safe sex

Fucking how dare you; I have much better taste in style and fashion than Sinema.

I actually did dress up to vote lmao

I didn't get a cute choice, wtf!

Voted! I've never voted on the first day of early voting before, but I wanted to get voting against the orange piece of shit for the third time over with so I can just spend the rest of the time until the election sweating

Should be the weekend before the last day to register to vote.

As far as slur-related comments go, I don't think you have anything to be ashamed of.

Honestly it would depend on how well I knew you and how sure I could be that there wasn't any underlying homophobia in how you used the word. Just from our interactions over the years on Surly, I'm confident you were just using your friend's own words. But I'm never like... thrilled to hear a straight man use the word regardless of context. And I'm only okay with certain gay men ever using it lmao

Among other awful abusers

By the way, @mooseoutfront, I want to clarify that I don't think kink, or enjoying being called a "dirty fucking whore" during sex is "aberrant sexual behavior." But I'd like to point out that the first part of the sentence mentioning name calling including slapping women in the face. I have a very particular series of porn in mind when I put those two together, and if you wouldn't consider those "aberrant sexual behavior" or exploitative pornography, then I wouldn't want to engage in any further conversation about the topic with you. If you don't know what I'm referring to, please trust me when I tell you that they are not videos that someone could have properly consented to perform in. You also mentioned aftercare, which is something that does not happen on a lot of porn sets, especially those on the sleazier side of the industry. I also don't think it's correct to refer to a porn set as a "movie set." They are not the same thing, and they are not treated the same by society or the government or by the people involved on them (referring to non-mainstream porno especially—there are reformers working within the industry).

For sure, consenting adults can get really fucking freaky! I'm pretty kinky myself, though I've got a lot of hard lines, too. I went to Torture Garden last year for Halloween and dripped candle wax over a couple of consenting sex workers who actively told me to do it them. I'm not sure I'm going back this year because the party didn't really live up to the name tbh. The problem with extreme kink and porn is the profit motive. The more extreme the kink, the smaller the pool of performers/workers you have. With that smaller pool comes a greater asking price for the workers. Furthermore, the more extreme the kink, the smaller the pool of consumers become. Now add in the vice tax, by which I mean the social stigma that porn has, and the scuzzier and less ethical the pool of producers becomes. How do scumbags maximize profits within capitalism? They certainly don't invest in their people and they certainly don't invest in their capital. And in pornography, those are one and the same. Porn producers will take advantage of naive young women (and men!) with all sorts of heinous contracts. Add in some human trafficking, runaways, etc., etc.. That is an extreme illustration, for sure, but it applies to both kink and non-fetish porn. And anyway, the exploitation doesn't even have to be that bad. Just think about how much the average job fucks over the worker in today's economy. That is compounded in industries where there are a lot of grey areas and where much of the industry is hidden away from the public at-large. For the record, I'm generally pro-pornography. Like many things in this country, our reluctance to admit that almost everyone partakes in this "vice" keeps us from being able to make it a safer and more egalitarian aspect of society and the economy. That's why ethical and non-exploitative porn is important. It's not always easy to find, and it's next to impossible to fully vet, and I'm sure there are probably scumbags who claim to be one of the ~good pornographers~; but while there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, we should always try to mitigate the harm we inflict because we are part of a society that has made certain choices.

First Amendment, baby!

Capitalism is inherently exploitative. Sex work is work.

Porn that doesn't...exploit the performers? Porn that doesn't pressure women into doing things that they wouldn't otherwise want to do sexually (being forced to deepthroat until vomiting, getting slapped around while being called a bitch or whore, multiple penetrations of the same orifice at the same time, etc. etc. etc.). Even if the porn is vanilla, the contracts, conditions, schedule, etc., can be exploitative. Modern pornography is so much more violent and fetishistic than it was when most of Surly was coming of age. Non-exploitative porn usually means that a woman is directing or producing it, and very often the performers are intimately involved in the production as well (and not just by performing, obv). It usually means there is more affirmation-centered dirty talk than degradation-centered dirty talk (definitely no use of slurs in the case of trans porn). It's usually more vanilla than kinky, but there are plenty of ways for kink to produced without exploiting the performers. It really isn't hard, but most straight men involved in producing porn (and seemingly the majority of those who consume porn) don't seem to care whether or not their porn is exploiting the performers, as long as they can bust their nut and/or make money. Everyone should critically think about the porn they consume.

You must have missed every post where I refer to myself as a dyke. Women's fashion is inherently much more varied and interesting (and thus, imo, fun) than men's fashion, which is what y'all (the male majority of Surly) wear.

Crossdressing is not an inherently erotic activity. There are plenty of men who just enjoy wearing women's clothing, because it's a lot more fucking fun than the shit y'all wear

Austin Pride being in August is fucking bullshit

FUCK OFF

Party of Life, everyone!

"I think a lot of trans women are turned on at the thought of themselves being women. Guess what? It doesn’t magically make them women," Seiter said. This is a man who watches a lot of trans porn (To be clear, non-exploitative trans porn owns and y'all should all give it a shot [statistically a lot of you have, and good for you, but own it])

¿Por qué no los dos?

Pleasantly surprised by this. JBL is otherwise a pretty big shithead

Did your parents keep a basket by the front door for everyone to put their keys in?

I'd rather it be Neil Cavuto, but BB is the second best choice there