In case you are wondering what I'm talking about

TL;DR: Moonchild is DMCAing numerous Pale Moon forks for alledged copyright violations, due to him getting bussyblasted over the Male Poon name and logo.

Part 1

Not long after Mypal shut down, in case you don't know, a new fork named Male Poon came out from a based individual named ManchildProductions, which led to this sneedfest from tobin.. Unfortunately, Moonchild and his furstrag self couldn't handle the project being up, files a bullshit DMCA against Male Poon, and gets it taken down . (archive of the github repo )

Mourning on /g/

the palemoon sub discusses

The good news? There are mirrors off Github, so the browser stays for now

Mirror #1

Mirror #2

Mirror #3

/g/ thread where ManchildProductions discusses where to move his beloved project (archive here)

Part 2

Numerous people forked the Male Poon project, and you know what Moonchild and his pathetic manchild army did? You guessed it, HE FILED DMCAS AGAINST EVERYONE WHO FORKED MALE POON ON GITHUB

Twitter thread

The same individual (the one in the twitter link) forked Male Poon and renamed it Orbit Navigator with the specified purpose of making Tobin sneed. No sneed post from Tobin that I could find yet, but will update if there is one.

/g/entoomen discussing the DMCAs

Pastebin version of the DMCA

Bonus

Unrelated to the Male Poon Drama, Tobin also filed a DMCA against roytam1's Binary Outcast fork (fork is still up as of today) due to commits that were allegedly stolen according to this thread.

Correction: looks like the commits were taken down but the browser remains (all commits liked in the dmca 404)

Other

KiwiFarms thread where I obtained most of the info provided

In case anyone wants to try out Male Poon, you can download binaries here

LMFAO this is an extremely long effortpost.

Nathan, 26, Austin TX

Personal:

• Wearing a $600 watch timestamp

  • Claims he got it on sale 20% off

• "It was a Christmas gift for myself"

• "It's a nice watch, I wanna get another one I just don't have the funds to do so right now. But as soon as I do I'm gonna get one" timestamp

• "Did you graduate high school?" timestamp

  • "Yeah, it was hard though" "Numbers and stuff, the start to look funny after a while"

• "You bought yourself a watch and you said you'd do it again" timestamp

  • "Well I bought myself some - uh nevermind"

Career:

• "I sell cars" "Gross" timestamp

• "My customers love me"

• "I don't just care about my commission checks, I care about people"

• New car place for 2 months

  • first month between two and three thousand

  • Attempt to figure out just how much he makes timestamp

    • "They take it back when I get my commission check"

    • "It's hard to say just what I make... I don't pay attention to it"

  • Was making 7 or 8 thousand dollars a month at his old car place

    • Thinks he will need 4 months to ramp back up to this

    • Had gotten a promotion at his old place but didn't like it as much as he thought it would be

• "Well there's also the 1099 income from the manufacturer.... I didn't report that so I guess it could be something extra" timestamp

  • "I didn't have the money to pay the taxes on it, I spent it all"

• Not setting money aside for taxes?

• Checks his March income later timestamp

  • 9'000 before taxes and minimum wage removal, around 6'000 after all that is taken out

Finances:

• He has two phones because he wanted two phone numbers

• "[The debt]'s not 'new new' it's been there, it just got worse" timestam

• Credit Card 1 (Revy) (302,32) timestamp

  • 205 amount past due, "I had to pay my rent so I couldn't pay the card"

  • 4 months of missed payments, what a king. Frick that card.

• Credit Card 2 (CreditOne) ($500/$500) timestamp

  • Got this one after the repo - only card that would "help him out"

  • He thinks this one is closed but not sent to collections yet

• Credit Card 3 (Also CreditOne) [timestamp](https://youtube.com/watch?v=EdQqpTHnzlQ%26t%3D12860

• Card 3 (738)

  • $125 past due - 2 payments

• Credit Card 3 (Also CreditOne) (1500/1200) timestamp

  • $268 past due (3 payments)

• Credit Card 4 timestamp

  • He paid this off "It's on automatic payments"

  • "I didn't catch it in time, if I'd a caught then that one would not be on autopay"

• Credit Card 5 timestamp

  • $1 of credit free

• Rent $2250 a month

  • Rents a townhouse timestamp

  • Two bed, two bath, attached two car

  • Signed lease last year, just resigned in February

• Car got repoed "that was in the past" timestamp

  • 4 years ago "That wasn't my fault though, that was somebody else that did that"

• "My plan is to make more money"

• CashApp Payments timestamp

• Car (14'000) [timestamp](https://youtube.com/watch?v=EdQqpTHnzlQ%26t%3D1557

  • Paid the car bill late, ate a $20 late fee

  • Caleb seethes over a 2015 Chrysler 200 for some reason

  • "It was a steal"

    • dealership advertised a price but then charged him a higher price

    • Got it in 2020

  • 24% interest rate, got this car soon after his other was repoed

  • Doesn't drive this around?

    • Doesn't drive it around because he got a new car, he's trying to sell and find someone gullible to take over the payments timestamp

      • "So you're going to prey on people"

        • "Nah I'm helpin help them out, it's like a quid pro quo"

  • Has hail damage. There's some weird insurance thing timestamp

  • Owes 14'000 on this $8'000 car timestamp

    • "So that's not super terrible"

• Car 2 (28'700) timestamp

  • Mercedes, this is the one he drives around

  • $650 minimum payment

  • 18% interest rate

  • "It's in really good condition"

• Car 3 (13'700) timestamp

  • This was the one that got repoed

  • Nissan

  • Was in a relationship for 3-4 years, he bought a car for her mother, the mother made payments on it for 6 months but when the relationship ended and she stopped paying on it

• Energy Bill from 2023 that he didn't pay

  • From his old place probably, he didn't know about it

  • $600 bill

  • "You paid for your credit report and you never went through it once?!" timestamp

    • "No"

• Personal Loan

  • Mentioned and then forgotten about?

• Checking Account (-$50) timestmap

  • Lots of eating out lmao

  • He's subbed to near a dozen streaming services

    • "I be watchin shows"

• Credit Score 567 timestamp

  • "It was worse but I've put in work"

Finances Pie Chart timestamp

Attempts to form a budgeting plan timestamp

Elise, 24, Houston TX

Career:

• Cashier HEB

  • Spending a lot at HEB

    • says she spent on water bottles

  • $1'348 income

  • been doing this job for 5 years timestamp

    • 

  • HEB only lets her work up to 35 hours

• "I've been looking for jobs that are like salary paying jobs but I don't know where to look" timestamp

Personal Life/Education:

• Mentions she got pell grants, scholarships and some other stuff for undergrad timestamp

• Studying for LSAT

  • Future Lawyer

  • "I want to go to a good law school but it's debatable what's good" timestamp

    • Mentions UT and Michigan as ones she's looking at?

  • Father says she has to go to law school or move out

    • He got several degrees blah blah blah, has a hundred thousand in student debt?

  • Father wants her to just take out loans for law school? She wants to wait a few years and pay off debts?

    • 

  • Poli Sci Degree undergrad

• Lives with her dad

  • Moved back home after graduating college in May 2023

• Claims she found his channel last month and has only then changed her spending

• Didn't work from January to mid-March

  • Exhumes grandfather's body to defend her timestamp

  • Revises this later to not working for 5 months this year timestamp

Spending/Debts:

• Credit Score - 640

• Multiple overdrafts

• Missed payments on multiple debts

• Carrying balances on cards (still spending on them)

  • Justification - timestamp

• Lots of eating out

  • Reading through it - timestamp

• "Why is all going to 'frick you' spending?"

  • timestamp

• "This was your most recent statement though, so this just happened

  • Justification for only just changing spending timestamp

• Synchrony (Card 1. $1216.73 => $1280.56 timestamp

  • Missed payment

  • $77 minimum payment, next is $117 due, normal is $40?

  • $23 in interest added

  • $40 of fees

  • Totals for 2023 on this card:

    • $189.00 in fees

    • $195.27 interest

    • $284.50 interest paid?

• Discovery Card (Card 2. $773 => $697

  • $38 minimum payment

  • Made $93 in payments

  • $17 in interest charged

  • Totals for 2023:

    • $30 in fees

    • $137.76 in interest

• TDE Credit Union (Card 3. 2'608 => $2'558:

  • $58 over the credit limit

  • $25 fees

  • $29 interest

  • 2023 total:

    • $125 fees (5 missed payments)

    • $264 interest

• Car 2020 Toyota Corolla $23'812 remaining 17.17% interest rate

  • $563 payment

  • $28.18 late fee

  • Probably worth about $17'000

  • Got car May of 2022

  • Went full r-slur at the dealership out of laziness holy shit she's a born mark

  • Storytime - timestamp

    • So I just let the dealer run my credit and told him I wanted whatever I was approved for

    • Why didn't you like go with someone?

      • I was trying to hide it from my parents

  • Why have you not sold it?

    • Attempted justification timestamp

    • Underwater 8 or 9 thousand dollars

• AT&T (1150?) timestamp

  • Past due $506, says she's caught up now though

  • Normal payment is $230 (includes cell service)

  • Phone, iPad, Apple Watch

    • "You're not even wearing it!"

      • "I left it in my car"

    • Nothing owed on the phone ("trade-in value")

    • $286 on the watch

    • $900 on the iPad

  • Tried to return the watch (failed)

    • Caleb tells her to sell it

• Freedom(?) (Card 4. 1365 => 1233

  • 165 payment made

  • $33 in interest

  • $45 minimum payment

• Student Loans: 27'000 timestamp

  • in grace period right now, extended from November to next May

    • "You get another one if you request it"

  • Planning on deferring them again when she goes to law school

• TDECU Checking Account timestamp

  • $5 balance

  • Spent $12 on a car wash

• Affirms ($300) timestamp

  • around $40 minimum

• Checking Account -$11.69 timestamp

  • she got another car wash from this one

Budget Segment timestamp

• $1070 total minimum payments

Evening all.

I don't know how I feel about inhabiting this place. But I do know I can use it to draft.

Shiri's Slippers

Long time readers will know of my grudge with Scott Alexander, high priest of the SFBA Rationalist Cult. Previously it was suggested that we begin a bombing run of their spaces but I called a 'hold.' Honestly there's no time like the present.

Ultimately my problem with these people is that the demand the status of seriousness without being willing to do the work to be serious. In forums like /r/theschism or themotte, the topics of the day have been, bizarrely, subtracted out of the conversation.

The most important political conversation happening today is about the Supreme Court ruling on the immunity which a President enjoys.

You won't see this talked about.

See I used to think that Scott Alexander's "You Are Still Calling Wolf" was the most damaging piece Scott ever wrote. For his own reputation. For the political damage it did to the brains of his followers.

Scott Alexander doesn't think of himself as a cult leader of course, even though his followers do, and have regular struggle sessions about this fact. See this hilarious exchange in which a twitter thread praises Scott Alexander for not being a prophet.

Now I can't assume everyone has familiarity with the spiritual mechanisms Scott Alexander has engaged with. To recap: Scott Alexander self-consciously wrote Unsong to imitate schizophrenic individuals attempting to write a holy text. Scott Alexander copied the prophet motion without, apparently, understanding what it meant that he did this for his followers.

Then his followers didn't do this either.

The other very very funny recurrence at work here is the SFBA Rationalist Cult's founder, whose work included a number of overtly spiritual calls, led to an early incident in the cult history where they linked hands and sang "We are not a cult." To this day SFBA Rationalist Cultists, when they gather, engage in praise of the founder under an ambiguous amount of irony. And as you all know at this point: in a post-ironic world, all expression is genuine. (I'm referring here to the Valentine's Day musical that some postrats put on as a dating show.)

So these people all have this habitual denial of their spiritual connection. They Think They're Atheists, and atheists can't be in a cult. And if it is a cult, they think it's a benign one, a harmless one, if they're pressed. But secretly, they believe they are an elevated specimen of human thinker, and this was accomplished with Shiri's Slippers.

I thought they were a harmless cult when I first encountered them. The most devastating review of the founder's work was always: what's novel in it isn't good, and what's good in it isn't novel. The SFBA Rationalist Cult literally bricked a bunch of minds in the 2010s and we're only still figuring this out.

Because the consequences of Scott Alexander's foray into politics were that he was one of the foremost beacons of fascism denialism. These people all had a grudge against the academy. They think they're better than schooling. But then they create their own forms and fall down dead wrong.

It turns out that the fools at the academy are better equipped.

There's this crackpot tinge of resentment against the fools at the academy for rejecting their founder's bad writing as bad writing. This is one of the things that make them less a harmless cult and more a destructive torment nexus of incompetence. It's not a coincidence that these people developed idiot confidence and SBF is now under arrest for Big Fraud. They're all frauds. They can't even function as a cult because of their bizarre denial complex around their cultishness.

The consequentialist argument against the utility of the SFBA Rationalist Cult goes something like:

The consequences of Scott Alexander's writing is an island of people separated from mainstream intellectual politics. They're really alone out there.

Fascism

At this point I think it's more important than ever to drag Scott Alexander's flock kicking and screaming into accepting that they were wrong about the fascism. That doesn't mean that I need them to immediately endorse the use of the term 'fascism.'

If there's one thing that I wish they understood, it's that whatever it is that Trumpism represented, the people who were warning of the danger Trump faced were not overreacting. The wolf was real. This incompetence and waste of energy in our politics is an authoritarian bound now by legal processes. They seemed to think that Trump could never succeed at instituting a fascistic purge, and that therefore the people who were warning of Trump's desire to implement a fascist purge were overreacting.

Whether or not the wolf can succeed is somewhat independent of whether or not the wolf exists.

But the real bad wrong turn that Scott Alexander took was writing "Shiri's Scissors."

Shiri's Scissors

Scott postulated a class of controversial statement that caused irrational behavior in people, dividing them from one another. And I was confused by this at first because I was at this point understanding that these people coin phrases as if by instinct. What Scott Alexander was pointing to with "Shiri's Scissors" was the mere word

CONTROVERSIAL.

This is what made Shiri's Scissors an unnecessary concept and bad writing. Controversial topics have always existed.

And I tried to take this up with someone in Scott Alexander's circle and they resisted my notion that it was a pointless concept.

Only now do I understand that there's an alchemical process at work in Shiri's Scissors: it allows people to view controversy as enabling irrational behavior and therefore discarding them.

Instead of controversy being an invitation to dispute, a marker around discourse's present topics of conversation, Shiri's Scissor allowed these cultists to subtract themselves from discourse.

Controversial topics have always existed. Concepts which justified disregarding people who reacted to controversial topics have not.

With Shiri's Scissors

Scott Alexander Cut The Cord

TETHERING

His Cult

To Political Reality

Whether or not you want to use the term fascist, the gathering of physical forces armed with actual weapons to assault the Capitol on 1/6 was an act of war which is exactly the kind of thing the leftists have been warning about. But Scott Alexander and his flock aren't tuned into the Supreme Court hearing today on the most important subject of most thinking minds.

They put Shiri's Slippers on and just walked away. Right off of the map (IN POLITICS THE TERRITORY IS THE MAP IS THE TERRITORY) into a domain of their own making, still bitter at the fact that other people dared find their intellectual contribution bad.

See Shiri's Scissors/Slippers, as a concept, create a reality in which there's just these bizarre artifacts in discourse which are incomprehensible. It makes discourse not just unnecessary but impossible because it contains within it the assumption of the unreasonable (AND THEREFORE, TO THESE BRICKED CULTISTS, INCOMPREHENSIBLE) nature of those with which they interacted with politically.

Postscripts

Cult Takes on Christian Nationalism

An interesting sampling of the topics du jour of these spaces. Both TheMotte and TheSchism platformed this curious bit of "rationality" around the decrease in Christian Nationalism by raw percent. I don't think it's a stretch to say that this is motivated reasoning: these people want to believe that fears of a Christian theocracy are overstated. TheMotte, and TheSchism.

It's not within their capacity to understand that a threatened minority might resort to fascism, the fascism might drive people away from the church, and that Christian Nationalism can still be a very real threat. These are the people who have said nothing about the Trump Supreme Court case.

Cult Takes on Lab Leak Origins for Coronavirus

Now I will admit that I'm more willing to believe that COVID came from zoonosis than I was before engaging this material. But I want to share some reading I've done in Blood Money, a book about Chinese mindsets and tactics in dealing with the US as an adversary.

Roughly, the Wuhan lab was built with the help of French scientists. Then the Chinese government kicked the French scientists out.

It was always a possible black site.

Scott Alexander's coverage of his cult's perfect thinking about perfect thinking about viruses is one of the worst things Scott Alexander wrote, but not the most damaging.

As mentioned earlier, the DEFUSE grant was rejected. Further, the grant said that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was responsible for finding the viruses, and the University of North Carolina would do all the gain-of-function research. This was a reasonable division of labor, since UNC was actually good at gain-of-function research, and WIV mostly wasn't. They had done a few very simple gain-of-function projects before, but weren't really set up for this particular proposal and were happy to leave it for their American colleagues.

Even if WIV did try to create COVID, they couldn't have. As Yuri said, COVID looks like BANAL-52 plus a furin cleavage site. But WIV didn't have BANAL-52. It wasn't discovered until after the COVID pandemic started, when scientists scoured the area for potential COVID relatives. WIV had a more distant COVID relative, RATG-13. But you can't create COVID from RATG-13; they're too different. You would need BANAL-52, or some as-yet-undiscovered extremely close relative. WIV had neither.

Are we sure they had neither? Yes. Remember, WIV's whole job was looking for new coronaviruses. They published lists of which ones they had found pretty regularly. They published their last list in mid-2019, just a few months before the pandemic. Although lab leak proponents claimed these lists showed weird discrepancies, this was just their inability to keep names consistent, and all the lists showed basically the same viruses (plus a few extra on the later ones, as they kept discovering more). The lists didn't include BANAL-52 or any other suitable COVID relatives - only RATG-13, which isn't close enough to work.

Could they have been keeping their discovery of BANAL-52 secret? No. Pre-pandemic, there was nothing interesting about it; our understanding of virology wasn't good enough to point this out as a potential pandemic candidate. WIV did its gain-of-function research openly and proudly (before the pandemic, gain-of-function wasn't as unpopular as it is now) so it's not like they wanted to keep it secret because they might gain-of-function it later. Their lists very clearly showed they had no virus they could create COVID from, and they had no reason to hide it if they did.

If there's one thing I want you to understand, it's this:

These people have almost no ability to understand deception.

The notion that China lies about the purposes of the lab just doesn't enter the picture.

Are you sure the Chinese would not use US science to create a virus that then escaped?

And then lie about it?

We're not going to know the truth. China may never reveal what it knows. But these people are not very good at finding the truth because they're not very good at understanding lies.

And these are the people who believe that AI can be 'aligned.'

They fundamentally don't understand humans. They don't understand deception.

They refuse to see the wolf of the present political era. They have deliberately chosen to walk away from mainstream politics with their Magic Stupid Slippers.

This is what a truly dangerous cult looks like. Most dangerous cults self-destruct. The bad ones are those that get big enough to confuse a large enough number of people.

POV: You're Scott Alexander and you're tired at people yelling at you about the fascism your side missed.

There's also a pattern I want to discourage, where one side will come up with some new trivial finding, or re-dredge up and re-package something that everyone already everyone else had already considered, then release it as THE SMOKING GUN! Then they release another SMOKING GUN!, and another, and after five or six SMOKING GUNS, they say their opponents are stubborn and refuse to yield to evidence, since they've obstinately ignored every single SMOKING GUN! without changing their probability even a little bit.

I've saved the chaser. This is how Scott chose to close his coverage.

But fifth, if the coronavirus' story is a comedy, all of this - Rootclaim, the debate, the $100K - is a tragedy. Saar got $100 million, decided to devote a big part of his life to improving human reasoning, and came up with a really elegant system. He was so confident in his system, and in the power of open discussion, that he risked his money and reputation on an accept-all-comers debate offer . Then some rando who nobody had ever heard of accepted the challenge, turned out to be some kind of weird debate savant, and won, turning what should have been Rootclaim's moment of triumph into a bitter defeat. Totally new kind of human suffering, worthy of Shakespeare.

I look forward to the movie, especially seeing who plays the dashing young blogger who helped the participants meet.

POV: You're the high priest of a cult of reason, worshiping a false god of perfect information, perfectly understood. These people don't just believe that salvation is possible through brainthinking alone, they believe that they have achieved salvation and are enlightened by their own intelligence.

Even as they stand in proud ignorance of contemporary politics.

This is a topic dear to me, and one I struggle to write about. For years I identified as asexual. To this day, I am still trying to make sense of why I did so, and what my feelings were at the time. It was not a farce - I genuinely believed I lacked any source of sexual attraction.

I think part of it is just having a low libido. That is to say, my interest in s*x is low, but not non-existent. Secondly, Being asexual is the less painful route. To be a heterosexual male is to expose yourself to a world of rejection and of finding common ground with women. I don't think most women understand how terrifying they are, and how crippling the thought of talking to them is. It feels like a life or death situation, especially if you have social anxiety to top things off.

Lastly, I do believe that sexuality is fluid and can change over one's lifetime. I think some may disagree with me on this one. What I am arguing is that, for example, a lesbian woman might find herself developing an attraction to men in her thirties, either due to changing neurochemistry or improved self-knowledge. For others, it may be a case of sexuality influenced by trauma which, once overcome, reveals a different sexuality.

Might environment play a role? We've all heard of the concept of being prison gay? Personally, I don't believe that environment plays a significant role in sexuality, at least not outside of the womb. I think youngsters might try on different sexualities in their teens and twenties, but this does not represent their true biological sexuality. For example, a woman might experiment with another woman during her first year of university because she's in an environment where the LGBT kids seem to be the cool ones, but she never experiences true sexual attraction to women. Remember, actions are not the same as attraction.

With that out the way, I think we can begin this discussion. It's going to be a long one, but when have my posts ever been short?

What is asexuality?

One of the earliest mentions of the term “asexual” can be found in Lisa Orlandos's Asexual Manifesto written in 1972. This is a feminist text in which women declare that they want relationships in which s*x is not a factor. As the text explains:

Consequently, the feminist roots of the sexuality cannot be denied. Though the sexuality may have existed before 1972, the way we understand it today is almost entirely forged by feminist discourse and of course the concept of "political asexuality" where one chooses to be asexual. This concept sits alongside "political lesbianism". I reject both concepts and assert that one cannot choose their sexuality and that reducing sexuality to the theoretical political realm is to foolishly ignore the material biological realm.

Asexuality is not celibacy. One chooses to be celibate but one does not choose to be asexual and therefore is essentially asexual. Of course, as I did, one can mistakenly believe they are asexual. This is also true of women who are unable to engage in penetrative heterosexual s*x due to chronic pain, and of disabled people.

In many ways, asexuality shares commonalities with the various members of the LGBT community. Roughly 1.05% of the population claim they have never felt sexual attraction to anyone at all. Some, though not all, studies suggest that more women than men are asexual.

So Are Asexuals Sick?

When research was done, it was found that asexual men had higher rates of mood disorders than heterosexual men; asexual women and men had higher rates of anxiety than heterosexual men and women. These researchers also provided evidence suggesting that asexuality can be conceptualized as or akin to Schizoid personality type from the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, 4th Edition (DSM-IV). Specifically, asexual people endorsed greater social inhibition, and coldness/social distance with vindictive and exploitable personality styles. To explain this finding, researchers postulate that asexual people have avoidant attachment styles as children that may have led to relationship issues as adults.

Thus, researchers concluded that asexuality may not be the cause of these factors but may be a product of social functioning. Specifically, “increased mental health problems may be a consequence of discrimination or a consequence of lacking sexual attraction in an environment that is arguably centered on sexuality”. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that asexual individuals may also experience psychological distress as a consequence of their marginalization.

It has been suggested that those who lack sexual attraction but have yet to find community may experience more isolation, distress, and confusion. In other words, individuals who have yet to “come out” as asexual, may be in greater distress than those who have reached an integrated asexual identity.

With that being said, Several papers have shown connections between the presence of the asexual phenotype and traits that are found in mental illness patients, specifically those with Asperger's syndrome or Schizoid personality disorder.

The Sexual Assumption

I know those who dare to even open this post will already be sneeding, ready to assert that asexuality isn't real. This is something asexual people are used to. It is known as the sexual assumption. Humans are considered to be creatures with innate sexual desires. Consequently, one of the most pervasive social assumptions is that all humans have sexual desires. This sexual assumption manifests in various fields of knowledge such as psychology and medicine where sexuality is seen as a natural, healthy, and essential aspect of the human. Tell your doctor you're asexual, they'll probably think you're sick. The same goes for your psychiatrist. One of the people you can blame for this is Sigmund Freud who had a huge influence on psychology but assigned a sexual basis to basically every aspect of human psychology.

According to research, these are the common assumptions about asexuals:

individuals who identify as asexual cannot fall in love, do not have s*x, have been the victim of sexual abuse, have chosen to be celibate or abstinent, are not attracted to anyone, just need to find the right person, are sociopaths or nonfeeling, are sexually deviant, are sexually frustrated, are denying their feelings, do not masturbate, do not enjoy any sexual activity, will be/live single/alone forever, or that the asexual orientation is just not real

The consequences of this should not be ignored or taken. Research by Cara MacInnes et al reveals that “sexual desire is considered a key component of human nature, and those lacking it are viewed as relatively deficient, less human, and disliked”. In a questionnaire distributed among undergraduate students, “asexuals were attributed significantly lower uniquely human traits than any other sexual orientation group”. Yes, if you're asexual, you're seen as less human than others.

Thanks to folks like Freud, furthermore, asexuality is often pathologized and seen as a detrimental deviation from a normative mode of being which can cause mental health issues. Some asexuals are led to believe they are sick and have hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

As I'm sure you know, underlying the sexual assumption is the concept of compulsory heterosexuality. Compulsory heterosexuality can be defined as the assumption that heterosexuality is the default sexuality. This idea permeates society due to the manifold ways it is enforced both subtly and overtly. The assumption that all people are innately heterosexual is fraught with problems as it results in all other sexual orientations being erased, pathologized, or seen as deviancies which must be corrected.

In the next few sections, we'll have a look at whether asexuals are discriminated against. Is anyone being oppressed for not fricking?!

The Weirdness of Asexuality

I would argue that asexuality challenges society's construction of humans as inherently sexual and hence can be thought of as anarchic. While asexual marriages have never been specifically outlawed, definitions of marriage typically assume sexual activity between spouses. In some US states, for example, nonconsummation of a marriage is a ground for voiding the marriage. Fortunately, it has never been illegal to have asexual inclinations. Thus, while asexuals may face problems in their personal lives, they have never had to counter any legally enforced oppression.

Similar religious prohibitions of asexual marriage can be found in faith systems such as Christianity where, in 1 Corinthians 7, it is written that “each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband”. The verse goes on to instruct married couples to only abstain temporarily, and for the sake of prayer, after which they should return to their marriage duties lest they be tempted by Satan.

Such laws and religious doctrines assume sexual activity as an integral part of marriage and consequently make asexual marriages anarchic.

The anarchic qualities of asexuality are not limited to State laws and their religious appendages, however. Broadly speaking, anarchy can be defined as a movement that attempts to, as Noam Chomsky writes, “dismantle […] forms of authority and oppression”. One of the forms of oppression anarchy hopes to dismantle is representation. While many view anarchism as a movement that opposes the representation of democracy, as Cohn explains, “anarchism extends its opposition to ‘any form of representation'”. Asexuality, by defying the sexual assumption, has the potential to be an identity that opposes prevailing human representations.

So how does one wield this anarchic power? We can learn from Judith Butler. She tells a story of once walking the streets and having someone, in a derogatory tone, ask her if she's a lesbian. Butler's response? Why yes I am! Don't fear to embrace your uniqueness!

In a way, asexuals are the ultimate rebels. They refuse to create new life, or even to reproduce the social and cultural continuity in the form of a heterosexual monogamous marriage. By not producing future consumers and producers of economic goods, asexuals partake in social non-productivity and take economic advantage of the well-adjusted elements of society, and this is based in my books. Anyone still reading?

Asexuality and Race

I am a black man, which made it harder for me to identify as asexual. Historically, black men have been hypersexualized (think https://BLACKED.com), thus the asexual label is seen as incongruent. Associations of black males with hypersexuality can be traced back to early colonial discourse where blackness was associated with savagery and primitivity. Hence, the hypersexuality of the black male was simply another way of framing the black male as bestial, crude, and less civilized than the white colonisers. This strong association of black males with hypersexuality poses a problem for black males who are asexual, as it represents a contradiction. They are rendered illegible, as language has not created a non-contradictory means for such individuals to describe themselves.

Fortunately, as a 5 foot 1 male, I am seldom sexualized, so when I identified as asexual, it was not questioned all too much regardless of my race.

It should be noted that hypersexuality is inflicted upon all men to some degree. Hence, being an asexual male invites prejudice regardless of your race. masculinity and sexuality are so inextricably knotted together that when men face sexual problems such as erectile dysfunction, they see it as a loss of manhood. Consequently, asexuality in men is much more pathologized than in women. My research reveals that "identifying as asexual (or more precisely, their disinterest in attracting a sexual partner) meant they felt they did not have to conform to particular gendered standards of appearance". As a male who wears a LOT of pink and paints his nails, yes being asexual freed me of the notion of having to look masculine.

Asexuality and Media

As you can imagine, asexuality is seldom represented in our hypersexualized media landscape. Due to the limited awareness of asexuality, relatively few asexual characters can be found in literature and even less can be found which could be considered as examples of positive representation. The absence of positive asexual characters can have an alienating effect on those who identify as asexual and find themselves in a culture that promotes sexuality as a normal part of human existence.

AVEN

I'd like to end off by discussing AVEN. No, not the creator of this site. I'm talking about the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network which has been pivotal in the asexuality movement. There is currently underway a small social movement, perhaps akin to the gay rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which has brought together people who identify as asexual.

It was founded in 2001 by David Jay as a place for asexuals to interact, and for people to share resources regarding asexuality. AVEN facilitates not only asexual identities but also conveys the importance of ‘legitimizing' asexuality as a biological or innate characteristic, not as a choice like celibacy. For many asexual individuals, the internet has facilitated the discovery, not only of a language by which to describe themselves and a community that offers support and acceptance but also a way of thinking about their asexuality as an essential characteristic of themselves. No, this doesn't mean the internet is turning people ace.

According to David Jay, sexual people who identify as highly s*x-positive, after overcoming their initial skepticism about asexuality, often end up the strongest allies and supporters of asexuals, and those who are asexual find the site to be a place of solace.

Conclusion

I deeply miss being asexual. It was safe. Women weren't scary to me. Since dropping the label, I have felt this intense pressure to fulfill heterosexual obligations such as finding a partner and having s*x. However, as a truecel, it could be the case that it'll never happen. I heard my neighbors have s*x this evening. It felt like a gut punch.

I did try to tell a girl I like her but it failed. The worst part is that we're still friends and she constantly talks about the love we share for each other and how special our friendship is. It hurts so bad. I don't want to be your friend, I want to be your boyfriend. Why do women do this? You know I have a crush on you, I literally told you and you turned me down, yet you talk about how much you love me. Do you know what that does to my emotions?!

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Sorry for the longpost. It was either this or harm myself with something in the house. My thoughts aren't racing so much anymore and the self-harm compulsions have quietened a bit. I only slept for about an hour and a half. On Wednesday, my psychologist suspected I'm entering hypomania and it seems so. She said it's dangerous because it's followed by depression so I have to be careful and that it's exacerbated by a lack of sleep but I don't feel like I need sleep.

If you read this whole thing, I'm impressed.

Greetings Dramastrags

I was watching some utube vids last night when I came a cross a compilation of of the worst Burgerland national anthem renditions of all time and it instantly brought me back to memory lane 13 years ago in 2009 when the absolute worst most atrocious version of the South African national anthem had been sung before!

So the year is 2009! On 15 November, the RSA rugby team, the Springboks :marseysa:, are facing off against the frogs in the Test Match. It was a good season, and SA team had been doing reasonably well.

Scheduled to sing the South African anthem, was Ras Dumisani. And whoooooooooooooooooooooh boi, it was not Ayoba. Haibo boys, it was fricking KAK! A highschooler with a breaking voice would have sung it better.

https://www.iol.co.za/sport/rugby/springboks/watch-from-kurt-darren-to-ras-dumisani-the-3-times-the-sa-national-anthem-was-butchered-live-f94ac40c-651b-4cea-9f4e-ed2e2b484a50

"In 2009, Ras Dumisani was asked to sing the national anthem for South Africa before the Springboks took on hosts France, a match they would go on to lose 20-13. Though the Springboks would have been left deflated after their defeat, they certainly did not receive any inspiration before the clash from Dumisani. He struggled to hold a note and he seemed to have no idea what the anthem should actually sound like."

I remember the good old days of physical newspapers, where my father or older male family members would give me R20 each sunday for me and/or sister to go down too the cafe and buy them a newspaper, and keep the change as reward. And if there was a notable event that week, he would call us and read out loud the country's latest corruption/shenanigans. That November, the Sunday after the Test match was national drama and sneed after what was considered by the entire rainbow nation, by all of its races, by all of its physical newspapers and fledgling social media, as the absofucinglute woooorst national anthem ever sung by man's lips

I remember vividly the front page Rapport afrikaans newspaper having a short and column written in the sports section, where literally NOTHING was mentioned regarding the events taken during the match, just 5 paragraphs detailing this controversy and its outlandishness. With a single fricking sentence following the drama, as if in summation: the Boks lost 20-13 implying the kak singing was the primary cause of the lose.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/16/ras-dumisani-south-african-anthem

=====(from article)

It was not just bad. It was not-knowing-where-to-look bad. And the man responsible is rapidly becoming public enemy number one in South Africa.

Reggae singer Ras Dumisani mauled, mutilated and murdered the national anthem in a hilariously off-key rendition before South Africa played France in a rugby international last Friday.

Some fans in Toulouse were in fits of laughter, but the Springboks players looked incredulous during the sub-karaoke wailing and later complained that it robbed them of inspiration.

Unfortunately for Dumisani, who was flanked by two bongo players, South Africa takes rugby very seriously. Outraged critics are blaming him for their team's 20-13 defeat in a heated national debate that is escalating in newspapers, radio stations and Facebook, where one group is called "Ban Ras Dumisani From Ever Singing Again"

The South African Rugby Union has written to its French counterpart to complain that Dumisani's tuneless attempt at Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika ("God Bless Africa" in Xhosa) was "absolutely disrespectful". This is despite his name having been on a shortlist of artists drawn up by the South African embassy in Paris.

Even politicians, normally preoccupied with crime, race and the economy, are piling in with strong opinions. The Congress of the People (remember these guys ) called Dumisani's rendition a "vocal misfire", saying: "It looked as though it came right out of the blooper reel of a reality TV singing show."

The Young Communist League of South Africa said Dumisani was a "howler of note" and should sing "only in his shower".

====(end)

There's a bunch of articles with lists of worst sung national anthems, but I personally believe none of the other artists can hold a candle to Ras Dumisani's bad performance, or had such a high profile public event involved.

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/sport/rugby/springboks/springboks-watch-rendition-sa-anthem-trending-breaking-monday-21-novembr-2022/

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-04-17-watch-three-times-the-sa-national-anthem-was-mauled/

https://www.enca.com/life/watch-worst-anthem-blunders

You get the idea.

Here it is by the ways - Ras Dumisani sings what he believes to be his beautiful version of the South African National Anthem, before the 20-13 Test match defeat to France.

Lol, Schalk Burger was a rough and tough player which was memed that he started destroying the opposition whenever he wen Hulk mode

Bryan Habana, perhaps the most infamous and best coloured Rugby player in all of SA history trying not to lose his shit

SOME BONUS CONTENT: SHIT KAK BURGERLAND NATIONAL ANTHEM RENDITIONS!!!!!!!!

What inspired me to absolutely have to make this post.

Ron, 33, Nashville TN

Self-rated 3/10 situation

Personal Life:

• Falling out with his parents

  • Says father was emotionally abusive/manipulative

  • Has since mended bridges with them somewhat?

  • Asked if he could move back in after getting a remote job, they said no

  • Good relationship with his mother, bad with his father, they are still married?

    • Mother makes 200'000?

• Debt from early 20s moving out of his parents house

  • Story time about being a boozer - timestamp

  • Was van living for a little while so more money to party

    • Stopped in late 2019 early 2020

• Addicted to Mountain Dew timestamp

  • Goes through 2 a day, doesn't buy from stores, just from gas stations or dunkin donuts?

  • "If it's a bad day I will go and get more"

• "Do you have diabetes?" timestamp

  • "Not that I know of, I haven't been to a doctor in 5 years"

  • Blood sugar test timestamp

    • "I don't have diabetes by the way I just have all medical equipment possible because I'm afraid of something going.. bad"

    • New Caleb lore - he is terrified of needles and blood plus is some sort of paranoid

    • Apparently he does not have diabetes?

• Brother had addiction stuff as well? (marijuana and alchy)

Career:

• Tried to apply for real jobs out of school, never got callbacks

  • timestamp

• Call center 40 hour week

  • $18 an hour

• Starting a second job in a couple weeks

  • Variable, $18.50 after 5, $20 weekends

  • Also 40 hours?

  • Call center stuff but different from the other call center

• Some online stuff

  • Runs DnD games online

    • 3 hours a piece depending on how much he needs to prep

    • $600 a month or so

      • 1 game ended

    • Using some site for this that pimps out DMs

    • Made 10k last year from this

    • Runs these games through his phone? "Only reason I bought it"

    • uses Fiverr people to do stuff for it?

• Got a cat recently, photo shown to camera timestamp

• His mother gave him 1'300 total last month

Expenses:

• Mountain Dew:

  • Unreal amounts of mountain dew more than $400 a month

• Rent $1230

  • Low end, not a great neighborhood, pays for laundry not within complex?

Debts:

• Discover Card (Card 1) Around $3000: timestamp

  • Had to put car repairs on it?

  • 4 tires and some maintenance stuff

  • Minimum monthly maybe $30? He's not certain

  • 25% interest

  • Had paid off the card with a personal loan years prior to the car repairs

  • Dunkin Donuts - 2 Dews for $4 "That's how they get you"

• USAA (Card 2) $7712:

  • 20% interest, $631 lost on interest this year

  • Did not spend anything on there

• Costco (Card 3) $908:

  • Paid 218 but made 185 in purchases 14 in interest

  • Credit limit of 750

  • Thinks the purchases were all unnecessary

  • 30% interest

• Car: 2010 Toyota Camry

  • 130'000 miles

  • $5438 left on it

  • 4.99% interest rate

  • Bought right before the pandemic hit

• Personal Loan $18'173 timestamp:

  • 2 or 3 cards, and the rest of the loan balance of the van he had, has since sold Van

  • $584 min payment

  • originally 25'000

Student Loans:

• Majored in Business?

• Southern Hampshire University?

• $38'900 federal student loans, Probably 470 minimum payment

• These are why he decided to get a second job

Savings:

• Checking

  • Gets money from his mother?

  • 26.76 => 5132 - 3918 => 1247

• Business Checking account for his DnD thing:

  • "Cloak & Dagger LLC"?

Budget Section timestamp:

• -$1231 between minimum budget and basic survival currently without the second job