Oh, like German “Fach” then, I assume? That does actually make sense

I know that there were (are?) browser extensions that fetch and display “karma” on profiles, at the very least on firefox. Might be worth a search for people interested in statistics and numbers going up.

Mayo + Ketchup combined, the classic “Rot-Weis”-combo in Germany.

That or, preferrably, mayo + a good chilli sauce

Hm, lets see if I can still get it together, it has been years since I read Lacan. All of this should be viewed as just from the top off my head the way I remember/interpreted it.

The phallus for Lacan is the imagined omnipotence and agency of our parents (or other caregivers) as we are a very young child and completely dependent on them, turned into a fundamental aspect of the unconscious. Further, it is some desirable aspect, that we imagined makes our caregiver desire other things more than our own needs. (Think: A mother may not immediately feed a child because she is occupied with something else, like the father.) It is the idea of having something, that can fulfil your needs - but is also intimidating and unpredictable, powerful yet volatile. In sexuation, Lacan argues, the “male” sexuation (note that Lacan already did not completely tie this to sex nor even gender as such, more to sexual roles that develop more broadly but have tendencies) projects this onto the proper phallus, i.e. penis, and desires to control it and use it, i.e. overcome the unconscious concept of castration (the realisation of your own powerlessness and dependency). Whereas the “female” sexuation starts to project onto the phallus the primal desire of getting back the symbolic phallus - fetishising it as something powerful that takes control of you and ultimately will enable you to reach the object of desire. Note that this object of desire to Lacan is a complex concept in the unconscious, and I can’t get it all together (and assume I already misremembered some stuff along the way), but at its core, it is an unreachable, unimaginable part of the unconscious, around which the rest of the unconscious circles, never quite reaching it.

The original image was just an image of a possessive gf holding up a guy by his dick.

*Dryena

Also, learn how to fly drones if you can, if (when?) things go shit-fan-hitting globally, that seems like a really useful skill to have in your group, considering how the face of warfare looks at the moment.

With a quick reminder: If you in any way can, don’t do this solo, connect with others, don’t get arrogant about it, either. The fascist preppers have a huge weakness in their narcissistic individualist “I am better than the sheep” prepping style. Being able to actually support and organise a community in the potentially coming chaos is important.

Just noticed that crossposting doesn’t display properly (yet) in Jerboa, so as an advertisement for the community: !truecomics@midwest.social

Exactly, what, does she think she just fell out of a coconut tree or what?

I’d say that analysis is on point. Usually, when patrilineal inheritance and patriachical power dynamics aren’t part of the ideological structure, the need to repress lgbt dynamics within the sexes and genders is less of an imperative. Although I would be cautious to simply equate third genders in general to nonbinary/trans identities of today, they always had their own, specific historical and ideological circumstances.

One example of what basically amounted to a “third gender” that was present also in western societies historically (although more so in other parts of the world), would be eunuchs. Created culturally (and very much materially by castration, of course) out of patriarchical concerns of inheritance and power dynamics, as a subset of people that won’t endanger inheritance and without the risk of them creating their own dynasty, they were seen as having completely different roles as to their sexuation and overall status. (Of course, it is interesting to note, that the power dynamics shifted and their position as reliable advisors “without ambition” actually led to eunuch shadow governments, for example in parts of Chinese history). Of note is, that for example castrated choir boys (done so to preserve their “angelic” voices) in western society were one of the few examples where we have evidence of them being idolised as desireable by a female POV sexually (most likely because there was no risk of pregnancy and thus a much reduced risk of an extramarital affair resulting in being shamed and/or even killed).

So existence of a third gender does not necessarily entail respect for inherent identities of people. There are also some instances of third-gender identities being crafted basically to satisfy the sexual needs of dominant homosexual men in positions of power, often arising out of/develooing alongside male prostitution, within history.

I am a Marxist when looking at history, so I view patriarchy as something that arose out of material conditions as a very “succesful” model to reproduce class society in the past, which is why it became so prevalent globally, even without taking colonial history into account. Reducing women to their reproductive role, while also giving them a “valued as an object” status, was beneficial to societies that impose their will violently through war and repression. You can survive and rebound from losing two-thirds of your men in war as a society, but not losing your women. And in times, where warfare and violence was much more heavily tied to physical fitness, the statistical biological differences in human sexual dimporphism further positioned patriarchical structures as a tragically succesful model - which of course did not just do good things for men at all, their lack of being valued in an objectified way also meant they were more disposable, if not in a position of power.

More and more archeological evidence, combined with anthropological studies of non-class tribal societies, shows that on average, our ancestors in pre-history were much more egalitarian, as this was conducive, even necessary, to their survival (imagine a tribal society that had hard rules against women hunting, even if they are very much capable to do so, in a season/area where hunting is the main source of food at the moment. It would have been just stupidity. Same for men foraging, etc).

There is also evidence, that organised warfare as we know it today only started alongside the creation of class society, as soon as a surplus of food and overall resources allowed for a surplus of people - where taking the risk of losing 2/3rds of your men to conquer territory, slaves and the surplus of others suddenly became a viable strategy. (Although, it is important to note, that there is evidence of sporadic, often genocidal conflict in pre-history as well, but it is reasonable at this point to assume those were exceptional cases, and more often than not, conflict was avoided if at all possible. For a deeper exploration of the cultural differences that arose from that avoidance of war-like conflict, I’d recommend checking out Raymond C. Kelly’s “Warless Societies and the Origin of War”)

The material conditions of post-industrialised society open up the possibility again, of overcoming class society and with it, patriarchical society. Including finding a new dynamic for lgbt sexuation, sexuality and identity. That’s one of the main reasons I view myself as a Marxist communist, pleading to re-invent and re-organise the communist movement without following Marxism-Leninism like a religious doctrine. IMO, the world will face crises in the coming decades that, on average, people today do not have the analytical tools and contexts to understand, many fleeing into either “maintain the status quo, we can do this somehow” or “everything will be destroyed anyway (so leave me alone and maintain the status quo)” narratives for the future. I say: learn how to organise, how to fight if you are able, connect with people, and be ready to take advantage of the coming chaos. There’s no shame to be a bit of a prepper, but please without the individualism and conspiracy-mindedness of what the stereotype would be.

OK, sorry, I went on a bit of a rant there, hope it was structured enough not to completely overwhelm. History, philosophy and politics are my special interest, I can get easily triggered into just typing out a wall of text.

Eh, this is a bit of a half-thruth. Ancient Romans did not really categorize by sexual preference, but by gender roles taken on during sex. They basically had a penetrator-penetrated dichotomy, and taking on a “female” role was definitely shameful for men in their society, and taking on a “male” role as a woman would have been seen as a pretty big transgression, too.

This more or less continued into medieval and early modern times, until homosexuality was understood and categorized as an identity and concept. Together with a complete ignorance towards women’s sexuality, this lead to punishment of lesbians being rather rare (non-penetrative sex was basically not recognised as sex), while homosexual men were punished for basically perverting gender roles of sex (also for “forcing” a “female” role on another man), instead for viewing them as having a differing identity.

While religion played a huge role to justify the discrimination of homosexuals, I’d say the root cause is the ideological imperative of maintaining sexuality as something to produce offspring, patriarchical dominance, and having women maintain their identity for sexual gratification and reproduction unless they manage to get into a monastery or similar exceptional roles (and an inherent fear of men to fall out of the male gender identity and being objectified in the same ways). That’s why this is also not just an abrahamic phenomenon, but has been pretty widespread in patriarchal societies overall, although often with exceptions for “penetrating” men maintaining their status and power.

So, I’m a guy, so no first-hand experience, but I know at least two women personally, who unfortunately had additional issues with PMS-like symptoms and general increased emotional/psychological issues with what I think was this category of contraceptives. So, as always, look into what might work for you and stay aware of how your body and mind react. Just mentioning that, because both also had problems with doctors, including gynecologists, basically gaslighting them about how they are supposed to feel.

Sounds like they are in the phase of trying to get their share of the market before enshittification ensues, watch it while it’s hot!

Basically this, but usually the best ideas come to me during smoke breaks instead. (Still trying to kick that addiction, don’t smoke, kids, I’ve managed to get rid of alcohol and other drugs I experimented with in the past, nicotine just won’t fucking stop with the fucking urges, even when you manage to “quit” for months at a time.)

Marx and Engels were very clear, that the transition from value-exchange, i.e. money, has to happen as soon as possible, because otherwise, the system will begin to reproduce capitalist dynamics. So, as shopping malls, yes, very much opposed. As distribution/leisure centers? Sure, whatever the dynamics of the new materialist situation will favour/need.

I mean - nowadays it sorta is, it’s been heavily relegated to sexually fetishised contexts.

But the reason a “Dirndl” is called that is, because “Dirne” is a word that used to mean just “woman” but went through a linguistic evolution to mean “prostitute” quite a while ago. Off the top of my head, I don’t know of an example that happened similiarly in English, but I’d guess there’s bound to be something like that there, too

Fun fact: The German original uses “Dirne” which is a very archaic word, could probably be translated as something like “harlot”

Nice burn, even brought in the “libertarian”, at least be consistent, if I am a Zizekian heretic, I’m not an individualist libertarian who’s afraid of authority, I am of course a liberal anticommunist reactionary who won’t acknowledge the achievements of “really existing socialism”. You strike me as someone who would have written a hit piece on Marx for profiting from British imperialism and his capitalist buddy Engels, citing the letter and his drinking habits to make clear that he is an immature mind, then join some utopian socialist fringe group.

Yeah, look, I did read the article, and the article, unlike the person who might very well have done that in their work, did not do that. All I see is the same flipping of materialist analysis into an ideological dogma, that becomes ahistoric, trying to repeat instead of following material developments towards communism. From a quick look at your links, there’s even a lot I agree with, especially in criticising the French intellectuals. It still reads like a polemic removed from reality, that values its own farts more than understanding and working towards change, but it has value. And the article you linked in the beginning does nothing, but try to opportunistically recruit people away from one ideologue (which Zizek can definitiely be called) to another idealist “team” that tries to redirect proletarian material interests and analysis. You seem to think it’s a contest of who can quote “great people” the best and who can be the most orthodox, which treats it all like a religion instead of a material movement to change the world and mode of production.

In the end, I fear, we will be on other sides of the river, each seeing “their idealist perversions” across from “our materialist analysis”, but I at least won’t cross the river for your side any time soon.

If you think that sounds like “Žižekian nonsense”, then you obviously don’t understand what Žižek argues, because he clearly doesn’t say anything silly like “human ideology” (or “Žižekianism”, for that matter). The article you posted also does wonders completely breaking down Žižek as an abonimable human being - while not truly engaging with his ideas. It is pretty worthless, takes things deliberately out of context, and, after rigorously defining him as a persona non grata, invests no proper effort to do what actual communists like Marx and Lenin did - acknowledge that even enemies like that can give contributions to understanding, and things to learn from and work at doing so.

Does he sometimes spew bullshit? Absolutely. Does he believe in “human ideology” or spout anticommunism on a worse level than The Black Book of Communism, as the article wants to imply? Only if you deliberately misread and misinterpret him.

Shit, there would be every opportunity now to make a sweep along all of the prominent Project 2025 supporters, and then hold a speech about the way they threatened democracy, and that made it an important official act - then step down and let two new candidates duke it out. Would it destabilise the system? Sure, but that will be coming anyway, but this would destabilise the system from a position of strength, which liberals seem to be deathly afraid of. All they can do is lament the days of civility and “reason”, without realising those eroded not because of some sort of immaterial stupidity, but because of economic and material factors they themselves helped along in the past.