It seems like a better way of putting it would be "trauma is not the sole cause of any mental illness." By definition, you can't have PTSD without trauma. (I do agree that treatments for PTSD can be myopically focused on That One Bad Thing, which...doesn't work for everyone.) Saying "trauma doesn't cause mental…

In my Professional Responsibility course as a 2L, we watched episodes of The Practice as examples of what you absolutely should not do as a lawyer. (For instance: two lawyers who are fucking each other represent two defendants in the same case. The defendants have a joint trial, and their defense theories are directly…

The closest show on TV to what law school is like? Hell's Kitchen. Seriously. The part towards the end of the season where everyone on the show deserves to be there, and they're all breaking down from the stress? That was my life. For three years.

I find it hilarious that this person seems to agree with MRAs that women having property rights or being leaders is automatically proof of The Matriarchy. It'd be cool if there had been matriarchal societies all over the place, but the best we can imagine is, like, Xena: Warrior Princess level realistic.

There were nearly 1500 years between Hatshepsut and Cleopatra. Nefertiti may have ruled, disguised as a man, for a brief period around 1400 BCE — but probably not. So 600 years isn't much, by Egyptian standards.

THANK YOU. Also: Islam is monotheistic, "tribal societies" means nothing (and oddly, includes Jews, so...so much for the evils of monotheism?), "world's most hostile nation towards women" [citation needed, Saudi Arabia is like right there] monotheism is older than 2k years even excluding Judaism, polytheistic cultures…

You're not even a little bit sorry. Don't lie.

I didn't say that. Whether the apology was demanded really has nothing to do with its quality. If it's heartfelt, it doesn't matter whether people asked for the apology or not. The demand is a good thing because it helps the victims in and of itself, not because a demand leads to a good apology or a bad one. I hope…

I can only star this comment once, so here's a baby elephant gif.

True forgiveness, yes (and the perpetrator might not benefit — they might never find out). I'm talking about forgiveness as a so-called virtue. True forgiveness is really just one form of self-care, and it's not the only way to recover or care for yourself.

Yep — maybe it will help a victim heal, but you can't force it, and maybe it's not useful at all. If you still feel negative emotions about an attack (because you were attacked), you feel them for a reason, and you should process them, not push them aside in the name of forgiveness.

I'm okay with demanding public apologies, actually, because a good apology says "I understand why what I did was wrong and I'm taking steps to fix the problem." That has actual, concrete benefit for the people who were hurt. But the expectation that "I'm sorry" should be followed by "I forgive you," automatically? I…

I applaud her courage and strength. But it's important to note that she didn't have to forgive him to be a good person. Forgiveness doesn't make anyone a better person, morally, than people who don't forgive — and if you're in a position like this, you should make whatever choice is right for you and your own recovery.

Thanks for being gracious about it! It's hard to tell whether someone who self-describes as a straight ally actually wants to be an ally, or just wants to think of themselves as one without doing the hard work. (I'm the same way about racism, as a white person.) Not that being an ally means you should expect thanks…

Yeah, I was answering the more general question of "what's wrong with this preference" rather than your specific situation. I'm not in your head, I'm not about to examine why you want what you want — just asking you not to go around expressing your preference in terms that hurt others (whether you intend that harm or…

Saying that women are defiled if they've ever slept with men is some patriarchal bullshit. It's okay to want a partner who has the same amount of experience as you, but to discriminate based on whether your partner has slept with women versus men? That's just the virginity myth repackaged in a way that makes lesbians…

That's...kind of a weird thing for you to say. We're not more civilized than anybody else. Attraction isn't about civility — being attracted to a wider range of people has nothing to do with how good a person you are or how well you function in society. And as others have pointed out, not all of us non-monosexuals are …

I actually do say I had a bad childhood. Because I did, and it was traumatic, and abuse survivors like me get huge benefit out of knowing there are others out there who went through something similar. I don't use it as an excuse for bad behavior — some people do, including some people who had genuinely bad childhoods.…

Me too. I have to move large objects (kettle drums!) fairly regularly, and I've actually gotten applause from neighbors for parallel parking in tiny tiny places. ...but I'm a guuuurl, the real reason I got the car I did must have been because of how cute it was. (Okay, so it is kind of cute.)

Too bad God is homeless!