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A giraffe at Nairobi National Park, with Nairobi's skyline in background

Open Thread with Giraffe and Skyline

tigtog

A lone giraffe with Nairobi’s city skyline in the background features for this week’s Open Thread. Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

Giraffe - Skyline - Nairobi - Park
A giraffe at Nairobi National Park, with Nairobi’s skyline in background
(By Mkimemia from Wikimedia Commons CC-BY-SA-3.0)

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?

* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.

25 thoughts on Open Thread with Giraffe and Skyline

    2. I cannot believe it actually happened and am so shocked and happy it did. The Mako fake-out just before had me thinking that it was just another case of overreading.

  4. Pop evolutionary psychology is so self-serving toward men I don’t know how any man can believe it without knowing on some level he’s kidding himself.

    “Men are programmed by evolution to crave money and power, women are programmed to want to take care of others (like, say men!). Men are best at authoritative important jobs, women are best at low-paid, low-authority, low-intelligence-requiring work. Men are programmed to want to sleep with an endless line of gorgeous young women, women are programmed to be good faithful wifeys. Men are just naturally no good at chores like cooking, cleaning, etc.”

    *eyeroll*

  5. I am temporarily standing down as a New York resident in January. Going to be giving up my loft in Brooklyn after 5 glorious years. Like we were in Manhattan, we’ve been priced out and the neighborhood we moved into is barely recognizable. Though, that’s not as big a factor as other things, like working in the UK and hating air travel, more opportunities for my wife’s firm, and just a craving for change.

    So, we’re moving to London full time. We’ve got a great terraced house in Baron’s Court and I would be so looking forward to it if not for the logistics of moving two cats and the contents of a 2800 sq foot loft. Our possessions are mostly going into storage, but the cats are coming with us – I say ‘us’ but my wife is in New Orleans all January, coincidentally working for one of her UK clients (I won’t say who her client is but there aren’t too many huge British company being sued in NOLA right now, so you could probably guess.) So yeah, it’s on me to take two cats on a trans atlantic jaunt. (I must admit my little boy beezly seems to be looking forward to it: in an adorable way: https://www.dropbox.com/s/osqhh6le3tpmv2y/10849933_813576202042939_7358526079161814259_n-1.jpg?dl=0)

    As you can imagine, this plus Xmas with the inlaws, is combining to make what should be an amazing experience nothing but a source of massive stress. I feel embarrassed that I can’t enjoy the gifts I’ve gotten in life(admittedly largely through being lucky and privileged) without worry, when there are so much people who have nothing, not even their health, yet are happy and contented.

    Gosh, when I started this, I really thought I was imparting good news! LOL

    1. What a handsome, adorable kitty! Will they have to be on some kind of quarantine status?

      Good luck with everything. Sounds exciting.

      1. Now there’s a ‘Pet Passport’ where they get microchipped, and their rabies shot, and they can travel to the UK in 21 days after the rabies shot. Same goes for dogs, with the addition of having to get tapeworm medication.

  6. TW

    As a bisexual, I wish some people wouldn’t define bisexuality and/or pansexuality as looking at people’s personalities/hearts/souls, not what they look like. I care what my partner looks like; I’m not attracted to everyone and I want someone who’s attractive to me. That’s not bad or shallow. (Also, boo to all those movies that basically say a woman needs to give a man a chance just because he’s nice, even though she’s not attracted to him and/or they have nothing in common. Niceness is not a basis for a relationship.)

    I also wish some people wouldn’t assume everyone with a vagina who wore men’s clothes in the past was a transgender man. Sometimes it’s the case, but assuming it in every case erases a lot of women who had to wear men’s clothes, or just found them more convenient.

  7. TW

    I think if two people have extremely different sex drives and one or both of them insists on monogamy, it’s not wrong if they break up. If the only other solution is “one person is miserably deprived forever” I don’t think refusing that makes you a bad person who doesn’t really love your partner. And most women have sex drives also – this isn’t just about mean beastly men leaving their dear sweet wives because they won’t put out.

    I also think there should be more understanding for people who end their sex lives with their partners after said partners come out as trans. I see so many stories about trans women that basically end with “my wife/girlfriend will never get to have sex with a penis again, but that’s ok, sex doesn’t matter to her anyway.” If that’s true then fine, but if she feels obligated to say that to be a good supportive wifey/girlfriend? No.

    1. I see so many stories about trans women that basically end with “my wife/girlfriend will never get to have sex with a penis again, but that’s ok, sex doesn’t matter to her anyway.” If that’s true then fine, but if she feels obligated to say that to be a good supportive wifey/girlfriend? No.

      Would you be ok with clarifying this further? I’m a trans lesbian and to be quite honest, I have yet to hear such things from a trans woman leaving a relationship with a cis woman. I’m not denying that you’ve ever witnessed what you described above – I just feel kind of lost here.

      1. Would you be ok with clarifying this further? I’m a trans lesbian and to be quite honest, I have yet to hear such things from a trans woman leaving a relationship with a cis woman. I’m not denying that you’ve ever witnessed what you described above – I just feel kind of lost here.

        I think you are quite justifiably feeling uncomfortable due to the undercurrent of Anna’s comment. She says ‘…if she feels obligated to say that to be a good supportive wifey/girlfriend? No.’ That and the penis comments are pretty much saying (albeit implicitly) that the trans woman is still the ‘man’ in the relationship.

        1. She says ‘…if she feels obligated to say that to be a good supportive wifey/girlfriend? No.’ That and the penis comments are pretty much saying (albeit implicitly) that the trans woman is still the ‘man’ in the relationship.

          Can’t speak to any undercurrents, but I definitely agree with this part:

          I think if two people have extremely different sex drives and one or both of them insists on monogamy, it’s not wrong if they break up. If the only other solution is “one person is miserably deprived forever” I don’t think refusing that makes you a bad person who doesn’t really love your partner.

          I’ve definitely heard people argue that breaking up with someone due to lack of sex is gross, antifeminist, even rapey.

        2. You’re right; I was wrong. What I should have said was “If someone has gender-affirmation surgery and their partner is no longer sexually attracted to them, said partner should not feel obligated to stay married to or in a sexual relationship with them in order to be seen as good and supportive.”

    2. Your original comment was unpleasant, and the second one still appears to be based on false premises. You see “so many stories” where trans women and their cis female partners say those things? I can’t recall seeing any at all, either publicly or privately reported. And I suspect I’ve read or heard about or been told about a great many more — hundreds if not thousands — than you have.

      Most trans women who were formerly in ostensibly straight marriages aren’t as grossly selfish or insensitive as you seem to believe. They’re well aware of the cost to their spouses who are straight-identified. And most of their spouses, if they aren’t happy with the situation, don’t hesitate to end the marriage. By the way, the ones who stay in the marriage are usually seen as crazy or “abused,” not as “good and supportive.” The idea that general sympathy lies with the trans woman — and with continuation of the marriage — in such circumstances is preposterous.

      Also: “com[ing] out as trans” is hardly synonymous with genital surgery. Nor does it necessarily imply that the trans woman no longer wants to (or is physically able to) have sex with her spouse. Whatever one interprets “having sex” to mean. By the same token, it doesn’t necessarily imply that even a straight-identified spouse no longer wants to have sex with the trans woman. You can’t possibly make such generalizations.

      1. I should clarify, perhaps: I’m not claiming that it’s impossible that you’ve ever seen such a story. Simply that I haven’t ever seen one, and that your implication that this is the “standard narrative,” or something common, is false.

        1. I should clarify, perhaps: I’m not claiming that it’s impossible that you’ve ever seen such a story. Simply that I haven’t ever seen one, and that your implication that this is the “standard narrative,” or something common, is false.

          Donna,
          I should also clarify that if it wasn’t for the interaction I’ve had with you, Ally, LB, and other trans people on this very site, I wouldn’t have been able to so easily come up with my critique of Anna’s comment. I truly thank you all for making me a better more thoughtful person if only in this one particular way.

    2. The link Angel posted is a really good blogpost, not just a link to twitter (as I assumed due to the #)

      It gives contact info for the Ralph Lauren people, so you can tell them what you think (which for someone like me, with no Ralph Lauren in his wardrobe, is better than a boycott.)

  9. Very powerful.

    I will point out one inaccuracy (which I think is immaterial) so people can be aware of it and not let it derail the necessary conversation; the article addresses Lauren and says:

    Stop trying to put a price tag on our heritage and sell us, and make a mockery of the genocide our Native ancestors suffered at the hands of your forefathers, by forcing them to represent you just to boost holiday sales.

    Ralph Lauren — Mr. WASP — is actually Ralphie Lifshitz from the Bronx, born in 1939 to Jewish immigrants from Belarus. (He doesn’t like to be reminded of his origins.)

    But it doesn’t really matter that his ancestors played no personal role. He’s been here long enough. And if he’s going to spend his life pretending to be some kind of Mayflower descendant, then he should take what comes with that.

    1. Technically his andestors did play a role. When they moved here, they moved to occupied, stolen land and benefited from the oppression of native americans. All colonizers played and still play a role. Until the genocide stops, all colonizers play a role in NA genocide.

  10. When are people going to stop assuming that TERFs are a powerless minority and no longer have any influence on mainstream feminism? It’s really not helping anyone but people who side with TERFs – such as the Christian right wing, which is still often a supporter of TERF legislation in this country.

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