Steven > Recent Status Updates

I love the fact that this author doesn't shy away from the fact that it was women (particularly white women) who were the first progenitors of social purity reforms. A lot of their tendencies ran parallel to the TERF movements we see today--They saw male sexuality as the root of all evil, and they sought to preserve themselves and their families from the deliterious effects of that sexuality via legal reform.

The section concerning homosexuality on the western frontier (between cowboys) was far too short, but was the most enjoyable part of this book so far. I'm assuming it was because there wasn't much documentation of those relationships during that period of history, but the author did include what he could find that was verifiably historical. Cowboys are frequently, secretly fond of each other

I'm not even that far into this book and it's already so compelling. The author is correct in saying that sexual norms are primarily used to demonize people who do not conform to the status quo, and sometimes even between minorities to violently differentiate themselves. Our society is truly messed up.

Man, I had such high hopes for this book, but it's insane 2 me that Karanatsakis spends an entire chapter focusing on what media considers "newsworthy" without mentioning the fact that media is a for-profit, profit driven industry. I would LOVE it if the media focused on some of the large scale social issues that he mentions. But news organizations profit from fear, which is how they stay in business, unfortunately

This author is questioning the framing of significant social issues in the news, but he neglects to mention that news organizations are profit-driven. The reason the media environment thrives on fear and resentment is because that's what makes money. Cops take advantage of that fact and use the media for their own ends, but there is no way that the media is ever going to cover the issues mentioned in this chapter.

Really excited to be reading this one--I saw Alec Karakatsanis on Taylor Lorenz's youtube show, and his points were deeply intriguing to me. As a leftist, I feel like he's engaging in ideological rhetoric too early in this introduction, but we'll see if that improves throughout the book. I'm interested to see what evidence he brings forth in terms of media coverage of cops, because a lot of it is really egregious

Emma Goldman is one of my personal heroes, but listening to these essays, I sometimes wonder if she imagined just how much violence would be used to repress leftist tendencies. At times she seems adamant that labor action will be the only thing necessary to start a revolution in the US, when in reality it will take much, much more than that. We will need a massive cultural shift before anarchism becomes viable here.

Let it be known that this book advocates for Vers Supremacy (bottoms I am talking to you)

We're skipping the section about PIV and going straight to anal. Turn the wigs around diva

I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying this book, because it's speaking my language. As a lifelong meditator I'm able to ascertain exactly what the author is talking about. It's not "scientific" in any sense of the word but hey, if it works it works

It's so fascinating to me that Daoist practices are more concerned with cycling energy up and down the body than they are with the central channel. In Buddhism, the central channel is emphasized as the most important energy channel, because that's where the clear light of awareness dawns. The practices in this book, thus far, are focusing on the front and back channels rather than the central channel.

If you do read this book, keep in mind that there are a lot of dubious claims about the fact that ejaculation depletes your lifeforce. The results of the studies presented have not been widely replicable, and there is no scientific consensus that ejaculation shortens your life. In fact, the contrary has been proven--Regular ejaculation decreases the risk for prostate cancer and can be healthy if it's not excessive.

Ignore the cover--This book relies heavily on Daoist techniques and also includes a section for gay men, which I deeply appreciate. Being able to have multiple orgasms/NEOs is essential for tantric practice. In fact, the Tibetan Buddhist practices of karmamudra were almost certainly imported from Daoism. You can't attain supernatural abilities unless you retain your semen.

Ah, now this is the kind of book I'm looking for. All of the knowledge of Chumbley without any of the pompous, ridiculous prose.

Much of the previous chapter was dedicated to wine and beer making, which is charming but something I'm not interested in, so I skipped it.

It is SO REFRESHING to have an author differentiate between Eastern and Western tradition in their book about witchcraft. I'm only one chapter in, but he already takes pains to mention that the snake energy in witchcraft is not the same thing as kundalini. THANK YOU

Man, if this author needed a 4 week ascetic ritual that ended in him being "buried" in a coffin in order to find out the shite he found out, I'm very glad to be a Buddhist. Maybe this is just because the saturnine influences in my natal chart are strong, but the insights he discovered during the ritual is basically just common sense to me at this point. I guess I'm just not a ceremonial magician.