Some days I wake up and it seems so obvious that the answer to everything is oxytocin.

It is absolutely insane that we have bodies built around co-regulation via cuddling and skin-to-skin contact, and then we created societies that turned that into a taboo.

It makes sense though, if you think of society as a top-down structure in which the few want to control the many; if you are a tyrant, you don't want your people to love each other, to care for one another, to feel on some level like one person's body is an extension of their own; that we are branches on one tree, and to sever us is horror.

That patriarchy focuses so heavily on isolating men, especially, from both themselves, from each other, from women--even from their children--also makes sense; because the powerful in a patriarchal system are forever endeavoring to turn men into either an engine of productivity, or a weapon they can use to bludgeon others into submission.

If people are chemically, hormonally, economically entwined with one another through physical affection and mutual aid, their capacity to either perpetrate or countenance violence is reduced.

I'm sure nothing I'm saying here is new, but, I've always secretly suspected that the solution to most of life's problems is cuddling and making out--and in this era where fascism is on the rise, that seems more true than ever.

#journal #nonsensethoughts #anotherdayinthedatamines #patriarchy #fascism #cuddling