Well, I’d say that tennis did catch on. Ashe, McEnroe, Agassi, Sampras, the Williams sisters, Billie Jean King, Evert; they all had major followings as pros. It’s also a very popular sport to play at all levels of skill. It does have ups and downs, but in terms of pros, it’s a pretty consistent sport to be able to make a living at, which isn’t true of very many single player sports that aren’t fighting.

Soccer, yeah, it’s way behind in terms of draw. There’s a shit ton of opinions about why that is, but I’ve never really put any time into considering them because I’m not a team sports guy at all, and soccer/futbol is low on the list of what I’ll sit and watch for any period of time even when I’m in that mood.

As far as the thought experiment of pitting the players against each other, you’d run into three conflicting training and selection paradigms. I dunno if you’ve ever played both, but holy fuck do they take different bodies to do well at.

Even a running back or wide receiver is going to out mass most Soccer players, and most Soccer players would have trouble with the extra gear even if they didn’t get tackled. So you run into each sport being dominated by people that are physically less capable at the other one at pro levels. At amateur levels, that isn’t as drastic, but you’d see the players from the other sport gassing out early.

Besides, the argument about which sport is “better” has nothing to do with the players. They’re all peak level athletes in the pros, so that’s not relevant. People will argue about it, but people are mostly idiots that will argue whether vanilla is better than chocolate just because they think whatever opinion they hold is superior even when there’s no competition in the first place (they’re entirely different things, not opposites).

Dammit, actually did have me in the first half. My eyes were rolling and my thumb heading to down vote lol.

I’m with you. Even before I did any end of life and hospice care, I believed in the principle. But after seeing what death is really like, I’m an adamant proponent of the right

I dunno, seven samurai is the kurosawa film for me. But the magnificent seven stands on its own as a classic of the same caliber.

I’ve seen both dozens of times (more for SS tbh), and I don’t know that I can point to one or the other as better, not in totality.

It’s called the right to death, and some folks very strongly despise the abrogation of that right

As is often the case, you’re asking an interesting question hidden beneath some of the worst possible phrasing you’ll find online lol

At least, if I’m getting your gist, you’re asking “if we ignore that trans people nare fundamentally trans from birth, wouldn’t it be fair to compare it to any given choice a person makes?”

Assuming I’m reading you right, that’s a good question, but it has a major flaw in it. Comparing transness to a recreational drug is just bad. For a good comparison that fits the restrictions on your thought experiment, you’d want to compare it to steroids, “back room” plastic surgery, or other body altering decisions that are currently not allowed under law, and are also socially stigmatized, as well as causing permanent/long term changes.

So, no, even when pretending that what makes a person trans isn’t started in the womb, it does not boil down to a single choice the way an addictive substance would.

First, not all substances are addictive quickly. None are immediately addictive that I’m aware of. So if transness were a choice, it would still differ in that way.

Second, there is still a difference between making a choice to engage in a long term process and being pressured into a short term action via social manipulation. One can only be peer pressured for so long before a breaking point is reached, though that point may still result in the individual accepting the social pressures and following them.

Thus, it would mean it isn’t a single choice, it’s a chain of choices.

Now, there’s another aspect to the general idea of transness being a choice rather than a state of being (and, again, that’s just the restriction of the thought experiment, not a fact). It begs the question that if individuals have freedom of choice to do a given harmful thing, why can we not choose all harmful things for ourselves? Why can we consume alcohol, but not steroids? Why do we allow restrictions on some things but not others? I’ll let you guess the answer to that as it goes off on a major tangent.

And, indeed, if being trans were a choice, it should be completely treated the same as deciding to get a tattoo or stop at the pub for a few pints. Mind you, that assumes that body autonomy is something we should all have. Anyone that doesn’t believe that is welcome to their opinion, no matter how shitty it is, but I won’t debate it.

Now, you deny that predisposition exists. I’m not sure how or why you came to that conclusion, what with the very clear evidence of predisposition to things like breast cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or any of dozens of diseases known, beyond any reasonable doubt to have a genetic factor that increases the chances of them from marginally to vastly, or even almost certain.

Denying predisposition to other illnesses as even possible is just poor thinking.

When there is compelling evidence to the contrary, holding that belief is on par with hating vaccines in terms of sheer thick-headed duncery. Anyone believing that it isn’t possible is quite welcome to that belief, but then again, they’re equally welcome to believe the sun rotates around the earth, which happens to be flat. So, you know…

With that in mind, I suspect you are, indeed, out of this world on this one lol.

To conclude, transness is still not perfectly understood. Since a great deal of it exists as physical aspects of the brain, and seem to stem from hormonal and epigenetic processes in the womb, I doubt a fully perfect understanding will come along any time soon.

But it is absolutely, positively, 100% not a choice. One might choose to transition for other reasons, as humans are a complex and interesting species. But that’s different from being trans in any real sense.

And, much love to my trans sisters, brothers, and others. ❤

I’ve done that :)

Sometimes I get lucky and a given gathering is up for the really gnarly (but still entertaining rather than maudlin) stories, and I end up going on for quite a while lol.

I used to be banned from dinner tables because of that lol.

Aight, as someone that used to wash dirty bodies for a living, and insists on a level of cleanliness because of that, you’re way overestimating the funk most people have in the short term.

The typical person that’s bathing regularly (not even daily) and is changing clothing daily just isn’t going to smell that bad.

Hell, if a person is actively sweating, they’ll smell better because sweat will flush away the stuff that makes funky smell or taste, so all you get is saltiness.

For real, even in nursing homes with urinary incontinent patients, they didn’t stink just by virtue of being in a wet diaper for a while. A washcloth (or the equivalent) and a light scrub would remove any aroma. For an ambulatory adult using basic methods to clear residual urine, you might get the lightest hint at the end of a long day.

Mostly, genitals just smell genital-y. A little light musk, some hints of sebum scent, and maybe the generic scent of skin. It’s far from unpleasant, even when strong enough to detect while helping someone change clothes.

Now, I never went down on, or fucked a patient. Wouldn’t have been interested in crossing that line even if they were otherwise compatible.

But I have gotten freaky with people after their work, after workouts, etc. The truth is that if they stink it points to something being out of whack. It’s not the default at all. A person’s diet and intake of things has way more influence on their taste and similar to their scent than just being out and about randomly.

For real, while I do prefer such intimacy fresh out of a shower because of my history dealing with people that did have something out of whack, it’s not some kind of horrible experience otherwise. Like, it’s less unpleasant than kissing after eating roasted garlic (which isn’t really unpleasant tbh, just intense).

And it’s not like a full bath is going to be significantly better at knocking down UTI risks than a wipe it washcloth and a light attention.

Seriously, where did you get the idea that crotches stink that bad just walking around?

I mean, if you can’t have the vent go outside, it’s better than nothing, but it won’t pull a majority out of the vented air without passing over the ice pack multiple times.

Only people I’ve ever known to try them thought they weren’t worth a dime

Dammit! Another surveillance pic of me just chilling!

Honestly? Yeah, go for it.

It really doesn’t matter why or what criteria someone uses to select a donor, you’re doing something nice. For a couple that can’t conceive because of sperm issues (whatever those issues might be), having a variety of anonymous donors to pick from empowers them in a way that is really unique.

Think about the whole of human history where infertility was insurmountable without an outsider being directly involved in an intimate way. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t for everyone. Medical assistance gives freedom and independence of choice way beyond what used to be possible.

So, yeah, if you don’t have some major genetic problems, donate.

That’s the best spelling of conniption I’ve ever seen :)

If you’re broke, pretty much all of the usual external aids are out unless you already have them

Valerian nd kava have pretty potent anti anxiety effects. Pretty much the most potent ones, and the most reliable plant based stuff since even with the usual variances, you won’t have zero effect, nor too heavy.

So that kinda leaves you with non chemical options (just because they’re plant based don’t mean they ain’t drugs, ya dig).

Breathing exercises are the front line defense, even if you aren’t in practice, so you start there. Doesn’t even matter what kind, because there’s a chain of control. Control your breathing, control your heart rate and brain patterns. Control those, you control the stress chemicals being released, and that’s where the panic attack part really lives

It isn’t instant, but it works.

The problem is starting them. What I found helped a good bit when I could, was the opposite. Start out doing anything that spikes respiration and pulse. Sit ups, pushups, jumping jacks, whatever you can tolerate physically. Just crank out enough to spike your breathing and pulse a little. It serves multiple purposes, but the key to it is breaking the cycle of the attack. Usually, once you get that spike, you’ll be able to engage breath control easier than if you try starting that first.

Beyond that, you gotta find things to ground yourself in the real world instead of your head. Again the what doesn’t matter much, but I tend to find practical, hands on stuff works well enough. Like, sharpening knives grounds me (it’s my thing, what can I say). If there’s something that normally centers you and lets you kinda hit flow state, that’s the thing to try.

Shit, even something that’s mostly bad for anxiety can work if the ritual of it is calming enough. Like the process of making tea can help despite the caffeine sucking for anxiety.

None of it is easy without a breakthrough option though, and I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass and pretend otherwise. So if you do already have valerian, or an antihistamine, lead with that, but follow up with breathing exercises anyway!

You gotta use a multifaceted approach.

The question in the title is essentially unanswerable. It’s not even possible to point to where an awareness of attraction as opposed to just existing started, or if there even was a starting point.

That being said, chances are that it began at the same point as humans became self aware. Most mammals and plenty of other critters put some degree or another of energy into maximizing their presentation, even if only during mating season.

At some point, any creature that becomes self aware is also going to start seeing the benefits of caring about that.

I suspect you’d be looking at somewhere before homo sapiens, but after whatever “missing link”. Not that I’m confident in the whole idea of a missing link, but that’s tangential. What isn’t tangential is that a lot of the early human-ish critters exhibited signs of self awareness to some degree, so I can’t imagine that sapiens were the first to have it. I seem to recall there being primitive equivalents to combs and such as far back as like ,habilis? Don’t bet money on my memory though

The only way to vet a mod is their history.

Be that user history, or communities they’ve modded. There’s no short cuts, other than delegation. But, you know, that takes having other mods, or at least people you trust to do the work.

So, that’s you irl, saying that shit?

Shit, I think I was the weird kid

In fairness, Mankind hasn’t been too stringent on essays ever since the undertaker threw him off the cage in the hell in a cell match in 98

Damn, that’s a horrible diagnosis. Sorry.

But, as others have said, love insurance has a shit ton of escape clauses because they don’t want to pay out. It isn’t enough to be dead necessarily, the manner and/or cause of death can be a factor.

Bank accounts are easier because you can just add people in to have access. Usually some hoops to jump through, but doable. There’s also power of attorney, which helps with more than just bank issues.

My plan in the event of that diagnosis is to find some forest and get lost before I forget how to get lost.