Avris

It's a very common trope in movies and series: people wondering whether, and when, and how they should say “I love you” for the first time to someone they're dating... people worrying about saying it too early, about the other person not saying it back...

But what if we stopped making such a big deal out of it?

#IAmNonbinary is trending on Twitter. Next to beautiful pictures and inspiring stories of nonbinary folks, there’s also tons of hateful replies. Apart from the usual phobic comments, there’s also some idiotic requirements. Haters reproach people that they aren’t andogynous enough, or that they aren’t using “they/them” pronouns, etc, etc.

Oh for fuck’s sake. You’re missing the entire point.

Toxic masculinity always has misogyny in it.

You can’t be scared shitless about seeming even just a bit feminine without secretly thinking that being a woman is somehow worse than being a man.

Witamy na dorocznych zawodach w byciu „dobrym gejem”!

It’s sad, being a member of a minoritised community and seeing some of its members turn against the others. Like in case of that twitter discussion on whether or not “weird looking” people and drag queens should be allowed to represent us, or even mention publicly that they are queer, for fear of giving us a bad reputation.

I used to be that asshole who answers “no” to this question.

Imagine aliens visit us one day, make an in-depth research into our species and sum it up in a history book that they bring home to teach their alien children from.

What would it say? What would it focus on?

Did you know the dicks you see in porn are not real? Per se, sure, but if you look at them as a group? That’s not what what real cocks look like!

I know. I checked.

No such thing as a “real man”.

It’s just a social construct. It changes over time, it differs from country to country, from social group to social group. It’s super arbitrary.

All men are real men.

Self-Defined Dictionary is a fresh-new open-source project aiming to allow minoritised groups define the words that describe them – finally from their own perspective, and not the perspective of people who never even experienced their struggles.

I took an opportunity to suggest a definition of polyamory from a perspective of a polyamorous person.

Na podstawie naszej historiiMiłość nie wyklucza stworzyła poradnik, jak niszczyć polską rodzinę tuż za zachodnią granicą

Fair warning: this library is pretty useless. And only moderately fun... ‍

But it seemed like a cool way to learn a bit about web components, so here it is: a component that creates googly eyes that follow your mouse.

I’m watching a documentary about Polish incels, I see them creepily ask radom women on the streets “are you single?”, “do you have a boyfriend?”, and I can’t help but think – why are those questions even a thing in our society?

As much as I despise DailyMail’s usual hatred and and shittiness, I can’t stand on the side of their recent “victims”: Harry and Meghan Windsor and Elton John. Calling out the hypocrisy and entitlement of the rich is what press is supposed to be doing.

Homophobes get offended when I compare their anti-LGBTQ bigotry to racism.

Good.

I know, I know, all this will be pure speculation. But does it not sound really likely?

Imagine that you have a partner of opposite sex, but you don’t really have the greatest relationship... And your conservative parents or grandparents are constantly nagging you: “when is the wedding?”, “when will we get grandchildren?”, blah blah blah... Then you turn on TV and you see people there who cannot get married or have children, but they would very much want to. How would you feel about it?

Dyskusja dyskusją, ale co mnie w powyższym tweecie najbardziej zaciekawiło, to homofobia kryjąca się aż na trzy różne sposoby w samym tylko pierwszym zdaniu:

PinkNews has just shown an example of “great” journalism by reporting about the list of Hollywood’s smallest penises. An inclusive LGBTQ news portal taking part in body shaming? What a disgrace!

Also: someone seriously still gives a fuck about someone else’s cock size? You probably won’t even sleep with any of those celebrities anyway. Just stop invading their privacy already...

Anyways... maybe it’s time for me to weigh in a bit on the subject of cock sizes?

Przez kilka dni obserwowałem, jak wygląda świat z perspektywy twitterowego prawicowca. Zobaczyłem świat tak przeżarty nienawiścią, że aż chce mi się ryczeć.

Well, why not both?

I know, I know, it doesn’t sound like a question with two possible answers that are not mutually exclusive, but let me rephrase it first.

One Galleon is 17 Sickles and one Sickle is 29 Knuts... The wizarding currency isn’t too simple or practical, is it? Muggles also have struggled for ages with overcomplicated, inconsistent systems of units. But then we adapted the SI – and since then we got used to using this simple, decimal system.

There is one thing though that we still measure in strange units. 60 seconds go in a minute, 60 minutes go in an hour, 24 hours go in a day. There’s 365 days in a year, except when it’s 366, and they can be divided into 52 weeks of 7 days, with some days left over, or alternatively into 12 months of 28, 29, 30 or 31 days each, depending on... reasons.

Could we simplify all that mess?

I’ve lived in three countries so far, and for me it’s really interesting to see how differently they do some things that I’ve never even thought could be done differently. Today: addresses.

Almost everyone knows that in Japan you use blocks instead of street names and that buildings within a block are numbered chronologically, not geographically. But that’s Asia, right? How much can one European country be different from another?

I baked a cake. It wasn’t hard, it wasn’t impressive, I don’t have a picture to share, I’m not planning to use this recipe ever again or even to eat it whole.

But still, it was quite an important cake for me.

There is a song by Faun (“Tanz mit mir”) in which a girl agrees to dance with a guy and then spend the night with him, but only if he is “faithful” and “doesn’t kiss any other girl”.

It got me thinking... From a perspective of a non-monogramist that sounds like an extremely low bar for cheating. Really, a kiss is too much already? Maybe he can’t even check out a girl? Oh, right, he probably can’t.

If we counted how many kisses or hugs me and my husband have given out to other guys, we’d have to get divorced repeatedly... Does it mean people in open relationships have no bar whatsoever? Hell no! We can feel cheated too!

As you might know, I’m in an open relationship and I’m even asking How is monogamy still a thing? in one blog post. But when I got asked for an advice on how to open a relationship, I realised I have honestly no idea what to say.

But after some thought, it boils down to that, more or less:

As much as I try not to brag, there is one thing I just cannot stop bragging about: how awesome my relationship is. Seriously, whenever I see some other couple fighting about some petty thing or struggling to communicate about the simplest issues, I wonder, what the hell are they doing wrong? To us it comes so naturally...

And I think I’ve managed to boil it down to a short list od advices:

I’m sick and tired of the idiots on the Internet and on TV, who keep babbling about how “nowadays you can’t even hug a woman without harassing her” or how “in some countries you now need a written consent form before having sex” (like in the fake post below or in this 9gag post). Someone even created https://legalfling.io/ that uses blockchain to sign such a form...

It’s all bullshit. Consent is not at all a complicated issue!

Razem od 4,5 roku. Z tego absolutnie pewni, że to właśnie ze sobą chcemy spędzić resztę życia – już nawet nie wiem od jak dawna, może coś koło trzech lat? Ale ślub wzięliśmy raptem parę tygodni temu. Trochę nam zeszło zbieranie się do niego, no nie?

Cóż, Polska nawet nie chciała o tym słyszeć, Niemcy ociągały się z wprowadzeniem pełnej równości małżeńskiej, a my baliśmy się tej całej międzynarodowej biurokracji i nie do końca widzieliśmy potrzebę... Tak się jakoś odkładało i odkładało na potem...

Teraz, gdy mamy to już za sobą, wiemy, że to nie aż takie straszne. I że warto. Stąd też ten mały tutorial, który być może pomoże komuś w podobnym kroku. Jak to wszystko pozałatwiać, ile to kosztuje, ile to trwa, od czego zacząć?

– Morning! How was your weekend?
– Morning! Well, we went do Poland to visit my boyfriend’s family and we...
– Oh, so you have a boyfriend? That’s ok. You know, I have gay friends.
– Erm... OK... So what? I have gay friends too. And straight friends... What’s your point?

Step 1: Get naked.

Step 2: Enjoy!

I was checking out some wedding vows to then write mine on my own. And I realised how much are they saying about one’s definition of what marriage means to them...

I’ve been to so many weddings in my lifetime! Yet only one of them was not in a church, and not a single one was same-sex or performed in Germany. My first one is gonna be my own.

And I’m kinda scared...

Today I found out that in some laboratories, when you want to get your blood tested for HIV/HCV/syphilis/etc. (for free and anonymously), you do not have to go to confession about your sexual life. It was a great surprise for me, because whenever I did such tests, I always got to fill out a questionnaire about what, when, how many times, and with how many guys I did it. And then I had to further elaborate in a face-to-face conversation with some stranger.

Let’s not kid ourselves, most of us would like to have more than one partner. But we rarely dare to admit it. The taboo on polygamy is too big.

I hate taboos though! Let’s loosen it up a notch! Let’s talk about non-monogamy and why it’s not as evil and depraved as it might sound.

I’ve recently realised that many conservative catchphrases can be answered with a simple challenge: “get naked then!”. How come?