• 2 Posts
  • 4 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: October 21st, 2020

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  • Are there any renters unions in your area? Getting the tenant involved with them might help them legally or practically. In the UK, we have Acorn which do a mixture of direct action (ie literally blocking Landlords from accessing the property) and supporting tenants with navigating the legal system and understanding their (somewhat limited) rights as renters.

    If there's something comparable in your local area, perhaps approach them with the consent of the tenant? If there's not then perhaps there's similarly minded people which you can help to start organise and bring into the fold?


  • My partner and I are on the last few days of our Summer Solstice holiday. We hiked up a local mountain with a friend yesterday and today we're recovering on the sofa from a week of hiking, hill walking, and slightly-too-much food.

    I'm alternating between reading some sci-fi on my e-reader (currently reading Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks), writing some psuedo-code for a single-user headless ActivityPub server I'm thinking of implementing for fun, and brewing tea. I might watch a movie later, if I get the urge.

    Earlier, as part of a bonus Solstice gift, I set up my partner's laptop with an N64 emulator, a USB N64-like controller, and some old games she enjoyed as a child so she's on the other side of the sofa full of nostalgia and smiling, engrossed in her games.

    Our cat is curled up on my feet and stretched out onto my partner's lap; her favourite cuddle position.


  • I haven't got direct experience of this comrade, but I wanted to respond to your comment as a few things jumped out at me.

    First, I think there may be a contradiction in your comment. At first you said the following:

    I would NEVER do to a woman the shit i’m into

    But then in the next paragraph you say:

    And i genuinely fear that if i try to repress it all, i will eventually lose control.

    From the outside looking in, this implies to me that the former statement is not entirely true, and you foresee some circumstances which may lead to you "losing control"? Does this mean that you acknowledge or believe that you actually could "do to a woman" the things you're viewing in porn? I would perhaps sit down and think and be very honest with yourself about whether or not you believe there is a risk of you doing these things to a person.

    Secondly, I notice you don't seem to present an understanding of why you get aroused by these things which you imply are more extreme. Without knowing anything specific about the material you're viewing or your life leading to this point, I can only offer some summarised and synthesised advice.

    • Begin with a reflective process on what's lead you to view the material or have the kinks/desires you have. I would personally suggest doing this as a timeline exercise on each: the development of what you find arousing; and the history of your porn use and the type of content you're viewing. If there is significant overlap between the two at key junctions or turning points then it suggests that what you've experienced is the classic pipeline of getting drawn towards more and more extreme stimulus via exposure to increasingly extreme porn. This is well understood as a process and I think even some high-level reading about it would allow you to determine whether your desires and arousal have been hijacked and lead down this path, or whether they're coming from somewhere else (obviously it could be a mixture of the two). As well as a timeline, you could perhaps try to summarise or explain your desires/kinks to yourself with written words. You might have a good understanding of these already, but in case you don't it might be good to start understanding the shape of them and how you would communicate or explain them to others if forced to. Be both specific and general, forcing yourself to understand the low-level details as well as summarise and abstract to try and understand general trends.
    • Depending on the outcomes of the above process, investigate seeking help with porn addiction or some therapy. This isn't to kink-shame necessarily, but you say things like "repress" and "lose control". I think the best thing to do here is talk honestly and openly with someone who has training to frame and steer the conversation. I am aware that in the imperial core, mental health services and frameworks can be problematic but I think that it's probably better to start somewhere and begin the journey of addressing the problems and experiences you have.
    • Simultaneous to the above, it may be a good idea to seek out some peer-support groups around porn addiction. I think this may present other risks since — as other comrades note in this thread — there are reactionary approaches and frameworks which also deal with stopping to use. But the goal would be to see other people discussing the effects and experiences of porn use and see if these align with your own experiences and begin to recontextualise your own use of the material.
    • If appropriate, there may also be peer-support spaces on the topics of managing and dealing with the specific material and desires you have; whether they're informed by pornography or coming from somewhere else.

    Lastly, I do want to say that struggling with something like this must be awful and not to beat yourself up too much, because it seems like you've acknowledged that viewing the materials you're viewing is still indeed harmful. To me this implies that you've taken a very important first step and the challenge for you now is actually doing something about it. I also want to apologise if this comes across as kink-shaming; I am basing my assumption on the fact that you're concerned about the material you're watching and that the tone of your post implies that some of the acts are explicitly quite violent towards women.

    Good luck comrade


  • For some reason, my brain just doesn’t like having folders in my home directory that don’t start with a capital letter.

    That's fair. It never used to bother me at all but as I tend to do most stuff on the terminal these days I've wanted to keep everything more consistent. First the spaces bothered me, then the capitals :-P But having home folders with capitals feels like a nice exception as it is a relatively special folder.

    I like how clear Applications is. It's also cool how you've got the Nextcloud folder underneath Documents, very tidy.