What broader issues has the trans (lack of) debate opened your eyes to?

[FredFlintstonesTunic]

For me, it's really exposed how large media platforms (i.e., a few very rich and powerful people) can shape public perceptions (e.g., by blocking, shaming, nudging and belittling certain ideas and/or people, and promoting others).

I'm no longer so quick to dismiss other people's unusual opinions, or to label them "conspiracists" without looking as openly as possible into what they're talking about (including from sources associated with intelligent people not necessarily in the mainstream media). I don't trust Wikipedia (or Urban Dictionary) without question (which I shouldn't have anyway, but...). I have more respect for people who are willing to say unpopular things (e.g., left-wingers who don't like the EU). In general, I'm far more likely to take news stories with a pinch of salt.

Anyone else?

I wish I'd never found out about furries, adult babies, or DDLG (don't look it up unless you want to feel like punching things, revel in your lack of knowledge). The idea that all fetishes are equal is, bluntly, hogwash. "Don't yuck someone else's yum?" Nope, sorry, there are certain things for which I absolutely am judging you (which could easily be avoided by not telling the whole world all about it).

I don't know how to describe the sort of behavior that's flourished due to the mainstreaming of porn in terms of people oversharing and trying to push their fetishes in entirely inappropriate contexts. Sexual incontinence? I'm not arguing for a return to never talking about sex, but surely there's a balance that can be struck between that and posting about your fetish 50 times a day on Tumblr or Twitter, with photos, and then getting into screaming arguments with anyone who's all "um, this is a book group and we were talking about Mansfield Park?" because how dare those people try to shame you (by politely requesting that you cease the kinkspamming).

Yes, Prodigal Kittens. I was one of those people in the 90s who explored kink, and was all "let's talk about sex" as a result of the HIV epidemic and the push for gay rights, and have been genuinely aware of how society has historically shamed and repressed women's sexual interest while tolerating or outright indulging men's. I believed (and still do) that there is genuinely "a lid for every pot," and as long as no-one's being hurt or exploited, and everyone is a mature adult, then most sexual activities are okay as long as you're not blabbing away about them to people who've not shown an interest.

Somewhere, the right for every pot to find its lid has turned into this insane sexual free-for-all where no-one is allowed to have boundaries or show disinterest. (Oh, they can declare themselves asexual to try and escape it, as long as they don't kink shame.) It's horrifying.

I was too, Singasonga. Did not anticipate that turning into this at all.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the 60s free love movement had similarities. As in the preferred narrative wasn't quite how it was and a lot of people, mostly women & girls, were actually quite exploited as a result.

I agree with so much of this. For me, also it's a revelation at how narcissistic a lot of people are. The endless soul-searching "essays" on whether they should identify as non-binary or whether they will ever truly feel what it is to be cis (which is always equated with being boring, passive and accepting of the most ridiculous stereotypes). Just accepting that sex is a binary and all the rest is personality would set them free!

Yes, I'm seeing a lot of parallels with the free love moment, the most extreme version of which were the communes that encouraged polyamory and tried to make out that children belonged to everyone in the community rather than their parents (especially their mothers). Wild Wild Country on Netflix is quite an interesting documentary on that.

The backlash to those extremities and the dark side of the sexual revolution was pretty brutal, and that's the other thing that's pissed me off so much this whole mess. Women's rights and Gay & lesbian rights have come so far over the last few decades, but the recent TRA/lib fem/commercial sex/kink faction of the past 5 years have made such a toxic version of them that I can see a backlash brewing again.

That's the problem with the whole "wrong side of history" narrative. History is only steady line on a graph when change is slow & incremental and the whole of society can adjust for them (as for women's rights and gay & lesbian rights). When you push too fast for a massive revolution (completely ending the material reality of reproduction, insisting that people self-gaslight to be "kind") it turns into a pendulum. I don't want to see the gains we've made lost in the backlash, and I'm tired of being made out to be some sort of bigot for it.

At which point the people responsible for the backlash will just shrug and head back underground, because they don't care about anyone but themselves.

Great point about the parallels with 60s/70s free love and cults. A good deal of the impetus behind second wave feminism for women was realising that while there were civil rights revolutions around class and race and sexuality, they as women were still expected to make the tea, have the babies and put out when required. And they thought, fuck that. It's interesting and inspiring to see a new wave of actual grassroots feminism emerge out of this current madness. It's a hope I cling to.

OvaHere My mum was in her 30s in the 1960s and, as a little girl, I remember her saying something along the lines of 'this will all end up worse for women in the long run'.

thenightsky I think sometimes it takes years/decades of hindsight to pick apart the good and the bad of progress. Undoubtedly the advent of easily available contraception in the form of the pill has had huge benefits but it hasn't been without it's downsides. As with anything they're are people (men) looking to exploit to their advantage.

It could be argued that the current gender movement has some of its roots from good progressive ideas. Which is why more conservative leaning sorts have this attitude of you reap what you sow towards feminists. As with 60s progressiveness though it's ended up being exploited, twisted and used against women.

don't know how to describe the sort of behavior that's flourished due to the mainstreaming of porn in terms of people oversharing and trying to push their fetishes in entirely inappropriate contexts. Sexual incontinence? I'm not arguing for a return to never talking about sex, but surely there's a balance that can be struck between that and posting about your fetish 50 times a day on Tumblr or Twitter, with photos, and then getting into screaming arguments with anyone who's all "um, this is a book group and we were talking about Mansfield Park?" because how dare those people try to shame you (by politely requesting that you cease the kinkspamming).

This description is perfect and kinkspamming is a very useful phrase!

Naive question here - is there an above-chance overlap of kinkspamming, etc., with TRA, or have you encountered this work via learning about TRA but it's completely separate?

this world (of kinkspamming) - not work!!

@TheProdigalKittensReturn - I disobeyed and looked up DDLG.

WTAF.
I mean, that really is horrible.

I was about to ask where it was occurring that you've run into it without searching it, but there are sections on Pinterest and all sorts. Is it just something you run into by accident??

I'd say there's an above average overlap, ime.

I find it incredible how easily we seem to have slipped back into sex stereotypes. Like PPs, I thought the 60s and 70s started a major change in the role of women and, while progress is too fucking slow, the days of little girls playing with Barbie and toy kitchens and growing up to be housewives vs little boys playing with Lego and guns and growing up to have careers were long behind us. Now those stereotypes seem to form a branch of medicine.

I did tell you not to! It's horrible, like despair for the future of humanity horrible. I ran across it via Tumblr, had never heard of it and then within a few months suddenly it was everywhere.

(To be fair Tumblr is a mess in general.)

How corrupt charities can be, looking at you Stonewall. In fact, most organisations are prone to corruption without integrity.
How language has been corrupted.
How postmodernism is detached from reality and truth, it seems to build on words upon words upon word salads that seem logical, but is full of hidden logical fallacies that are not easy to unpick.
How proned to brainwashing most people are.
How little critical , independent thinking there is out there.
How some have cotton onto the cloak of victimhood, to use it for attention seeking and neferious agendas.
How we need to anchor thinking in truth, reality and integrity.

How we are expected to hand over money to charities that are lobby groups and kids in school are bullied into baking bloody cookies and buying plastic tat every year for the honour.

Plenty of fine posts here, real food for thought.

One of my biggest eye openers has been the power of corporations to influence charities, academia and public institutions. I was always wary of this but am beginning to see the details of exactly how well placed donations corrupt these elements of liberal society and I intend to learn more.

In particular, I have seen how Big Pharma pushes its products and now research more about any drug that I am recommended. I know there are limitations to this, I am never going to be a doctor and don't want to become an anti-vax type loon nor the sort of patient who harasses medical staff with information recently grabbed from the net but picking a good book or two on the matter in hand always proves dividends and means I am better placed to make informed decisions when consulting with my doctor.

When I think of how the NSPCC and Barnardo's have bought into this, my blood runs cold. These are people whose job it is to put children's interests first, to protect children's safety above everything else, and yet they have blithely adopted the very policies most likely to put children at risk. I can't get my head around it.

Particularly the NSPCC - they're more than 'just' a charity.

Rubber wanksuit man at the NSPCC and the attempts to dismiss complaints about his behavior pretty much summed up all my misgivings about the gradual creep of the idea that kinks and sexual interests in general are so important and that being able to express them at all times is so vital that literally nothing else matters. When you have people attempting to argue that it should be OK to act out your kinks at your workplace, which is a child protection charity then the shark has been not so much jumped as pirouetted around.

Queer theory thinks that boundaries are bad in any context, and that idea is causing all kinds of harm.

When you have people attempting to argue that it should be OK to act out your kinks at your workplace, which is a child protection charity then the shark has been not so much jumped as pirouetted around.

YY

It's the whole virtue signalling language of woke 'Diversity & Inclusion', and 'being your true self' and 'bringing your whole self to work'.....gosh....I hate woke speak.