no boys allowed in the room!!!!

also apparently I am several months behind on the "no boys" thread, so 1. congrats Abbott, hope the panel went well, you are awesome for telling improv jerks where to go; 2. excited about everyone's GR! news, inspiring; 3. sorry Branwell I did not see your news, I hope things are still looking good though I guess you prob won't see this, good vibes to you <3

bingo aps
hope it was just a one-off and your boss is decent

Missing this thread these days, these times.

same, even though i've always read much more than i posted

otm

hi

I thought about bumping this thread many times. Hi!

I have more white hairs now. Maybe I'll end up with a cool white streak in front?

i had a gross period thing happen a couple days ago.

what happened?

i realized that there weren't any ILTMI threads about menstrual subjects updated in the past couple years

https://medium.com/@emmalindsay/why-does-dating-men-make-me-feel-like-shit-12c25e539021#.2v7n6pql0

When I was dating women, and when I was not dating, I didn’t really stress out about my appearance. Sometimes I looked good, sometimes I looked bad and I feel like I had a fairly objective sense of the whole thing. And, even when I looked bad, I was ok looking bad. It didn’t really bug me. Which is sort of what makes this whole flood of emotions particularly puzzling for me. Since when do I care about not being pretty? And, when I looked in the mirror this morning, I didn’t even look that bad. I was able to see, in an objective sense, that my hair was fine (strangely, better than normal) my skin was fine. In another time or place, I would have looked in the mirror and thought I looked hot.

So, what the hell is going on?

I personally do not find myself in this situation with my current 3-yr relationship with a man. I actually feel liberated from thinking about my body much or wondering how men perceive me because I don't care about the ones other than my bf and he doesn't put any of this on me. In general tho I thought a lot of this article rang with the bell of truth.

Glad for this thread revive. I've been feeling like women are less present on ilx generally, but maybe it's just the subset of threads I follow. Anyone else feel this? It's like ilx has gotten more bro-ier along with, well, 'merica.

tbh one of the reasons i didn't bump this thread was because i thought very few women (aside from myself and a handful of others) were here anymore ;_;

^^^^^yes, me too!

i get ignored enough on a regular basis that i figured it would make me overly sad to be talking to the wall here

I read politics threads obsessively now but I feel less of an urge to actually contribute, which tbh seems to be every other woman too because I can't remember when a non-dude posted in a politics thread. (Sorry to the women I'm invariably forgetting.)

I did have a kind of women's salon at my newly furnished pad last Sun. Only about 4 women came but it was very fulfilling. I want to host women's events regularly now.

I'm here and I don't know why I don't post :/

Shit I'm just glad to hear some of the XX/otherly chromosomed women are still around! It felt like there had been a mass exodus and somehow just a handful were sticking around for whatever reason.

i post in the dumb tv & action movie threads mostly, same as always :D

I'm still here too. Feel like I don't post all that much but I don't know how accurate that is (or indeed how different from the norm, I think I've always been fairly quiet until I start brawling on poll threads).

I'm going through some stuff to do with having a female body but it's really boring to talk about so I won't
it's not the menopause

i am hosting an all-woman jam next sunday, looking forward to it
so far i think 4 people are coming for sure, aiming for 6

including me

I found that medium article interesting, thanks io

I have thoughts about it but they are all barely formed and incoherent and I'm not sure the internet needs to know them

which is how I feel about most things lately, so not so much ILX posting (except for the 7000 times a week I get cranky about my job or my commute and post to the irrationally angry or stupid coworkers threads)

but I am always glad to see this thread on New Answers, hi everyone, hope you're doing OK

eh ok here goes re that article

as an unattractive woman, who is not good at doing traditional woman things including looking good, dressing nice, doing my hair, not being fat, I tend to assume that anyone who puts up with me for any length of time must by definition not be very interested in that stuff, so my longer-term relationships have existed in a state of "I actually feel liberated from thinking about my body much or wondering how men perceive me" (-- in orbit)

but quite often, after a while, even these apparently me-accepting dudes start to drop hints about my weight, about how surely there must be some sport I'd secretly love to take up because surely everyone has some longing to run marathons and swim the channel, about how it looks nice when the salon straightens my hair (to which I fill in the subtext "and I look a bit more like a normal woman for the rest of the day"), etc

on one level it's disappointing, when you feel safely shame-free around a guy and suddenly, bam! shame bomb. but on the other hand maybe I am just oversensitive to hear these things as shaming? I mean maybe they really are just gentle encouragements to try new things, be healthier, or w/e

also I wondered (as someone who has never done it) if dating a woman, particularly a lesbian, means you know the person you are dating has had to examine their own failings wrt the grand global hotness scale and acceptability index, and so you know they're going to be more forgiving of other people's transgressions of it.

(yes, I know men are insecure too but maybe the exact shape of their insecurity and what they might accept in other people feels more unknowable?)

then I remembered that I don't generally feel like all women are by existential necessity accepting of weird-looking women whenever I e.g. go to the hairdresser and feel so out of place among women who understand and care about hair styling, so eh

yeah i dunno that it's a guarantee that you won't find that by dating women.

i'm only going off the lesbian relationships i've been party to, but yeah, pendulum swang pretty wildly between chill & shaming. i've some bad examples, and some suuuper great utopian examples

XX isn't a guarantee of much beyond anatomy unfortunately <3

when i became single after an 11 year relationship, all that body image stuff was one of my biggest fears -- when I got into the relationship I was young and thin, and 11 years later, I was fat and cougar aged. This was 7 years ago. At the moment, I am not in a relationship, not dating, not interested in either, and I feel a lot better about myself.

But I think those feelings are also related to "being on the market" and general fears of not being desirable, that also extend to things beyond the female body -- like jobs. If you're unemployed and looking for work, it's common to fear that you don't have the right skills or personality or c.v. It's just a specific form of a fear of rejection, that societal norms have totally amplified for women to be about their bodies, and less about other traits.

Yeah I mean idk you gotta find your people so you have daily visible evidence that you're not alone. Like I know women who are also bad at "prettiness," style, etc and some of them are objectively beautiful even without any of that stuff and some are genuinely weird looking or w/e but they/we have each other to remind us that our worth doesn't come from any of those things. Without those ppl tho I think I would find it a lot harder to maintain my perspective.

I purposefully didn't wear any makeup or style my hair for my women's get-together, for instance, even though as the "hostess" I felt like I should have "made an effort." Pushed back on that shit internally and said fuck it.

I kinda rebelled against that stuff from a young age -- I was an only child, so I also felt like I should be something akin to a "son" as well -- so the "prettiness" stuff for me almost always feels like a form of drag, or at least like a theatrical performance, minus the jazz squares and character shoes.

Wait I have to go back to

i am hosting an all-woman jam next sunday, looking forward to it
so far i think 4 people are coming for sure, aiming for 6

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Friday, March 3, 2017 6:36 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

HALLELUJAH AND ANGELS AMONG US!!!!! This is already the pinnacle of emotional existence in my imagination! Women playing music and jamming together hell yes.

It's just a specific form of a fear of rejection, that societal norms have totally amplified for women to be about their bodies, and less about other traits.

cosign btw. I wouldn't say I think that feeling is only this but it's at least liable to be partly this.

At the moment, I am not in a relationship, not dating, not interested in either, and I feel a lot better about myself.

More thoughts (sorry). Yes, that sentence reminds me of times I have been happier w myself and distanced myself from body & appearance and worthiness insecurities, and looking back, it DID require me to take myself "off the market," as it were. Like to decide that I was not interested in dating or being desired/loved. So in order to be happy w myself I had to cut myself off from romance/sex/contact w my desired gender. Managing my happiness & emotional health required me to pick one or the other.

I want to think about this more now while I'm in something good and I finally have BOTH in an integrated way, so if and when this relationship ends, I can put myself back into this state by creating an emotional roadmap now.

I kinda rebelled against that stuff from a young age -- I was an only child, so I also felt like I should be something akin to a "son" as well -- so the "prettiness" stuff for me almost always feels like a form of drag, or at least like a theatrical performance, minus the jazz squares and character shoes.

interesting - I was (am) an only child and a tomboy. I had thought of these as entirely independent quirks of my childhood but maybe they are linked!

Xp Yeah I'm psyched & hoping to record at least part of it. Maybe I should call it Yoni! Yony! Yoné!

http://www.nataliedee.com/012506/maracas.jpg

I mean I actually dress up a bit, and started trying to do "pretty" things with my hair, (also taking pride in having thick curly hair and working with that) but it's self-directed as opposed to marketing myself to men. But for me, the past couple years have been about getting more comfortable and happier being by myself and doing things that I enjoy, as opposed to what I should enjoy, or what would make me more attractive to guys. Like sewing clothing and vintage fashion stuff -- outside of talking about periods, that is one of the top topics guaranteed to get a straight guy to tune out or walk away from a conversation.

xp - LL - my bff has actually guested with Toni Tony Tone (or whatever order) -- she says they are super nice and she felt good about those gigs.

i just typed up a long post about my opinion on this subject and then deleted it - which is what i do probably 9/10 times when posting to ilx these days. which is probably preferable to my early years on ilx, when i was insane from sleep deprivation and overworked, and would just post the first thing that came to mind.

i miss these femme threads - just shooting the shit, talking about whatever. there is definitely a smaller and smaller femme presence on ilx over the last year or two.

preferable to my early years on ilx, when i was insane from sleep deprivation and overworked, and would just post the first thing that came to mind.

Mine too! Except replace overworked with drunk :/

the first year/year and half, holy shit, some of the stuff i posted was beyond embarrassing.

Yoni and Chocha would be a funny name for something, a thing i have nothing to do with

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjE1MjE1NjIwM15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzUwMDY1MTE@._V1_UY1200_CR82,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg

i can't even google it, i'm at work

kinder I'm just catching up ott but fwiw I am totally interested and not bored by all things female-body-related, so do tell if you feel like it!

I thought about reviving this thread when I was reading about the dude who allegedly invented labial glue for menstruating women.

also "the grand global hotness scale and acceptability index" (GGHSAI) should be copyrighted as a shorthand for All That Stuff-- thanking u APspacecadet!

xxpost WHAAAAAAAAA?

did dude also invent labial glue solvent or like what was the end game here dude