Thyme @Thyme@computerfairi.es

I'm really happy with the improvement in my diet since moving here to live with my close friend, I've been eating more, more consistently, and healthier.

Recently I've been proud of making rice topped with roasted potatoes, carrots, "sweet potatoes", mushrooms, capsicum, onions--cooked with various herbs and spices--then uncooked raisins, walnuts, and Brazil nuts, and finally lettuce on top of everything; with microwave steamed broccoli around the side; and soy sauce over the top.

Portal: "The symptoms most commonly produced by Enrichment Center testing are superstition, perceiving inanimate objects as alive, and hallucinations."

KUBARK: "The symptoms most commonly produced by isolation are superstition, intense love of any other living thing, perceiving inanimate objects as alive, hallucinations, and delusions."

This chart is fascinating to me. Note: A is Money's theory, while B is what the author favors. Note at least the following:

a) That this concept of "physchosexuality" (basically both gender and sexuality) is clearly shown as a spectrum, and

b) That social and cultural factors play a role in imposing limits on this spectrum.

Diamond, M. (1965). A Critical Evaluation of the Ontogeny of Human Sexual Behavior. The Quarterly Review of Biology

@OCRbot

Here's a 1948 lecture describing a natural basis for homosexuality. Interesting especially for referencing the presence of homosexual behavior in other mammals.

BEACH, F. A. 1948a. Sexual behavior in animals and men. Harvey Lect. Ser.

Quoted in:

Diamond, M. (1965). A Critical Evaluation of the Ontogeny of Human Sexual Behavior. The Quarterly Review of Biology

@OCRbot

Actually that's the same author who introduced to the world the idea of a distinction between "sex" and "gender". Well, here he is later explaining the reasoning behind this distinction. I suppose we have the "strain" on the "etymological stem" of "sex" to thank for it?

Money, J. (1973). Gender Role, Gender Identity, Core Gender Identity: Usage and Definition of Terms. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis.

@OCRbot

Here's a section from a 1957 paper explaining the five different biological aspects of "sex", based on studies of intersex people.

Interesting because I often see people treat this as if it's recent knowledge, when it's not. In an earlier paper the author even treats it as well known to experts, but to my annoyance I cannot access that paper anymore.

MONEY, J. (1957). Imprinting and the Establishment of Gender Role. Archives of Neurology And Psychiatry.

Reading old scientific papers about sex, sexuality, gender, and so on, in light of contemporary understandings and debates is fascinating to me. I'll share just a few of the quotes that I find quite interesting.

Content warning for the sorts of casual prejudice and insensitivity you might expect from cishet male doctors and scientists in the 1950s writing about these topics.

That's all for right now.

Hi again to the handful of people that ended up following me.

Since I was always sympathetic to socialist ideas because of my class background, as well as, you know, having sympathy for other people, now I say I'm something of a "scientific socialist". Which means not being interesting in adopting a "political identity" beyond that.

I have little interest in getting involved in the dreadful "heated online political discourse", just something worth sharing as background on the way I think about things.

I also ended up learning more about real history, you know not the blatant propaganda I got taught in high school.

That made me, finally, actually want to learn about Marxism. And I discovered that I had been approaching it as a resolution to my intellectual discontent with my "native" liberalism anyway, e.g. as someone trained in biology I was approaching a "dialectical materialist" understanding of biological phenomenon, embracing complexity and change.

(cont.)

What happened in the over a year since I stopped interacting?

Not much, truth be told. Most of the year was spent cowering in anxiety.

Personal feelings crystallized in a more complete way after overcoming years of repression and so I'm comfortable just calling myself a non-binary lizard now, which was always the obvious truth anyway.

I moved in with a close friend who I love very much and I'm much happier because of that, closer to family now also.

I decided to finally try and interact on Mastodon again.

I gave up because I gave into anxiety, although I still kept an eye on it from time to time.

We'll see how it goes, I have lower expectations on myself now so I might not be that active. Social media still makes me dreadfully anxious for whatever reason.

Sleeping is always a struggle between laying on my back for good posture and curling up into a ball for comfort.

Our chickens are spending the night in their intended enclosure for the first time, and they have decided to perch themselves together atop the ~2 metre high barrier surrounding it. It's both impressive and adorable.