I (23M) had an abusive upbringing. In early childhood, my father beat me and told me I was weak when I cried out in pain and begged for mercy. Since then, I learned that I was unlovable because I expressed vulnerability and neediness instead of silently enduring the pain, and that others would expect me to be strong and take things "like a man."

As I grew up, I got better and better at hiding my pain. But because I so rarely experienced any kind of affection or positive attention, I never learned to hide pleasure.

I compared myself a lot to men in pornography. It seemed like nothing fazed them, even as women did things to them that could make me faint. These men had incredible endurance and could stay in control of themselves as they made manly grunts. I was a failure in comparison.

I do not make manly grunts. I sound like Mickey goddamn Mouse. I unlock 3 new octaves of vocal range and tremble and blush and hyperventilate like crazy. I'm so embarrassed about it. I see videos of men receiving oral and think "Holy shit, HOW is that guy still standing? He's not even shaking!?" And then I think there's no way in hell that women would put up with my effeminate whines if strong guys who can withstand a woman's attention with little more than a few grunts are everywhere.

I came up with all these sexist lies about women to reassure myself that there was no risk of being touched by them and I was in control. "Porn is just fiction and the actresses lie when they express pleasure or interest; in reality, women don't initiate or reciprocate touch in real life because they're sexually passive and men are the pursuers. Women don't want to touch men because they are wired to receive pleasure, not give it. Also, women have to constantly fear being stalked and harassed by men, so I am doing the right thing by staying as far away from them as possible. Besides, I'm too much of a sensitive crybaby to be attractive to women anyway. So I'm safe. Sure, I live in a touch-starved hellscape, but I'll never have to worry about a woman touching and exploring my body and having naughty thoughts about me, let alone acting on them."

But it's about time I drop the bullshit and be honest.

I'm terrified of being touched by women I'm attracted to because I fear that they would ruthlessly mock me when I inevitably lose my composure and melt into a flustered, needy, giggly, grateful puddle. After all, that's what happened the last time I was openly emotive, way back in childhood when I cried out for mercy. None of my generalizations about women are true, and my avoidance of women doesn't actually make the world better. I am not helping anyone or acting rationally by doing this; I am just avoiding the possibility of being seen when I'm an emotional mess.

I was hoping that no woman would ever sexually desire me because then I would never have to worry about being seen. There were a couple of incidents in school where someone groped me and ran off before I could see who they were, and I automatically assumed at the time that the perpetrator was a guy, because the possibility of them being a girl was far more dangerous to my psyche.

I have these pervasive fantasies that a woman would find my flustered collapse incredibly cute and sexy. Rather than chastising me, she would be really sweet and flirtatious and enjoy sensually melting me at my own pace so as not to overwhelm me. My fear tries to convince me that this outcome isn't possible. But every day, I gain just a little bit more hope that it actually is, and the fear and shame lose just a little bit more power.

I know that Lemmy isn't a substitute for professional help, which is why I have also been going to therapy, but I think it would help a lot if others could tell me what a partner's positive experience of my responses might look like or share how they dealt with similar insecurities and communicated about them with their partner.

What do you think?

inspired by this post https://lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/48742321

What do you make of dreams that don't make sense one bit...is it your subconscious fighting with your conscience (if you are conscious when sleeping that is); regressions of some sort...?

All I know is the majority of my dreams are just plain crazy.

I've heard that apparently, Japanese pronunciation is simpler to pick up (anime, games, etc). when you hear it spoken. As in, when foreigners learn it: they find that easier to listen to than spoken Mandarin since there's no tones in Japanese (rather pitch accent, but it's not the same as it could be understood based on context even if said wrong) while Mandarin places a huge emphasis on tones that change the definition completely.

Also, how does spoken Japanese sound to the ear when you either watch subtitled anime when you compare that to anime being dubbed in Mandarin? I know that one of my friends watches Asian dramas and prefers either Japanese or Korean audio over Mandarin for some reason (I'd assume it has to do with accent and how a language sounds when spoken). Is Mandarin dubbed anime even good or does it sound bad?

I enjoy the subjects I majored in, history and geography but something I simply cannot is dealing with bratty children who for whatever reason consider a teacher an enemy.

I am also a registered nurse with almost 4 years working bedside, if that helps.

I have heard from a lot of people that in 60s or 70s, there was this culture common. People doing LSDs, dancing, having strange aesthetics, entry of Eastern religions into West and all that spirituality and if I am not wrong, conservative institutions of that time in West like church, families, and etc. did not like that and were in opposition of that.

I have never met a person who used to be a hippy so I thought why not ask here. What made you a hippy? What was your parents' reaction? How long did you remain a hippy? How was the experience?

Don't have to say a name, something like "local thai place" is fine.

Bonus: What makes it a perfect date dinner spot?

Life is a shit show. The cycle continues.. Perhaps it’s important to celebrate the small things, like a weekly anniversary. Do you observe a weekly tribute to the passing of time- either a beverage, a moment, an all-day outlook, etc.? Which day do you pick and what’s the significance?

Would software engineers ever unionise in future, if the industry keeps getting shit every year due to AI and layoffs?

Like movies. We react and get emotional and startled and stuff, but that's totally fake and we know it.

And AI. I know it's just a statistical illusion but I'll still have a conversation with it. Sometimes I'll even feel gratitude. So that's nuts.

And then you have stories handed down by important authorities. Science and religion. The guy said it so I treat it as real. Is that good or bad?

Fact is, we as humans do this thing where we treat fantasy as reality. And sometimes that's a good and useful and sometimes it's bad. And sometimes it's good for a while but then there's a AHA moment and then you realize you've been fooled and it was all fake. And sometimes that matters and sometimes it doesn't. I don't know. I'm getting confused here. You tell me.

Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots

Just wondering as internet "gurus" on platforms like youtube annoy me.

Also i want to someday earn money without having a job or where i am my own boss, but im young and have next too no money, and i have no talent. ive tried the "simple" ways to get a grasp of learning. Ive tried free methods like surveys, games, ebay selling, etc, but i find that those are a waste of time/effort for me atleast and im lucking to break even. I struggle to even learn new things, school pretty much failed to teach me the right way of life.

I feel lost at life right now.

Currently thinking about either Tuta or Mailbox.org, but to be honest, I don't even know many providers.
Something I do not like is limit on number of addresses with a custom domain. Mailbox is at least a bit reasonable with 50 on Standard, but Proton's 10 on Mail Plus is disqualifying for me.

Tuta has unlimited number, but doesn't support PGP.

So I plan to check out whatever you guys use.

If I was told that I'd come back to earth to be reincarnated as another human being with choices. I would like the following;

To be a woman. To be non-binary, still. To still remain a 'gray world resident'. To retain my ability to not cave to FOMO and be resourceful. There's a hundred of other things but in terms of core ones, those are the few.

Example, putting ketchup on a perfectly cooked ribeye steak at a nice restaurant.

It's the late 90s and I was working in IT for a small (200 employees) company.
One of my tasks was performing daily data backups, which ran for about four hours and started after everyone else had left for the day.
We had an intercom system in the building, where if you picked up your phone and dialed a specific extension, you could page someone, or make announcements so everyone could hear.

One night I was in the process of running Ethernet cable from switches on the second floor down to individual terminals on the first floor, so there was a lot walking around the building.

I like to have music when I'm working, but I didn't have an MP3 player at the time, so I thought... "I have music on my PC and no one is around. Why don't I just...", and I went around and cranked the volume knob on every ceiling intercom speaker in the whole building. Then I dialed into the intercom from the phone in my office, put the handset up as close as I could to my PC speakers, and boom, music throughout the building.

Cut to a few hours later, it's late, I'm tired, the backup is finished, so I close down the system, hit the lights, lock the doors, and go home.

The next day, I come in, not thinking about anything from the night before, and get to work. About 11:00am, the owner's secretary got on the intercom to page someone.... and blew everyone out of their seats. There was an almost collective, "What the fuck??!!" from everyone, and an "Ohhh, shiiit" from me, because of course I immediately knew what happened.

I ran around like a madman, turning the volume down on all of the speakers that I had forgotten the night before, while saying, "No idea... Yeah it's crazy... No no, it's fixed now..."

No one ever found out exactly why the volume was so loud that morning.

genuinely curious.

I'm not talking about leggings made specially to do that, just regular sport leggings, like those from asics, nike, adidas or lululemon

One quirk of Lemmy is that edits and deletions may not propagate properly to every server, meaning you're never guaranteed anything past the initial posting.

So how do you handle when you say something you'd like to amend, correct, or delete?

Do you:

• Edit your corrections directly into the original?
• Delete it?
• Add an Edit:?
• Put the original comment behind a spoiler tag or strike through?

Or something else?

I will start by saying I have toyed with posting this because as soon as someone says they don't wanna see it, someone will make a community for it. However I feel like some of the stuff that makes Reddit annoying is creeping over. And just because I don't like it does not mean its not a valid community. So if it is least put in the right place (rather that the bigger generic communities) I can then just filter or block it.

Ill start I don't want to see

• Am I the arsehole
• Relationship drama
• Celebrity worship/drama

So what communities DON'T you want to see here?

This happens in Europe.

As previously said, I’m a nurse.

Before working as a nurse I majored in History and Geography and have a M.Ed. for both subjects. These are subjects I always enjoyed and I always enjoyed explaining history to those interested in it but I couldn’t deal with teenagers acting like teenagers do, and parents outright lying to me, and burned out. After that and moving elsewhere I majored in nursing and started working at different hospitals.

I am now in a better financial situation and I’m planning my way out of bedside: It’s either studying a B.Sc. to become a Physician Assistant or studying a B.Ed. to become a Nurse Educator.

Nurse Educator would be the shorter way due to my M.Ed. and students wouldn’t be bratty teenagers, I hope. It would be a better life than my current one, a safe choice, a predictable life. I don’t want more than that. I enjoyed explaining history, I enjoy explaining things to patients, I would enjoy teaching nursing to nursing students who are there not because they must, like in high school, but because they actually want.

Physician Assistant is also an interesting field: I’d simply study more comprehensively what I now know superficially, I would handle things I'm currently doing unofficially in an official capacity, it’s also a safe bachelor because people are always getting sick, I wouldn’t be a nurse anymore and wouldn’t have to bear the brunt of the physical work I now do. I wouldn’t have to retire early like so many nurses do because they’re physically broken, it would be a more mental job. I like explaining to patients what a procedure means for them, what risks may be present, what happens afterwards, how organs work… because so many doctors simply do but won’t explain why and what they do and that means the patient get angry and nurses are the ones paying for it.

Either way, I hope to leave behind the incredible, insufferable cattiness that permeates nursing, the backstabbing, the gossip over stupid stuff and 5 people yelling at you contradictory orders at the same time. I’m too old for that stuff.

But I fear I’ll have to deal with the same kind of childish people I now have to deal with, because even some doctors are simply older children, not adults.

Another question here is if any of these 2 bachelors opens me doors to jobs where I don’t have to deal with immature coworkers, or if any of those bachelors allows me to choose what kind of people I work with: I know of good, competent coworkers who refuse to work with certain doctors because they are simply not good, to the point of changing hospitals, I know others who simply don’t want to work at hospitals so they seek better opportunities elsewhere. I want that kind of freedom, to choose the kind of people I work with. Is either of these bachelors the way to achieve that?

I’m also scared of continuing my education because there is an absolute nurse shortage and no wonder why, it’s a complete shit job nobody sane wants to do, because it breaks you. But this shortage means I’ll never be out of a job, whereas if I pursue any of those bachelors, I may end up unemployed.

Anything you write would help me. Thank you.