no boys allowed in the room!!!!

i am so anti-fragrance. i tried to use a dry shampoo for the first time and was so irritated by the smell i had to wash my hair anyway. to think people are fragrancing their hoo-hahs, well.................

i am mostly anti-fragrance. I like some scented soaps but not super heavy. I like stuff that smells like mint or cucumber. My hair cleaning product smell problem is always coconut. Almost everything made for my type of hair smells like coconut. I found an ok conditioner that smells like hibiscus-kinda idk but not coconut, which is good! But it isn't as good as the ones that smell like coconut. However it's winter and covid and half the time I am sitting at home wearing a knit hat so I can have less than ideally conditioned hair plus not smell like coconut.

also, when you are trying to stay mostly on the wagon, having hair that smells like a Tiki cocktail does not help.

I especially hate how the branding is very now-ish, very Instagram aesthetics, and yet it's for something SO BACKWARDS that we laugh about it in ads from the 1950s. I expect my super modern product advertising to have less retrograde politics.

oh yeah i like good-smelling soap and conditioner and stuff just not like, aggressive smells

https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2013/09/Screenshot_34-500x534.png

hahahah yes!!! In the 80s too! Summer's Eve for that "not so fresh feeling"!

also just on a basic level, scented stuff for your vag is the quickest way to thrush or at least some kind of irritation

nobody wants that!

idk why these products persist in existing

I thought that lume stuff was for, like, for swampy summer butt crack - not vag?? I keep seeing their ads in YT and that’s the impression I got

i think it's for both?

It’s also for feet!

I really thought it was more widely known these days that you don’t put anything up yr vag to “deodorize” it unless you actually WANT problems in that area

I’m willing to bet that if you picked 1000 random men and a 1000 random women and scientifically performed an odor test, dicks would be the clear winner of the bad-smell award. But no one is marketing dick deodorant to men.

...yet :)

lol

https://www.hunt4freebies.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Old-Spice-Below-Deck-Powder-Spray-and-Anti-Chafe-Stick.png

hahahah the idea of someone rubbing a stick deodorant on dick and balls is just ... an odd picture to me? like, does it have instructions about whether hard or flaccid is better for application? ... it's like, there are some products meant to solve embarrassing problems that just create additional embarrassing problems

Lol I semi-retract my statement - that spray is basically the same thing as Gold Bond spray, and it’s just a pubes spray. It’s not doing anything about the actual dick problem.

I’m assuming the anti chafe stick is for the tops of men’s inner thighs where their balls rub???

what can be done about the actual dick problem, really?

Washing it properly!!!! Thankfully this is not an issue I’ve had to deal for 12 yrs but prior to that I def encountered dick that was not being washed properly.

ha it was partly a rhetorical question but yes, there are men who regularly embody "fuck washing a dick"

ugh this convo is making me feel gross

sorry ... sorry ... sorry!

fuck washing a dick

make your fuckwash known hahahaha sorrrrrrrrrrry

RE those Flex period discs I mentioned: I finally tried them this week (after 5 yrs with an iud my period has finally started waning) and I like them. I’d prefer a non disposable version since they’re expensive and a pain to dispose of. But getting one in is easier than I expected, although I find it hard to believe that it doesn’t get in the way during sex (haven’t tested that yet). The disc comes out nice and easy but def not suitable for people who aren’t comfortable using applicator-free tampons as it’s a little messy.

here's a question for y'all -- friends w/teenage daughters -- when they post pics of their kids on social media, do you notice that if the kid is female, most of the comments are like "how beautiful!" and praise her physical appearance, whereas if the kid is male, the comments are less about that? Does that make you feel icky? How would you respond?

Absolutely and I've noticed this at lots of ages. It really pushes my buttons but at the same time can appreciate kids look cute or it's a "nice" "positive" thing to say about a teen. If I'm moved to comment at all I'll generally try and say something less looks-focused... but it can be hard as a photo is basically demanding you pay attention to what's in the photo!

yeah ... it was a friend's daughter's 17th birthday, and I had talked to said friend the day before, and the daughter was struggling with an eating disorder ... so, I didn't comment about her looks at all. I recalled a memory of something my friend told me her daughter did that was super awesome.

I have a 13yo stepkid and I’m more bothered that she and her friends type those comments to each other tbh like

“omg bae”
“why are you so prettyyyy *crying emoji*”
“hottie”

On one hand, her generation is prob more aware than ever about issues surrounding body positivity and self-image, on the other, there’s just so much pressure on them to look or present themselves a certain way. She’s a fun kid with lots of cool interests and I know she’ll prob grow out of it but it still drives me nuts that that’s how they’re expected to interact with each other online.

I would not have survived growing up in the age of Instagram, that’s for sure.

reading the 40s thread -- it kinda seems like most of the people who feel like they get "worse" in their 40s are cis-men, whereas non cis-men feel better in their 40s comparatively? Or have I been reading too much empowering clickbait for middle aged women?

Hiiiiii! I don't want to be insensitive to ppl in that thread but my 40s have been good and my friends and colleagues are mostly all well? Also it took me until my late 30s to have a job that did more than barely pay the bills, and it was extremely pleasant to not be overdrawn or need to know how many individual dollars were in my account at all times. I'm unemployed again so I guess who knows what will happen but it was nice to feel that a good life was within reach.

I'm happy with myself in my 40s.

I'm happy with myself in my 40s.

I have definitely had to deal with a lot of heavy shit in my 40s, but I feel like I am more resilient and happier and have a stronger sense of self-worth and confidence that I can better deal with the heavy shit? Like the lyric in "First We Take Manhattan" -- "I've practiced every night, and now I'm ready ..."?

I have aged out of the 40s thread, so, uh, in what way?

Health, money, confidence, social, what?

I would venture to ask - are the 40s the point in heterosexual cismens’ lives where they realise they are not actually going to be the patriarchs in patriarchy? (Cause it seems like middle age is when cis white men start looking for someone to blame for that.)

While for non-cis-men, the 40s are where the hyperscrutiny drops off and the invisibility kicks in, which almost feels like a relief?

OK this is getting too cynical, even for me. I’m having a bad reaction to the covid vaccine I had yesterday so I’m feeling pretty flattened and less willing to entertain more positive possibilities than usual?

Lots of x-posts coz phone typing takes forever.

Sorry, maybe this isn’t a conversation for me today...

Another thing that has intensified in my 40s although it was well on track before is that I wish for the company of men less and less. I am honestly happiest surrounded by and in community with women.

xp So...maybe?

I'm 50, and I can see pretty much only a shit future with small points of success in front of me.

While for non-cis-men, the 40s are where the hyperscrutiny drops off and the invisibility kicks in, which almost feels like a relief?

I think this is definitely part of it -- or maybe, the hyperscrutiny bothers us less and we become more comfortable in our own bodies (or adapt our bodies to what will make us comfortable) and it's easier to block it out.

I think I'm having a "good day" (I have days that are very not good) ... or trying to psych myself up for taking on stressful stuff that I have been procrastinating work-wise.

xp For me, women were always alien creatures. (Until I realized that I wasn't really one.) Fortunately, I was always smart enough to not get into all of the "not like other girls" nonsense.

For most of my 20s and 30s, I underperformed in relation to my peers, economically & professionally. I guess I accepted early that I wouldn't "make it" or be financially secure or meet any of the goals of adulthood that my parents had & that I always expected to. It probably lowered my standards to the point where I was just happy for things to stop being actively bad. Anyway, I'm still a fuck-up but I mind it a little less.

Also I don't feel any longer than I'm being a "bad" at my chosen gender performance by not having those things. I can just let it ride a lot more.

Happy for your good days, s! Go out there and slay the stressful stuff. I also have to send a bunch of emails that I've been avoiding.

OK I peeked in the thread to see what this was about. Cancer and death, oh my.

I don't know. So much good stuff happened in my 40s, even though the start of my 40s was possibly one of the worst periods of my life, hitting rock bottom showed the way out? Like:

-autism diagnosis which completely rearranged my life into a shape that made SO MUCH more sense, and explained so much of what hadn't been working before
-an employer that was willing to make concessions in my working environment that enabled me to keep a job for the longest period of my life (6 years and counting!) and created some stability in financial and living-space and material conditions
-a good therapist who was able to use the complete collapse of my sexual life, to persuade me to open the "box of gender and sexuality stuff" which I had been sitting on for 20 years, for fear the demons would get out. (They are not demons punishing you, they are freeing your soul!)

So compared to the emotional instability and financial precarity of my 20s and 30s, holy hell were my 40s great.

I had far, far fewer friends at the end of my 40s than the start, but the friendships I do have are much healthier, and have much stronger boundaries and are more mutually supportive. It's not that I have more confidence - it's more that I give far fewer fucks to give, I'm old, I no longer give a shit if someone thinks I'm ~crazy lady gestures~ for clearly stating what I need!

Sometimes "having no fucks left to give" is way better than "confidence" anyway.

This last discussion is an absolute disgrace and I don’t know why sarahell chose right now, after some of the content being discussed in the 40s thread, to start this line of discussion. I hope you know how it looks fucking crass and insensitive and horrible.

Wow.

Just... wow.

Yes, consider me incredibly surprised that you don’t treat people the way you want to be treated on ilx either.

gyac: I am confident that all my posts and lines of discussion look crass, insensitive, and horrible to you. I wish you didn't feel that way about me. But y'know, you have a tendency to go off on anyone and everyone that doesn't measure up to your exacting standards of purity and justice, so I am sure I am in the company of like 99.9% of everyone.

Oh trust me on this, I’m very much not alone on this one & if this was any other thread you’d have people telling you so.

honestly by your logic, no one should be discussing anything else? Like how dare people talk about bands and football when one poster has had a really horrible recent couple of years??? You might think, this line of discussion might not be related to that one person's experience, but the posts of several other cis-men who also posted in that thread?

Keep digging.

I'm so sorry this is happening, Sarahell, I thought you brought up an interesting observation.

The levels of Himpathy involved, to get from "some non-cis-men have gone to another place, so as not to disturb clearly unhappy people by talking about not being unhappy any more" to "you are crass and horrible and have no empathy" is... frankly astonishing.

But given who it is, and their levels of projection, I'm not surprised.