Basically the fetish equivalent of proclaiming “I love vanilla lattes”
May 31, 2024 1:32 AM Subscribe
Could my desire to be rag-dolled by a big, strong man be a symptom of some sort of patriarchal Disney brain virus contracted during childhood? Do I want to be romantically rescued by a man? Saved by love? Yeah, unfortunately. Like honestly, that sounds fucking great. Is that gross? Sure. Okay, let’s sit with that for a minute. It’s not like I want to be a trad wife or anything, but there’s a reason a bunch 20-something TikTokers are singing the virtues of baking all day. Life is hard. Jobs are hard. I could never give up my sense of self-worth for the trade-off of being a large adult dependent, but maybe that’s what the fantasy is really about — having a brief moment where someone else is responsible for me again. from Pick Me Up by Lauren Bans [The Cut; ungated] [via The Morning News]
Hmmm. I (a middle aged man) have always enjoyed engaging with someone as strong or stronger. And I have no trouble picking up the average person. But both my serious long-term partners, women, have absolutely hated being picked up. Not by me, not by anyone. I have offered, and been rejected, and I respect that. To be picked up like a child is to entrust yourself to another and go along for the ride. Myself, I like it, but I suspect that's because in my inmost core I believe I can make you put me down again. And realistically, outside some kind of acrobatics class for middle-aged amateurs, no one is ever going to pick me up again, unless and until I'm in need of nursing care. This saddens me.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:33 AM on May 31 [10 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:33 AM on May 31 [10 favorites]
the last paragraph is just lovely, i think:
> On one of the last nights of our trip, Jeremy and I were alone in the pool and he scooped me up, princess style, and started rocking me across the water. Apparently I made a face. “What?” he asked me. I replied, or slurred — I’d downed two piña coladas in quick succession — “I wish I could do this to you.” It surprised me when it came out, but I actually meant it. It’s just nice to be held and moved by another person. To feel completely taken care of. Maybe that’s all there is to it.
like i could try to analyze why i find it so lovely but instead i’m just going to accept that that paragraph tastes to me like what mdma would taste like if mdma tasted good
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:38 AM on May 31 [33 favorites]
> On one of the last nights of our trip, Jeremy and I were alone in the pool and he scooped me up, princess style, and started rocking me across the water. Apparently I made a face. “What?” he asked me. I replied, or slurred — I’d downed two piña coladas in quick succession — “I wish I could do this to you.” It surprised me when it came out, but I actually meant it. It’s just nice to be held and moved by another person. To feel completely taken care of. Maybe that’s all there is to it.
like i could try to analyze why i find it so lovely but instead i’m just going to accept that that paragraph tastes to me like what mdma would taste like if mdma tasted good
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:38 AM on May 31 [33 favorites]
It’s just nice to be held and moved by another person. To feel completely taken care of. Maybe that’s all there is to it.
A lot of beanplating, but got there in the end.
posted by flabdablet at 3:06 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
A lot of beanplating, but got there in the end.
posted by flabdablet at 3:06 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
Also, both the cats I work for understand this completely.
posted by flabdablet at 3:07 AM on May 31 [45 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 3:07 AM on May 31 [45 favorites]
I enjoyed this article.
Also, if the said TikTokers believe that being a stay at home parent or partner is “being taken care of all day,” they are really mistaken. There’s nothing about this that is a return to childhood…
posted by CMcG at 3:12 AM on May 31 [20 favorites]
Also, if the said TikTokers believe that being a stay at home parent or partner is “being taken care of all day,” they are really mistaken. There’s nothing about this that is a return to childhood…
posted by CMcG at 3:12 AM on May 31 [20 favorites]
" Also, both the cats I work for understand this completely."
This goes to my earlier comment: many cats hate being picked up and have no qualms about injuring you to make the point. I've had both kinds. Being held above the ground can be love and care, but it can also be a violation of your autonomy.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:22 AM on May 31 [20 favorites]
This goes to my earlier comment: many cats hate being picked up and have no qualms about injuring you to make the point. I've had both kinds. Being held above the ground can be love and care, but it can also be a violation of your autonomy.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:22 AM on May 31 [20 favorites]
Just go to Pornhub ,girl! There are many groups/sites that advocate carrying/ being carried. It's like a thing. Last year it was tiny Fendi bags, this year it's being carried. Money may have to change hands, but that's a reasonable thing. After all it's a service. Ask me how I know.
posted by Czjewel at 3:44 AM on May 31 [5 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 3:44 AM on May 31 [5 favorites]
I love this piece of writing, I want to post all my favourite lines but it feels too early in the post's life. So for now, just the one.
As my therapist says, I can “interrogate” my fantasies, but I don’t have to actively fight against them. So thanks to her, we can now get to the part where I get picked up.
posted by Audreynachrome at 3:54 AM on May 31 [15 favorites]
As my therapist says, I can “interrogate” my fantasies, but I don’t have to actively fight against them. So thanks to her, we can now get to the part where I get picked up.
posted by Audreynachrome at 3:54 AM on May 31 [15 favorites]
My wife and I traded off for a few years being the breadwinner and the stay at home parent, and it enriched our relationship so much. Exploring different roles and doing different chores helps find what you like and what you're good at.
But if you're going to pick someone up, do it while you're young before your back goes out.
posted by rikschell at 4:30 AM on May 31 [27 favorites]
But if you're going to pick someone up, do it while you're young before your back goes out.
posted by rikschell at 4:30 AM on May 31 [27 favorites]
I'd be more worried a man who's actively looking for a woman to treat like a child. That's where it would get weird.
posted by clawsoon at 4:30 AM on May 31 [7 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 4:30 AM on May 31 [7 favorites]
like i could try to analyze why i find it so lovely but instead i’m just going to accept that that paragraph tastes to me like what mdma would taste like if mdma tasted good
Sometimes things taste like promise or hope. The paragraph is a reminiscence of an ecstatic drug-aided what-if. That taste seems appropriate to me.
posted by Audreynachrome at 4:38 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
Sometimes things taste like promise or hope. The paragraph is a reminiscence of an ecstatic drug-aided what-if. That taste seems appropriate to me.
posted by Audreynachrome at 4:38 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
I maintain that there is a market for a giant robot that can pick you up and carry you like a baby.
posted by phooky at 5:06 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
posted by phooky at 5:06 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
got adamantium?
posted by HearHere at 5:15 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
posted by HearHere at 5:15 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
Addie Wagenknecht's Optimization of Parenting could probably be scaled up for your needs, phooky.
I've been carried around by a giant robot arm while wearing VR goggles and it was an unnerving experience. After working with motion control systems I was more terrified about the possibilities of software bugs or weird race conditions. The faith that Sans Objet puts in their robots as they dismantle the stage and fling the dancers around gives me the sweats, and I'm no where near their e-stop button.
(More relevant to the article, a friend from NYC who is nearly 2m tall visited us in the Netherlands and was so excited to find potential dates who were taller than she was)
posted by autopilot at 5:31 AM on May 31 [8 favorites]
I've been carried around by a giant robot arm while wearing VR goggles and it was an unnerving experience. After working with motion control systems I was more terrified about the possibilities of software bugs or weird race conditions. The faith that Sans Objet puts in their robots as they dismantle the stage and fling the dancers around gives me the sweats, and I'm no where near their e-stop button.
(More relevant to the article, a friend from NYC who is nearly 2m tall visited us in the Netherlands and was so excited to find potential dates who were taller than she was)
posted by autopilot at 5:31 AM on May 31 [8 favorites]
When my kids were small we played a game where I would pick them up - and then shift them around and around my body without putting them down or letting them drop. Onto the shoulder, onto the back, head down onto my front again, under my arm, head first up to my back again, under my other arm, legs first onto my shoulder, around and around. A couple of them enjoyed this very much. It was a gentle game and we were able to keep it going until they were much too old for it to seem really normal - I had to give up on the game when they got heavier than fifty pounds. It was a great game for keeping me in shape, and felt good for my muscles, and ensured that I was fully confident when it came to fifty pound bags of potatoes.
We didn't give up with the physical contact, although I got involved with it a lot less after that. Wrestling was still a thing and they wrestled with each other and gave each other piggy back rides, and gave each other take downs. I remember once a family friend came up from the States to visit us and while we were at a look out somehow a family brawl started. One kid started wrestling with another one, I joined in, there ended up being a pile on involved four of us on the wooden planks of the lookout platform. My friend was at first disconcerted because, as he explained, if his godsons had been doing that it would have been bloody murder going on and they wouldn't have been able to share the backseat going home due to the lasting rage.
But our wrestling match was all about giggling, grabbing someone and rolling them on top as often as you rolled yourself on top. Rough housing is a lot of fun, when done with love. No one ever gets pinned until they submit because then you'd have to stop playing and that would be no fun. It's all about what you can do with your body and what your wrestling partners can do with theirs. If they try to stand up from under you, your role is to obligingly switch into a position to assist them so that your weight is evenly balanced to make it easier, without taking any of your own weight. And you do this without discussion. You feel them trying to get up, as opposed to trying to get out, and you just shift over so you can keep hanging on. As soon as they start trying to get out, you let go. If you don't they won't come back to jump on your back, so you have to avoid making them think it is no fun. If they aren't having fun they won't wrestle with you anymore.
As a teen I remember my oldest sister saying how she missed rough housing now that she was an adult. She really missed it. So we went back to doing it. She was home after graduating university. There were piggy back rides, attempts to become good at picking up a supposedly unconscious sibling and getting them into a firefighter's carry and out of the house, and the same rolling around on the floor fun. Back then when I was heading into my late teens I wasn't limited to 50 lbs - I could carry 120 lbs, and coincidentally that was what all three of us each weighed, so I could piggy back either of my sisters and it was great.
As school kids there had been stuff like that in my family too. Climbing trees and no limb in reach? I could make a ladder with my body by bracing on the tree trunk, and my sister could climb up me. "Making a back" was a term we learned from the British kids fiction from the first half of the century that we read. Bend over, so your back was more or less level, brace yourself and up they go. The one being a ladder would also use their hands to make a stirrup for one of their sibling's feet. That way the climber didn't have to take all their weight on their arms as they did that final pull to get up on a tree limb, and the ladder person would straighten up as the climber's weight came off them, becoming taller and taller until the climber had one foot on their shoulder and they were shoving the climber's other foot upward above their head.
This climbing technique also worked to get up and over walls, or onto sheds. I have to say though, that we never got any good at pulling the ladder person up again after us, and they were usually left unassisted to jump and scrabble and try to get up alone... Legs are much stronger than arms. It was good information. If I have to break something or knock it down I am going to try to kick and stomp on it, not just use my arms. If you are trapped in a fire you don't punch your way out of window, you kick your way out, with shoes on your feet.
As kids we played airplane with each other and we played a rowing game, using only each other's bodies to create the resistance. It was related to using a teeter-totter, and learning how to make it work when one kid is much lighter than the other. How do you position yourselves so you can still do it when one kid is five years old? Small kid sits at the very back of their seat, big kid sits as far forward as necessary. How do you truly love your own body unless you learn the physics of movement and weight and motion? When you can do this stuff you can learn to adore it.
Farther back, much younger, one sunny summer day my grandmother came to visit and I asked, "May I have a lap?" She replied, "No, dear, it's much too hot." The end of an era, with great pain. I knew then that I would never, ever get a lap again, the sensation of knees beneath me, belly and chest against me, arms around me, love. I had grown out of the age where grown-ups could show me love. But it was time. She was small, I was big.
For anyone of any age, being held provides deep pressure. For many people on the spectrum, that helps integrate the senses, helps them to regulate the autonomic nervous system. Temple Grandin build a squeeze machine. Maybe being sensitive to being hugged and held does have its roots in infantile needs? I don't think that is relevant. I think healthy active human beings have a desire to climb and hold and squeeze and be lifted, just the way that an infant's desire to pull itself up to its feet and stagger around the room doesn't go away when we are adults and leap out of chair when we have sat too long, and love to go take a stroll in the evening, or even go for a run and feel our heart hammering easily in our chest. Just because it starts in infancy doesn't mean it's an infantile desire. I think it's human. Our our ancestors, using teamwork to do physical things, would have looked at us astonished if we talked about being too old to do it. Too fragile and sore maybe. But too old?
It's heroic to carry. You carry a wounded person to safety. You carry someone out of a burning building. You carry someone over the flood waters, or better yet, put them in a boat or on a raft and drag that while wading waist deep. You help someone get out of a car without stepping into a puddle. You "make a chair" so two people can carry someone with a sprained ankle out of the forest. It feels good to be the person doing the carrying. It's not a one sided thing, where the one being carried gets to experience a creepy infantilization with a tang of kinky submissive helplessness.
Carrying someone is intimacy - I don't find your body odor offensive, I don't want to keep you at arm's length, I don't mind your face in mine. I don't mind if your knee is in my face. I don't fear you are going to hurt me, I am demonstrating that when I touch you, even if I have an advantage, I am not going to hurt you.
Carrying someone demonstrates that I have some skill in understanding how other people's bodies work, and that somethings I can do will be more comfortable and more pleasant for them than others, and that I will instinctively choose to do things that make them feel better.
Carrying someone is proof of physical fitness. I can get the groceries into the house or take the other end of a dresser. When and if there are kids, I will be open to picking them up, which means I will probably be open to comforting them and dealing with them being covered in filth and capable of scrubbing them.
When you are looking for green flags in a new or an ongoing relationship, being able to be safely physical with them, and for both of you to enjoy it is a huge green flag. I don't think wanting to carry someone or to be carry is an helplessness kink at all.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:45 AM on May 31 [77 favorites]
We didn't give up with the physical contact, although I got involved with it a lot less after that. Wrestling was still a thing and they wrestled with each other and gave each other piggy back rides, and gave each other take downs. I remember once a family friend came up from the States to visit us and while we were at a look out somehow a family brawl started. One kid started wrestling with another one, I joined in, there ended up being a pile on involved four of us on the wooden planks of the lookout platform. My friend was at first disconcerted because, as he explained, if his godsons had been doing that it would have been bloody murder going on and they wouldn't have been able to share the backseat going home due to the lasting rage.
But our wrestling match was all about giggling, grabbing someone and rolling them on top as often as you rolled yourself on top. Rough housing is a lot of fun, when done with love. No one ever gets pinned until they submit because then you'd have to stop playing and that would be no fun. It's all about what you can do with your body and what your wrestling partners can do with theirs. If they try to stand up from under you, your role is to obligingly switch into a position to assist them so that your weight is evenly balanced to make it easier, without taking any of your own weight. And you do this without discussion. You feel them trying to get up, as opposed to trying to get out, and you just shift over so you can keep hanging on. As soon as they start trying to get out, you let go. If you don't they won't come back to jump on your back, so you have to avoid making them think it is no fun. If they aren't having fun they won't wrestle with you anymore.
As a teen I remember my oldest sister saying how she missed rough housing now that she was an adult. She really missed it. So we went back to doing it. She was home after graduating university. There were piggy back rides, attempts to become good at picking up a supposedly unconscious sibling and getting them into a firefighter's carry and out of the house, and the same rolling around on the floor fun. Back then when I was heading into my late teens I wasn't limited to 50 lbs - I could carry 120 lbs, and coincidentally that was what all three of us each weighed, so I could piggy back either of my sisters and it was great.
As school kids there had been stuff like that in my family too. Climbing trees and no limb in reach? I could make a ladder with my body by bracing on the tree trunk, and my sister could climb up me. "Making a back" was a term we learned from the British kids fiction from the first half of the century that we read. Bend over, so your back was more or less level, brace yourself and up they go. The one being a ladder would also use their hands to make a stirrup for one of their sibling's feet. That way the climber didn't have to take all their weight on their arms as they did that final pull to get up on a tree limb, and the ladder person would straighten up as the climber's weight came off them, becoming taller and taller until the climber had one foot on their shoulder and they were shoving the climber's other foot upward above their head.
This climbing technique also worked to get up and over walls, or onto sheds. I have to say though, that we never got any good at pulling the ladder person up again after us, and they were usually left unassisted to jump and scrabble and try to get up alone... Legs are much stronger than arms. It was good information. If I have to break something or knock it down I am going to try to kick and stomp on it, not just use my arms. If you are trapped in a fire you don't punch your way out of window, you kick your way out, with shoes on your feet.
As kids we played airplane with each other and we played a rowing game, using only each other's bodies to create the resistance. It was related to using a teeter-totter, and learning how to make it work when one kid is much lighter than the other. How do you position yourselves so you can still do it when one kid is five years old? Small kid sits at the very back of their seat, big kid sits as far forward as necessary. How do you truly love your own body unless you learn the physics of movement and weight and motion? When you can do this stuff you can learn to adore it.
Farther back, much younger, one sunny summer day my grandmother came to visit and I asked, "May I have a lap?" She replied, "No, dear, it's much too hot." The end of an era, with great pain. I knew then that I would never, ever get a lap again, the sensation of knees beneath me, belly and chest against me, arms around me, love. I had grown out of the age where grown-ups could show me love. But it was time. She was small, I was big.
For anyone of any age, being held provides deep pressure. For many people on the spectrum, that helps integrate the senses, helps them to regulate the autonomic nervous system. Temple Grandin build a squeeze machine. Maybe being sensitive to being hugged and held does have its roots in infantile needs? I don't think that is relevant. I think healthy active human beings have a desire to climb and hold and squeeze and be lifted, just the way that an infant's desire to pull itself up to its feet and stagger around the room doesn't go away when we are adults and leap out of chair when we have sat too long, and love to go take a stroll in the evening, or even go for a run and feel our heart hammering easily in our chest. Just because it starts in infancy doesn't mean it's an infantile desire. I think it's human. Our our ancestors, using teamwork to do physical things, would have looked at us astonished if we talked about being too old to do it. Too fragile and sore maybe. But too old?
It's heroic to carry. You carry a wounded person to safety. You carry someone out of a burning building. You carry someone over the flood waters, or better yet, put them in a boat or on a raft and drag that while wading waist deep. You help someone get out of a car without stepping into a puddle. You "make a chair" so two people can carry someone with a sprained ankle out of the forest. It feels good to be the person doing the carrying. It's not a one sided thing, where the one being carried gets to experience a creepy infantilization with a tang of kinky submissive helplessness.
Carrying someone is intimacy - I don't find your body odor offensive, I don't want to keep you at arm's length, I don't mind your face in mine. I don't mind if your knee is in my face. I don't fear you are going to hurt me, I am demonstrating that when I touch you, even if I have an advantage, I am not going to hurt you.
Carrying someone demonstrates that I have some skill in understanding how other people's bodies work, and that somethings I can do will be more comfortable and more pleasant for them than others, and that I will instinctively choose to do things that make them feel better.
Carrying someone is proof of physical fitness. I can get the groceries into the house or take the other end of a dresser. When and if there are kids, I will be open to picking them up, which means I will probably be open to comforting them and dealing with them being covered in filth and capable of scrubbing them.
When you are looking for green flags in a new or an ongoing relationship, being able to be safely physical with them, and for both of you to enjoy it is a huge green flag. I don't think wanting to carry someone or to be carry is an helplessness kink at all.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:45 AM on May 31 [77 favorites]
The men I date are usually my height — I’m five-foot-ten — sometimes shorter, and much more “Did you read the new Sally Rooney?” than “I’ll see you after Crossfit, babe.” Which means I’m never Sleeping Beauty–ed to bed if I doze off on the couch. I’m never hoisted up for a running arrivals-gate hug, or during sex (nature’s body hug).
Grumpybearbride is taller than me and I absolutely can and have picked her up in various scenarios. I also don't do crossfit. The author's assertion that her bookish, same-height-or-shorter paramours are categorically incapable of picking her up is weird and suggests larger underlying stereotypes at work.
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:57 AM on May 31 [8 favorites]
Grumpybearbride is taller than me and I absolutely can and have picked her up in various scenarios. I also don't do crossfit. The author's assertion that her bookish, same-height-or-shorter paramours are categorically incapable of picking her up is weird and suggests larger underlying stereotypes at work.
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:57 AM on May 31 [8 favorites]
I'm not sure the author of this piece would be interested in contact improv but I think a lot of people in this thread would be!
posted by itsatextfile at 6:07 AM on May 31 [9 favorites]
posted by itsatextfile at 6:07 AM on May 31 [9 favorites]
My best friend--who is about 5'5"--loves what she calls "big tree men." Anytime I see a hottie over 6 feet somewhere online, I send a screengrab with the text, "Does this gentlemen qualify as a big tree?"
posted by Kitteh at 6:19 AM on May 31 [5 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 6:19 AM on May 31 [5 favorites]
There's a lot of great lines in this, but this is next level funny and self-aware:
"It takes guts to relinquish your power. My Gmail currently has 371,530 unread messages."
posted by slimepuppy at 6:20 AM on May 31 [6 favorites]
"It takes guts to relinquish your power. My Gmail currently has 371,530 unread messages."
posted by slimepuppy at 6:20 AM on May 31 [6 favorites]
I know it's quite different in countless ways, and caretaking is not infantilizing, but still, this reminded me of a line from another essay: "I know how long it's been since I had every need met choicelessly from someplace outside me, without my having to ask. And that time I was floating, too, and the fluid was warm and salty, and if I was in any way conscious I'm sure I was dreadless, and was having a really good time, and would have sent postcards to everyone wishing they were here."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:34 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:34 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
Check out Craigslist in your town. Look under meet and greets. Or actually pick me ups.
posted by Czjewel at 7:10 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 7:10 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
There’s nothing about this that is a return to childhood…
It could be such a return, but not to their own childhood.
posted by obliterati at 7:25 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
It could be such a return, but not to their own childhood.
posted by obliterati at 7:25 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure the author of this piece would be interested in contact improv but I think a lot of people in this thread would be!
I went on a date once and the woman took me to a facility in Berkeley where they were doing contact improv. It sounded theoretically compelling, but the experience was very weird. Beyond all of the boundary issues that such an event can bring up when with a new and unfamiliar person, there was also the dude who was just walking around the room making chicken noises. I'm sure that's way more Berkeley than anything core to contact improv, but I have never been able to undo that connection in my head.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:35 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
I went on a date once and the woman took me to a facility in Berkeley where they were doing contact improv. It sounded theoretically compelling, but the experience was very weird. Beyond all of the boundary issues that such an event can bring up when with a new and unfamiliar person, there was also the dude who was just walking around the room making chicken noises. I'm sure that's way more Berkeley than anything core to contact improv, but I have never been able to undo that connection in my head.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:35 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
1. I expected a tradwife reference here, not disappointed.
2. Really, both that and this have a whole "I just wanna be taken care of" thing going on, which is reasonable.
3. I avoid doing lifts and stuff like that at theater--I think I'm Too Fat to be considered for lifts anyway because that's only the tiny/thin who have to do 'em--but I would imagine that someone who's 5'10 might have issues finding guys who can pull it off in the way she would like.
4. I liked contact improv when I did it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:36 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]
2. Really, both that and this have a whole "I just wanna be taken care of" thing going on, which is reasonable.
3. I avoid doing lifts and stuff like that at theater--I think I'm Too Fat to be considered for lifts anyway because that's only the tiny/thin who have to do 'em--but I would imagine that someone who's 5'10 might have issues finding guys who can pull it off in the way she would like.
4. I liked contact improv when I did it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:36 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]
Also sent this to the friend I knew would be into it and she's all, "that's me, fuck."
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:39 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:39 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
One way to experience something like this is watsu - Wikipedia: "Watsu is a form of aquatic bodywork used for deep relaxation and passive aquatic therapy. Watsu is characterized by one-on-one sessions in which a practitioner or therapist gently cradles, moves, stretches, and massages a receiver in chest-deep warm water."
I did it once more than 25 years ago. It was relaxing, although it took a few minutes to become fully trusting of the therapist to keep my head above water (either by cradling me or the use of pool noodles as floats beneath my neck).
posted by Sock, Sock, Sock, Sock, Sock, Goose! at 7:50 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
I did it once more than 25 years ago. It was relaxing, although it took a few minutes to become fully trusting of the therapist to keep my head above water (either by cradling me or the use of pool noodles as floats beneath my neck).
posted by Sock, Sock, Sock, Sock, Sock, Goose! at 7:50 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
1) I liked this article very much
2) As someone who is 5 ft tall and have had people causally pick me up to move me six inches out of their way multiple times I cannot relate at all
posted by lepus at 7:51 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
2) As someone who is 5 ft tall and have had people causally pick me up to move me six inches out of their way multiple times I cannot relate at all
posted by lepus at 7:51 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
I've not done contact improv but I've done regular improv for many years. Before practices and performances (and especially when there are new people) we discuss boundaries and needs. For most part this usually means "don't touch me anywhere a bathing suit would be" but it is pretty common for people to share about their wonky knee or some other ailment they have. It is not unheard of people to ask that they never be touched for whatever reason e.g. not even a handshake even if the scene would suggest it. There is one guy in our community however, who flat out says, if there is any plausible reason for why you need to pick me up in a scene, please do it. He absolutely loves it.
posted by mmascolino at 8:08 AM on May 31 [7 favorites]
posted by mmascolino at 8:08 AM on May 31 [7 favorites]
as a Tall Girl (5'9" never less than 150 and sometimes more!) I rarely get to be picked up. I do however have 2 very large male friends with whom I have an explicit understanding of prior CONSENT (which is a must here, don't handle people without their permission!) that they can pick me up (and also growl like an orc, long story...) which is fun for me, cause its so rare, but I could see how it might be really annoying on the reg.
posted by supermedusa at 8:22 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 8:22 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]
I mean, it's barely a kink at all! Here's Jerry Seinfeld talking to Bari Weiss earlier this week about how he, um, likes big strong men? What could go wrong?
Jerry Seinfeld misses "dominant masculinity" in society from the days of his youth, saying, "I like a real man."posted by The Bellman at 8:35 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]
Seinfeld, who has made America laugh for decades, made the comments on the "Honestly with Bari Weiss" podcast Tuesday in a talk about his latest film, "Unfrosted," set in the idyllic 1960s.
Asked whether he had nostalgia for the period, Seinfeld, 70, said he does.
"There’s another element there that I think is the key element, and that is an agreed-upon hierarchy, which I think is absolutely vaporized in today’s moment," he said. "And I think that is why people lean on the horn and drive in the crazy way that they drive, because we have no sense of hierarchy. And as humans, we don’t really feel comfortable like that."
Seinfeld said masculinity was a part of that.
"I really thought, when I was in that era, again, it was JFK, it was Muhammad Ali, it was Sean Connery, Howard Cosell, you can go all the way down there. That’s a real man. I want to be like that some day," he said. . .
"But I miss dominant masculinity. Yeah, I get the toxic [masculinity], but still, I like a real man," he added.
My wife's favorite joke is, when we're sitting downstairs on the couch at bedtime, to look at me, bat her eyes, and say, "You know, you never did carry me over the threshold..."
posted by straight at 8:39 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
posted by straight at 8:39 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
Last time I saw Jerry Seinfeld he was stomping all over everyone else with deeply unfunny bits on Everybody’s In LA so I guess him being an ungainly giraffe is appropriate. Though I’m regretting this metaphor as he needs to get in the trash and giraffes are nice.
got adamantium?
Fastball special is a bit beyond the lifting.
posted by Artw at 8:41 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]
got adamantium?
Fastball special is a bit beyond the lifting.
posted by Artw at 8:41 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]
Also, if the said TikTokers believe that being a stay at home parent or partner is “being taken care of all day,” they are really mistaken. There’s nothing about this that is a return to childhood…
My stay at home, mother of three, wife (including thousand yard stare and unwashed hair) has entered the chat.
posted by vorpal bunny at 8:42 AM on May 31 [6 favorites]
My stay at home, mother of three, wife (including thousand yard stare and unwashed hair) has entered the chat.
posted by vorpal bunny at 8:42 AM on May 31 [6 favorites]
I'm 5' 10" and one of my running "jokes" with my partner (same height) is me asking at the end of the night to be picked up and taken to bed, he sighs indicating refusal, I inquire if he's been lifting weights yet, him admits he hasn't, and I pretend to be upset about this. Of course, while I'm not actually upset about it, I do relate to the author's desire to be hoisted/held aloft - and while my partner can technically do it (and has) it's a real strain for him and thus not something he's keen to do. Anyway, I don't think she's necessarily making any unfair assumptions here about her paramours.
posted by coffeecat at 9:00 AM on May 31 [7 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 9:00 AM on May 31 [7 favorites]
Relevant YouTube comedy clip about big strong guys being tagged in to help with girlfriend lifting: Saturday Night Live - NFL Gives Back
posted by cadge at 9:01 AM on May 31 [3 favorites]
posted by cadge at 9:01 AM on May 31 [3 favorites]
Or actually pick me ups.
I'm 6ft tall and over 200 lbs, the only pick me up I've gotten in years is from caffeine.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:08 AM on May 31 [5 favorites]
I'm 6ft tall and over 200 lbs, the only pick me up I've gotten in years is from caffeine.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:08 AM on May 31 [5 favorites]
To briefly pursue the Seinfeld tangent:
There’s another element there that I think is the key element, and that is an agreed-upon hierarchy, which I think is absolutely vaporized in today’s moment
Ah, there it is.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:43 AM on May 31 [9 favorites]
There’s another element there that I think is the key element, and that is an agreed-upon hierarchy, which I think is absolutely vaporized in today’s moment
Ah, there it is.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:43 AM on May 31 [9 favorites]
"…because we have no sense of hierarchy. And as humans, we don’t really feel comfortable like that."
As humans we absolutely do feel comfortable with that. 99% of human history on planet Earth has seen us living in small tribes with effectively no hierarchy as he'd recognize it. What a dipshit.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:50 AM on May 31 [12 favorites]
As humans we absolutely do feel comfortable with that. 99% of human history on planet Earth has seen us living in small tribes with effectively no hierarchy as he'd recognize it. What a dipshit.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:50 AM on May 31 [12 favorites]
I think Tig also shares a similar enjoyment.
Judging from that grin around 2:25 in the clip, I think so too!
Seriously, there must be something atavistic about this response. My partner is a huge, muscular, tall guy who can lift me up at will, and much as I love his mind, that's not what I'm thinking about in those moments.
posted by rpfields at 11:13 AM on May 31 [3 favorites]
Judging from that grin around 2:25 in the clip, I think so too!
Seriously, there must be something atavistic about this response. My partner is a huge, muscular, tall guy who can lift me up at will, and much as I love his mind, that's not what I'm thinking about in those moments.
posted by rpfields at 11:13 AM on May 31 [3 favorites]
>99% of human history on planet Earth has seen us living in small tribes with effectively no hierarchy as he'd recognize it
Why do you say that? All our primate close relatives have hierarchy, as do modern hunter gatherers. I'd imagine it takes a very comes society to make hierarchy not be prominent.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 11:35 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]
Why do you say that? All our primate close relatives have hierarchy, as do modern hunter gatherers. I'd imagine it takes a very comes society to make hierarchy not be prominent.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 11:35 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]
I was thinking back to the internet phenom of 20-odd years ago that was the Finnish Wife Carrying race and wondering if it was still a thing, and this thread inspired me to go look it up. I know it was 20 years because Ms. Oops and I were newly wed and I figured that we could do OK in that event, even though I'm not by any means tree-like. 20 years later we're still of approximately similar dimensions but somehow figure we'd fare far worse.
posted by St. Oops at 11:48 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
posted by St. Oops at 11:48 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]
Note: When carrying a new bride over the threshold, remember that no matter how small she is, she is taller than the door is wide. I'm still getting shit about that.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:48 AM on May 31 [10 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:48 AM on May 31 [10 favorites]
fwiw Bans might have been able to cradle Jeremy as he floated in the pool.
posted by brujita at 11:48 AM on May 31 [3 favorites]
posted by brujita at 11:48 AM on May 31 [3 favorites]
Why do you say that?
"…as he'd recognize it," I said. The hierarchies of small hunter-gatherer bands bear little resemblance to those seen in the mid-century, highly industrialized American culture he's idealizing.
I most carefully included that qualifier.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 12:17 PM on May 31 [6 favorites]
"…as he'd recognize it," I said. The hierarchies of small hunter-gatherer bands bear little resemblance to those seen in the mid-century, highly industrialized American culture he's idealizing.
I most carefully included that qualifier.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 12:17 PM on May 31 [6 favorites]
Our regular joke is when my partner (6'1" and a crossfitter) and I (5'2" on a tall day) get home late at night to my 4 story walk up building, he complains, and I offer to carry him on my back.
Despite having always been a short lady and typically dating fairly tall men, I have not really been lifted or carried much. I haven't had the experience of people moving me physically out of their way, etc. It's not really something I've ever given any thought to.
I don't have nearly so accepting a relationship with my body as the author seems to, so it's possible I've always reflexively avoided anything that calls attention to my size/weight/uhhh, relative squishyness. I also have a really uncomfortable relationship with being cared for? It makes me extremely emotional, like to a level I don't enjoy. However, my partner did carry me from sofa to bed once when I was quite sick, and I was too sick to feel self-conscious at that point (I mean, I was in 3 day old fever sweatpants, rock bottom my dudes), and it is a very fond memory.
Also, if the said TikTokers believe that being a stay at home parent or partner is “being taken care of all day,” they are really mistaken. There’s nothing about this that is a return to childhood…
I mean, the Tiktoks she describes are a particular kind of Tradwife fantasy, where your rich husband pays for everything (including a live-in nanny if you have kids) and you just get to swan around doing fake-work like making cereal from scratch and doing elaborate skincare. It's pure escapist/fantasy content. I have a friend who's a stay-at-home wife, no kids, married to a wealthy man and while I wouldn't describe her as childlike, her life is indeed like a glorious neverending summer vacation, and she is basically just taken care of all day.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:27 PM on May 31 [8 favorites]
Despite having always been a short lady and typically dating fairly tall men, I have not really been lifted or carried much. I haven't had the experience of people moving me physically out of their way, etc. It's not really something I've ever given any thought to.
I don't have nearly so accepting a relationship with my body as the author seems to, so it's possible I've always reflexively avoided anything that calls attention to my size/weight/uhhh, relative squishyness. I also have a really uncomfortable relationship with being cared for? It makes me extremely emotional, like to a level I don't enjoy. However, my partner did carry me from sofa to bed once when I was quite sick, and I was too sick to feel self-conscious at that point (I mean, I was in 3 day old fever sweatpants, rock bottom my dudes), and it is a very fond memory.
Also, if the said TikTokers believe that being a stay at home parent or partner is “being taken care of all day,” they are really mistaken. There’s nothing about this that is a return to childhood…
I mean, the Tiktoks she describes are a particular kind of Tradwife fantasy, where your rich husband pays for everything (including a live-in nanny if you have kids) and you just get to swan around doing fake-work like making cereal from scratch and doing elaborate skincare. It's pure escapist/fantasy content. I have a friend who's a stay-at-home wife, no kids, married to a wealthy man and while I wouldn't describe her as childlike, her life is indeed like a glorious neverending summer vacation, and she is basically just taken care of all day.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:27 PM on May 31 [8 favorites]
Can’t believe I’m gonna confess this but I-am-Joe’s-spleen’s candor has given me some courage
So when I’m having a bad day my very tall husband will pick me up and walk me around like he did our kids when they were babies. Like head on the shoulder pat pat pat, small bounces etc,; it’s embarrassing because it’s pretty regressed. But it feels soooooo good.
I’ve promised him if we ever run into an NBA player I will pay them (almost) any amount of money to do this for my husband and he won’t make it weird it’s just really really nice and it’s unfortunate that I just can’t repay the favor. I can’t imagine this ever happening in real life but if any of you knows someone drop me a line.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:45 PM on May 31 [15 favorites]
So when I’m having a bad day my very tall husband will pick me up and walk me around like he did our kids when they were babies. Like head on the shoulder pat pat pat, small bounces etc,; it’s embarrassing because it’s pretty regressed. But it feels soooooo good.
I’ve promised him if we ever run into an NBA player I will pay them (almost) any amount of money to do this for my husband and he won’t make it weird it’s just really really nice and it’s unfortunate that I just can’t repay the favor. I can’t imagine this ever happening in real life but if any of you knows someone drop me a line.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:45 PM on May 31 [15 favorites]
“I wish I could do this to you.” If he's amenable, you could! In that same pool!
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:50 PM on May 31 [4 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:50 PM on May 31 [4 favorites]
Long, long ago, just as I was dipping my toes back into the dating pool after a few bad experiences, I caught the eye of an amazing woman. I had never matched with another person who worked in robotics like me, but where I was a college dropout who had run away to start a company, she had pursued a PhD from one of the top engineering schools in the world. Her profile stated she was a few inches taller than me, and while I am of average height, I am also what Khal Drogo would refer to as a “wise man with skinny arms.” Her favorite hobby was bodybuilding, and running one of her most particularly striking profile pictures through some basic photogrammetry and 3d reconstruction tools gave me a rough estimate that she had about twice my bicep volume. I told her I liked her actuators. I still cannot believe we hit it off.
There is, um, a lot here that is really strongly resonating with me. This makes me really nervous to write, it’s not something people often expect from someone with my profile and, well, people don’t always react well to that. Which is sort of why I feel it may be important to write down in public that some of this stuff might have broader appeal than you’d expect.
I don’t think I had really, truly realized just how much I had been carrying for so long until I met someone who could hold me. I have spent many, many years in roles where showing anything but strength would be disastrous, not only for me but for the many people whose fates were entwined with me and my public image. Maintaining 100% control 100% of the time (when people are looking) has been absolutely mandatory when you’re carrying so many people’s futures with yours. This is not a theory, this is behavior that gets reinforced from all directions all the time. When you don’t show strength or you don’t maintain control, the punishment is often immediate. Surrendering that control and letting yourself fall into the arms of someone seriously actually physically stronger than you is terrifying on some level. A conditioned danger response is screaming red alert in your head. But when you don’t get hurt.. you just get.. held.
I had never known what it was like to be able to let go on that level, just how much I had been carrying and taking care of completely for so long, until that moment someone was carrying me, holding me gently, and taking care of me. I’m welling up at the memory of that crystalline moment, and grieving for all the years I had gone without knowing that, and all the other men we lock out from this aspect of the human experience. I had known patriarchy hurts everybody. On that day I was shown.
Eventually, I made a fool of myself with the woman. I couldn’t imagine what such a phenomenal human could see in me, and I’m not proud of how I handled my insecurities. She let me down easy, with what was easily the kindest, most gentle (but firm) rejection I had ever received. More than anything else, I’ve come to look for people who display kindness when no one is looking, and this part of relationships have often been extremely painful for me. But at the very end, when no one was looking, she treated me with more kindness than any woman ever had in that scenario. The last thing she ever said to me was that this time, I was the one who had done all the heavy lifting.
Knowing that such extraordinary humans like her are still available and looking for a relationship filled me with the hope. I am still flabbergasted that she was interested in me, but knowing that she had been was an enormous boost to my confidence at I time I sorely needed it. The encounter provided strong motivation for me to work on how I screwed up, and spend a lot of time interrogating why I screwed up. Every single part of knowing her made me a better man, and it fills me with joy to know there are people like her in the world.
posted by 1024 at 12:16 AM on June 1 [18 favorites]
There is, um, a lot here that is really strongly resonating with me. This makes me really nervous to write, it’s not something people often expect from someone with my profile and, well, people don’t always react well to that. Which is sort of why I feel it may be important to write down in public that some of this stuff might have broader appeal than you’d expect.
I don’t think I had really, truly realized just how much I had been carrying for so long until I met someone who could hold me. I have spent many, many years in roles where showing anything but strength would be disastrous, not only for me but for the many people whose fates were entwined with me and my public image. Maintaining 100% control 100% of the time (when people are looking) has been absolutely mandatory when you’re carrying so many people’s futures with yours. This is not a theory, this is behavior that gets reinforced from all directions all the time. When you don’t show strength or you don’t maintain control, the punishment is often immediate. Surrendering that control and letting yourself fall into the arms of someone seriously actually physically stronger than you is terrifying on some level. A conditioned danger response is screaming red alert in your head. But when you don’t get hurt.. you just get.. held.
I had never known what it was like to be able to let go on that level, just how much I had been carrying and taking care of completely for so long, until that moment someone was carrying me, holding me gently, and taking care of me. I’m welling up at the memory of that crystalline moment, and grieving for all the years I had gone without knowing that, and all the other men we lock out from this aspect of the human experience. I had known patriarchy hurts everybody. On that day I was shown.
Eventually, I made a fool of myself with the woman. I couldn’t imagine what such a phenomenal human could see in me, and I’m not proud of how I handled my insecurities. She let me down easy, with what was easily the kindest, most gentle (but firm) rejection I had ever received. More than anything else, I’ve come to look for people who display kindness when no one is looking, and this part of relationships have often been extremely painful for me. But at the very end, when no one was looking, she treated me with more kindness than any woman ever had in that scenario. The last thing she ever said to me was that this time, I was the one who had done all the heavy lifting.
Knowing that such extraordinary humans like her are still available and looking for a relationship filled me with the hope. I am still flabbergasted that she was interested in me, but knowing that she had been was an enormous boost to my confidence at I time I sorely needed it. The encounter provided strong motivation for me to work on how I screwed up, and spend a lot of time interrogating why I screwed up. Every single part of knowing her made me a better man, and it fills me with joy to know there are people like her in the world.
posted by 1024 at 12:16 AM on June 1 [18 favorites]
My partner is 5’9” and weighs 150 pounds, and I piggybacked him across a big puddle because he didn’t want to get his shoes wet.I'm 5’2” and 130 lbs. I lit was a defining moment in good and bad ways. I liked that he was practical and showed respect for my strength and indifference to wet shoes but later on I did not like that he was weak and insecure in ways I cannot resolve.
posted by waving at 7:10 AM on June 1 [4 favorites]
posted by waving at 7:10 AM on June 1 [4 favorites]
As a counterpoint, this article and the ensuing discussion has me recoiling - not in judgement or disgust, but, like, the idea of it all makes me feel super unsafe. Do not carry me, do not pick me up, for god's sake, just don't. I suspect it's to do with childhood trauma and later sexual assault; I need to be in control of my own body At. All. Times.
posted by cooker girl at 8:10 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
posted by cooker girl at 8:10 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
waving: I lit was a defining moment in good and bad ways. I liked that he was practical and showed respect for my strength and indifference to wet shoes but later on I did not like that he was weak and insecure in ways I cannot resolve.
Reminds me of she then got mad and told me that she didn’t know she was marrying a woman and the discussion that followed, in which a number of men talked about being vulnerable or emotional in front of their partners and then having their partners lose respect for them. (And then - in a similar discussion that I can't find right now - the gaslighting from others that it couldn't have been that, it must've been something else.)
It's definitely a delicate tightrope to walk, where a woman might think she has escaped toxic masculinity programming and is okay with her partner not filling standard male gender roles, but then in the moment when he doesn't some switch flips.
A man being vulnerable can be sexy, but one has to stay inside certain guardrails lest it become cringey.
(And I'm definitely not saying that it's just women doing this kind of thing - there are times that I've lost attraction for a woman which, if I interrogated them a little harder, would no doubt reveal that it was some gender role for women that my subconscious brain saw them violating.)
posted by clawsoon at 8:38 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
Reminds me of she then got mad and told me that she didn’t know she was marrying a woman and the discussion that followed, in which a number of men talked about being vulnerable or emotional in front of their partners and then having their partners lose respect for them. (And then - in a similar discussion that I can't find right now - the gaslighting from others that it couldn't have been that, it must've been something else.)
It's definitely a delicate tightrope to walk, where a woman might think she has escaped toxic masculinity programming and is okay with her partner not filling standard male gender roles, but then in the moment when he doesn't some switch flips.
A man being vulnerable can be sexy, but one has to stay inside certain guardrails lest it become cringey.
(And I'm definitely not saying that it's just women doing this kind of thing - there are times that I've lost attraction for a woman which, if I interrogated them a little harder, would no doubt reveal that it was some gender role for women that my subconscious brain saw them violating.)
posted by clawsoon at 8:38 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
My old improv teacher said a lot of people got injured doing spontaneous piggybacking, and not to do it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:53 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:53 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
It's definitely a delicate tightrope to walk, where a woman might think she has escaped toxic masculinity programming and is okay with her partner not filling standard male gender roles, but then in the moment when he doesn't some switch flips.
I wish I could have read something like this so much earlier in life. I had no idea what was going on until I was well into my 30s and shared a few private moments with someone far, far outside my experience up until that point. Filled with terror, I was very, very cautiously trying to express a somewhat less than stereotypically masculine / heteronormative response and desire in a way that wouldn't draw the kind of immediate rebuke and disgust that disclosure usually led to. I blurted, and then immediately tensed up and braced for impact.
I think she saw what was happening. She placed her hand on me gently, and said that it must be hard, because "women police men's sexuality all the time."
I was low-key shaken. That moment of the turn, when you a take the chance everyone is exhorting you to, when you try to show anything other than absolute dominance and strength, when you make a leap of faith and take off a plate of armor you've been wearing since you were a boy, let go of this fucking act for one second and pretend that maybe you too have all the human feelings including vulnerability... and then you see the attraction in your parter's eyes go out immediately... that's not really a moment you share.
And then that happens over and over again, and when the reaction is almost always practically immediate and in real time, it's hard not to learn a lesson from that feedback. Oh and bonus points if all this happens just as you're kind of coming out of your high school shell and for most of your college years your friend group and dating pool very closely overlaps with the women's studies program, you're drawn to vision of the future they see, and then the exact same individuals who told you how much men needed to break certain taboos and that it's safe to do so are the ones unambiguously punishing you when you do so. Much heartbreak. Such confuse.
Of course, sharing that kind of moment is kind of impossible without disclosing that that moment happened. It is not the kind of thing that is all okay to talk about, so you don't, and it doesn't get talked about. When that one woman said that one phrase to me, it finally, finally made sense, and reframed so many experiences throughout my life. Because up until that moment, I fully, truly, deeply believed the problem was me. That was all I had ever been told.
posted by 1024 at 9:41 AM on June 1 [7 favorites]
I wish I could have read something like this so much earlier in life. I had no idea what was going on until I was well into my 30s and shared a few private moments with someone far, far outside my experience up until that point. Filled with terror, I was very, very cautiously trying to express a somewhat less than stereotypically masculine / heteronormative response and desire in a way that wouldn't draw the kind of immediate rebuke and disgust that disclosure usually led to. I blurted, and then immediately tensed up and braced for impact.
I think she saw what was happening. She placed her hand on me gently, and said that it must be hard, because "women police men's sexuality all the time."
I was low-key shaken. That moment of the turn, when you a take the chance everyone is exhorting you to, when you try to show anything other than absolute dominance and strength, when you make a leap of faith and take off a plate of armor you've been wearing since you were a boy, let go of this fucking act for one second and pretend that maybe you too have all the human feelings including vulnerability... and then you see the attraction in your parter's eyes go out immediately... that's not really a moment you share.
And then that happens over and over again, and when the reaction is almost always practically immediate and in real time, it's hard not to learn a lesson from that feedback. Oh and bonus points if all this happens just as you're kind of coming out of your high school shell and for most of your college years your friend group and dating pool very closely overlaps with the women's studies program, you're drawn to vision of the future they see, and then the exact same individuals who told you how much men needed to break certain taboos and that it's safe to do so are the ones unambiguously punishing you when you do so. Much heartbreak. Such confuse.
Of course, sharing that kind of moment is kind of impossible without disclosing that that moment happened. It is not the kind of thing that is all okay to talk about, so you don't, and it doesn't get talked about. When that one woman said that one phrase to me, it finally, finally made sense, and reframed so many experiences throughout my life. Because up until that moment, I fully, truly, deeply believed the problem was me. That was all I had ever been told.
posted by 1024 at 9:41 AM on June 1 [7 favorites]
clawsoon His weakness didn’t show in expressing his feelings but rather he would lie to avoid responsibility. He got a parking ticket on a Chicago Street because he parked at a handicapped spot and wrote a lengthy letter to claim his relative who lived there was having a medical emergency. It was really stupid but he felt so strongly about avoiding the ticket he went to a lot of effort to get out of it. I thought this was weak.
posted by waving at 12:11 PM on June 1 [2 favorites]
posted by waving at 12:11 PM on June 1 [2 favorites]
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posted by HearHere at 1:38 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]