LGBTAitP Part 23: Et tu, ~Bianca?

[Arachu]

On the plus side you could make icecream!

... I choose to be squicked out (I have enough kinks as it is).

Tangentially related; but I figured you might find it interesting. I've read quite a few accounts of trans men experiencing a "phantom penis", which is often described akin to the sort of "phantom limbs" people who have lost limbs might experience? On the other hand; trans women who undergo GRS apparently note experiencing a "phantom penis" only in a minority of cases, contrary to cis men with genital damage. So I guess this sorta supports the "neurological body map" theory?

Possibly. It's worth noting that it's possible to trick people's minds/brains? into "adopting" parts - the examples I saw were with a rubber hand. The elbow was covered with a sheet, and the person doing the test/illusion was rubbing it with different materials. Even though the people knew that the hand wasn't their own, they reacted as though they could feel it.

They also inevitably jumped and gasped when he hit it with a hammer. It's hard to say whether they felt it or were just surprised.


I have... A bit of experience with that sort of thing. >.>

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I think... I sometimes have a phantom womb. And occasionally a vagina. It feels like there's flesh where it shouldn't be, and like what is is just... Arranged all wrong. But at the same time... It's like something's missing.

If I hadn't been experiencing it for so long (and been examined by several doctors over the years), I'd think I had some sort of injury half the time. It's not like pain, just... The kind of thing you advance checkups over. :/

It isn't getting any better, but... It's a bit easier to put up with now that I understand it.

Well, if you have equal lack of interest in men and women, go with 5?

Well, I guess a lack of attraction to either would be an equal amount to both. I don't think the survey would quite "get" it, though. >.>


~Bianca

[noparlpf]

Well, if you have equal lack of interest in men and women, go with 5?

I think they'd read that as bisexual.

Well, I guess a lack of attraction to either would be an equal amount to both. I don't think the survey would quite "get" it, though. >.>


~Bianca

Yeah...on this scale I might have to go with 8 or 9 because I'm heteroromantic on occasion. I still prefer root -1.

[SiuiS]

Hah phantom penis. Now I'm imagining a flying ghost penis.

Apparently I'm about as mature as a 12 year old.

To be fair, it's hilarious when you say it like that.

Blue, when color/sound/texture/temperature/motion is a valid sensory response to you, then you can give joking medical advice. Not my fault you're all hung up on impyrical evidence

[KenderWizard]

Fact, hormone replacement therapy can cause lactation.
I can attest that it is far less than fun. I lactated non-stop for several months in 2009.
Luckily, spontaneous lactation seems to have stopped.

Eek! Glad it's stopped. I wonder how nutritious it was...

Yeah, if you look hard and close enough, you'll notice some form of prejudice, including well-meaning one. Just look at the ethnic side-kicks in hero pulp novels, radio plays, comic books and films. Or some "Adventures of Tintin" books, like Tintin in America, The Blue Lotus and The Red Sea Sharks. While a paternalistic pat on the back, or trying to portray an ethnic group sympathetically by drawing them more like white folks, is better than demonizing them and calling out to Ex-ter-min-ate! them, it's still not treating them with respect and dignity. Even if the creators were progressive for their time, if not before their time.

Tintin in the Congo, anyone?

Also, thanks for the hugs.

I'm not sure about that; because I've read quite a few narrative of trans peeps feeling less depressed already when just starting out HRT before any major changes; so I'd think the different hormonal setup in itself plays a roll too. (Though absence of the cross-gender hormones could also be the reason for that.)

Oh, yes, I'm sure it's not as cut-and-dried as all that. Like anything involving humans and their brains, I understand it's super-complex. And I'm sure the combination of early hormonal changes plus the relief of getting somewhere is a huge boost for people. My point was more, at the far end, if you got to the point where you were 100% happy with your body's sex, maybe you would be able to go off hormones or reduce hormones. But I have no idea, I'm just speculating based on what Asta was on about.

There's one big question I have about lactation; would it have the same immunity-boosting effect? With the proper signals it seems like that should be exactly what happens, but... Well, again, hard to say on a speculative level.

That's what I'm wondering as well. Milk is so clever. The early colostrum is super-immune-boosting and lines the baby's intestines. The mature milk comes in two kinds - foremilk and hindmilk. Foremilk comes out first and is more watery and hydrating. Hindmilk is more filling and fatty (babies need lots of good milky fat). If the weather is hot, the mother (or whoever, let's say "mother" for ease) produces more foremilk to keep the baby hydrated. If the nursing dyad (mother and baby) comes into contact with a particular infection, the mothers body makes antibodies really quickly and sends them straight to the milk to boost the baby against that exact infection. It's like some kind of magic juice that changes to provide the baby with whatever baby needs at that exact moment! (This is why formula will never manage to quite catch up unless we perfect either bionanotech or actual magic.)

Must have been a pain to wash all those bras...

... is lactation in itself painful?

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I know that lactating cisgender women can get pain if they don't get the milk sucked by a baby or by a milking machine thingie (ugh, that sounds horrible).

You can also express by hand, you don't need a baby or a pump. Also, it seems to be possible to get pain at any point at all - empty, full, letting down, during nursing itself, right after. But there's lots of things you can do to make it better.

In addition to Resident Feminist and Resident Period Expert, I could definitely apply for Resident Pregnancy, Babies and Nursing Expert. ("Expert" is a bit strong for both of them. I can't think of a word that means "Person Who Is Happy And Able To Talk About For Ages". At least, not a complimentary word! Suggestions?) Maybe I should just be Resident Stereotypical Female Issues Person. Except I won't be able to do Lipstick or Going To The Bathroom In A Group. (Because it's Stereotypical Female Issues, not because I actually believe ... oh, whatever, you know what I mean. #don'texplainthejoke)

Well there's a thing inside you that you were once inside of. What isn't weird about that? I know I would constantly ponder the fourth dimension if I had a thing inside me that I was once inside of, because clearly if I fit inside it (once) and it fits inside me it must be bigger on the inside than the outside.

.... OH MY GOSH!! YOU'RE RIGHT!!

On the plus side you could make icecream!

Yay! Seriously, apparently one of the best things you can do for very hot weather and/or teething problems is to make breastmilk icepops for the baby. Breastmilk (foremilk) in an ice-cube tray, pop in little sticks or something, freeze, and there you go! Cooling cubes of immune-boosting goodness.

You can also use breastmilk to cure eye infections, or gently clean small wounds (or big ones, I suppose). Useful for baby or anyone else!

... I'll stop now.

[The Succubus]

If memory serves, I think there was an ice-cream parlour in London that sold breast-milk icecream. That in itself would be a newsworthy item but then some bright spark decided to call it Baby Gaga and after that it was a case of "Release the lawyers!"

I found the whole thing rather amusing myself.

Oh and regarding nope's comment about mathematically quantifying homosexuality:

,/-1
-----
0

....>:)

[noparlpf]

*is now very curious in a weird sort of way about human-milk ice cream*

I think 1/0 would be a good answer for somebody whose sexuality is fluid. You know, because it's undefined. For me, I prefer root -1 because mine is imaginary.

[supernerd]

Personally i'd be quite homosexual. The fluctuations I have are with what I would be tolerant of, and I always am homoromantic.

[noparlpf]

Personally i'd be quite homosexual. The fluctuations I have are with what I would be tolerant of, and I always am homoromantic.

So you could just put down a 1. I'm just bothered that I can't put down asexual.

[Asta Kask]

Tangentially related; but I figured you might find it interesting. I've read quite a few accounts of trans men experiencing a "phantom penis", which is often described akin to the sort of "phantom limbs" people who have lost limbs might experience? On the other hand; trans women who undergo GRS apparently note experiencing a "phantom penis" only in a minority of cases, contrary to cis men with genital damage. So I guess this sorta supports the "neurological body map" theory?

It certainly supports the theory but we need to look at alternative explanations as well. And of a way to test the hypothesis. This is where ideas come in contact with the meat grinder of empiricism.

[Arachu]

To be fair, it's hilarious when you say it like that.

Blue, when color/sound/texture/temperature/motion is a valid sensory response to you, then you can give joking medical advice. Not my fault you're all hung up on impyrical evidence

Blue phantom penises everywhere.

...

()

So you could just put down a 1. I'm just bothered that I can't put down asexual.

*Hugs* There should probably be an N/A somewhere. :/

(I can't put down what my answer would be because I haven't figured out the trig functions yet. >.>)


~Bianca

[Mina Kobold]

The former.

Hugs, cookies, a ticket to ride, the lost arc, the holy grail, the crystal skull, an acre of land on the moon, and more hugs.

OK, maybe just lots of hugs :P

Now I am imagining an Indiana Jones story where an acre of moonland is the key mcguffin. It is silly. X3

Yay! Seriously, apparently one of the best things you can do for very hot weather and/or teething problems is to make breastmilk icepops for the baby. Breastmilk (foremilk) in an ice-cube tray, pop in little sticks or something, freeze, and there you go! Cooling cubes of immune-boosting goodness.

You can also use breastmilk to cure eye infections, or gently clean small wounds (or big ones, I suppose). Useful for baby or anyone else!

... I'll stop now.

...I can't stop pictuing you in a wild west garb, selling Doc K. Wizard's Amazing Universal Breast Milk Elixir. ^_^'

On the bright side, you'd be the best Wild West medicine-seller ever. :3

This has been your daily dose of Kobold Silliness, courtesy of Keveak Enterprises. Staring Into the Abyss until It Blinks!

[Anethiel]

Oh and regarding nope's comment about mathematically quantifying homosexuality:

,/-1
-----
0

....>:)

Does √-1/0 equal to i-nfinity?

More seriously, about the topic: Klein's scale is notoriously inadequate for "measuring" sexuality; Klein's grid is a better approach.
I was actually trying to build a method to pinpoint one's sexual orientation through the use of NxN diagonalizable matrices, but that research of mine is stagnating due to lack of time and/or laziness.

[Heliomance]

Does √-1/0 equal to i-nfinity?

More seriously, about the topic: Klein's scale is notoriously inadequate for "measuring" sexuality; Klein's grid is a better approach.
I was actually trying to build a method to pinpoint one's sexual orientation through the use of NxN diagonalizable matrices, but that research of mine is stagnating due to lack of time and/or laziness.

How about Klein's bottle?

[Rawhide]

How about Klein's bottle?

Forget Klein's bottle, what about Klein's tesseract?

[Lea Plath]

*Sniffs* Can I get a klein tissue? :P

[golentan]

How about Klein's bottle?

I think that's the model I need.

*Sniffs* Can I get a klein tissue? :P

Here you are honey. *hands tissue* *unwanted hug*

Want to talk about it?

[Arachu]

Now I am imagining an Indiana Jones story where an acre of moonland is the key mcguffin. It is silly. X3

And now I'm picturing that, but with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds playing. Bad Keveak! @_@

Forget Klein's bottle, what about Klein's tesseract?

Klein's semiregular E-polytope. :largeeek:

(I wanted to say Leech Lattice, but I couldn't find a link with pictures. >.>)


~Bianca

[The Succubus]

*raises hand*

Who is this Klein person? From what you've described he sounds like an LGBT equivalent of Busby's Caressing Hands or Mordokian's Instant Gender Change.

Is he in fact some sort of LGBT wizard?

[supernerd]

Blue phantom penises everywhere.

...

()


~Bianca

So much of me wants to be ethereal(assuming ghost) right now...

[Asta Kask]

Transgender? Addicted to heroin? We have all the acupuncture you need.

[pffh]

So much of me wants to be ethereal(assuming ghost) right now...

Just be careful or you might get ectoplasma in your eye.

[Asta Kask]

Is there anything to suggest that the Day of Silence actually does something or is it more of a feel-good exercise?

[noparlpf]

*raises hand*

Who is this Klein person? From what you've described he sounds like an LGBT equivalent of Busby's Caressing Hands or Mordokian's Instant Gender Change.

Is he in fact some sort of LGBT wizard?

Well, I think we're mixing Kleins. Felix Klein came up with the Klein bottle, and Fritz Klein came up with the Klein scale.

Edit:

Is there anything to suggest that the Day of Silence actually does something or is it more of a feel-good exercise?

I haven't noticed much good from it, which is why I haven't bothered the last few years. It does spread awareness a bit, but in high school I saw a lot of mockery of the participants (because they can't talk back to protect themselves), and in general a bunch of apathy because "Those are gay-people issues, and I'm straight, so who cares?"

[KenderWizard]

*is now very curious in a weird sort of way about human-milk ice cream*

Apparently - and I can't currently verify this because I don't remember nursing, I am not lactating, and I don't know anyone who is well enough to ask for some (Can anyone really know someone else well enough to ask to taste their breastmilk for investigative purposes? I'm thinking yes, but I am a bit mad.) - breastmilk is way tastier than formula. It follows that breastmilk icecream would be tastier than formula icecream, but I dunno about ... cow icecream. Breastmilk is supposed to be kind of pleasantly sweet, though, so that's a good thing for icecream.

Also, you changed colour! I like that you're an asexual flag square now. But it's like you wearing a Hallowe'en costume. I'm thinking of you as a black square wearing some rectangles.

...I can't stop pictuing you in a wild west garb, selling Doc K. Wizard's Amazing Universal Breast Milk Elixir. ^_^'

On the bright side, you'd be the best Wild West medicine-seller ever. :3

This has been your daily dose of Kobold Silliness, courtesy of Keveak Enterprises. Staring Into the Abyss until It Blinks!

"Unlike most things sold in this manner, THIS ACTUALLY WORKS REALLY WELL!"

Transgender? Addicted to heroin? We have all the acupuncture you need.

"Addicted to being transgender?" (That's what I thought it was going to be when it was the addiction page.) Acupuncture is strange to me. I think it does help people with some things, because it's very mentally soothing to have someone pay lots of attention to you, but I dunno if the whole pins thing does anything or not. Maybe it relaxes you a lot, that would be helpful. I'm not putting it with, y'know, vaccines or anything, but it's not as bad as homeopathy.

[noparlpf]

Apparently - and I can't currently verify this because I don't remember nursing, I am not lactating, and I don't know anyone who is well enough to ask for some (Can anyone really know someone else well enough to ask to taste their breastmilk for investigative purposes? I'm thinking yes, but I am a bit mad.) - breastmilk is way tastier than formula. It follows that breastmilk icecream would be tastier than formula icecream, but I dunno about ... cow icecream. Breastmilk is supposed to be kind of pleasantly sweet, though, so that's a good thing for icecream.

I think I tasted some at some point when somebody had a baby and there was somebody's milk in the fridge for feeding the baby when the mother was asleep. (This is a good idea for mothers who like to sleep occasionally!)
It's a bit weird to taste when you're no longer a baby/small child, but it's not unpleasant. Just unusual, considering we don't taste it often if at all. But yes, it's definitely more palatable (and obviously more healthy) than formulas are.

Also, you changed colour! I like that you're an asexual flag square now. But it's like you wearing a Hallowe'en costume. I'm thinking of you as a black square wearing some rectangles.

I know! It's weird! I feel like a black square wearing rectangles. But I was bored and decided to change my avatar in response to that survey that didn't have √(-1) as an option for sexuality. You know, because the two are completely related.

[Laser Frog]

THIS JUST IN!

...This thread moves really fast. Or maybe it just seems that way when all you've been doing is lurking and not posting. >_> I blame everything.

On the topic of rating scales for sexuality, I remember one time looking at one exhibit about masculinity among men all over the queer spectrum, where the subjects had to rate things about their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender presentation, etc. The middle of the scale for sexual orientation was "bisexual or asexual", and that bothered me.

Scales like that are oversimplifying things in the first place, so is that really the best way to represent sexual orientation linearly? Would they allow you to cross out "bisexual" (or "asexual" for that matter) just to clarify things? If they included a separate scale for rating how sexual you were, would a lot of people even know where they fell on it?

Also, I support the (-1)^(0.5) answer wholeheartedly.

"Addicted to being transgender?" (That's what I thought it was going to be when it was the addiction page.) Acupuncture is strange to me. I think it does help people with some things, because it's very mentally soothing to have someone pay lots of attention to you, but I dunno if the whole pins thing does anything or not. Maybe it relaxes you a lot, that would be helpful. I'm not putting it with, y'know, vaccines or anything, but it's not as bad as homeopathy.

I'm somewhat skeptical about acupuncture myself, but I never looked at it this way before. Putting aside the whole chi/meridians thing, I just thought that putting needles into your skin was supposed to stimulate...some kind of physiological quality, whether that's blood flow or what have you.

[noparlpf]

It has to be three-dimensional somehow. I'm picturing two parallel scales running from zero to ten. One measures attraction to male-bodied people, and the other attraction to female-bodied people. One fills in the two bars up to wherever they want. No answer means asexual, "pure" androphilic would be 10 on the male-bodied scale, "pure" gynophilic would be 10 on the female-bodied scale, and "pure" bisexual would be 10 on both. Somebody who's bi but tends to prefer men might put a 10 on the male-bodied scale and a 6 on the female-bodied scale. That's about as complex as anything needs to be. Thoughts? (I'm not trying to exclude pansexuals or any other groups; I just threw this thought together in a few seconds and don't know how to fit them in or if they even need to be a separate scale.)

[Lea Plath]

"Addicted to being transgender?" (That's what I thought it was going to be when it was the addiction page.) Acupuncture is strange to me. I think it does help people with some things, because it's very mentally soothing to have someone pay lots of attention to you, but I dunno if the whole pins thing does anything or not. Maybe it relaxes you a lot, that would be helpful. I'm not putting it with, y'know, vaccines or anything, but it's not as bad as homeopathy.

From what I understand, acupuncture has been shown to have some benefits to health, but I'll need to find the artcile about it.

And nothing can be better than a pot of proper milk vanilla ice cream. Yum <3

[pffh]

Or:
Question X-1
Are you sexual?
1) Yes (go to question X)
2) No (go to question Y)

Question X
How sexually attracted are you to males on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is not attracted to at all and 5 is very attracted to?:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

Question X+1

How sexually attracted are you to females on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is not attracted to at all and 5 is very attracted to?:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

Question Y:
Have you ever felt romantic feelings towards someone or could you see yourselves having romantic feelings towards someone in the future?
1) Yes (got to question Z)
2) No (go to question M)

And so forth.
Yay for having a mandatory class on how to design surveys.

[Laser Frog]

It has to be three-dimensional somehow. I'm picturing two parallel scales running from zero to ten. One measures attraction to male-bodied people, and the other attraction to female-bodied people. One fills in the two bars up to wherever they want. No answer means asexual, "pure" androphilic would be 10 on the male-bodied scale, "pure" gynophilic would be 10 on the female-bodied scale, and "pure" bisexual would be 10 on both. Somebody who's bi but tends to prefer men might put a 10 on the male-bodied scale and a 6 on the female-bodied scale. That's about as complex as anything needs to be. Thoughts? (I'm not trying to exclude pansexuals or any other groups; I just threw this thought together in a few seconds and don't know how to fit them in or if they even need to be a separate scale.)

(Italics my own)

That's...not really that complex, but I do like it better than the linear scale. There's really nothing you can do to include everybody, but at least if a scale is going to be oversimplified, it makes more sense to do it that way. Perhaps a perpendicular grid could work too, although some might consider that ugly and space-wasting.

Or:
Question X-1
Are you sexual?
1) Yes (go to question X)
2) No (go to question Y)

Question X
How sexually attracted are you to males on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is not attracted to at all and 5 is very attracted to?:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

Question X+1

How sexually attracted are you to females on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is not attracted to at all and 5 is very attracted to?:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

Yay for having a mandatory class on how to design surveys.

But where does that leave demisexuals and pansexuals?