Emerald

I understand the thought process but it's a bit unhelpful for really understanding the way that the world actually works and being able to understand where people are coming from. There is nothing wrong with saying "I am a black man" if you are indeed a man who is black. That's a true statement and it makes sense in the context of the post that he would draw upon his experiences as a black man. The fact of the matter is that race exists and even if we don't like that it exists and think we should completely ignore it because it makes us uncomfortable, it still effects the way a person is treated and seen. So, being of a particular race, comes along with particular projections from society and certain experiences that people of other races are not privy to. So, the "all one race" rhetoric is very sunshine and rainbows thinking that tends to comfort people who aren't actively dealing with the problems of being a particular race. Now, I'm all for dis-identification and detachment from all labels. However, pretending that race doesn't exist just isn't helpful. And if I say "I am a white woman." That statement is simply a factual statement that gives context to others about my life. So, this let's people know that my racial experience will be that of a white woman.... so like avocados and uggs and stuff like that.

I'm all for looking at all sides of beliefs for the sake of seeing what makes them tick. And this includes ones that could lead to negative outcomes for myself. For example, I've questioned why societies have been patriarchal in the past and whether it's "natural" for male dominance. And these types of questions are an actual potential threat to me and my current worldview as if they were actually true it would have major negative consequences on all aspects of my life. And some of my biggest insights have come from looking at what's threatening to me and have seen patterns of human growth that I wouldn't otherwise have seen, just in asking those scary questions and really examining things. So, looking at these types of beliefs will help you get a clearer picture. However, when it comes to examining an unpopular old-world belief (that shares ties to eugenics) that doesn't really effect you personally, it is honestly just getting your kicks from playing devil's advocate with the ghosts of the past. And a lot of people who fancy themselves as "intellectual" are doing this, and the potential for opening up Pandora's Box is great. So, it very well CAN hurt. Not just emotionally on the individual level, but on a mass scale if there are enough people who start to play this seemingly lighthearted game of devil's advocate. An idea with enough momentum can really cause harm. And devil's advocate games are always safe and removed from the situation and done by people who haven't truly experienced the realities of the situation. As SFRL said before, it's just looking at a cartoon image of the reality. You get to look at a situation from afar in comfy armchair and make your postulations and judgments that will never really have any effect on your life. You're not a black person having to make sense out of why the murder statistics fall the way that they do. Or actively dealing with the amount of projections that comes from people in society who see them as synonymous with violent criminals because of this statistic. So, it will be simple for you to come up with a simple answer. If you want to really be aware, then I recommend getting to know more black people in life and witnessing firsthand that black people are just as diverse in their character and disposition as white people. Notice any tendency to want to project over the entirety of a race because you just don't have a lot of example of people you know intimately from that race. That's why minorities in a society are easier to project out onto, because in lieu of having many interactions the majority group can cleave to statistics and stereotypes to concoct a really distorted and two dimensional caricature of reality. And if you want to be really aware of why there's a higher percentage of black people committing violent crimes, then you should get to know some black inmates who are in for violent crime. There is a program called "Prison Pen Pals" where you can anonymously correspond with people who are in prison because many of them don't have family and friends who write to them. My friend Julia did it, and she showed me some of the letters, and it was really interesting. You might be able to glean some insights from that.

I've noticed a very strong correlation between home life and behavior issues. But even that sometimes isn't the case. I've had a few students dealing with really messed up things who are really well behaved and just really awesome people. But that speaks to their personal character and resilience. Most students with a bad home-life never really had a chance and develop really negative coping mechanisms that effect their behavior and their life in detrimental ways. It also wouldn't make sense to me that human beings from different regions of the world would be that different, because race is an evolutionary factor that changes in relatively few generations, evolutionarily speaking. I remember that when I was a freshman in college and taking my gen. eds., I was required to take a biology class. And I remember the professor had us read an article about how race occurs based mostly on the level of vitamin D that a person needs and the level of sun protection a person needs. So, it was posited that white people are white because white skin is more susceptible to the sun's rays. So, during the cold winters, it would be easier for white people to get their vitamin D requirements met more easily because sunlight is where we get vitamin D. And people with darker skin color, live in places where the sun shines year-round or most of the year. So, it's easy to get the necessary vitamin D from the sun. But extra sun protection is needed, which more melanin helps with. And it was said in the article that in a particular ethnic group, through natural selection the race of that group would change over the course of about 150 generations, if that group relocated to a different location where there was more or less sunlight. And this would happen without having children with people of a different race. It is unfortunate that people project so much onto other people. And the internet, with its anonymity, makes it really clear that there are a lot of people with distorted viewpoints about race and other demographic factors. I grew up sort of naive, believing that these mindsets were gone. But it's really yucky to see how many people are ready to jump on the philosophies of old and play devil's advocate with them. I see a lot of pseudo-intellectuals do this, where they think that they're being deep thinkers. As a woman, I experience a lot of guys who will do the same thing to women where they'll start thinking about what's "natural" and it will basically be like a big explanation as to why men are superior to women. And it's the same thing that I saw a couple people do on this thread but with black people instead of women. So, they brought up that black people commit half of all murders (which I attribute to gang violence in bad neighborhoods and as a purely environmental phenomenon). And I read this air of "black people are more violent, therefore they are inferior to white people. Thus white dominance is justified." Sort of a saying it without directly saying it. Yet I'm sure if you brought up that men commit 90% of all murders (which is a real statistic), then using the idea of "male predisposition toward violence" would suddenly transform this predisposition to violence into a strength and be the reason why men are more dominant and thus meant to lead society and have more power than women... because "it's natural." And all this makes me wonder, why it's so important to some people that their race or gender is the superior one. Is it just mediocrity... like "Well I don't have anything special about me and no special skills... but at least I'm white!" Or is it something else.

I don't think this is true. It's not because your theory is completely implausible or anything. Ancestors living in different environments, will likely have somewhat different adaptations. But I don't believe it's true because I spend a lot of time around children of various ethnic backgrounds. And they range in age from ages 3 to 18. And I don't stay in the same schools. I go to the schools in the higher income parts of town as well as in the lower income parts of town. What you quickly notice is that students from the same schools tend to have similar predispositions toward misbehavior and violence. But you won't find a correlation when it comes to race by itself as a factor. But you'll find that schools that are lower income schools (which because they're lower income have a higher percentage of non-white students) are also rougher on the behavior scale. I know if I go to the school in the poor neighborhood, I'm going to get tested more by students of all races from about third grade onward. And they deal with very rough situations. This one little white girl on my first day of work five years ago, was telling me that her dad just got sent to prison and wouldn't get out until she's 15. One mentally challenged girl that I taught was being sold by her mother to various men. Another group of sibling's mother killed their father. One girl (white) was molested by her uncle who took her on a high speed chase and shot her. And there are just miserable situations going on... and this causes behavior issues because there is so much pain to be coped with. But if you go into a class with three and four year olds, there is literally no difference between kids of various races. They haven't even been socialized to attribute meaning to race yet. So, they all have the same sense of wonderment about things. The only students who tend to have real behavior issues at that point have them because they have a really traumatic home-life or they have some kind of emotional/behavioral issue. So, my recommendations is to not spend too much time theorizing about various generalizations regarding race or any other demographic factor. It clouds the judgment when it comes to dealings with people and it lays a pretty heavy trip on black people. Spend some time around real people.

Oatmeal is always gluten-free. Only products that contain wheat have gluten, and oatmeal doesn't have wheat... just oats. The reason why gluten-free is written on the box is because of marketing reasons. People will think that they're getting something special, when they're just getting the usual oatmeal, which is naturally gluten-free.

I work with children at various schools. So, the standards are very strict for personal behavior. Things that would be acceptable at other professions are not acceptable in that one. This is why I tend not to cover very taboo kind of topics on my channel.

I do have a job. But I don't tell my work about it. I'm sure I could get fired if someone found out and complained because of the nature of my job and the fact I've referred a few times to entheogen use throughout my videos. But I don't work at one set location. I go to different locations for my work. So, it' unlikely that I'll be at a place frequently enough to really be known and looked up. But I eventually want to be able to make my living off of my channel and related work. So, it' a risk that I have to take. But I wouldn't worry too much about it if were you. If you type your name into Google and your blog isn't the first thing to come up, then the chances they'll find out are slim. Also, the chances that they'll read your blog is slim. Unfortunately, because my name is very uncommon, if my work ever Googles me, they'll find my videos as one of the top Google search listings. And even though most of them are quite innocuous, the standards are strict enough that they may just opt to let me go. Some people have been let go of for just having a picture of themselves on FB sitting next to a glass of wine. So, it's a risk that I'm taking. But I wouldn't worry if I was you. But I also wouldn't tell anyone about your blog.

If you look at the masculine and feminine principle, giving is actually part of masculinity... not femininity. So, don't overthink things that women will see your giving-nature as weak. Women are really attracted to men who are generous. And I don't mean just with money. I mean generous with their time, energy, encouragement, affection, attention, and resources. The main thing is not to take what you have too seriously and hold things to yourself for fear of her getting one-up on you or fear of seeming weak. This type of ungenerous spirit, comes off as stingy and petty and is a sign of insecurity. And it makes a man seem like a boy. My father has always embodied a kind of generous and warm-hearted spirit, where he doesn't take anything that he has that seriously. So, he can share freely in a very jovial and detached kind of way. And it's a very masculine kind of trait that adds to the rest of his personality which is masculine. To give you an image to relate him to, the Marlboro Man has always reminded me of my dad. And he's also a mechanic, who's been working on cars since he was ten years old. And I remember back when I was ten years old in Sam's club, and my Dad was showing me how strong his grip was by squeezing an industrial scale that went up to like 1000 lbs. And with just his fingertips, he was able to exert hundreds of pounds of pressure. So, he's definitely not someone who is feminine, nor would he be seen as a weak man. But he's a giver. He'd give you the shirt right off his back if you needed it. And he doesn't really care what anyone thinks about his generosity. And these traits, in themselves read as very masculine traits. And more importantly, they're very admirable traits. So, the main thing is just to put concern of women thinking this way or that way about you to the side, and just embrace your giving nature toward life in general. It's a really excellent trait to integrate into your personality regardless of your gender. When you overthink, and think "Should I hold this back so that she doesn't think I'm weak?" then you want to remind yourself that you're not doing it for her. You're doing it to become a better quality person first. Then, as you become better and more authentic, more people will be attracted to you and enjoy your presence. And women will take notice of this too. And you'll always attract women who mirror your own issues. So, the way to attract a woman who is going to accept you, is to accept yourself. Because women who are really interested in you don't care about what particular traits that you have. They care about you as a whole person and how the experience of "you" makes them feel.

I was going to bring up the doll test and the implicit bias test, but someone beat me to it. But I think what you're going through is similar in some respects to what I experienced as a woman in relation to being seen as the modifier on a person. So, white men are the only default people, and everyone else is seen as a modifier upon that default. So, if I say, "A person walked into the gas station." most people are going to automatically imagine a young/middle aged white man. Then everyone else is a type of person that you have to specify. Or if it's a woman, you have to specify that they're a woman because we're not conditioned to equate the term woman with person. But we are conditioned to equate the term man with the word person. So, for men it's: Person (White young/middle aged male) Black person Asian person (fill in the blank ethnicity) person old person (white old man... sometimes white old women) etc. For women it's: Woman (White young female) Black woman Asian woman etc. So, there's a subtle brain washing that happens with our white defaultism that makes white people and men more relatable, as they are seen as the "every-man." This is also propped up by the language that we use, the media, and folkways of understanding things. So, this whole thing effects everyone's psyche on a subtle level, to where anyone who isn't a white male has to identify with whiteness and maleness in order to be able to function and relate to various things in society. For example, I was always very masculine identified, and I could get into thought processes where I would actually confuse my gender for a moment. So, I'd be thinking about something that puzzled me and then I would think, "Maybe I could relate back to this more if I was female." Then I would realize, "OHHH! I AM female!!" So, that might be why you feel more of an identification with white children. But I'm sure that this would go away when you actually have children. Right now, you just have a placeholder idea of a child in your mind. So, your sub-conscious is just projecting your idea of white children and black children, which is infected by social conditioning. But when you experience your child, all of your ideas and projections have to fall away because children are all so unique and really are all little complex people. This tends to get glossed over by people who haven't had children yet. So, I would definitely keep examining yourself for these types of biases. But I'm sure that you will have very positive feelings toward your children, no matter what their race is.

No. Even when a woman is pregnant only small dots of clear yellowish colored colostrum come out. And the first few days, when the baby is newborn, they only drink the small amounts of colostrum every few hours (around the clock) because their stomach is so small that it can only candle a half an ounce of fluid. So, the colostrum is packed with tons of extra nutrients to meet their needs. But after a few days to a week the actual milk comes in. Then it lasts for as long as the baby nurses on a supply and demand basis. So, the more the baby nurses, the more milk is produced. The less the baby nurses, the less milk is produced. Then, it takes about two weeks after weening for milk production to stop completely. Source: Over five years of daily nursing between both of my children. So, I'm a professional human moo cow.

A big first step is to sell or give away all your games and systems. Think about how difficult it would be for a heroine addict to quit, if they had heroine in their house readily available to them. It's too much to expect from your will-power muscles to refrain if relapsing is so convenient. You're automatically set up for failure. So, remove all the games and systems from your home to set yourself up for success.

The type of racism that you're talking about comes in the form of judgement. So, racist judgments are just as difficult to let go of as any other tendency toward judgment. Awareness and consciousness work can help, as well as extreme self-honesty. But judgments are subtle and can be difficult to get rid of, because we don't want to see ourselves as bad people. So, it's our natural tendency to try to look at ourselves through rose-colored glasses. But overall, it's much more productive to see racism as a system than as certain actions or judgments. So, if you really want to help solve the problem of racism then you can ask yourself, do my judgments and actions preserve, add to, or do nothing to (and thus preserve) the system that disenfranchises people of color? Or am I taking actions that actively dismantle that system? I think people who are well-intentioned who see racism as something someone does or doesn't do or thinks or doesn't think, can lead to a false contentment with the situation that the racist system sets up. It's like "Well, I'm not racist, so that's all I can really do. But shame on those evil racists." Or there's an over-simplification of understanding relative to the system which produces sentiments like, "There are people that hate white people too, therefore racism is an equal playing field where BAD people of both sides hate on one another... but not us GOOD people. We're awesome. (pats their own back)" But these are fundamental misunderstandings of how that system works... as the power structures are uneven in the favor of white people. So, it would be like if white people are armed with rifles and people of color are armed with sling-shots. Certainly, there are probably people of color who are using their sling shots against white people because there's bound to be people on both sides who hate each other. And of course this isn't a good thing. And certainly, a lot of people on both sides would never even consider using their weapons. But to see the playing field as equal just because there are BAD racist people on both sides in contrast to the GOOD non-racist people who don't use their weapons, is just a major oversight relative to the power structures that be. Turning it into a good people versus bad people issue misses the point and blots out the deeper truths of the situation. So sure, it hurts to be a white person who gets shot with a sling shot. But it's devastating to be a person of color who gets shot with a rifle. So, racism isn't so much about hurt feelings but about power structures that effect people's lives every day. But as you said, the tendency toward judgment can be difficult to let go of, plus it's easy for a person to lie to themselves about. But more-so, if the concern stems past the ego and wanting to be free of the label "racist" and being able to feel better about yourself because you feel free of that label, then you'll want to examine the system of racism carefully and dismantle it wherever you can. Because it doesn't really matter that much within the grand scheme of the racist system, if you as an individual thinks this or that. And it doesn't matter if you can think of yourself as a GOOD person. That's just an ego concern. What matters is this: Is the system of racism, which causes so many issues for people of color and society at large, actively being dismantled?

Caressing the breasts lightly feels about as good as caressing the inner thighs or the side of the waist. When done properly, it can give the receiver goosebumps and increase arousal. That should give you a feel for how it feels if you're familiar with the sensation on yourself. The female nipple isn't as sensitive as the male nipple because the nerve endings are more spread out. I remember as a child, the sensation was much more intense, but as I went through puberty and I developed breasts the sensation faded to something much less intense. I think it's because the sensitivity wouldn't be very good for nursing... even though the pressure from nursing isn't directly on the nipple but on the areola. But it's still relatively sensitive compared to other part of the body. The whole breast is definitely an erogenous zone. So, light caresses feel really good in every erogenous zone. However, IMO squeezing the breasts either feels neutral and boring or it hurts if the breasts happen to be sensitive, as often happens during the period and especially during pregnancy. Plus, it's sometimes pretty awkward and can feel too blunt and jarring to the romantic moment. Generally speaking, it's a good idea to build up gradually and consistently and not do anything that could knock her out of the mood. So, my recommendation is to steer clear of squeezing them. However, you can look up erotic massage and there are probably techniques for caressing the breasts using more pressure. But those usually require larger sweeping motions that are specifically designed to be worked into a full body massage.

@Lynnel You're welcome and thank you! Misogyny and other gender-related issues are very complex issues that seem very simple on the surface level. So, most people treat them as such and cannot figure out how to untangle themselves from issues on the individual level or untangle humanity from negative patterns on the macro level. So, there's a lot of pain and frustration. But the surface level phenomena are really just symptoms or reactionary symptoms that stems from the deeper issue of the imbalance between Yin and Yang in our current level of awareness as humans. Best of luck in liberating yourself from all that weighs you down.

I think that you over-thought the situation a bit and had too many preconceived notions from pick up. First off, if a girl says hi to you, it doesn't necessarily mean that she's hitting on you. So, there's a bit of jumping the gun there. But if we assume that she is interested in you, then we can look at how your knowledge of pick-up has clouded your interaction. First off, when someone says hi to you, it comes off as rude to intentionally ignore them. An appropriate response is to say hello back, just like you would with any other person. You seem to have this notion that women are consciously sizing up men for their confidence levels. But most of that happens on an unconscious and intuitive level. If you stopped to talk to her for a moment, this would not have come off as desperate. It would just be normal. She wouldn't be in her mind like, "he stopped to talk, how desperate." Given that we assume that she's interested in you, she probably had a curiosity about you. So, she's not going to be in scrutiny-mode. She just wants your attention and whatever excitement that might bring. As long as you come off as normal in your conversation and don't seem abnormal by saying inappropriate or immature things, then you're probably not going to garner any judgment. Also, it seems like you're sizing up her "game", so to speak. But you have to understand that women generally don't approach men and are discouraged from doing so. So, if we see a guy that we like, we don't have too many tools to rely upon that we can get a guy's attention that doesn't get read as desperate or slutty. So, women are often overlooked by men they're interested in, and instead get approached by men we're not interested in. So, if she was interested in you, then she's probably just a bit more outgoing and iconoclastic but doesn't have fancy methods for getting guy's attention. She may not even know that it is often read as desperate if she's young and fairly inexperienced in dating and a firm believer in equality. So, her knowledge of "game" and your paradigm is either limited or non-existent. The number one thing that you have to realize is that, from a woman's perspective, they generally feel just as uncomfortable if not more uncomfortable to express interest and attraction to a guy. It never feels like a sure thing. And women also have a fear of rejection. So, it isn't as though women feel comfortable in those situations, while men are uncomfortable. The discomfort is mutual.

It's a difficult issue to navigate because there are a lot of different factors coming together to create that feeling. I'll tell you my experiences with hatred of the feminine and females to give you an idea of what may be occurring with you. But this will be long because it's complex. As a child of ten, despite being female, I suddenly became very misogynistic for a variety of reasons that I can now point to looking back (issues with family members, mean girls at school, being patronized and coddled by older kids and adults, society subtly deeming femininity as lesser than masculinity in many ways, being excluded from conversations and social groups because of my gender, extreme identification with my dad, etc.). I dis-identified myself with femaleness and decided instead that I was more like a guy. I saw femaleness as inferior so I decided that I was some exception to the rule, which was always how I coped with being born female. And in doing so, I became identified with maleness to a certain degree for about a year but many identifications still linger on unconsciously. So, I sought to separate myself from femaleness (and thus weakness by my perception) by showing how capable, pain-tolerant, and stoic I could be. So, at summer camp that year, I would have girls with sharp nails rake their nails down my arm until I nearly bled, just to show that I could stand the pain without flinching or reacting. And I would do other various shows of strength to distance myself from the fact that I was female. Then, when I went into middle school, I decided to put that stage behind me and be okay with girls and be okay with being a girl. I think it was because everyone was going through puberty and I could no longer compete with boys strength-wise and that I cared about having a somewhat feminine appearance because I was a pre-teen/teenager and concerned with being attractive. But my misogyny was deep, so it stayed there unconsciously and I brought it all the way through my teen years. To be perceived as feminine felt like a real slight to me, with the exception of being seen as feminine in the attractiveness sense of the word. That was the only feminine trait that I wanted. I wanted to be a guy on the inside but a girl on the outside. But the more subtle form that it took was in the form of resistance to values and strengths that are feminine. I had learned that masculine oriented values are good and that feminine oriented values are boring, trite, or negative. So, I got little excitement from emotional intelligence, love, and compassion. I was all about willpower, intellect, and success-mindedness. On the positive side, I developed a really strong will-power and learned a lot and I brought myself through college on scholarships and my own dime. I also became independent young. I haven't lived with either of my parents since I was 16. But I neglected and repressed my feminine side and didn't develop that part of my personality... which is the majority of my authentic personality. So, if I am 25% masculine and 75% feminine, I was repressing 3/4 or nearly 3/4 of my most natural traits. Then, when I was 19, I had a strange dream. I dreamt that I was in this cubicle of a furniture store where the set-up was like a psychologists office. I was sitting in a chair in the middle of the cubicle, when suddenly a beautiful woman showed up in the opening of the cubicle. She was tall and curvy and looked Native American by ancestry. She wore a bun and a tight fitted red business dress with high heals. And in seeing her, I was immediately enamored with her. I was in a complete stupor with attraction to this woman. She approached the back of my chair and looked down at me, and I tilted my head to look back at her still entranced by her presence. Then she asked me in a silvery voice, "Are you ready?" Without question, I said "Yes." Then there was a second pause as she exhaled. Then, on her inhale she breathed in a breath that was louder than a vacuum cleaner and her breath transformed her into an an old hag... and I don't mean an old lady. I mean if a person could be 1000 years old and walking around kind of old hag. Her eye sockets were empty. Her skin was super thin and stretched gray across her skeleton. And as she breathed, the black void of her mouth got wider and wider until it encompassed me completely and she swallowed me whole. I floated in a void for some amount of time until I was deposited in my childhood kitchen where I began looking through the cabinets. Then, a little less than a year later, I had my experiences of ego-transcendence and many of my repressed traits and emotions came flowing back into my conscious mind. And I was surprised at how much femininity that I had repressed away. In fact, the whole experience was a very feminine experience somehow, and that was the only word I could use to describe it. Prior to that, I was of the notion that masculinity and femininity were just social constructs. This was the first time that I realized that I was dealing with feminine repression. Looking back, I now relate that dream back to my feelings about my femininity and the beautiful woman was the beauty aspect of femininity that I liked and wanted to embody but the old hag was the repressed feminine (the parts of myself that I hated and locked away in the dungeon of my shadow), containing all of the feminine potentials that I had or could develop but was too afraid to. So, my psyche used my love of feminine beauty to lure me into a trap where the repressed feminine could swallow me and bring me into its world. This is why I believe society is so obsessed with feminine beauty. It's the only part of femininity that we really like as a society, so we become obsessed with it because it is our only highly celebrated outlet for feminine expression... at least from an American perspective. But we all crave the feminine aspects of ourselves. Men have then too... just generally in lesser degree. And men are punished extra for expressing femininity. So, if a person desperately wants to know the feminine but hates the feminine, hatred obsession and sexual obsession will likely result. And the sexual aspect of the obsession will fuel the hatred aspect of the obsession and vice versa. Unconsciously, here are the steps: 1. I desperately need to re-integrate the feminine (unconsciously) 2. Sex is the only acceptable outlet for becoming one with the feminine (or embodying feminine beauty in the case of straight women) 3. So, I need to have sex with women to connect with the feminine 4. So, if women reject me, it echoes my own internal split where I severed myself off from my feminine side. And the shadow form of femininity that bubbles beneath the surface (the hag) is cruel and sews resentment that is projected out onto women. The repressed feminine causes a lot of internal issues that deal with the self worth. So, my guess would be that you have to work toward integrating your feminine aspects and other aspects that you've disowned because you learned that they were negative or lesser. But I would also comfort you and tell you that your sense that women hold all the sexual cards is an illusion. Women aren't having to approach and deal with lots of rejection. And you will be able to find someone as a woman. And you don't have to worry about coming off as a creep. So, from that perspective, it's easier. But women also have to deal a lot having their worth only reduced only to their sexuality, youth, and attractiveness, which really feels awful.... like you're some kind of commodity. And it's more common to experience sexual abuses. Women can always find someone, but women tend to only like one guy who may not be interested in them in a serious way which hurts worse when the guy pays no interest because those kinds of feelings only come around every now and again. Women are not guaranteed an orgasm during sex and some women don't orgasm at all. Women are also more likely to get STDs from a man than a man is to get STDs from a woman due to the way the anatomy is. Women are also the ones that have to deal with pregnancy, and usually the greater portion of child rearing. A woman who bases any amount of her worth on her sexual attractiveness will deal with a very difficult transition as she grows older and no longer fits the archetype of the hot young thing. Women are judged very harshly for displaying their sexuality. Most women are either average looking to below average, so it isn't like these women are getting all kinds of privileges. So, I know what I wrote is a big hodge podge but I hope that some of it is helpful to you. But the main takeaway is to try to reintegrate the repressed feminine traits and try to find the positive side of them. Edit: Also, relative to the "feminazi" phenomenon, this kind of combativeness springs up because there's also a feeling of powerlessness that stems from the internal split and repression of the feminine. So, it's likely that you have such a strong reaction to feminazis because they mirror your own internal state to you. I really see feminazi-types and meninist kind of guys as essentially dealing with the same issue of feminine repression, just in different ways. But both ways are ultimately ineffective because both look at surface level phenomena and lash out at the other side using shaming and other tactics. Instead, these types of people should shift their paradigm from a tribalistic sort of "punish the enemy" perspective to a "What makes this whole thing tick, anyway?" kind of perspective. It gets very deep and very interesting, if you look at it deeply. The masculine/feminine system is like the mother of all systems in the field of duality. It's such a complex and multi-faceted topic that it becomes like solving a gigantic riddle to get to the bottom of it. But getting that kind of "big picture" perspective will help you remain non-judgmental and to gain insight into your own issue relative to the bigger issue.

I'm not talking about extreme invites. I'm talking about like a smile or a few seconds of eye contact. Something that could easily just be the woman being nice and pleasant. I'm not talking about a come-hither kind of look of anything that definitively shows interest. But for me personally, I don't really like to be cold approached at all beyond feeling slightly flattered by it. So, if I don't want a guy to approach and I suspect that he's going to, I will avoid eye contact and try to look pre-occupied with something else. Most times, it feels a lot like being approached by a sales-person trying to sell me a product. Like a person at a perfume counter that you just kind of walk by them and think "Gosh... don't notice me." But there have occasionally been times where I thought a guy was attractive that I wanted to spark up a conversation with, and the eye contact method sometimes works. But overall on the personal level, if I haven't known the guy for a little while and already have budding feelings, there's very little chance that I'll be able to conjure up enough attraction to them to compel me to go out with that person.

It seems like you jumped the gun psychologically on expecting things to get physical on the first date. She might have agreed to go out with you to see what you're about and to get to know you. But jumping ahead and asking if she wants you to kiss her or assuming that a date failed (and displaying this with your body language and words) because nothing physical happened, is just going to make her feel awkward and is going to make you look socially unaware. Chances are that she didn't just want a quickie with you. A girl can get a "quickie" from just about anyone and anytime. There's no scarcity there, so women don't really tend to hunt for it. It's less common that a woman is just looking to hook-up, unless they're out having a wild night. If she agreed to go on a date with you and she got dressed up, it's probably because she had a curiosity about you as an individual and might have thought you were a good guy for a potential relationship. So, if a date is already awkward and not going well, don't try to make things go physical. It will only make the situation even less comfortable. It's just going to come off as rude and may feel objectifying. And there's a certain defensiveness in the statement about having to tell the girl that it's a date. So, she probably thought that you were messing with her mind. That's probably why she left.

I never saw a person deal with the threat of aggression in more of an elegant way than my school-mate Davey did when we were eleven. We were on the bus and there was the belligerent kid threatening him and trying to goad him into a fight. And Davey just simply looked him in the eye and calmly said, "I don't mind being in a fight, but I only fight if someone hits me first. If you want to fight, go ahead and take the first punch. I'll let you do it." And he showed that kid his cheek. The kid didn't do anything. He eventually just sat back down, and I could tell that he felt stupid. So, there's no need to meet aggression with aggression. Davey came out of that situation looking like a total bad-ass, and it's always left a big impression on me.

You can cope with it on the surface level by creating rules for yourself that you (and others) must meet in order to consider yourself worthy of admiration. So, you can arbitrarily pick a human trait such as "high work ethic" or "friendliness" or "creativity" or any other trait, and arbitrarily decide that that's the most important trait to embody. Ideally, you want to choose one that you have a natural talent for. Then, you want to pour a lot of effort into becoming better and better at that thing until you're the most proficient person that you know relative to that trait. And every time that you achieve something relative to that trait, you can allow yourself to feel good by confirming your superiority to others relative to that trait. This will allow you to feel good about yourself for a short period of time. But then the good feeling of self-admiration will fade. So, you have to seek out more opportunities to prove your (fill in the blank arbitrarily chosen aptitude) to yourself. Underneath everything, you'll still feel a baseline sense of inferiority. So, you'll have to constantly reaffirm your superiority to yourself to safeguard against it. But if done with a high degree of rigor and with enough ability to believe your own lies, you will be convinced that you have a high sense of self esteem and that you are happy. But you will always feel like an island because your sense of self-worth stems from comparison to others. But it will do in a pinch. It's at least slightly better than feeling a constant sense of inferiority to others with no ability for relief from that sense of inferiority. So, it's an effective coping mechanism. But it's better to just let go of the entire illusion, lest you spend your entire life chasing a carrot that you can never catch. This coping mechanism requires tons of energy.

Judgment serves a function if it means judging between healthy and unhealthy or functional and dysfunctional. Perhaps his opinion is that psychedelics are unhealthy to the seeker's search or that they are a distraction and he thinks that there are better practices. It doesn't mean he judges people who do them as bad or that he doesn't love them. It just means that he thinks that psychedelics are not conducive to seeking, which is a normal judgment based in functionality, even if there are divergent opinions on the matter. The enlightened person is still able to judge. But they are more likely to judge based on functionality as opposed to labeling reality as good or bad in any inherent sense.

What beliefs did you adopt 15 years ago? Sometimes the most innocuous seeming beliefs can create so much repression that all kinds of nastiness grows in the unconscious mind. I recommend doing consciousness work slow or you may end up biting off more than you can chew, like I did eight years ago. It caused me a major dark night of the soul and it was hard for me to pick myself up out of it. Sometimes, if you open up to things all at once, all the monsters that have been growing in your subconscious can all escape and overwhelm your conscious mind. The best way to deal with them is through understanding and awareness. But it will take a while to process and reintegrate. Just try to keep in non-judgment mode in order to reintegrate them.

I've only been capable of true self-love when I transcended the ego. Otherwise, there have been times where I felt good about myself and there have been times where I have felt bad about myself. But it was never love, because it was always conditioned upon my meeting certain standards. The way to love yourself it to allow yourself to be exactly as you are without any negative or positive judgments of SHOULD or SHOULD NOT. But this is difficult to do because we're in the habit of functioning in the opposite way. To love yourself means to love everything unconditionally in reality (including the self): good, bad, and ugly. It's a complete equalization of love toward all things in reality, because it's a realization of God and reality and love as the one thing that everything boils down to... including the self. So, you can't love yourself if you think reality needs to be any other way than exactly as it is. And this is difficult with all the turmoil. But only then can you see reality as perfect and recognize yourself as part and whole to that perfection. This is the only way to truly love yourself. But if you want to like yourself and admire yourself, all you have to do is to do things that you consider admirable. So, set goals to achieve and become very hard working and count your victories. But this is only a coping mechanism to deal with a lack of self-love. It's only us drawing a line in the sand and making a rule that we can only celebrate if we cross the line. Deep down there will always be a sense of un-fulfillment because no action can ever make you any more lovable than you already are. And there's nothing you can do to make you unlovable either. Because your very nature is love at its core. So, in order to love yourself, you must recognize your true nature which is love.

It depends. Sometimes it can be your intuition leading you toward your center and away from distraction. Other times, it can be a psychological avoidance mechanism that makes you unconsciously recede from life due to various fears and negative emotions that you don't want to face. However, your emotions should be able to guide you to where you need to go, in so far as they're not obstructed by unconscious distortions. And no one can tell you if your intuitions are right or not, other than you. It's not meant for everyone to recede from life and become hermits, but it is right for some people. I tend to think of life in this way. If I only have one life to live as this particular person and will only be around for another 50 years or so, is it really wise for me to recede from life simply to live the truth of what I am which is always infinite? So, I have an eternity to be what I actually am, but only one lifetime to live the illusion of the person called Emerald. So, I think it's wiser to play the game of life and not recede from it. But for some, the answer may be different. But my caution is to refrain from using spirituality to justify an unhealthy avoidance mechanism that makes you recede from life and be at war with reality as it is.

It won't allow me to post the video here for some reason. But Shinzen Young has a video regarding the experience of pleasure and discomfort relative to suffering/purification and frustration/fulfillment. It's titled "Purifications and Fulfillment: Four Formulas - Shinzen Young". You can look it up on Youtube.