UN peacekeepers have been doing this and worse- including being involved with a sex trafficing ring in Bosinia 13 years ago. This ring was exposed by Kathryn Bolkovac and she was forced out of the country. This is not new or shocking information. I am surprised that the general public is just waking up to this common…

The thing this makes me think of right away is all the relationships between US military and locals (like in Germany and Japan) after WW2. If you read any postwar German literature you’ll encounter the stereotype of the young woman trading her body for cigarettes and food for her family. Heck, even later than that. I…

Its permitted????!!!!!! What the actual fuck. That is disgusting.

So, what the UN is actually saying is that rape is discouraged but not permitted. Let's be real here. Coercion is not consent and if there is no consent, it is rape. Way to go UN!

“such sex, based on inherently unequal power dynamics is discouraged, but permitted.”

That’s not tacky! That’s fairly acceptable, when there’s a guest list that needs to be balanced between “well we HAVE TO invite this person” etc. We did that for our wedding, where we had a strict limit of 50 and as people RSVP’d “no” we called up the reserve team. I think, as long as you’re inviting your B-team in a…

I felt bad that I really could not invite half the people I wanted to at my wedding. When a few people said that they couldn't come I called other people I had wanted to invite and was basically like "So, if you're not doing anything this day,do you want to come to my wedding?" Maybe that was tacky but I tried…

I work with a woman who recently had her first child and her mother in law was basically melting down because she didn’t want a shower. Her sister had triplets three years ago and they still had all their baby stuff and the sister gave her all the baby stuff she could ever need so she saw no point in having a baby…

I’ve gotten gourmet gift stuff of things I’m not crazy about but most people are, like patés and jams, stuff I don’t usually eat. However, I keep them around and serve them to unexpected guests and I really appreciate them then. If it’s nice quality, somebody’s gonna like it, so...so what?

Precisely- I went to a friend’s “sprinkle” (although it was not called such), and the invitation made it clear that it was simply a party to celebrate a new arrival, not a shower. Of course when I arrived I was the only one without a present and everything was PINK PINK PINK PINK even though the two year old brother…

Hmmm I don’t know how I feel about that. It seems tacky but God I fucking hate showers because of the hour you’re forced to spend watching presents be unwrapped and cooed over.

Yes to both of these! As MadPiglet stated, if you’ve gotten rid of all your baby stuff, and then “surprise” - you’re pregnant, I can see the point of having a sprinkle. But both gender reveal and sprinkles annoy me like no other.

I agree that “sprinkles” are odd, but mainly because they seem to only exist for when people are having a second baby of a different sex. So they basically exist to reinforce gender stereotypes - that baby girls need pink sheets with flowers and boys need blue sheets with trucks. I also always think of the baby shower…

Yeah, I felt that way too, and a lady in neighborhood wanted to throw a shower for another friend who was pregnant with her third boy, relatively close to the second. The friend was hesitant, but the lady said, “every baby deserves to be celebrated!”, so the friend said okay and asked for only books (for any of her…

Ew. That’s both terrible and gross. Grossible?

Jesus F. Popcorn. If you have to have a fundraiser for your wedding, just go to City Hall. Why the fuck should I underwrite your marriage party???? (Well, not you personally of course!)

I absolutely refused a baby shower. Irish superstition from my mother who always told me, in the classic old Irish whisper, “ Jesus Mary and Joseph no one wants to come home from the hospital and un-decorate a nursery honey, heaven help us “ She has me so nervous that I would freak out at the whole idea of one. I also…

Good point. I BEGGED my best friend/MOH/HBIC not to throw me a bridal shower. She asked what my specific reservations were (mostly I think it’s a tacky gift grab and I don’t like to inconvenience people) and listened sympathetically. She then told me that while she respected my reasoning, she was planning one anyway…

The problem here isn’t that they’re asking for cash, I don’t think, so much as they’re completely skipping the part where you celebrate with your friends and family. They’re being far too open about the fact that they don’t actually care to see any of those people - they just want their money. Which is basically…

Is it possible that this was not the idea of the bride and groom but by someone in the wedding party like the maid of honor - traditionally charged with throwing the shower? It does say that the checks will be put in a box, wrapped and presented to the bride and groom - I just can’t imagine anyone saying to their…