I just needed to scream this into the void because I'm still thinking about it after dinner last night.
Its just too ridiculous.

For years there’s been tension and drama between my side of the family and Cousin Jeff’s side.

We weren’t allowed to play with their kids growing up. My Father and Cousin Jeff studiously ignored each other at family gatherings etc.

No one ever talked about it but it was understood by the severity of the grudge that some kind of deep betrayal had occurred. 

None of my generation “the kids” were ever told what it was until finally, after years and years of being told it would be explained when we are older I demanded Grandma explain it because I’m forty bloody three. How much older do I need to be??

If someone in my family was a murderer or abuser or worse I had a right to know so that I can never speak to them again.

Turns out the betrayal so massive that Jeff and Dad (who were raised as close as brothers) never spoke again??

Cousin Jeff had a crush on my Mother.

In high school. 

50 years ago.

Dad and Mum married 3 years after high school and Jeff has been throwing a tantrum about it ever since even though my Mum was NEVER interested in Jeff.

Yes I texted her to ask. She said she wasn’t even friends with Jeff back then. She knew of him, and had maybe been in 1 or 2 study groups with him and others. 

He is and always was a shy, quiet kind of guy where as my Dad is a huge, brash extrovert and Mum has always said it was his personality that made her love my Dad and want to marry him. Even though they divorced, that no one ever makes her laugh like my Dad.

So even if it hadn’t been my Father it was never going to be Jeff. 

But Jeff thought she was cute and liked her and therefore that entitled him to her. 

This is so stupid. 50 years of this Family making snide comments and snubs because Cousin Jeff felt entitled to a woman.

I was expecting something truly terrible, something dark. A covered up murder or something of equal seriousness for the way the two sides of the Family have cold shouldered each other over the decades. 

And instead all I got is that Cousin Jeff got pissy that a woman dared to marry the guy she fell in love with instead of him.

And don’t get me wrong, my Father is no Saint. I would bet money he found subtle ways to rub it in Jeff’s face that he got Mum and Jeff didn’t. My Dad is a serial cheater who has been married 4 times. His views on women are nothing to brag about.

But at the end of the day the “betrayal” that kicked this all off is that Jeff believed that his feelings, wants and desires were more important than hers in her own life. After all she didn’t have autonomy or her own thoughts! No no, it was all Dad’s fault for picking up the toy that Jeff called dibs on. 

Anyway, I’m now banned from Thanksgiving for calling Cousin Jeff a fucking moron because "it was a different time then' and "you kids don't understand that sort of thing" to directly quote my Grandmother.

Sure don't Grandma! Wasn't coming to your sad sober Thanksgiving anyway!

Courtney Stodden has publicly confronted Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander over a 2012 Funny or Die comedy sketch, questioning how adults allowed a scene where he rubbed a mobile phone across her breasts when she was just 17 years old.

• Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday that progressive antitrust regulator Lina Khan will serve as the chair of the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
• Her appointment — along with Mamdani’s pick of government veteran Tony Shorris as EDC president — comes after months of speculation among political observers over how a democratic socialist mayor would run a powerful economic development agency that has been accused of prioritizing business interests over the public.
• News of the announcement was first reported by Gothamist.

During a press conference at City Hall, Mamdani hailed Khan as a champion for working people and small businesses. He said that as the chair of his mayoral transition team, Khan had “helped to craft an agenda that put working New Yorkers at the heart of our first 100 days.” The chair position is unpaid.

• Khan’s appointment — which comes seven months after Mamdani entered office — amounts to a shakeup for the agency. The board must approve the EDC’s projects and deals, which have included Hudson Yards, High Line, the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island and the city’s ferry system.

There's MORE in the article.

My husband has recently gotten a cancer diagnosis. Yesterday we came back from a meeting at a university research hospital because his cancer is not behaving normally. His biopsy has been sent to another research hospital and we are waiting for a reply from them. This could take up to 5 weeks. He’s loosing weight rapidly, was told not to use stairs as much as possible because part of is hip is degraded and may break. We have three children (23, 21, 17) we need to discuss it with and have no actual answers for their questions.

I’m a fixer and I can’t fix this. I can only offer love and support and that will have to be enough for now. I just needed to get this off my chest.

It’s my fault. I control what I do and eat. I know that. I was booted from a theme park ride cause I was too heavy. That stung. Real bad. Like real.

Guess I have some big changes to make.

Just had to get that off my chest. Thanks.

For context I’m not religious and have never claimed to be. I was raised catholic and would like to believe there is a god somewhere helping people in need. But I don’t believe there is some almighty gate keeper who is banishing people to hell.

My friend and I had a conversation about this because she believes her brother is going to hell because he is not a Christian. My only perspective on this was that if god supposedly loves all people why would he send anyone to hell? Aren’t we inherently “good” as we are?

Well she just randomly gave me a book about how being a good person doesn’t mean you get into heaven. You have to be a Christian. Which fine, believe whatever you want. But I don’t appreciate beliefs that are harmful to others. This timing feels particularly tone deaf because I have been having a hard time in my personal life. So to be handed a book that says hey by the way you are also going to hell is disappointing.

I don’t know how to address this. She is allowed to have her beliefs but it feels like she’s lost the plot in our friendship. Does anyone have any advice?

Note: I can't change the title to be "Intact Penises and Sex" or I would, sorry for the poor choice of words.

This post is going to be a bunch of TMI.

My new partner has an intact penis. I tend to get a lot of natural lubrication. We had intercourse for the first time last night and I'm wondering if my experience is normal. I felt hardly any friction at all and it's the first time in my life I felt "loose" (yes I know this isn't a real thing, leave me alone about my own feelings) so to speak. I actually got up halfway through and wiped myself up completely dry with a towel since the condom was drenched in it already. There was still so little of that "filled up" feeling, just gliding in and out with little resistance. We ended up having sex a second time later without a condom - you can judge me, we got caught up in on the moment and both agreed it was stupid even though we are exclusive - and it definitely felt better, but still just very slippery. My guy doesn't have a huge penis, but it's also not small - definitely above the average.

I will say that I also felt very safe and very turned on by this man. He takes his time with foreplay and I definitely was fully ready by the time intercourse began. I've developed feelings for him so it's a little more than just sex to me. We were both nervous and I'm sure a bit of mental anxiety contributed to everything as well.

My question... Is this a normal difference from circumcised penises and if so what strategies could I use to give more friction or help with the feeling of being stretched? We can and have definitely used other means to get me off, but I'm worried about this affecting our relationship and hoping there are some solutions.

Every "redpilled" man who comes of age seems to experience an identical fantasy: to leave his liberal, feminist country for somewhere much poorer and more traditional to find a wife who will replace his mother in her caretaking duties, with the bonus of providing all the sex they could want.

…

Clavicular falls neatly in line with the rest of his redpilled kin; men who, often while facing accusations of one sex crime or another, fly to Russia, where an à la carte experience offers escape from accountability and an unlimited supply of attention from attractive women.

The Kremlin has stopped pretending this pipeline is accidental. A 2024 presidential decree created a fast-track residency scheme for Westerners fleeing "destructive neoliberal ideology," with no need for a language test or history exam, just the right grievances. Expect, then, a less sophisticated Tucker Carlson gawking at a Moscow grocery store, marveling at prices only cheap to a foreigner — a useful idiot foreigner.

A lot of this article is not relevant to the sub, other than that there’s a lot of money going toward pushing men to the right via misogyny, but the opener in particular connects the way “influencers” act out the aspirational goals that so many men have with their wives, girlfriends, etc.

And when these men don’t get this aspiration or only get it in part (their job is not good enough to trap their partner in a single-income relationship, or she’s dated people enough to have basic standards), they’re angry.

There’s the material/physical benefit of this dynamic when men get it, straightforwardly but also the psychological wages of being able to believe you’re “superior” to someone who invisibly takes care of you since you can’t cook or clean or launder for yourself.

I don’t think Clavicular is an especially sympathetic or even interesting person. But he is useful as an exaggerated to the point of grotesque example of what many women notice from their own partners at all stages of life.

I’m the receptionist at my office, and I have a bowl of Andes Mints on my desk. I’ve lost count of how many times women in the office, usually the 40 and up crowd, have told me “those would be so dangerous for me if I were you” or how they’re “going to be bad” by eating one, etc. I know the simple answer is diet culture, but you don’t need to declare some sort of act of contrition for eating a piece of chocolate!

My now ex boyfriend and I were together for around 7 and a half years. Last week he asked for an open relationship (we’ve discussed this in the past) but this time it felt different. I asked to check his phone and found out he was sexting another girl for the last 4 weeks. We’ve been through thick and thin, we live together and were supposed to move into a new apartment this weekend. We had an international trip planned for my cousins wedding in a few weeks. He told me he wanted to marry me, he told me and my friends he was going to propose this year. I wanted to make things work, and initially it seemed like he did too. But then I went to my sisters this past weekend so we could get some space and I come back on Monday and learned he doesn’t want to work on things. He wants to be single so he can work on himself and figure out who he is as a person.

My heart is in shambles. I want to talk to him. I want him to text me and beg for forgiveness, tell me he fucked up and we can work through this like we always have done. I’m in a city that I moved to for him and I don’t have a lot of people here. My job is here and I have a handful of friendships that I’ve developed here, but I don’t know what my next steps are. I’m heartbroken and feel like I’ll never be able to love someone the same way I loved this man, he even told me last week when we were trying to fix things that he would marry me right now and he knows that it didn’t mean anything to hear that now but he said he was all in. He reassured me he was all in multiple times last week, even this past Sunday when we weren’t supposed to be talking. But then Monday, poof, we’re finished. Why doesn’t he want to fight for me, for us, for the future that we’ve already been working towards?

How can I love again when after 7 years the person I thought I was going to marry no longer wants me? I’m heartbroken. I’m lost. I’m desperate to be held and told that everything is going to be okay, that we’re going to be okay. Please someone tell me this feeling gets better. I need to see him still to work out untangling our lives from each other. I told him if he wanted to talk he’d have to reach out to me, I stupidly reached out and asked how he was doing today and he said he was doing well. How can he be okay when it feels like my life is falling apart at the seams? Someone, anyone, please tell me my heart will heal. Tell me I’ll be able to love and trust again.

I (F28) live in Sweden, a by all means progressive country. I work at a university at a division with lots of women - including at higher position.

And yet.

The gap between how men and women are treated (particularly by some of the male senior researchers) is noticeable. But what sticks out to me is the difference between how I and my fellow female researchers get treated. I’m ever so slightly less feminine when I’m at work - think short hair, no makeup and idk maybe more flannels and band tees - but more notably I tend to be more assertive. I don’t take shit from anyone and will call people out and am not afraid to take up space or speak my mind . I have what some may say is a slightly more masculine attitude (but I like to think I have the social awareness and empathy to not let this be to my detriment!)

And then there’s my absolutely lovely female coworkers. Who are more patient and sweet, more soft-spoken and careful, maybe shyer maybe more humble or maybe more insecure. Overall, they have some of the virtues and traits that are typically associated with femininity. They typically also have a more feminine appearance and style.

They get trampled all over. People talk over them, interrupt them and make assumptions that they don’t mind anything and that they always need help and advice. They fix the gifts and cards for people who have had babies.

Idk I guess my point is that inequality can be more subtle and nuanced than it seems on paper which I’m sure all of yall already know.

I had been talking to a guy for about 3 months. Things were only difficult because he didn’t know if his circumstances would allow him to date, but things felt like they were changing. When we did hangout, I felt safe and respected. He was kind and funny and I was really attracted to him.

This past weekend I asked about having a more physically intimate relationship as we had never had sex. He got incredibly defensive really quickly and dumped me. I won’t post everything but it was him just saying that my view of him is a “lie” and he even called himself pathetic. He told me in all of the sort of commotion over text that I don’t actually wanna be with him, that he doesn’t have anyone else that he’s thinking about being with because nobody has ever wanted to be with him, and that I’m making this way harder than it needs to be by not just bursting the bubble I have of him in my head.

What the fuck? Where did this come from? He is quiet, reserved and kind and I can’t even imagine him talking of anyone else the way he talks of himself. Obviously, a relationship with someone who views themselves like that isn’t healthy but this has thrown me for a loop.

Im not gonna waste time going into all the backstory, but I (20sF) found out my lil brother (early 20sM) doesnt think sexism is real against women. We had a massive argument because I said women get r*ped more than men, and he said no they dont, because the statistics are skewed and men dont report... I agreed men underreport r*pe, but he literally told me that "nobody can know either way," and said grooming gangs of women are real (but would not show me even one example...)

He then, not kidding, told me that male suicide rates ARE provable because "when someone dies, its recorded, no matter what" and that proves there is sexism against males, not females...

Guys, wtf do i do??? I thought he was a good person, he was assaulted as a child and even admitted a few years ago that despite that he understands women are at a greater advantage for harm, but now he thinks like this... i dont know what to do. Ive just been avoiding any sex based conversation with him but it disturbs me deeply that he says these things.

He also says other offensive things now, like "making money is easy" and because of that all homeless people are just lazy. Also of course other terrible sexist things. I love him a lot but i feel distraught and lost respect for him. Again wont go into details but i spent a lot of my life trying to protect him

Idk what to do, does anyone else have similar experience or words of wisdom? I feel sick lately.

Oh so you know what's going to help me feel less stressed? NOT MY HAIR FALLING OUT. Now I'm stressed AND have a bald spot.

-A 20 year old woman with alopecia

My period is very regular and painless. Never crazy amounts of blood. I have always considered myself blessed for this. I heard many horror stories from my friends about their period and was glad I would never experience something like it.

Boy was I wrong

I didn’t put on a pad tonight, because usually I can always feel when it comes and I wake up and quickly put one on. But if I can help it, if my period isn’t there, I am not wearing a pad at night.

Welp as expected I felt my period turn on tonight, so I quickly acted, and when it’s my first day it’s always fairly slow flow. Turns out I didn’t act quick enough. The moment I stood up from the bed, pure pandemonium exploded. And my mattress and bedsheets where miraculously spared.

Blood was everywhere in a matter of seconds. My floor and my legs became drenched bright red immediately, and as I was searching for a pair of underwear, I could feel it not dripping, but basically pouring out of me. When finally I put my underwear in pad load mode, I had only one thing left to do, reach my bag which I knew had a pad in it. Looking down on the floor I realized this would be no easy task. I had to carefully avoid the blood or else I would only spread it across the floor even more. Inevitably, I stepped on the blood.

As I was putting my pad finally on, the blood had somehow gotten on my fresh underwear. But I have no change for the moment. So I put my pad over it and quickly got my stained clothes to wash them in the bathroom, the stained floor was a problem
For later.

Once I was done with cleaning my undies and pj pants, I checked what was the situation down there, and behold my pad was full, in the time it took to wash my clothes.

So once more I changed it.

Then I had to mop my entire room. I honestly felt like Dexter for a moment.

What could have caused this unexpected explosion? Usually on my first day my blood is nearly black and very slow flow. This time it just started 100 times stronger than my second day, and my second day is my day with the heaviest flow. I am honestly at a loss here. I’d also love to hear about your horror story.

I'd been putting off getting it for months because I kept reading horror stories on here. It wasn't pleasant, but it also wasn't terribly painful either and it was over quickly, with me asking, "that was it?". I took paracetamol and ibuprofen and used a cervix softener beforehand and did it while I was on my period to make it easier. No cramping or pain after so far.

I just wanted to post my good story to balance out some of the terrible ones I read on here, in case like me you are considering it but freaking out a bit.

I feel so freaking grossed out. I don’t even know how to explain the feeling accurately.

I’ve been single for only seven months. I’ve been trying to make the most of the time and keep busy: build a life of my own, spend time with friends, focus on my work, and am buying my first house. I feel really good about being single and don’t feel I need that kind of companionship or want the drama associated with it. Maybe forever.

In the last few months I’ve had to tell two different people I’m not interested - and for “no” being a complete sentence, they just didn’t seem to get it. And then the question becomes “okay, not now - how about later?”

And I realize the reason this bothers me so much is because you’re asking me to promise you that at some point I will be ready to date and I will choose to date you, specifically. Like you’re gonna hang out waiting when I’ve told you not to so you can be first in line. Like I’m a Best Buy at Black Friday in 2002.

I’ve been clear. I’m happy single. I even offered the information I didn’t have to that I’m still in love with my ex and that’s the only relationship I’d consider when I’m ready. They still hear “no” as “maybe.” And then I have to be cold and firm and kind of a bitch to get my words to crack the surface of the massive wall they’ve built around their brain. And then they’re hurt and I’m a frigid bitch and I’m the bad guy for just wanting to be left alone. My fault for not promising you my future right freaking now.

And I’m fortunate that both of these people were not total psychos, but it still made me feel unsafe to have to repeat myself and repeat myself and be pressed to defend my decision about MY LIFE and MY BOUNDARIES. I have stopped talking to one entirely. The other is a coworker and I have decided we cannot be friends that hang out outside of work anymore. Apparently that gives him hope even when I am saying no and sticking to public places. Strictly work now.

I hate that being single is like this. That I feel if I am untethered it’s open season. I’m tempted to make up an imaginary boyfriend “you don’t know him he doesn’t go to this school” because the only time people respect that I don’t want to date them is when there is another man involved.

For context I am 27 and have been on birth control for 10 years. Within the last 5 years, I have been feeling lower abdominal pain the ranges from dull ache to what I imagine is pain comparable to labor pains. The pain used to be more on the lower left side of my abdomin and cause a dull nerve pain at the top of my thigh that cannot be relieved. Now the pain feels centered under my FUPA, but still more towards the left side. The pain comes and goes, but seems to be most triggered when I exercise or do a lot of physical labor.

I have gone to the OBGYN with multiple vaginal ultrasounds. Everything looks normal apparently. I occasionally have a small ovarian cyst that is normal during my cycle. I wasn't able to go to the doctors after replacing my IUD with a new one because I was doing my internship, and school was top priority. Plus my internship only allowed one day off. By the time I graduated, I aged out of my mom's insurance. Then I got a job that kept me as a temp for 9 months before hiring me on full time, but I still must wait 3 months to use any insurance so effectively 1 year no insurance I can use. Not that it matters now, as I quit and got a job with better benefits that will allow me to use my (better) benefits within a month.

I just needed to rant because today I suffered another pain attack while I was doing a ton of laundry and cleaning. I collapsed in pain and cried, almost throwing up and feeling the need to 'push' down there. I have crawled into bed so I can rest a little. I am so tired of this pain. Idk if it is PCOS (or whatever the new name is), endometriosis, something GI related, or what! I just want some answers and access to treatments and tests!

Edit: I am seeing a lot of super great suggestions and I want to just say that I start my new job in like 2 weeks and then I will have access to benefits in September. I haven't been able to see a doctor in about 2 years, plus I moved to a new city, so I will be starting over in finding a PCP, PT, GI, OBGYN, etc. My first stop will be PCP. From there go in depth about everything related to my abdominal pain. I'll see if I can request some type of scan for any hernias, testing for celiacs, referrals for PT for hypertonic pelivic floor, and go from there.

1. Not pregnant. Took a test - negative, on continuous birth control to stop periods, haven't had a period in 10 years.

Ever since last week my gag reflex has gone from kinda sensitive to extreme. I can't even floss my back teeth without vomiting or gargle. Eating triggers it half the time, and I've become significantly more motion sick.

Has anyone else gone through this? Any advice?

Do you often experience dramatic switch up in how people treat you based on how you look?

I've always been unattractive/ugly but I now look ugly. I messed up my eyes from surgeries - they are smaller and look uncanny and don't move normally. I have sleep issues and I look more androgynous/masculine for a woman. I have falio features but because of how my eyes are now this has caused significant disharmony.

Also with how thin my skin is it doesn't really hold my features and I sort of look like I have a facial deformity. I look quite strange and I understand why people react negatively to me.

Within the past few years I constantly get treated with hostility and disrespect. People are so unnecessarily aggressive towards me. I get called ugly regularly.

I cannot change society and how awful people are. I'm learning to develop thicker skin and accept that I have a facial deformity to cope with how I'm treated. Otherwise I can look into getting surgeries.