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Tim Smith he/him

Geek, socialist, and maker of stuff

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Vice has a new doc­u­men­tary out about the cult I was raised in. In it are details that prove the Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es orga­ni­za­tion has a severe child pro­tec­tion prob­lem. There are tens of thou­sands of cas­es that have nev­er been report­ed. The orga­ni­za­tion is also respon­si­ble for the death of peo­ple with their mis­ap­pli­ca­tion of scrip­ture when it comes to blood trans­fu­sions, and those who’ve com­mit­ted sui­cide for being gay, trans, or oth­er­wise shunned.

I real­ly hope Vice makes this doc­u­men­tary more eas­i­ly acces­si­ble so that peo­ple can edu­cate them­selves on what this orga­ni­za­tion does and the loss it caus­es. It con­trols peo­ple’s lives to a degree that’s hard to fath­om if you’ve nev­er been part of some­thing like it.

If you’re a Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness read­ing this, I implore you to watch the doc­u­men­tary. It’s ok to change your mind based on new information.

If you’re not watch­ing Loki, you’re miss­ing out on prob­a­bly the best Mar­vel show so far. The music, the char­ac­ter devel­op­ment, Lok­i’s bisex­u­al­i­ty, the larg­er impli­ca­tions of the sto­ry in the Mar­vel Uni­verse. It’s just all so good 🤌🏽

Here we are at the end of Pride Month, and I did­n’t get into half of the gay shit I want­ed to. But that’s ok, I still got my bi/pan rebel alliance tat­too. And you bet­ter believe I’m push­ing the alpha­bet mafia agen­da with this hot-ass pho­to. To my fel­low queers: It’s ok if you haven’t come out yet. I’m hap­py you exist. You are won­der­ful just the way you are. Thank you for the com­mu­ni­ty you’ve pro­vid­ed me with. I love you.

The Porn Cri­sis That Isn’t

A small num­ber of adults—roughly 11 per­cent of men and 3 per­cent of women—con­sid­er them­selves some­what addict­ed to porn, even though a num­ber of sci­en­tists dis­pute whether ​“addic­tion” is an appro­pri­ate label for watch­ing lots of porn. Believ­ing that porn is moral­ly ​“bad” is strong­ly cor­re­lat­ed with feel­ing like you have an addic­tion to pornog­ra­phy, regard­less of how much porn you actu­al­ly watch. ​“The best pre­dic­tor of self-per­ceived sex­u­al-use prob­lems, like pornog­ra­phy addic­tion, is high lev­els of reli­gios­i­ty,” says Bryant Paul, a media pro­fes­sor at Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty and a fac­ul­ty affil­i­ate of the Kin­sey Insti­tute, which stud­ies human sexuality.

I grew up in a cult with very strict rules about pornog­ra­phy. I thought porn was harm­ful, dis­gust­ing, and a rab­bit hole that led to sex­u­al devian­cy. What’s fas­ci­nat­ing is that I hard­ly ever watched porn back then, and yet each time I did, it absolute­ly tor­ment­ed me. The guilt. The shame. I thought I had a problem.

Fun­ni­ly enough, porn is now a reg­u­lar part of my sex life, and yet it doesn’t have a detri­men­tal effect in my life or on my partners.

That being said, I think the arti­cle brings up excel­lent points when talk­ing about its access to chil­dren. What I would’ve giv­en to have com­pre­hen­sive sex edu­ca­tion and sex-pos­i­tive con­ver­sa­tions grow­ing up!

Instead of incor­rect­ly label­ing porn a ​“health cri­sis,” I’d love to see bet­ter wages and safer con­di­tions for sex work­ers. We need more inclu­sive sex edu­ca­tion that not only talks about safe­ty, but plea­sure and gay sex as well. Final­ly, par­ents need to embrace sex pos­i­tiv­i­ty. These beliefs that vil­lainize sex are the real thing that caus­es harm in people.

My Sim­ple Advice to Aspir­ing Tech Commentators

This is real­ly niche, I know, but if you are lurk­ing on tech Twit­ter and want to start grow­ing an audi­ence via social media, writ­ing, or video, I have one piece of advice I’d give to every­one: make your con­tent addi­tive, not negative.

I don’t mean to say every­thing you cre­ate needs to be hap­py-go-lucky, but you should try to have your con­tent add to the over­all con­ver­sa­tion. You should be try­ing to make con­tent that gives peo­ple value […]

Such a good reminder! I’m no tech com­men­ta­tor, but shar­ing my opin­ion on things is some­what of a favorite pas­time for me 😜 My per­son­al rule is to talk more about things I love, and talk less about things I don’t.

I start­ed using Spo­ti­fy again recent­ly and wow is it a beau­ti­ful app. I’d for­got­ten how great col­lab­o­ra­tive playlists are, the sug­ges­tions are fan­tas­tic, and don’t even get me start­ed on the sync. I can be play­ing a song on my phone and keep play­ing the song seam­less­ly on my Mac. I do find myself miss­ing Apple Music’s inte­grat­ed lyrics though.

Any­way, fol­low me on Spo­ti­fy if you’d like 😘

41 homo­pho­bic things straight peo­ple say every day with­out realising

You’re prob­a­bly homo­pho­bic. Even if you don’t think you are, or if you don’t mean to be, I guar­an­tee that on a reg­u­lar basis you say homo­pho­bic things you don’t even realise are actu­al­ly incred­i­bly rude and harmful.

Good reminder for the straights out there. If you’ve said one or many of these things (I’ve been guilty too), it’s ok. Grow and don’t say them anymore.

Oh my good­ness y’all. So I got my Star Wars tat­too today and I’m total­ly lov­ing it. It’s the sym­bol of the rebel alliance. I’m not say­ing Star Wars is life or any­thing… but it kin­da is 😂 To me, it’s a sym­bol of jus­tice, a belief in equi­ty, in free­dom, and a resis­tance of the sta­tus quo. That’s every­thing I want to be. Also, like… those col­ors are so fuckin pret­ty right?!

Any­way, val­i­date me bitches 😘 💜

I want­ed to say some­thing yes­ter­day, but here I am today because I over­thought the shit out of this post. In case you did­n’t know, I’m bisex­u­al and polyamorous. It’s scary as fuck for me to type that out, but it’s my truth. This is me.

As scary as it is to come out giv­en how I was raised, I’m so fuck­ing proud of who I am and to be part of the queer com­mu­ni­ty. I’ve learned so much about uncon­di­tion­al love, sex-pos­i­tiv­i­ty, and being unapolo­get­i­cal­ly myself. As a baby gay, there’s still much left in my gay-duca­tion, but I’m hap­py to be grow­ing as a per­son. Hap­py Pride Month! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Technology

The Ford F‑150 Lightning Looks Pretty Impressive

I was watch­ing this video ear­li­er today and I can’t help but be excit­ed. I mean, Mar­ques seems excit­ed. Which I think says a lot. But this truck tru­ly looks like the cul­mi­na­tion of a lot of thought on Ford’s part. I hope this is just the begin­ning of the migra­tion to elec­tric cars, and the Ford F‑150’s pop­u­lar­i­ty could be the spark to light that fire.