does come eventually, but only once she’s lost so much of herself and her humanity that she’s a shell of who she used to be. i'm not a huge fan of the "ellie's behavior in tlou2 was just her trying to emulate joel" take not bc i think it's fully incorrect - i think ellie herself believed that she was taking after him - but because her behavior stemmed from her memories of him rather than his actual behavior.

i think it's notable that ellie's initial justification for her revenge mission is that she thinks it's something joel would do. this is, after all, right after he's died and she had only just begun to come to terms with what he did in the hospital. i think this is the root of her conflicting feelings over him, because his largest act of love (maybe not his most affectionate one, but certainly the most impactful) has come through him committing immense violence to save her life. not only that, but she's spent the past 2 years enraged over this act, unable to see anything but the damage it brought and the harm he did.

her thinking pattern kind of leads me to feel like she might not have ever fully grasped that what joel did stemmed specifically from how much he loved her. because his actions in the hospital were not premeditated, nor were they even borne from a disagreement or a belief about whether the life of one is worth more than the life of many. looking back, it's easy to see it as a moral dilemma, but to joel it was never about the morals, it was about ellie as a Person and her relationship to him. he'd seen this kid through so much, watched her fight and struggle, grown to love her like he'd loved his own daughter. he saved her because he cared about her and i don't think it was much more complicated than that. ellie, however, did not place much value on her life or her worth as a person- she subscribed to that view of herself as an instrument to save the world, so the idea of joel saving her for a reason unrelated to that moral conflict was likely foreign to her. therefore, i think she sees the violence as a much larger component of that situation, intrinsic to his love for her, rather than the most important part being his devotion to protecting his loved ones. there's even a journal entry where ellie admits she doesn't fully understand why joel did what he did, and i think her view on this situation is what shapes her view on how defensible her mission is.

and i think this is fairly important because tommy, who has seen joel at his absolute worst and most heartless, disagrees that this is what joel would've wanted. he knows that it has always been about family and love. but his insistence isn't enough to convince ellie otherwise and so she proceeds with the mission and keeps forcing herself to push forward because she feels like she's failing joel if she doesn't. she keeps going and going, and as the mission goes on she begins to remember more of her last few years with joel and the time they shared. and as she has these flashbacks her beliefs about whether or not this is what joel would've wanted get more shaky. even before she leaves seattle she writes, "i feel like i'm betraying him if i leave. is it even about him anymore? he'd want me to leave. he'd put the people he loves first." her guilt and her memories have coalesced to create this situation where she knows she's not doing what he would have wanted anymore, but she's already lost and taken so much and this mission has become the only way she feels she can reconcile his death so she has to keep going.

and then, by the time you reach the end of the game, ellie remembers her last conversation with him on the porch when he promised, even though his actions had split the two of them apart, that if given the opportunity he would make the same choice. it's the memory of joel's face that pulls ellie back from the brink of finally enacting her revenge. and she's finally able to draw his complete face, eyes and all. she's finally come to terms with how much he cared, how her journey is ultimately meaningless because joel did what he did to protect her and she's just been chasing a means to an end that can't save him or protect him or bring him back. it's through recognition of his love that she's able to get closer to accepting his death. aughghughghgh :(

[piqued-curiosity]

“Lesbians often talk about how awful it feels when we date a woman and after breaking up she dates a man.”

Of course I understand WHY they feel this way. You understand that this is a you problem though, right? Like it’s not bisexuals responsibility to coddle lesbians who feel bad that their exes are dating men? And it’s not our responsibility to hide our opposite sex attraction to make you feel better? ESPECIALLY when we aren’t even dating any more? Like, I haven’t done anything wrong by dating a man at some point after dating a woman, and my lesbian ex is in the wrong for making me feel that way, you get that right?

Lesbians have the right to feel whatever they feel about their ex dating a man. But taking this out on bisexuals in general is not ok, and voicing these insecurities to your ex is not ok because it’s nothing to do with us that you hate that we are dating a man. Like it is SO unbelievably not your business who we date after you, and whether that is a man or a woman is no reflection on our past relationships. The implication that I should be understanding of a lesbian ex telling me she feels betrayed that I am dating a man, or that I’ve wronged her by doing that is insane. How about I feel betrayed that she won’t accept the fact that I am going to date whoever I want and she can’t project her own moral crap onto MY relationships. Feel that way! For sure! But keep it to yourself!

“and lesbians shouldn’t be in relationships where they have to be around OSA if it makes them uncomfortable.”

I agree that if a lesbian can’t handle this then she shouldn’t date a bi woman, but the issue here is that lesbians ARE dating bi women, saying they are fine with it at the beginning and then treating us like shit because they don’t understand/are disgusted by our innate sexuality.

“a lot of this can be summed up with ‘I don’t understand lesbians’”

Massive cop-out. You’re implying that if I only knew the lesbian experience I’d have more sympathy for why these women treated me this way because there’s some justification for it. I perfectly understand why they felt the way they do, and the insecurity about homosexual relationships being inadequate. It still doesn’t even remotely excuse this behaviour. Lesbians want it both ways, they want to date bi women and then are disgusted when we are actually bi.

(Also, I was 99% certain you’d bring up the STD thing and I can assure you that wasn’t even a factor in it. The other women she wanted to fuck were also in open relationships and were regularly fucking men. She just didn’t want ME fucking a man because of some insecurity/possessiveness/ick going on. It was 100% controlling behaviour and insecurity about my sexuality and the thought of me being with a man).

Making excuses for this behaviour is infuriating. Just say it’s wrong.

All I’m going to say is that I don’t believe I said that any of this is the responsibility of bi women, or that it’s okay for lesbians to push it onto bi women. All I did was explain what’s going on in lesbians’ heads, because I understand that non-lesbians don’t experience the same thing. I thought I did say it was a problem on the lesbian’s part, and that I get what you’re saying. If I didn’t I guess I forgot to explicitly mention that.

I’m not making excuses, which I think I did actually already say. All I did was say I understood what might be going through lesbians heads and you took that as me thinking it’s all bi women’s fault. You’re just relaying information to me now that I agree with and don’t believe I implied otherwise.

I feel like you’re just venting out your grievances to me now, and I’m a bit tired of it. Here is probably a good place to stop with the constant essays in my inbox, because I can tell you won’t be happy with anything I have to say.

[iusmanayub]

How did the marriage among the children of Adam (peace be upon him) become permissible?

Atheists demand logical reasoning for everything. They are asked only one logical question: there are so many rational benefits in the marriage of siblings, please provide logical arguments against it. But these people, in the meantime, mix ethics. On one hand, they twist ethics, and on the other hand, they demand to prove laws based on the ethics of the Quran with rational reasoning. Here, the rationalists have two kits installed, one for petrol and the other for CNG. Wherever they get stuck, they switch to the ethical mode, otherwise they are rational. It should be that they provide rational justification for opposing sibling marriage with the same intensity with which they present the rational justification for denying the Creator.

Examination of atheist arguments:

Atheists usually present this rational argument against immorality with a sister or mother that according to scientific research, there is a high risk of disabilities in children born from this act, etc. Therefore, this act became morally repugnant. But the problem with this argument is that the non-birth of disabled children here has been accepted as a good thing as a premise (and obviously separate evidence is required for this), if preventive measures are taken to avoid pregnancy, then according to this argument, there will be no disgust in such immorality. It is impossible to definitively determine goodness and disgust from reason.

Another reason given is that parents and society are displeased. The answer is that this seems to be happening because a society is being assumed where immorality of siblings is considered bad. But if a society is imagined where this act is common and everyone considers it normal, then there is no reason for parents to be worried. It is just like in our society, a father is worried about his daughter hanging out with her male friend, but in European societies, he is not worried. Those who don't fear God but fear society are not considered good, this is outright hypocrisy! Constantly inciting others against Allah day and night and being afraid of society? They should get married because every reason of reason is inclined towards it. They criticize us for sitting under social constraints and creating God under compulsion, they themselves do not marry under social compulsion!

They also say that we do not consider the marriage of siblings permissible in any way, but religious people believe that the children of Adam and Eve used to marry each other. In fact, such arguments are only made to evade the real question; this is not a rational argument for the impermissibility of sibling marriage.

According to us (religious people), the definition of good and evil is what God calls good and evil. If God has made the marriage of Adam and Eve's children permissible at that time, then it became permissible, and if later He declared it impermissible, then it became impermissible. We believe in every action of Allah with submission and obedience. Because our reason accepts the divine order, therefore we find disgust in the relationship of our daughter and son. The question is, for those whose reason does not accept this divine order, what is the pure rational reason for not marrying?

"To whom do you turn?" To establish a verdict (whether permissible or impermissible) on something through reason, it is necessary to assume a divine order beforehand, this is a limit of reason that must be recognized. The trick of the atheist is that they present their pre-rational divine order as synonymous with reason and thus try to throw dust in the eyes of the religious people that you believe in faith, we don't.

In reality, after eliminating the inspirational basis for ethics, a person is stranded in a desert where his reason is unable to guide him, and his reason seems equally limited here. The Prophet is the only hanging rope of God that when grabbed, a person finds the right path.

[silentaura]

begonia :   how cautious is your muse ?   are they prone to noticing red flags ,   or paranoid to the point of untrusting most everyone ?   why or why not ?  

belladonna :   how does your muse respond to silence ?   do they take comfort in soundlessness ,   or seek to fill the void with noise ?   

bluebell :   does your muse learn from their past ,   or are they prone to repeating the same mistakes ?  

𝐁𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒. ( not currently accepting ) ♛ ¦ begonia :   how cautious is your muse ?   are they prone to noticing red flags ,   or paranoid to the point of untrusting most ? 

groomed to succeed the throne , zelda has been taught the importance of having discretion . i think zelda ultimately wants to give others a fair chance but is rather realistic in this regard . alliance and friendship are entirely different relationships . she has many alliances , and very select friendships . it's not due to having an untrusting nature . . . it's simply circumstantial trust .

there are countless perils that threaten hyrule and the royal family , and many who would absolutely wish to use zelda as a means to an end -- if not want her dead . zelda , in general , makes effort to not put herself in situations of peril as princess . . . but as a normal teenager she naturally possesses a degree of naïveté and is absolutely prone to moments of emotion-led clouded judgement .

i'm going to use the yiga clan as example . theoretically , zelda always knew that the clan posed a major threat to her since they naturally oppose her very existence . she knows it is unwise for her to travel in the gerudo region without an entourage . however , it still doesn't stop her from being bull headed and running away from her escort within gerudo valley because she's trying to assert her independence . avoiding specific issues tends to lead to her missing the larger issues . and of course , she faces the consequences of letting her emotions surpass her better judgement by nearly dying in this case.

so , i think she is naturally intelligent , but is still developing the wisdom to inform her decisions . she is still young and immature , and she will grow into wisdom over time .

♛ ¦ belladonna :   how does your muse respond to silence ?   do they take comfort in soundlessness ,   or seek to fill the void with noise ? 

its so situational .

quiet is not inherently uncomfortable , but what accompanies it can be . zelda is very insecure . sometimes silence means being stuck in a conversation with yourself . it leaves so much up to interpretation , and naturally zelda suspects that everyone thinks the worst of her . . . so silence becomes a justification for her self loathing . for example , zelda is so unnerved by link’s silence initially because she is so accustomed to associating silence with disappointment .

i think a lot about silence and what silence means and represents as a motif of sorts . her silence has meaning : she’s brooding , miserable , small and withering away . Like the silent princess , she is going extinct , quietly , in front of the entire world . for someone like zelda , who so naturally fills space with her thoughts and words , silence can be a death .

but quiet can also be a good partner for someone like her . too much noise is just as uncomfortable . it is competitive , messy , challenging . someone with a loud presence can be exhausting , so even she can only bare to be around prunia in small doses because otherwise she's drowned out by prunia's extroversion . her best suited allies are someone with the quietness of a listener . someone who can give her the space to be the speaker .

so it takes a balance .

♛ ¦ bluebell :   does your muse learn from their past ,   or are they prone to repeating the same mistakes ? 

zelda is very prone to falling into the same vicious cycles due to her lack of willpower and courage to stand up for herself and commit to herself first and foremost . at any given point , zelda has had several voices that she admires and trusts all lending their feedback on what she does or does not do . she wants to do them justice and be fair to their suggestions , but more often than not , she yields and bends to their commands . . . or at least tries to . because she's not listening to herself , she sees failure over and over in a cyclical way .

and even when she has had moments of courage to stand up for herself , she inevitably falls back to the same place as before -- nowhere . there are millions looking at her , watching her , each telling her to do something . internally , she knows she cannot satisfy everyone . still , she tries and trusts ( half heartedly ) and its percisely for this reason she hasn't made much personal growth .

at first , she's very determined and sure of herself . over time she will exhaust herself and that determination , resulting in a growing resentment and restlessness . then , she'll have some sort of breakdown until she is set straight on her feet and told to start over . . . but try harder this time . rinse , repeat . she hasn't learned much in this regard .

i think her handling of her jealousy of link . . . has gotten better to an extent . she still harbors some degree of bitterness over things out of their control , but at least she's developed the understanding that she can't treat people poorly because of her insecurities and she does actively keep herself in check .

she's young and prone to needing to learn from her mistakes a few times before the lesson sticks . . . and some lessons are easier to learn than others .

[isaiahbie]

Are Same-Sex Relationships Acceptable to God?

Increasing numbers of Christians are arguing that same-sex relationships are acceptable to God. What are the arguments made for this position and how convincing are they? Here’s a quick look at some of the most common arguments.

1. “Love is love.”

Love is indeed a good thing, but we all agree that love is not able to justify all forms of relationship. If a married person started a sexual relationship with someone other than their spouse, most people would not accept “love is love” as a justification for this.

We also all agree that love does not, in itself, mean that all relationships should be allowed to be sexual. Indeed, in some cases we recognize that the best way to express love is to make sure the relationship remains non-sexual (for example, in friendships and family relationships).

In reality, we need further guidance to know what forms of romantic and sexual relationship are acceptable. This guidance has been given to us by God in the Bible.

2. “What’s the harm?”

For Christians, harm is not the only consideration in making moral decisions. Jesus tells us that the most important command is to love God with all our heart, soul and mind (Matthew 20:37) and that to truly love Him is to keep His commandments (John 14:15). The most important question, therefore, is not whether something is harmful, but what God says about it?

We should also note, however, that God’s commands to us are not arbitrary. They are a call to live in line with His intent for us, in line with how we’ve been created to live. Therefore, we should expect that living God’s way will always be the most life-giving path for us. To live God’s way is the way of least harm and greatest fulfilment.

3. “But chaste singleness isn’t possible.”

This argument usually makes two mistakes. First, it views the gift of singleness as a superpower that enables a select number of people to endure an otherwise impossible situation. However, this is not how the New Testament views the gift. For Jesus and Paul, the gift of singleness is not a superpower to enable celibacy, the gift of singleness is the state of being single, just as the gift of marriage is the state of being married. This is why Paul can state that “each [person] has his own gift from God, one in this way, and another in that” (1 Corinthians 7:7).  The two gifts are the state of singleness or the state of marriage. There is no third situation of being single but without having the gift of singleness.

The second mistake is in claiming that chaste singleness is, for many people, an impossible way of living. However, it is perfectly possible to live a fulfilled life without having sex. Jesus is the prime example here. Also, love is a genuine human need, but love can be experienced in contexts other than a sexual relationship. Likewise, family need not be limited to biological nuclear families. As those adopted by God, Christians are family and all Christians should be able to experience family life in the context of a local church. If we live out the vision of the New Testament for love, relationships, and family, chaste singleness becomes plausible. Many who follow Jesus and who experience same-sex attraction have found this to be the case.¹

4. “Born this way.”

There are both scientific and theological problems with this argument. On the scientific side, it is not certain that people are born gay. Most scientists now agree that sexual orientation is a product of both nature and nurture.² It may not be accurate to say that people are born gay.

More importantly, however, there is a theological problem here. This argument assumes that if we are born with a certain desire, it must be good and God-given and, therefore, God would want us to embrace and express it. But this view overlooks a key aspect of the Christian worldview: God’s good creation has been damaged by human sin (it is, as theologians say, fallen) and so all of us have sinful desires which God does not want us to embrace nor express. Not all desires are good or God-given. In other areas of life, we all recognize this. We therefore need God’s help to know which of our desires are good and which are not. The Bible offers us this help.

5. “This is who I am.”

There is some truth here. The truth is that God wants us to embrace our true identity as that is part of the route to fullness of life. However, is it true that we are our sexuality?

To say that our sexuality is our identity is to build our identity on our feeling and desires. However, this approach to identity is full of problems. It’s unstable because our desires can change. It’s ambiguous because our desires can conflict—when they do, how can we know who we really are? And it’s inconsistent—no one really believes we are what we desire. We all agree that there are some desires we might experience which are not good and which we should not embrace. Building an identity on sexuality is a bad idea.

The Bible confirms this. While we are created as sexual beings, our identity isn’t tied up in our sexuality. Our identity is given to us by God. For every human being it is as one created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and for Christians it is as one who is God’s child (John 1:12; Romans 8:14-17). These are the core identities, the things that are most important about us, that we need to embrace as part of the route to fullness of life, and we do that by following God’s guidance on how to live according to what is given to us in the Bible. Anything else that is true of us—such as our experience of sexual desire—must therefore be submitted to the Bible’s teaching on how we live as children of God in order to allow us to truly experience fullness of life.

There seems to be a common thread in all of these arguments. Each one ultimately suggests that there is an authority other than the Bible (for example, our desires or love) which can justify same-sex relationships. In each case, however, a little examination shows that these supposed claims to authority fail. We have a better authority and wonderfully, He has, in His Word, revealed to us the best way to live.

Notes:

¹ See, for example, Ed Shaw, Same-Sex Attraction and the Church: The Surprising Plausibility of the Celibate Life (IVP, 2015); Sam Allberry, 7 Myths About Singleness (Crossway, 2019); Rachel Gilson, Born Again This Way (The Good Book Company, 2020). ² The most significant peer-reviewed study to date is Andrea Ganna et al., “Large-scale GWAS reveals insights into the genetic architecture of same-sex sexual behavior,” Science 365 (6456), August 2019.

[hi-i-am-matt]

A Disease We Still Can Not Get Rid Of

Photo credits to https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-racial-discrimination-that-existing-laws-fail-15414612.php

"Discrimination is a disease," said by Roger Staubach.

A disease can be referred to as a disorder of structure or impairs the normal function of a system and typically it manifests certain signs or symptoms. On the other hand, discrimination is an act or a practice that favors a specific group or an individual over another group or individual without any morally relevant differences. Just like disease, discrimination is a disorder of structure, particularly within the society, and it hinders a harmonious and sound relationship within members of the society. And similar to a disease, discrimination manifests symptoms of impairments of the society, such as unequal justice systems, protests and several disagreements among unhappy members of the society.

Let's take an example of a company that is hiring a driver. Management will probably choose a man with complete sight than a man who is blind upon selection since the sense of sight is very crucial in driving. In this case, the company is not discriminating blind people from people with complete sight since it can justify that in order to drive safely and avoid accidents, the driver should have a sight of the way. However, if the company choses a white-male candidate over a black-male candidate to be a driver without any reasonable justification, and assuming both are able to drive, will constitute an evident case of discrimination, specifically discrimination of race.

There has been a long record of discrimination throughout the history of mankind. One might argue that favoring men in the ascendance of being a ruler or in the selection as a head of state in most nations during the ancient times is a form of discrimination against women. This is the same case of prohibiting women before in participating in state affairs, such as voting. The caste system which involves segmentation of society in to groups and distinguish elites from middle classes and even to those members which it considers to be "untouchables" is another form of discrimination.

In spite of the improvements in our current society from the past and the intervention of governments to prevent injustices mainly brought by discrimination, we cannot deny the fact that discrimination is still existing and rampant in some organizations. The case of Betty Dukes and other women who worked in Walmart is one of the best examples of how the society, including government, failed to protect people, regardless of gender, from discrimination. Likewise, we sometimes hear news which involves people being discriminated against and bullied as being part of the LGBT community.

Discrimination is viewed to be as one of the factors of prejudice and hate crimes in the society. It encourages violence between groups - for both those who discriminate and those who are discriminated against as they feel that the society does not accept their existence. The existence of this tension hinders peace and sound relationships among people. Hence, we can say that a society tends to be less safe if it has higher incidence of discrimination.

Discrimination also affects someone's mental health in an adverse manner. Similarly, it can lead to low self-esteem and poor performance and productivity. For instance, an employee who feels discriminated against will probably not perform well in his/her tasks and always feel demotivated. It also costs society by disabling people to grow ethically and be productive to have positive contributions to the economy.

As a disease, discrimination should be treated to foster progress otherwise it will keep spreading and adversely affecting our society. A proper education by informing public on the forms of discrimination is already a big step. Moreover, it will be helpful if there would be a change in legislation, specifically imposing heavier penalties to discourage discrimination from all sectors. And lastly, an evident good governance practice within a community or organization may encourage ethical decisions among its members and might abandon discriminatory acts.

As Nelson Mandela says, "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."