Unpopular opinion: straight people using “partner” to refer to their SO actually helps normalize the term so that lgbt folx can use it without automatically outing themselves to strangers. It also helps other straight ppl get comfortable with the fact that strangers aren’t entitled to information about other people’s gender or sexuality.
Give op their hard-earned notes
Tbh I hear “partner” and assume gay, I didn’t know straights used it. Very fair point, OP
I hear ‘partner’ and think ‘gay’ too. A girl at work used it for months and I just went with it. When she would say ‘he’ I even thought maybe he was trans*. Anyways, someone using partner makes me more comfortable and I came out to her. She was just an intelligent straight girl that liked the term and was knowledgeable in human sexuality so definitely someone I should have felt comfortable coming out too. It’s a good sign of a straight person uses it IMO.
As a mental health clinician, this is actually my blanket term when discussing any romantic relationship. I agree it normalizes it, but I also think it’s a relatively safe term to use to describe most romantic relationships without making any assumptions about the person’s orientation or identity. I also use the word “partnered” when describing a monogamous relationship status.
The term “partner” also removes the implied hierarchy of boyfriend/girlfriend vs husband/wife. This is relevant both to non-monogamous people, and unmarried individuals for whom the importance of their relationship isn’t dictated by its legal status.
also you can make cowboy jokes
as a straight, it also helps me weed out homophobes. if they act suspect when i say “partner” i know they gots to go
Toddlers are so pure. She doesn’t understand that we help her with certain things because she’s little. She thinks that everyone just helps each other like that. So she tries to blow on my food and cut it up for me and tries to help me put on my shoes.
i was giving little wagon rides to a baby around the backyard one day and all of a sudden she hops off and slaps the seat of the wagon telling me to get on because it was my turn and i was like no it’s ok im too heavy and she was like NO ITS UR TURN and kept tugging on my hand so i would sit down. eventually i got on and it was just a little 2 year old trying so hard to push me around on a wagon not understanding why it wouldn’t budge but still so determined to let me have my turn lol
I don’t think I’d realised how many casual compliments we pay to our toddler until she started casually complimenting us back, because experience has taught her that’s How Social Interaction Is Done, and there’s nothing quite like a very earnest three-year-old solemnly and sincerely informing you that you look wonderful and smell nice to make you feel really good about yourself
I tell her she’s my best girl. She tells me I’m her best auntie. Then we both feel good about the world!
when you’re watching a movie and u recognize one of the actors in it from somewhere but u haven’t watched any of the movies or shows listed on their imdb
Protect platonic male/female friendships at all costs.
Write them. Read about them. Demand them. Decide the Harry and Sally law of “all male/female friendships will become romantic” is a bunch of bull and kick it to the curb.
Screw the guy getting with his girl best friend being the end of every romantic comedy. Have the guy go to his friend for advice. Have the girl tell him when he screws up. Have them sitting on the porch when the sun sets, talking about their day. Have them hug and laugh, and shout for joy, and never feel pressured to bring them in for that expected kiss.
Not all soulmates are romantic. We should stop acting like it.
I mean, there should b enough RL inspiration, jesus. I grew up with a huge group of friends throughout my teen yrs/early 20’s and we didn’t have Dawson’s Creek syndrome.
General fiction and mainstream cinema need to branch tfo.
I know people are gonna get salty af about this but by God she’s RIGHT.
When Brad Pitt did Fight Club, he was cutting weight for every single scene to maintain his physique at 155. I’ve you’ve ever cut weight, you know how horrible that must have been. He did it because they needed a “look”.
Changing Tatum said his Magic Mike body doesn’t last for more than five days. He starved down and dehydrated his already fit physique for a “look”.
The male soldiers on Spartacus: Blood and Sand were eating pretty much chicken and veggies for every meal to maintain a “look”.
Why is this such a big deal? Because all these characters are considered physical goals for men. These are actual unobtainable physical standards for men. Male body image issues get swept under the rug so often that some people don’t even think they exist.
You want proof? Just check out that scene in Captain America: First Avenger where Cap just transformed into that beautiful beefcake of a man. Agent Carter’s actress just HAD to touch them muscles, it was completely unscripted.
Chris Evans had to wear shirts so small they physically hurt, and he dislocated a shoulder during the helicopter scene in Civil War. But who cares, girls got to wet their panties watching Captain America flex.
If we are talking about unrealistic physical standards of male fitness given to us by movies, I would like to mention Hugh “Wolverine” Jackman here.
Yeah, he is ripped, isn’t he?
Well, it is true, but to get that kind of definition, he went through 36 hour period of dehydration, which caused him to temporarily lose 10 pounds of “water weight”.
Thus during the fight scene he was filming, he was a hair breadth from blacking out whole time, just to look unrealistically muscular.
As he said during interview with Steven Colbert, “If You go three days without water, You will die. Then, when You are halfway there they shout ‘Roll it!”
It’s the same with professional bodybuilders who get into periods of extreme fasting and dehydration to lower their fat-to-muscle ratio to inhuman levels, all in hopes of making their muscle definition a bit better.
According to experts, healthy body fat percentage for a healthy male ranges from 8% to 20%, depending on height, lifestyle and numerous other variables.
Fitness model and professional bodybuilder Helmut Strebl also known as “World’s Most Shredded Man” as he supposedly managed to get his body fat percentage below 5%…
… But only when he partakes in competitions, since it is not humanly possible to live with such low fat percentage of one’s body for longer periods of time.
I mean, yeah, he keeps a draconian training regime, as well as a very strict diet even off-season, but looks much more human then…
There are documented cases of incredibly fit and muscular bodybuilders fainting on the stage in the middle of their flexing routines, as well as several who outright died, because of cardiac arrest caused by their blood becoming too thick, due to long dehydration…
And let’s not forget about Muscle Dysmorphia, colloquially known as “Megarexia” or “Bigarexia”.
Yeah, it’s a thing, but it’s barely talked about, since it’s apparently not manly to admit to having problems like that, which also creates problems with researching this particular disorder…
