Yep, it was also an argument used against female equestrians riding astride (which is especially funny because the sidesaddle was actually a pretty late invention and women were riding astride for thousands of years, and also you'd think that just looking at anatomy men are the ones who should be riding…

I'm not a behaviorist or anything but I am a professional animal trainer (dogs and horses), and I'd say that giving up in hopeless situations is actually often correlated with higher intelligence. It's just something I've noticed, but smarter animals tend to both give up more easily once they realize a strategy…

I think it's probably the same thought process as that "Naked and Alone" show or whatever it's called...basically, you're more vulnerable psychologically when you're nude.

I LOVE ghost tours for exactly that reason. I am very hard to creep out and I don't have much of a startle reflex, so haunted houses are just lame and boring for me. And it isn't like I believe in ghosts, but I've been on a few tours where it was really easy to suspend my disbelief for the evening and just go with it,…

I can't stand to watch it for the same reason. They're mentally ill and suffering, and I just can't bear to see it made into entertainment like that.

If it makes you feel any better, I used to be a clinic escort and had a few patients do that to me (as did my fellow volunteers). No one was ever hurt or upset by it, we totally understood and it can be an easy mistake to make in some circumstances. The escort you yelled at probably didn't give it a second thought.

I'm the opposite—I have no qualms about pictures, but text tattoos terrify me. I've just seen so many typos in them, and I don't trust my proofreading skills that much. ;)

In the restaurant where I worked when I was in college, we used to joke about making food with love, except "love" was a euphemism for semen. I think I prefer my deli sandwiches without any love.

I didn't care for the Steubenville article, but this one strikes me as completely different. Devi and her son are victims as well, facing starvation because of what her husband did. It's using a high-profile case to draw attention to a very real and widespread problem, and not just something that happens to women…

edit: you know, I'm mildly high on prescription pain meds (for an injury I sustained recently), and I think my post might have been ill-advised. The summary still stands:

I think there are a lot more women like me than you'd think. Maybe not the whole "dating women" thing, but I'm on a search and rescue team with 25 other women (and 10 guys), I was an EMT on a crew that was about 40% women, and I know a ton of mostly traditionally feminine women who are interested in "manly" things…

Thank you for this explanation of why those ideas are so harmful. I am pretty privileged, but I grew up in a religious community that really emphasized not letting hurtful comments get to you, and even though I haven't even received a tenth of what this young woman is going through, that message hurt me because I…

I swear half the reason I married the guy I did was because he actually likes that I'm better at a lot of "manly" stuff than he is. I'd mostly dated women when I was younger and got used to that at least not being a problem in the relationship, and when I started dating some guys too I was shocked at how many were…

This doesn't surprise me at all. I don't know much about cats, but with dogs it's common knowledge that eating calms them down and makes them feel good, to the point that a lot of competitive/working dog handlers incorporate it into their training with more nervous dogs. I feed my cadaver dog while we're at incident…

The shelter I volunteer with has that policy too, but the "sacrifice" justification is based on myths. The real reason is that stupid people will adopt seasonal animals without really thinking it through, and then return them. We used to not have it, but implemented it after we started noticing that a lot of…

The shelter I volunteer with actually ran some studies on this and found that black dogs in our shelter definitely stay longer on average, even though we actually don't even have that many of them (due to the region and typical breeds we get in as strays, tan/light brown tends to be the most common coloring). One…

Fair enough, and I agree with you that most ferret owners (at least that I've seen) don't do a good job of it and should not own ferrets. I just think it's important to differentiate between animals that are always unethical to keep as pets (the majority of wild animals, barring rescue situations or whatever), and…

Ferrets are different than the other animals you mention because they're domesticated animals, though. They've been domesticated for thousands of years.

The Shining was one of my favorite horror movies until I read the book, for exactly those reasons. I still do like the movie when I consider it on its own, but as an adaptation it is terrible. It's almost a completely different story than the book, and the book is absolutely brilliant.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. I don't mind long songs as a rule, but with the way radio works nowadays, hit songs are played over and over and over and over again, and there's a relatively small rotation of songs. I really don't want to listed to the same 7-minute song that often, even if it is a good one.…