| ops & policy | https://nfo.posts.stream |
> reminder that normal people aren’t horny in a strangers mentions
reminder that normal people aren’t worth interacting with :)
i usually don’t watch classics when their production doesn’t stand up to the test of time, but something came over me recently, and i ended up watching Seven Samurai (1954)
i was hooked just from the opening scene, which is a pretty goddamn rare thing to happen to me considering any given piece of media. it’s really fucking good, people, check it!
🧵
taking a stroll down memory lane today, i guess!
this might compound things:
i was at a public pool. very young, and cannot begin to venture when this occurred precisely. i was in the shallow end, hanging on to the edge. my feet couldnt touch my bottom, so i was constantly kicking to stay afloat while clinging to that edge.
i dont know why, but my parents weren’t around, that i recall. no one i knew was with me. eventually, i became fatigued and couldnt hang on to the edge anymore. i called out for help, but no one came.
i went under. long enough to swallow water. then a hand reaching and pulling me out. gasping, coughing. i don’t know who it was. it might have been my mother, but there was no one consoling me about what had happened.
theres nothing else to this memory. i dont remember any conversations surrounding the event, nor anyone offering recognition of my emotions. nothing. just the fear of that edge slipping my grasp and my calls not being heard in time.
probably my reaction to this is so strong because i was traumatized at a young age from something that most parents see as a benign teaching of discipline.
as a child who was borderline underweight and had difficulty eating enough portion-wise, being forced to eat vegetables that were repulsive to me by a daycare worker stuck with me.
i didnt eat peas again until i was like 25. that’s a vivid memory. i can see the person’s face still. i remember that and i dont even know how old i was!
very very young, i know that much. pre-preschool young. maybe 4-5?
what i witness at the pool every week must be human rights violations, and yet most others look on at it, smiling and cheering.
what i saw today clearly was a violation of a child’s consent. she was screaming, ear-piercingly so, and saying, sometimes screaming, over and over, ‘i dont want to do this!’
…and yet the “swimming instructor” continued to dunk her head under water, cooing at her, “swimming lessons are important,” serious and unphased.
one might argue that children are so malleable that any damage which might be incurred by this doesn’t persist.
i see that when the “instructor,” who can be heard saying he “loves kids,” tries to calm her by asking if she wants to helicopter. the screaming immediately stops, and she joyfully assents, all those strong emotions washed away in an instant. she’s spun high above him, giggling with glee, and this reprieve succeeds in placating her. briefly.
it does not, however, alter the conviction in her heart against these “swimming lessons.”
…i feel as if im witnessing torture. every week. it’s painful.
i remark upon how what we’re witnesssing doesn’t seem ethical to someone who had laughed each time the child wailed in what seemed to me like agony. she agrees with me, so how?? how does she compartmentalize that pain so well?
distilling years of groaning disappointment with grindr “doms” into a sentence:
so long as youre not too timid as a dom, nor overbearing/out of touch to the point of nausea, it could work
friend-shaped entity