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thistransient · 2 years

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Before break I had grand delusions that I was going to furiously self-study to keep up with whatever I was missing in class. A week and a half in, I have not cracked the textbook nor looked at the class group chat even once, and have no desire to either. I have put in some minimal work on my oral presentation due when I get back, and that speech for November, but otherwise the to-do list has shrunk veeeery little. But that’s the point of a break, right? To not have to do stuff? (I still wish there was no stuff to be done to begin with though.)

I want to dedicate the rest of the week to recovering from my journey to the south. I met up with my tutor who lives down there- I have largely refrained from writing about the whole tutoring affair in detail because occasionally I’d mention blogging, and he’d ask about it, and I’d refuse to divulge any information but the thought of ‘maybe some day I shall divulge’ would flit across my mind (or the more terrible notion that he’d find it himself, even though he claims to have never heard of tumblr). At this point the field where I grow my fucks is barren.

親愛的家教, if you ever read this, I have one thing to say, which is 活該. (Directed at whom exactly, I’m not sure, maybe just a general 活該 shouted into the void, but probably at myself). The other week before we met up IRL (for the second time now) I finally came out to him about being trans (he was thoroughly unfazed). In person I told him outright that I felt like I’d been using him as a discount stand-in therapist, and felt kinda weird about it (great results though! “process your ptsd by talking/writing about it in your 4th language”, who knew it was a thing!). He said he wasn’t bothered. I asked if his other students talked about the same kind of stuff, he said only a couple of them were at a high enough level, and yes, one does. I asked if he ever censors himself for the sake of his students, he said no. In terms of the things we do talk about, I feel like we crossed some kind of line a long time ago- and yet there’s money involved, so even though I occasionally help him with things outside of class (international bank transfers, English editing) I have the eternal lingering confusion and insecurity over what sort of relationship this is exactly, am I a friend? A client? client-friend? would he even talk to me if I weren't paying him I am genuinely inept (thanks ASD) when it comes to subtle (or even blunt) social cues, are these repeated inquiries about my romantic life just trying to liven up the conversation or what? (Lifelong embarrassing problems with misinterpreting this one, I tell you.) To some point I can enjoy dwelling in vagueness, and then past that point it’s just torturous. I don’t know where this is going but it’s time to get off the train. Not by way of quitting class, but I’d like to break my long-standing pattern of intense and also very one-sided emotional investment in a lone and nonreciprocating other party. Childhood attachment patterns, I know (probably the OG nonreciprocating party was my mother or something). I also have no idea how to do it! But self-awareness has got to be the first step, right?

#how to stop craving the familiar comfort of chaos pain and pining?#dunno but i'm gonna find out

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lecognito · 4 years

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When Consent Goes Haywire

I recently came across a phenomenon called “flirting without consent”. For anyone in the 21st century, consent has become a hot word, but this concept appeared to me like the bastard child of a movement with good intentions.

There’s no denying that there’s a history of men “crossing the line”, and while we can rail on men for not “teaching children properly” or setting a good example, it’s just not that simple.

Ok, for the record, rape and assault are inexcusable. The reality is that sometimes consent is set aside and men openly violate a conduct of trust and a communication of trust (i.e. a no means no). But sometimes it’s not that, and there’s more to understand. Sometimes, a woman says no but is less insistent on that no. Sometimes a person goes along with what’s happening only to feel some sort of perceived injustice after the fact, but not during. And it’s moments like these that have proven this decade to be a confusing whirl of legalities regarding consent.

This isn’t to blame women or to defend the men who have clearly crossed a line and that’s not the purpose of this article. It just means there are more factors to consider before coining a concept like “flirting without consent” because there are deeper implications something like this has on future interactions.

Before I get into it, let me just say I GET IT. I get why this concept exists. But can we understand that flirting is an ORGANIC and NATURAL part of human interaction? It’s part of social intelligence--picking up on if someone is responding to your advances or not. It’s a way we let someone know we’re interested and a way we gauge the level of interest that someone may or may not have in us. Put guard rails on this organic process and very quickly you lose a lot of what romance and courtship is about, which in turn makes men seem inherently awkward, boring, and stale when that’s the bag of tricks that was given to them.

Of course things get tricky with flirting. Some people don’t have good social intelligence and don’t read social cues very well. And that makes things vastly more complicated. Add to that the fact that everyone’s experience of romance and courtship can be drastically different and that everyone’s preferences are different. There are women who preach that guys “need to be more aggressive” and welcome the bad boy attitude, there are some who like to be the one who leads, and then there are those who like to set clear expectations. Tone of voice during a conversation, body language, and the level of relationship that two people have all come into play. At the end of the day, everyone falls on a different part of that spectrum of experiences which informs their decisions, their ability to pick up on social cues, and how they perceive a given action or inaction. In short, things become exponentially more complicated. Oh, and that’s not even including whether or not they’ve had drinks.

The need for some sort of structure is understandable. But consent to flirt is not that. A structure like consent to flirt is essentially a form of gatekeeping—a way to justify swiping left IRL just because you think you’re not interested. We can agree that there are some things that are clearly over the line, vulgar, and inappropriate. That’s what we as a society have termed, “harassment” and “sexual harassment”. Both are obviously wrong, and consent to flirt tries to wrap the idea of harassment under the gallant flag of “transparency”. Really, it’s like slapping a Smart Water label on a bottle with your normal house tap water—it’s a gimmick, a fluffy phrase, while providing no clarity to the confusion of consent.

Bear with me here with what I think could be the worst case scenario, but with something like consent to flirt, a girl could sue a guy who came up to her at a bar and gave a compliment to strike up a conversation. You could argue that even a positive comment that was stripped of any sort of sexual or inappropriate intent was perceived by the woman as “crossing a line”. That’s how romance dies. That’s how courtship becomes a bureaucratic, robotic transaction that deems your advances appropriate or inappropriate based on whether or not you have “premium” features. Again, probably the worst case scenario.

Even so, the question remains, how can you really know if someone isn’t right for you? Feelings change. Perceptions change. And consent to flirt destroys that opportunity for learning and discovering aspects of a person you would’ve never expected to see or know. This isn’t to say that we can’t form judgments about a certain person because in a way, that’s inevitable.

When we get down to it, what a concept like “flirting with consent” and consent in general seems to reveal about the heart of our broader culture is the desire to set intentions and expectations. Why do celebrities get into problems with consent? Why does anyone get into a problem with consent? Precisely BECAUSE no one knows when or where consent is necessary. You might be saying to yourself, it’s simple: no means no. Consent seems like a very obvious thing when you put it strictly in terms of “no means no”. It’s a good rule of thumb to go by, but realistically as we’ve seen, a variety of factors complicates even a simple construct.

So what do we do? How do we mend this broken system? We need a simple construct where consent is already implied. What is that construct? The oldest form of love, courtship, and romance in the books: marriage. I know what you might be thinking, but hear me out.

Call it the idealized form or what it should be, but marriage is a covenant, a promise between two people who have essentially AGREED in the presence of witnesses, to being with each other. Keyword: AGREED—from the very beginning of anything happening. Within this covenant is a sense of trust. You have roles, you know who the other person is, and you know what to expect within this relationship. But let’s be clear: this doesn’t mean one person can do whatever they feel like or that they’re entitled to the other person in any sense. It doesn’t mean one person loses their individuality or their autonomy. It doesn’t rule out the possibility of bad things happening--they still do. It’s just that when it comes to the issue of consent, there are certain things that aren’t totally uncalled for.

Marriage maps out and clears out the murky forest of consent. You can be flirtatious, you can be suggestive, you can have intercourse—because you both agreed to it! It doesn’t mean you can’t get uncomfortable about certain things but you still have that sense of TRUST that allows you to express that discomfort openly, safely, and unabashedly. That trust and that relationship takes you so much farther with someone you know and love than with a complete stranger, where it may be awkward to voice a concern at the risk of appearing inexperienced or being a mood killer.

But doesn’t this agreement exist already even without marriage? Aren’t there plenty of extramarital relationships that demonstrate that level of agreement? Isn’t that what consent is all about? Yes, our culture of sexual freedom and companionship have applied the blueprint of marriage to relationships without the words and the paperwork of marriage. Yet that’s where it falls short--the lack of a proper covenant. The very existence of millions of relationships in this moment is dependent on a commitment that isn’t real. Sure there’s a verbal recognition of some sort of feeling of commitment but that’s all it is: a feeling. And for anyone with an inkling of experience in a relationship, feelings can and do change. If that’s the case, then commitment can change.

Marriage brings into focus a certain expectation, which is that while your feelings can change, your commitment shouldn’t. That’s the point of making vows to one another and that’s the point of “til death do us apart” even if many would consider it just an antiquated trope that romantics and movies say. Some might say that there shouldn’t be any labels on a relationship and that love is love. Sure, but is love only love when you feel like it? Shouldn’t it go beyond just a purely personal emotional satisfaction?

None of this is meant to be accusatory towards extramarital relationships or to say that marriage is the cure-all. It is however, to draw attention to the idea that “labels” if you will, help us know exactly what something is and know what to expect from it. You don’t look at a strawberry and say “I don’t like putting labels on it,” because then it becomes very difficult to describe what to do with a strawberry. Do you eat it? Do you use it as ink? Do you throw it like you would a baseball? On that note, labels help you understand what to expect: what you get from a strawberry is very different from what you get with a strawberry milkshake, a strawberry smoothie, or strawberry milk. Without a name for a strawberry or any produce for that matter, the produce aisle would be chaos.

Sure, a strawberry is not a relationship. But the same logic applies—relationships have the potential to be utter chaos without the label. A boyfriend or girlfriend who runs off is theoretically off the hook. A label-free relationship can invite multiple people into it and people do. But it breeds a nebulous and subjective ground of emotions and expectations that can’t be adequately expressed or fulfilled. In other words, there’s no consistency. And when there’s no consistency, what can and can’t be done can change. It’s your word against theirs. It’s your feeling against theirs.

That “label” of marriage gives a greater sense of security. It helps us to know that the intimacy that happened the night before wasn’t “a mistake”. It gives us emotional fulfillment and the expectation of that fulfillment. It doesn’t leave us hanging in the wind.

No, this is not a call to get married and this is not a judgment on anyone on how they pursue relationships. It’s to address and contemplate why our culture (and most probably the entire world) struggles with consent. Consent to flirt doesn’t make things any easier or any clearer in that struggle. In fact, it moves in the opposite direction of what we need. It cripples the creation of organic relationships and enables an even more confusing set of rules under the guise of honesty and transparency. Consent as a whole is crucial, but pursuing it and being an advocate for it requires us to exercise caution with careful consideration of the words we attach to it. No matter our zeal, we can’t push for it blindly. Specificity is important, but not all specificity serves to clarify.

#consent #relationship #marriage #writing #ideas

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nogoodmox · 7 years

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okay, challenge time. thoughts on sami/dean/finn. i want DETAILS.

this is…….a cursed ask peggy.

putting it under a read more bc this got very very long!!

so sami/dean? great. finn/dean? great sami/dean/finn?????? that’s some fucken….next level shit okay….how can we even fathom such a perfect trio….

- first thing’s first, i definitely think finn and sami would get along more naturally. they’re close friends irl and they’re just more similar. deano’s the odd one out in this but never fear!! they make it work!!!

- dean is….confused?? like how the fresh hell did he end up with two absolute angels when he sees himself as….a problem child at best. i hate to get edgy (no i don’t) but while i don’t think dean has self-esteem issues, i think he has self-worth issues if that makes sense?

- to clarify i think like,, he doesn’t care what people think of him (obviously) and he’s confident in his abilities, but he doesn’t see himself as a good person. i mean he’s referred to himself as a scumbag on more than one occasion, and let’s not forget “my whole life was a mistake anyway” line. so i think, being in a relationship with people as seemingly perfect as sami and finn might be initially tough for him.

- sami, being a sweetheart, constantly wants to reassure dean. he’s the best at reading other people’s feelings, so when finn’s kinda oblivious, sami knows to step in. he tries his best to not be obvious about what he’s doing, but he acts extra affectionate and clingy around dean when he’s in a low mood to let him know he’s loved.

- finn and dean aren’t super huge on pda, so when it’s just them two it’s mostly rigid “i wanna express my love for you but idk how”. sami’s pretty good at initiating it but despite him being affectionate i don’t think he’d be super into pda either. he mostly just does whatever dean and finn are comfy with!

- that being said, sami knows with finn it’s more a matter of “idk how to handle pda” than “i don’t like pda”, so you can catch him casually slipping his hand into finn’s while they’re out doing stuff. with dean it’s more tricky because he just feels….weird about it. he feels self-conscious no matter how subtle the touch, he’s much more chill about it in private.

- they love going to parks!! it suits all of their needs tbh. dean being dean, can’t sit still and hates being cooped up, so a nice open space is good for him. sami loves being ~at one with nature~ and sunshine and just generally living his life out in the world, and finn…well he’s happy with whatever makes dean and sami happy. i personally think he’d love taking pictures of them having fun like a doting parent.

- hiking is also a thing they love, but most of the time it’s dean dragging sami and finn out. dean loves it, whether it be rocky terrain or in forests. he has seemingly endless energy when it comes to that stuff, and he kinda comes to life on a bad day. dean just likes to be outside, point blank. sami and finn are usually the ones in awe of the landscapes and posing for pretty pictures while dean experiences some spiritual shit.

- dean is all over sami and finn’s social media. instagram, twitter, you name it. their accounts are full of strange off-guard pictures of dean (finn’s personal favorite thing is posting a blurry picture of him with the caption: cryptid spotted 👀 ) even the pictures where dean is expecting it he just seems…..off-guard. he usually poses with a hastily thrown-up peace sign and wide eyes, and he has no idea all these pictures are ending up on the internet.

-dates are always a weird mix of things for them. finn likes traditionally “simple” ways of spending time together like playing board games, or building things (cough cough legos). they all get pretty invested in it tbh. games of jenga can last hours if they try hard enough, that is until dean loses his patience and absolutely destroys the thing, bc of course he would. they also watch a lot of movies, but it’s usually obscure ones that finn and dean are super into while sami just kinda watches to humor them.

- sami likes to do romantic things for dates. they go out to dinner a lot, but knowing dean he doesn’t always make it fancy. he and dean are both fans of upbeat places with a fun atmosphere. they order a lot of food, and dean and finn are most definitely the kind of people to write their names on their to-go boxes to ensure no one eats from them. sami, on the other hand, really doesn’t mind and is generous with these two greedy boys.

- when it comes to dean, dates are a wildcard. anything that can catch his attention for more than 3 seconds is worthy. they’ve done some ODD shit together. i’m talking visiting a cheese factory, a dinosaur museum (finn especially appreciated that), amusement parks, visiting a psychic, tank driving, deep sea diving, etc. he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he tries his best.

- group naps are a very common thing. they’ve got a busy schedule, so they try to squeeze in rest whenever they can. they usually share a room, and sleep is the time where all guards come down. dean and finn become totally comfortable and there’s nothing awkward about it when sami initiates contact. they all kinda lump together, even when it’s hot, just because it’s reassuring to have everyone there. especially for dean, who doesn’t have the best relationship with sleep. finn is super touchy-feely in his sleep without realizing it, and sometimes he’ll wake up completely draped over sami or dean (usually sami, bc dean moves around too much)

- all of them being wrestlers definitely helps their relationship, and their road trips from city to city are always a blast. they take turns driving, but dean slacks off the most because he gets tired more than anyone. he’ll doze off in the car while mumbling lyrics to the shitty music he insisted on playing, then he’ll fall asleep again at the hotel. sami is most definitely the kind to point out the cows they pass up, and finn will gladly stop on the side of the road to get a closer look at them. they also give up on having proper meals while traveling, so catch them leaving gas stations with a mountain of junk food in their arms.

- this one is a more biased headcanon but, i like to think sami teaches finn and dean words in arabic or french sometimes! dean will naturally ask him about all the curse words there are, and he sounds absolutely ridiculous trying to pronounce them. he and finn eventually get the hang of a lot of expressions though, and they start to use them casually with each other. finn might shout “yallah!” (come on) when they’re late for something, dean will gladly call anyone and everyone a “hmar” (a donkey, which is a v rude insult in arabic).

- dean thinks arabic music? absolutely bangs. he gets really into it and asks sami to start playing it on road trips to keep him awake. bc a majority of arabic music is pretty…intense and party-inducing so good luck dozing off to that.

- kisses! finn is personally the biggest fan of kisses amongst them. sami prefers long hugs and dean just likes leaning on others or resting a hand on them. finn kisses sami’s cheek a lot, he thinks his cheeks are adorable. he kisses dean on his forehead a lot because he came to learn that’s what he likes. dean gives forehead kisses a lot too so sami and finn decided that’s what he was most fond of.

-kisses on the mouth from finn are usually short, but he almost always puts his hand on sami/dean’s neck when giving them one. he kinda pulls them forward a bit then pulls back quickly.

-dean really likes giving neck kisses, not even in a sexual way he just kinda dips his head there because he likes the reaction. he also might nip their ears a lot bc…he’s dean and he’s a feral child.

-sami’s kisses aren’t as common since he’s more of a hugger, but when he does give kiss it’s long and sweet and usually leaves dean/finn surprised and breathless. sami’s a charmer and a smooth criminal B)

- dean really loves sami’s tummy! he already loves resting on people and sami’s presence in general is just so comforting and warm, so of course he loves sami’s stomach. he likes to rest his head on it and feel it rise and fall softly. for finn, dean loves his shoulders. he thinks they have a nice shape and his head fits there perfectly in his humble opinion.

-finn likes sami’s general softness, and his stomach fits right in with that, but sami’s cheeks are still his favorite. he loves their roundness and how much bigger they get when he smiles. as for dean, finn really likes his arms. they’re muscular but in a subtle sort of way, and his hugs feel nice despite their rarity.

- sami really likes finn’s hands. he likes how they look delicate, but also have underlying strength that’s apparent by the veins. sami’s favorite thing about dean is his crooked nose. it’s a silly thing, but he thinks it gives him character. he also loves dean’s dimples but, who doesn’t??

- dean usually feels like he’s being babied by finn and sami, which is a strange feeling. he’s used to only looking out for himself and not depending on anyone, so he’s reluctant at first. he especially feels bad because he doesn’t think he can give anything back. they try to assure him that his presence is enough, but dean doesn’t think so. he sometimes does random acts of kindness to show appreciation in any way he can, and finn and sami are always touched.

- finn is a sweetheart like sami, but he has a less natural way of going about it which puts him in between dean and sami on the spectrum. he’s not as good as picking up on cues, so it takes him a bit to catch on and realize how sami or dean may be feeling. he immediately tries to make things better though, and he does his best to figure out their body language and mannerisms (especially sami, since he’s the best at hiding any personal issues)

- sami is as close to an omniscient being as there is in this relationship. granted, he’s not perfect and he definitely misunderstands things sometimes, but he’s usually the best and handling dean and finn’s emotions. dean is more difficult than finn with expressing himself because he already feels like a burden on bad days, so talking about his feelings doesn’t really help. sami’s great at making dean and finn feel more relaxed about opening up, especially by letting dean know he just wants to hear his problems so dean can get them off his chest. sami’s definitely more proficient with the heart-to-heart stuff, but he’s so used to being on the receiving end that sometimes he doesn’t take his own advice and voice his emotions.

- overall, they may have their rocky moments or times where they but heads, but sami/dean/finn is as close to a perfect relationship as you can get imho. healthy, pure, and Good.

#PEGGY THIS IS SO LONG I'M VERY SORRY #A LOT OF IT ISN'T EVEN ROMANTIC STUFF IT'S JUST RAMBLING #I SINCERELY APOLOGIZE #answered #demon-peggy #i'm not good with....romance if you couldn't tell haha i'm really sorry if this is awkward #they're cute though so i wanted to write this #^^;;;;;;;#sami zayn #dean ambrose #finn bálor

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