Write a controversial opinion

[Lifestyle66]

Well, they can fuck off. It’s a suitable topic, particularly noting that so many stories (and porn storylines, or so I’ve heard) are about female disempowerment.

I think I was one of the "knickers in a knot" males O was referring to about the Pink Orchid a few years ago, because I asked the AH support thread questions relating to a definition of empowerment.

O reviewed my draft submission and ripped it as being disrespectful of women. That elicited my public questions debating "why?"

My final posted story "Her Bucket List: Strip Club" for Pink Orchid 2022 is one of my highest rated at 4.48/249 and over39K views in Mature.

But one of the event's readers commented:
Anonymous user on 03/05/2022:
"Glad a man has taken the effort to explain what empowers me."

EDIT: That comment probably comes from reading my author's postscript, where I point out "
"Jan learned early in life: Don't ask others to empower you. You must take control to have any power over your own destiny."

Apparently, my views of an empowered woman don't sit well with women (well, except for my wife. I get some of my best material from watching her, and she knows it.)

 

[NuclearFairy]

Both suck.

Yeah, hot chocolate is the way to go!

However, hot chocolate made with a fruity herbal tea base... is pretty awesome.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think I was one of the "knickers in a knot" males O was referring to about the Pink Orchid a few years ago, because I asked the AH support thread questions relating to a definition of empowerment.

O reviewed my draft submission and ripped it as being disrespectful of women. That elicited my public questions debating "why?"

My final posted story "Her Bucket List: Strip Club" for Pink Orchid 2022 is one of my highest rated at 4.48/249 and over39K views in Mature.

But one of the event's readers commented:
Anonymous user on 03/05/2022:
"Glad a man has taken the effort to explain what empowers me."

EDIT: That comment probably comes from reading my author's postscript, where I point out "
"Jan learned early in life: Don't ask others to empower you. You must take control to have any power over your own destiny."

Apparently, my views of an empowered woman don't sit well with women (well, except for my wife. I get some of my best material from watching her, and she knows it.)

I don't know anything about that, your post is the first I heard of any of that. Maybe its one of the reasons, maybe not.

But I do know someone else in this thread was in one of theirs whining that they felt like a victim because they were in a thread about female empowerment and of course that triggered their insecurities and they went all man-baby.

The issue comes down to men are not women, we can have empathy to a degree and an understanding through life experience with women, but in the end, we're not them, don't think and feel as they do, and they're the gender that has been and in many cultures, still are subjugated by toxic males. Unfortunately, many men don't give a rats ass about the cause but that doesn't stop them from mansplaining their way through it.

Because there are so many of them, there is some defensiveness from some women. One triggers the other.

Its a great idea, great concept, great cause, but its tough to get those kinds of stories on a porn site with its built in base of misogyny and creepers who are the majority here over men who are far more laid back and receptive to different things.

I applaud her efforts here because the event is an underdog going against a inherently sexist culture.

 

[Erozetta]

Yeah, hot chocolate is the way to go!

However, hot chocolate made with a fruity herbal tea base... is pretty awesome.

I can't even drink hot chocolate

 

[NuclearFairy]

I can't even drink hot chocolate

What is your beverage of choice?

 

[Erozetta]

What is your beverage of choice?

ice water, lol.


I can't have caffeine; it makes me sick. So chocolate, coffee, and black teas are out. I can have peppermint tea, but it needs about a cup of sugar to be tolerable (joking, mostly, partly. It needs a lot of sugar. It needs to taste like candy for me to choke it down.) I've not yet found another non-caffeinated tea I can drink without adding oodles of sugar and/or ginger to it in order to drink it and at that point... yeah, I'd rather just have water, lol.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Endlessly reciting "show don't tell" and other tropes doesn't constitute helpful writing advice.

 

[NuclearFairy]

ice water, lol.


I can't have caffeine; it makes me sick. So chocolate, coffee, and black teas are out. I can have peppermint tea, but it needs about a cup of sugar to be tolerable (joking, mostly, partly. It needs a lot of sugar. It needs to taste like candy for me to choke it down.) I've not yet found another non-caffeinated tea I can drink without adding oodles of sugar and/or ginger to it in order to drink it and at that point... yeah, I'd rather just have water, lol.

That's rough, but at least you have water. My SO grew up with school tap water that could be set on fire. So he's got a bit of an aversion to straight water.

Luckily that issue has been fixed since he was in school.

 

[_Lynn_]

I can't even drink hot chocolate

Even worse. I'm allergic to chocolate. All chocolate.

 

[Britva415]

Inspired by another on-going thread...

There is nothing essentially wrong with fiction being 'middle-class' (or even upper class)

Even more controverisal...

There is nothing essentially wrong with 'punching down' as long as it focuses on behaviours rather than innate traits.

That isn't punching down, though.

The entire concept of "down" presupposes the person's traits or identity, and frames the punching based on that.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Math classes should not be required in order for a humanities major to graduate college. It is not fair for folks with dyscalculia.

An appropriate exemption / adjustment for people with dyscalculia is different from allowing generic humanities students to opt out from learning basic life skills surely.

 

[Britva415]

Ironically, the story that I submitted for Crime & Punishment, which I pulled after it sat in limbo for weeks, used/uses this construction in its second opening paragraph ... setting the scene in a law office with a male MC who's a lawyer:

It wasn’t as if he lacked work to do, even though he had already billed a hundred hours this month and it wasn’t even the fifteenth of said month yet.

Not completely facetious. Maybe a little. But it set the foundation that the POV character is a lawyer. That said, I can't even completely say myself if I'd have written it differently ("the month" instead of "said month") had said MC been some other profession than a lawyer, consultant, MBA, or other profession where the use of "said" is common.

There is nothing ironic about that, since it's used appropriately and not in a way that's "by accident" or otherwise malapropos.

 

[SkyBubble]

cereal being soup

I don't know about that, but you can argue that coffee is. It's beans in hot water.

 

[EmilyMiller]

An appropriate exemption / adjustment for people with dyscalculia is different from allowing generic humanities students to opt out from learning basic life skills surely.

I’d argue that we’d be in a better place of more people had basic numeracy skills.

 

[SkyBubble]

That is controversial, because "penis" is sooo ewww to me.

The only time the letters P-E-N-I-S ever appeared in a New York Times crossword; "The _____ mightier than the sword." (2 words"

 

[SkyBubble]

I was always grateful that my grandpa loved it, because it gave me someone to give my black jelly beans to at Easter.

The black ones are better if you eat them with the orange ones.

 

[SkyBubble]

Math classes should not be required in order for a humanities major to graduate college. It is not fair for folks with dyscalculia.

As an English major, I strongly disagree.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

An appropriate exemption / adjustment for people with dyscalculia is different from allowing generic humanities students to opt out from learning basic life skills surely.

If you don't know basic life skill math you don't belong in college in the first place.

That's what high school teaches you.

 

[SkyBubble]

Writers who treat writing as fun make fine cartoonists.

Writing is fun, and I can't draw.

 

[StillStunned]

If you don't know basic life skill math you don't belong in college in the first place.

That's what high school teaches you.

Primary school, surely? I can't think of any maths that I was taught after age 12 that I've used in a real-life situation. Besides helping my niece with her homework.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Primary school, surely? I can't think of any maths that I was taught after age 12 that I've used in a real-life situation. Besides helping my niece with her homework.

I'd be open to that point of view as well. I don't recall when exactly we did compound interest, but it may have been after age 12 and that's pretty useful.

 

[SkyBubble]

Come on we all know 99.99999999999% of the story's on here fictional.

More or less.

 

[Robin_Starveling]

Writing is fun, and I can't draw.

You’re definitely no Guido Reni, but even you can manage this:

And it should be fun.

 

[TheLobster]

I'd be open to that point of view as well. I don't recall when exactly we did compound interest, but it may have been after age 12 and that's pretty useful.

Not sure if it’s the case in the US, but the basics of probability and statistics are typically taught only in high school, and these days they are more or less essential if one doesn’t want to fall prey to rhetorical tricks with numbers that media and politicians love to pull.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I’d argue that we’d be in a better place of more people had basic numeracy skills.

Of course some may view it as convenient to have an ill-informed populace.