In New Braunfels, Texas, State District Judge Jack Robison walked into
the jury room, twice, during deliberation in a teen sex trafficking case
and told the jurors that the defendant shouldn’t be convicted. Why?
Because God told him to.
Another example of some Lower Difficulty Setting differences in experience that still keep surprising me, though. Getting unexpectedly groped, and the automatic reaction is “Haha, wtf dude?!”–not instantly switching into PTSD-driven Fight Mode.
Reminded by my tag commentary about it seeming safer not to make assumptions based on surface stuff without other info, especially seeing how different any intended signaling can be? Yeah, whatever “gaydar” I might have developed before is still pretty much totally broken, after moving into a sufficiently different cultural setting. Even years later, I really find it safer not to assume much dealing with other people.
(With a lot of social stuff, tbqh, not just that. And yes, the whole autism thing seems to help complicate the situation. It’s also much easier to get read as Unacceptably Weird here IME, which frankly kinda encourages less engagement to learn from.)
That also reminded me of one instance of misinterpreted cues and “maybe better not to pile up the assumptions” from a few years back.
My partner (who is also not from here) was on his way back from some evening out with friends one night, and decided to stop by a club that was open right near the station for a another drink or two before getting a cab home.
Let’s just say he’s not necessarily the best either at picking up some cues normally. Already being half sloshed probably didn’t help then. Anyway, he apparently didn’t register that this one younger guy in there was not just being friendly but hitting on him, until the guy suddenly groped him.
“But…the beard!” Turned out Mr. Gropey interpreted him coming in on his own with the usual Geeky Viking look as obviously a daddy bear type looking for company. A beard like that must mean gay gay gay!
(Or possibly Sikh, I suppose, though a less likely possibility in that case. “I’m a Unix admin, it’s traditional!”* was much more to the point here.)
With much surprise ensuing all around. Apparently the first time that had happened to Mr. C, and the situation felt way less threatening than absurd. Not the first time someone here had interpreted the beard as Fellow Gay Signaling, apparently. First time he’d ever gotten groped like that, though.
Mr. Gropey did calm down pretty quickly after it became obvious he wasn’t about to get a stomping, enough to explain.
I am at least not aware of that club having a particularly gay clientele, btw. But I’m really not up on that scene locally, at all. It sounded like he might have had better luck with that approach in past, though.
Why the dude concluded that grabbing other people’s junk unsolicited might be the right thing to do is another matter entirely, of course. Whether or not they really were as gay as he thought. Not going off on that right now.
But yeah, probably safer for everybody not to make a bunch of assumptions. Especially when dealing with people from sufficiently different backgrounds.
(And jfc don’t be That Twink 😱 Should go without saying, but maybe not.)
* As he was joking after this one place he interviewed a while back asked him if he would be willing to lose the beard. For an IT position with no customer contact. 🤔 Good indication you probably wouldn’t want to work there no matter what kind of salary they were offering, yeah.
I hate when straight people talk about how we “should never assume anyone is gay!!” based on appearance/mannerism/behaviour/anything
But they never talk about how assuming everyone is straight is harming people!!!
Not letting us talk about gay aesthetics and traditions and culture is just another way to silence and isolate us 🙂
It’s so disingenuous, too. Like…I know I look gay, okay? I get called out and harassed by strangers all the time over my appearance. And I do most of it on purpose! This isn’t some high school movie ugly duckling narrative; lesbians aren’t awkward wallflowers wishing desperately that they could look like straight girls, if only they’d ever learned how. As if we could escape being taught! I’m a grown adult and I choose to look this way.
If you really don’t think there’s anything wrong with being gay, why do you think it’s the polite thing to pretend you don’t see it, especially since it’s how I wish to be seen?
This is such a good post, my god. Sometimes I feel so guilty for recognizing other queer folks by picking up the signals – aka, “assuming based on stereotypes” – but the reality is that most of us who do have those signs and signals are intentionally coding to find each other and be ourselves visibly and loudly.
I actually have a broken Gaydar. I have no idea what a lesbian looks like. For the longest time, I thought I was the only person in my group who was queer. Then I discovered in a conversation pretty much everyone was LGBT+. I ASSUME EVERYONE IS STRAIGHT BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO LOOK FOR! AND BECAUSE OF IT I AM TERRIFIED TO ASK A GIRL OUT BECAUSE I CAN’T TELL IF SHE IS STRAIGHT OR NOT!
(It is easier to tell about a guy, though. I have been learning about them slowly.)
Lobsters live up to an estimated 45 to 50 years in the wild, although determining age is difficult.[10] In 2012, a report was published describing how growth bands in calcified regions of the eyestalk or gastric mill in shrimps, crabs and lobsters could be used to measure growth and mortality in decapod crustaceans.[11] Without such a technique, a lobster’s age is estimated by size and other variables; this new knowledge “could help scientists better understand the population and assist regulators of the lucrative industry”.[12]
Research suggests that lobsters may not slow down, weaken or lose fertility with age, and that older lobsters may be more fertile than younger lobsters. This longevity may be due to telomerase, an enzyme that repairs long repetitive sections of DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes, referred to as telomeres. Telomerase is expressed by most vertebrates during embryonic stages, but is generally absent from adult stages of life.[13] However, unlike most vertebrates, lobsters express telomerase as adults through most tissue, which has been suggested to be related to their longevity.[14][15][16] Lobster longevity is limited by their size. Moulting requires metabolic energy and the larger the lobster, the more energy is needed; 10 to 15% of lobsters die of exhaustion during moulting, while in older lobsters, moulting ceases and the exoskeleton degrades or collapses entirely leading to death.[17][18]
Lobsters, like many other decapod crustaceans, grow throughout life and are able to add new muscle cells at each moult.[19] Lobster longevity allows them to reach impressive sizes. According to Guinness World Records, the largest lobster ever caught was in Nova Scotia, Canada, weighing 20.15 kilograms (44.4 lb).[20][21]
okay but lets talk abt how easy it is to abuse psychotic people, esp if youre nonpsychotic. ppl know that clustered ppl are easier to abuse but no one mentions those on the psychosis-spec when honestly, its a big deal.
it is so easy to gaslight us, because our perceptions of reality are already warped anyway. so when someone makes us doubt, we will believe them (even with actual proof of the opposite sometimes), because we cannot trust ourselves.
when we trust you, its so easy to make us dependent on you? its so easy to tell us youll keep us safe, and that the bad things youre doing are to help us.
you can so easily feed into our delusions, either by making us distrust everyone else (esp if were paranoid) or to make us trust you more, or just to get a good old laugh.
making us believe were hallucinating when were not, purposefully twisting our words when were disorganised, making us depend on you for a check on reality, telling us you know whats best for us bc our psychosis will make us cope in “bad” ways, ignoring what we tell you, blaming our reactions on our psychosis, making us seem irrational, threatening to hospitalise us because people will definitely believe you when you say were dangerous, there is so much more which nonpsychotic people do that no one talks about.
but most importantly:
you can excuse your abuse, make others believe youre in the right, because we wouldnt know whats best for us, right? no one would believe us when they know were psychotic, and thats so easy to take advantage of.
people really have to look out more for psychotic people that are being abused, and trust their words over their abuser’s
(please spread the word also if youre nonpsychotic)
The entire original concept of the movie Gaslight was that the abuser manipulated the environment to make his victim believe that she was experiencing psychotic symptoms- hallucinations, paranoia, memory lapses, etc- so that it would become easy to take advantage of her. The whole point is that psychotic people are so easy to take advantage of that going to great lengths to convince a neurotypical woman that she’s psychotic is worth the effort, because once he succeeded, it would become almost impossible for her to escape the situation.
People act like the worst thing about being gaslit is that you’re made to believe you might be ~crazy~ which is a horrible fate to even contemplate. But what’s really so horrifying about it is the incredibly massive power imbalance it creates, a power imbalance that’s already there if you are already psychotic.
Please don’t underestimate how vulnerable psychotic people are.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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