Men do sometimes have boobs, and women tend not to find them attractive (some do ofc) because they are a sign of a poorly maintained body.

If they were a normal feature both sexes had regardless of health, like women sort of do (tho it is still absolutely based on health and hormone levels so this is kinda disingenuous) it would probably be like nice legs or nice butts; one can appreciate nice ones but it wouldn’t be a secondary sex characteristic anymore, so neither sex would be likely to have the present level of obsession with them.

I don’t think women would be particularly concerned with breasts if men had them, too… for one thing even lesbian women don’t tend to get super giddy about breasts now because they are exposed to them a lot more readily and less sexually than men are, so they just aren’t special in any way, even if they are a lesbian’s preferred physical characteristic. This would become true for men as well re:female breasts, but more than that, I can’t really think of any male physical trait that similar numbers of women like the way men like breasts. And I doubt breasts would end up being it for women.

It’s kinda amusing if you think about it but men are absolutely obsessed with genitalia and sex in a way women just aren’t, usually, and that translates to being absolutely obsessed with one’s own penis, such that it -is- a big chunk of the male personality (for the record I’m not saying this disparagingly, I find the differences to be fascinating as a fellow ace, and just listened to a book about erectile dysfunction where this exact tendency is mentioned many time for its usefulness as a diagnostic tool to determine if ED is caused by physical or hormonal issues). And along with that obsession with their own genitalia being the obvious appendage of all their musings, comes a twin obsession with a single highly obvious female body trait, breasts.

Women just don’t operate like that at all. Maybe it’s socializing, maybe it’s inherent, but either way, I don’t think breasts on men for women (or any other trait, frankly) would or even could be like breasts on women for men. I think the problem is that male secondary sex characteristics are basically optional. Men basically get body hair, bad smells, a lump on the throat, and the ability to put on muscle more easily. Other than the Adam’s apple, which isn’t particularly prominent, none of those things are necessarily permanent. You can shave and shower and if you don’t use your muscles they fade, so men don’t have “one major trait”, like breasts, and women are thus more varied about the trait they find most attractive.

For the other questions - women shirtless normal? I mean that’s just a socializing thing. There have been cultures where women are topless just as readily as men and it’s nbd. This is entirely puritanical nonsense.

For breast cancer color - did you know pink used to be a boys color and blue girls? I see no reason the color couldn’t stay pink. But if it was a big deal for both sexes I don’t think it would ever have risen to the sort of prominance it has in society now. Breast cancer as a big deal is because of women making it a big deal because it disproportionately impacts women and men don’t tend to advocate for women’s issues. But if both sexes were impacted it would be more like lung cancer or something, just sort of non-gendered PSAs about your boobs trying to kill you.

Here’s a fun thought experiment in similar spirits.

If complex intelligent life evolved an an encrusted ocean moon (like Europa, which has liquid ocean topped by miles of ice crust, preventing any light or anything from penetrating to the depths), what would their technology look like, and what would their view of the universe be like?

They nicknamed it chonkus, which is a very beaver name, so yes, that seems fitting.

Honestly I think if this pans out, it will go well beyond just care related to reproductive issues.

I mean there’s got to be some sort of reason that medications and interventions (and illnesses too) sometimes have such dramatically different effects on male and female bodies, and if there are actual biological changes that occur like clockwork for women, that could go a very long way to explaining why and counteracting that issue.

That’s about what I was making in Wisconsin to canvas as well.

Problem with that for me is that I’ve been boycotting theaters for so long over their prices and loudness and 45 min of advertisements… that I’m no longer considered a paying customer… so they don’t care what I want. Same with everyone else who has been put off by their decisions in the past.

At this point I expect theaters to flop before they change their model. I’ll continue not to give them money, but it kinda sucks.

That makes me think of bon bon nail polish that was good for maybe two uses, and those tiny itty bitty chapstick tubes with like 3 days worth of chapstick in them. So wasteful.

Just don’t use a sponge with spicules! That would not be a fun time.

The University of Wisconsin system of schools is well known for being good for the sciences, while still being state colleges, and thus more affordable for average individuals, particularly residents of the state.

However, in pursuit of profits, some of their academic hiring decisions have been…. Unfortunate. I won’t name the specific school this occurred at as the problem occurs across the board for associate+/-lecturer positions. And it occurs in most states. Education as a whole in the US has been commodified, and thus reduced.

The kind who uses their platform to spread misinformation, in my experience. :)

I mean… my bachelors was largely neglectful tbh… if I didn’t know what I wanted to learn and how to learn it, it would have been nothing more than an extension of k-12.

They will let just any old shitbag teach certain credits… like my natural science 101 class, taught by a guy who bought into “organic is better”, “mindfulness will fix all your problems”, and various other pseudoscientific bullshit… such that my final essay (science is my auti special interest; I couldn’t ignore it…) was dedicated to pointing out each and every one of the pseudoscience claims he made in class which were demonstrably false (with citations). He initially gave me an A on the paper and then thought about how much I was insulting him and downgraded it to a C. That C was so worth getting. Fuck that guy. I learned more disproving his nonsense than I ever would have listening to him about anything…

But I also took a biostatistics course where the professor led by asserting creationism. Dropped that bitch right quick and complained to faculty about it (feel free to believe whatever nonsense you like, but I’m not paying tuition to hear your pet theories about thermodynamics proving creationism). Fortunately that was day two of the class, and still within time to drop. Unfortunately replacing that class fucked up my schedule for the semester big time.

And those are just two of a handful of issues with higher ed, and my school was actually one of the better for science curriculum… I started a masters program and dropped it when I got bad grades on papers for using accurate but simplified language (I’m a science communicator; using esoteric language is not something I do, even if I can easily do so. My life goal is to make science approachable for the masses, not a clusterfuck of specialized terminology that doesn’t even resemble the same term from another field)

I’ve gotten several things like this, especially in the last week or so. Same with texts. I’ve gotten dozens. Reported them all as junk and blocked them. Idk how many of the unknown calls have been get out the vote; I don’t answer unknown calls, but there has been a dramatic uptick in that number as well, including a number listed as “survey call” every 2 days for the past 3 weeks.

I already submitted my vote on 09OCT… so much for useful public record, I guess.

Living in a swing state fucking sucks around election time, leave me alone, damn. Let’s get rid of the electoral college just so we don’t get fucking hounded for 3 months every 4 years by a bunch of complete strangers who don’t know a damn thing about us. Spread the love. (Yes it would be good to get rid of the EC anyway, but I want it purged for purely selfish reasons)

Alternatively, we do away with non-alcoholic pre-mixed beverages entirely, which are mostly water, replacing them with something like fountain machines or even powder mix. Like a kurig or soda stream but instead of using single-serve containers, it uses a refillable glass tube (or something) of concentrate and meters it out as needed, and uses refillable co2 containers, for example.

Another option is to do on-site, on-demand filling, like what breweries do with glass growlers. You bring a glass or stainless steel gallon or half gallon jug, they do a rinse with sanitizing water, fill it up, and send you on your way. We could even bring back swing top bottles for individual servings (I have like 50 of those and they are amazing for beer and kombucha), and just use local or on-site bottling.

There are lots of options that don’t involve single-use plastics, and also don’t involve tons of extra shipping costs. We just have to incentivize making that switch at the company/producer level, rather than the consumer level. Like reusable bags. If the polluting option isn’t an option, people will adjust.

Aluminum isn’t really a great option either. Modern cans have to be lined with a coating of plastic to avoid corrosion. Sure it’s a super thin coating, but it’s plastic all the same (and can contain some pretty nasty largely unregulated chemicals like PFAS)

I’m here for glass, though, and maybe we’ll find a good replacement for the lining in cans if plastic bottles aren’t allowed.

I did this with my shark(nado) bagless vacuum. :)

Mmmm you gotta do the twist break, where you push sideways on the bottom part to see if you can snap off the entire clip piece, rather than having that shitty nub left.

But if you end up with the shitty nub by accident, you gotta bite that bitch off.

In college I bought myself a 50 pack of those cuz I lose shit a lot, and that clip never lasted more than a few hours on any new pencil…

He’s going to do that anyway, whether it’s allowed or not. His plan is to break the country by any means necessary. What actual difference does it make to trumps plans if Biden keeps doing his job until he’s not in that job anymore?

The answer is none whatever.

So the sitting president shouldn’t be allowed to keep doing things they have been doing for years, just because it’s close to an election and someone unrelated might do something else after getting elected?

That’s stupid. Sorry but it is. It’s the same logic that prevented Obama from seating Supreme Court justices. And look how that turned out.

If this was the first ever time it was tried, maybe, but even then, we’d never have anything nice in that case. And we’d never get anything done from August to January in election years, which would also be intensely stupid.

We need to take what we can get, not be all weird about when it happens.

Am I the only one who thinks a non-founding CEO should never be allowed (let’s say by law) to get a raise simply due to how big their compensation package already is when they get hired?

What do they need more for? Invest that shit in the company or the other workers, and make CEOs job hop for raises like the rest of us have been doing for years. Except when they leave, they are explicitly barred from rehire at that company or any directly related to it. (Imagine this happens, and all of a sudden you have a wave of CEOs pushing for breaking up huge umbrella companies so they can maintain their grift… lol)

If they job hop every year, well that sure would make it obvious how pathetically little they actually do, wouldn’t it? When a series of “the next person” steps into the role and literally nothing changes ever.

Oh. I’m not familiar with that, but I appreciate the additional context. Thanks :)

I really appreciate this comment because I never understood that phrase before, glass onion…