Posts by Emma Hart
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
To your formulation "it's how you feel about it", I'd add "how others feel about it".
Yeah. Distress, the Affective Disturbance aspect, is affected by how well your own sexuality fits social expectations. Probably the clearest and least controversial example is the higher suicide rate of LGBT people. That's a problem with society, not a problem with Gay.
And I think that ties in with what you're saying about how that plays out in individual relationships, because people who aren't monogamous-straight-cis-vanilla are quite likely to have at least tried to have a socially conventional relationship, especially if they're older. That pressure to conform leads to other people getting hurt. You can only be honest about what you want if you know and accept what that is.
-
Hard News: Complaint and culture, in reply to B Jones,
Only if you ignore a hundred or so years of actual medical belief that hysteria was a physical issue, with accompanying bogus medical treatments inflicted on women including forced sterilisation within living memory. Context is important.
It wasn't all bad, to be fair, B. The medical concept of hysteria did lead to the invention of the vibrator.
-
Hard News: Complaint and culture, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
I feel vaguely terrified that I’ll be in my mid-50s by the time my child is a teenager.
Nah, it's fine. My mother turned 60 a month after I turned 16, and it wasn't her age that made that year terrifying for her.
-
Up Front: I'll Be in My Bunk, in reply to John Russell,
Watching old Glee episodes instead.
Watch the one with Neil Patrick Harris in it. That’ll be your September Gay Quota right there.
And from a strictly scientific viewpoint, Dr Joycelyn Elders was right. Sometimes the anti-PC brigade can’t handle the truth
One of the most distressing things in that UTNE article is one of the case studies: a woman who got married at eighteen because she thought being allowed to have sex would rid her of these terrible plaguing sexual thoughts. Contrary to everything we hear about marriage and sex drive, it didn’t work.
-
Hard News: Complaint and culture, in reply to DCBCauchi,
I think it’s because no-one actually treats what anyone writes with any genuine respect. No-one approaches things in good faith.
Which site is this you're talking about? Because it cannot be the one that produced this comment thread.
-
Danielle is producing my comments very slightly in advance. This time I hadn't even started typing "how do you know it's not breast milk in the bottle?"
It's very easy to buy a baby doll without a bottle. Not so easy to buy one that comes accompanied by a disembodied breast.
-
Hard News: Complaint and culture, in reply to Ross Mason,
Ask any farmer - sheep or dairy, and tell them to wean their future profit on substitute milk. They would laugh you off the paddock.
This is a bloody stupid metaphor, sorry. Profit motive: the milk from sheep or cows is free. Feed substitutes (and plenty of orphan lambs are bottle-fed, Ross, it used to be my job when I was a kid) cost money.
Ross, you still don't sound like you're listening to the women on this thread, which would seem to indicate that the pressure is all the other way - towards breast-feeding, not away from it. And that being told "it's not a substitute" might be emotionally distressing for women who already feel guilty.
-
Hard News: Complaint and culture, in reply to Ross Mason,
I offer to suggest the fear and trepidation to breastfeed is one of the major problems. It should come from parents that it is normal and natural to breastfeed.
"Parents" do think it's normal and natural to breast-feed. So you get new mothers expecting to just instinctively know how to breast-feed, because it's natural. You don't need to be taught to do something that's natural, right? So when there are problems, there's confusion and guilt and a need to be supported. Supported, not bullied. When I nearly gave up on breast-feeding, there was actually fear and trepidation, because each feed was making me cry with pain. The support and experience of my midwife got me through that. I'd suggest a bit less "you must breast-feed" and a bit more "the lactation consultant will be right in to see you" would make more of a difference.
-
My partner is looking for random teams to back against my beautiful Irish boys, and my perennial reasonless support for Canada. Russia look like a go for a start.
-
Field Theory: How's that working out for…, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Which one is he?
The one in the bisexual tourism initiative.