Flirty answer followed by real answer if actually pressed. It’s not like it’s something you reasonably have control over anyway (I don’t consider lengthening surgery reasonable, though more power to anyone that does, it ain’t my body), outside of maybe some small gains if losing weight in your pelvis area or improving your general cardiovascular health.

Not gonna come out here and say size is totally irrelevant, but there’s lots of ways to have great sex without going around bruising women’s cervixes.

Frankly, this is the best outcome. Going and winning a decent amount your very first time is a huge risk for developing a gambling problem, because your monkey brain goes “It happened once, so it can totally happen again”. Doubly so when you’re young and your ‘decent amount’ is lower than it might be otherwise.

It could, sure, but the actual probability doesn’t line up with your probabilistic fluke, and that’s a hard thing to overcome for a lot of folks.

Never got to a point where it was a survival threat (very lucky in that regard), but that $300 I won when I was 19 was the most expensive money I’ve ever made.

Hell, I BARELY dress for myself, let alone others.

The two deciding factors are “Does this protect me from public indecency laws” and “Am I warm/cool enough in this”. Anything goes so long as it meets this criteria.

Gonna echo the other folks here - heroism does not require perfection. Everyone you can think of as a hero has a flaw (or several), big or small.

The upside to this is that heroism is accessible to almost everyone. Any opportunity you have to do the right, but difficult (and tbh sometimes not all that difficult, perhaps just uncomfortable or risky), thing is the chance to be a hero to someone in some respect. The downside is that people you may admire as heroes, when you meet them as just people, can sometimes be disappointing.

The only flawless heroes are superheros (and even then, few are written about like that these days). Think about that prefix- how are the terms superhero and supernatural alike?

Radio Garden is cool as fuck. Also gonna plug Campus FM.

Sort of, or the legs of others? Ran to raise money for cancer research and awareness, he’s basically the closest thing we have to a secular Saint in mainstream Canadian culture. The Terry Fox Run is a staple of grade school life.

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/terry-fox

I see your point, but I still think a little thinking about what the ‘real you’ actually is is still warranted for the OP statement to work its fullest benefit. Sometimes it can be hard to suss out what’s actually ‘real’ or what was simply adaptation to specific circumstances to present a certain facade that was useful then, but harmful now. We humans are great at lying to ourselves so often it starts to feel like truth.

But agreed - don’t intentionally be disingenuous when engaging with others, because you’ll likely need to keep that up to keep them in your circle, and at some point the dissonance will bite you in the ass.

There’s some merit to this idea in general, but it begs the question: who are you? It can be argued that the ‘real’ you is a set of behaviours developed through your upbringing, education and social history to date. That might carry with it some unpleasant or maladaptive behaviours that, on the one hand, you may want to reject as not being the ‘real’ you, or if taking a tack of self-acceptance without thorough self-reflection, part of the ‘real’ you that you can and should change but which now seem like immutable traits.

Some time should be spent on figuring out what the ‘ideal’ you is - for no one other than yourself - to bring that closer into the field of being the ‘real’ you, then suss out which elements don’t fit from that ideal vision. It should also be noted that the ‘real’ you, despite maybe being based in some pillars that are resistant to this, can change over time - and that can be OK.

Signed: Guy who twisted himself into pretzel over the last decade and a bit, and is tasked with figuring out this whole ‘real you’ thing again. Only core pillar I’m not questioning is “Kindness is key”, though with new modifier “but you must protect yourself from those who have no appreciation of it, and be able to read and acknowledge those signs from flatterers and other folks who benefit unfairly”.

You’re getting downvoted, but every party needs one at least soberish person when shit hits the fan.

Source:
-Former teen who had to clear out the particularly wasted folks and direct emergency services to the party spot when some girl drank too much, rolled off a small cliff, and smacked her head on a rock. Sucked for me, but could’ve sucked much worse (popular line when she’d convulse a little after we got her up was ‘dude, she’s just faking it for attention’. Yeah, maybe - or maybe she just fucking dies surrounded by drunk dicks tossing Axe cans into campfires).

-Parent of another former teen who, just as begrudgingly, has helped their friends avoid hospitals, jails, and the grave for reasons of adolescent stupidity.

Kid steals magazine from dad/convenience store, shares the wealth with the homies, ditches the evidence.

Though I do still enjoy the legend of Horny Appleseed, doing god’s (?) work.

Another point on the ‘return to monke’ scale.

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It really depends. Apologies can be a tricky business, but tossing them out can help bring the temperature down to move forward. Sometimes you have to read between the lines to determine whether it’s useful or not, or what exactly they want an apology for (it’s not always what you’d think at first).

Looking at your example in the end, I’d take the following tack - “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. When I’m here, I try to stay really focused on what I need to do. If I’m not super responsive or don’t notice you right away, it’s because I’m concentrating on something else. It doesn’t mean that I am deliberately ignoring you, or think badly of you. [If you can muster it/can honestly say something nice about them, do it. It helps. Has to be genuine though.] I hope you understand.”

Might calm things down, might not. But I’ve had folks respond to this approach before (when they just want to feel acknowledged, which is where most ‘y u ignoring me’ reactions come from).

Nope, she tunes out when I start talking about federated services. Just not something that captures her interest/she gives any real thought about.

Ngl an art installation at BM that is literally a pillar of salt would be funny as shit.

It’s a question that isn’t relevant to OPs ask here. Do you have a useful book suggestion that presents the topic of boundaries and maintaining them in a secular way? Whether the author believes in a deity or not?

I have not read them myself, but Nedra Glover Tawaab’s books come highly recommended: Set Boundaries, Find Peace + the accompanying workbook, and Drama Free (mentioned here already).

I did a Google Books search of Set Boundaries and only got one hit for the word ‘god’, very near the end in what looks like the “Commonly Asked Questions” section. Between that and what I see in the previews (looks quite promising), recommend checking this out to see if it’s useful for you.

C’mon Flax, we get it, you’re a Christian. OP’s just looking for a secular self-help/psychology book. Do you have a recommendation or not?

It is enforced, by varying degrees, by the censure or support of other humans, as well as one’s own conscience.

The moral code you follow may have been authored by a creator figure. It may not have. Frankly, it’s beside the point. In practice, Christian morality is enforced by support or censure of the church and its teachings. It takes as its bedrock a shared conception of humanity as the Created. An atheist’s or humanist’s morality is similarly enforced by support or censure of their human community, though with a different bedrock (a belief in the dignity and capacities of humanity, for instance, either absent of or separate from a deity).

One does not need to be a Christian to act morally. It does mean certain lines may be drawn in areas different than a Christian, but I would say that that simply makes the individual a non-Christian where those lines do not otherwise impede on, say, humanity’s inherent dignity.

I want to say I write this with full respect for your beliefs in your Creator. I believe tolerance for the beliefs of others, where they do not impede on those who do not share those beliefs to live their lives freely, is important. I will add that if OP was being truthful, and actually is a Christian struggling with soliciting sex workers, your suggestion to seek out the Church is a valid one. If nothing else, it places him among humans that share the values he seeks to embody, and may help him on the path he wishes to walk.

For my part, I see no issue so long as both parties enter these arrangements with no coercion or out of compulsion, with the issue here being (absent the Christian context, irrelevant for me but not necessarily you or OP) the compulsion. If it feels bad, and it serves no greater aim, don’t do it, figure out why you’re doing it, and do things more aligned with your morals and ideals - that’s my take.

Because morality exists independently of any deity figure. It is ultimately a set of ideas about what constitutes good conduct between humans and the environment around them.