Oh 100% on that. Part of that Billings Ovulation Method is that you need open communication and the practice takes both people.

I understand that it’s not practical for all couples or situations, but it’s an option for some that isn’t talked about much.

I mean I want people to łook them up. A lot of studies have them at 99% effective, but with perfect use, which I noted above. Wikipedia says 0.5%-3%, but it depends on the study.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billings_ovulation_method

Realistically, quoting stats doesn’t change anyone’s mind. I doubt you’ll really believe the above. I’m sure you can find things that list it higher, or that you should use typical use rates, which is a completely fair criticism. As I said, this method is not for everyone.

I’m gonna get hammered here because this is Lemmy and anything even loosely associated with Natural Family Planning is going to get down voted.

There are very specific and narrow methods that work well (not perfectly, obviously). I won’t quote and statistics here.

To start up top, if you want to use any method of birth control, do it. It’s up to you entirely, I don’t judge anyone at all.

Also, anything related to the calendar method, day counting, or any such nonsense fuckin sucks. Some like to rope that into natural family planning because they are super simple… But super simple doesn’t work.

If anyone is interested in learning about one that actually has scientific backing, it would be the Billings Ovulation Method. But it’s not day tracking or anything… You need to do some work. You need to learn about it, learn your own body, and be diligent. And most importantly, use alternative methods when you aren’t sure.

Again, I’m willing to bring on the downvotes, but I hope people research before assuming it’s all bullshit.

And just to be clear: If you want something easy, use birth control.

As an edit: I want to fully acknowledge the gap between typical use and perfect use. My wife and I are certainly in the perfect use category… Her dad is a doctor and we are well aware of all the science behind it. If you aren’t going to put in the work, the method is NOT for you. At all.

Sorry for the shift in tone here but this is absurd…

I will continue to show up when it matters and do things like actively promote a great documentary on the day trans people’s rights were stripped away from Iowans because of our dumbass legislature, because I cried watching friends of mine in that room being actively hurt by a government that should protect them. And continue to do the hard work to change the minds of bigoted people in my community, but yes let’s pretend I’m just virtue signaling on an anonymous forum for “optics”. I am actually doing real work and I won’t apologize for not having patience for people saying I don’t do enough because I say mentioning maybe Harry Potter in the proper context is probably fine. It’s not the thing we need people paying attention to right now.

There’s so much more hurt out there. If we boycotted Harry Potter entirely and wiped it from existence in an instant, the average trans persons life doesn’t get suddenly get better.

It’s fucking irritating. We’re wasting breath talking about one stupid fucking lady and an imaginary wizard pretending it’s a leading issue for the trans movement. You can hate me for saying it, but I’m fighting for bigger change than trying to make JK Rowling irrelevant. I would rather raise awareness about the systemic harm that I’m actively witnessing in laws being passed removing trans people’s protected status. That’s a FAR bigger issue.

I appreciate it.

There was a part of me that got tired of being shouted down because I wasn’t whatever they wanted me to be. Or being told that I can’t have an opinion because I’m not one of the people affected.

I mean generally I agree with that. As a white dude, it’s not OK for me to pretend that my opinion on the treatment of black women is accurate, or even that I can fathom what that is like. However, there is some level of voice I need to have to be a part of the movement.

There was a massive rise in this sentiment that people needed to support these groups they weren’t a member of but only if they were completely silent. You need to build a movement and people generated apathy on some topics. I remember sort of giving up talking about things because I had every so slightly different perspectives, and I would get cast into the “you aren’t a real ally” bucket.

I’m also not convinced I’m right all the time either… I’m constantly listening and changing my perspective, but you need to leave room for people to do so. But that’s what I mean by building durability. My beliefs in trans rights are strong because I have challenged, listened, and adapted. They are truly my beliefs, not just things I’m told I need to believe in.

You’re actively alienating people from the movement you say you’re a part of.

You are doing more damage than I am, and continuing to alienate people over your perception of a strict adherence to what is right is not helping.

You’re trying to use childish spelling to say I can’t get over not having Harry Potter. I’m not even arguing it’s good. I probably bring it up maybe once a year? And pretty much always with a caveat of wishing the author wasn’t such an asshole. Yet that isn’t enough for your purity test apparently. I would reflect on the fact that you need allies that you don’t agree with to build a movement. Right now you’re narrowing your scope to a tiny percentage of people, all because you can’t imagine that maybe you aren’t fully and totally correct on this topic, and you want to try and belittle me into agreeing with you.

I don’t think I’ll continue the conversation from here. I hope you limit further damage and alienation to people trying to be on your side.

I want to be respectful here, but this has a lot of issues embedded in it.

This kind of rhetoric rises from what I’ve called the Authoritarian Left, which is an immensely detrimental wing. It’s a group where there is no nuance.

You say that if a trans person says it’s hurting them I should stop doing it. OK, but what if a republican says it? Now suddenly I should ignore them? You can’t base your entire ideology on what members of groups say or demand that others adhere to yours simply because you think you’re right.

I love trans people, and I actively fight for them and their rights. But why? I’ll tell you, it’s not because Democrats told me to love them, or a religious leader, or anyone in politics. I looked at the world critically and found their cause worthy.

I’m a durable ally. I’ll stick with it when it’s not cool or trendy, or when it comes at a cost. But that’s because I arrived at those truths myself.

To loop all the way back to the premise - if talking about Harry Potter at all hurts Trans people, then this post hurts trans people. If you disagree with that, then nuance exists. And I’m saying in the nuance of how and who I talk about any topic with, I know and understand that those people understand the situation.

I don’t make public posts about Harry Potter. I often talk about how JK Rowling is a garbage person. My friends have a Harry Potter party that they’ve been hosting for years, and every person there is of a similar mindset that trans people deserve so much more than they are getting.

You have to allow more than one idea in your head at the same time. If you’re making the rule “talking about Harry Potter in any way, at any time, makes you an active enemy of the trans movement”, then that’s not a place I want to be associated with.

If you want advice - focus on how JK Rowling is harming people. Elevate that as much as you can. When you make these purity tests, you make people not give a shit because it makes it impossible to adhere to the strict and narrow path you say is OK.

This authoritarian left wing of democrats is what got Trump elected. They are so hard nosed on every issue they completely isolate people and make these issues harder to fight for, not easier. You’re heart is in the right place, but we live in a world full of nuance, and the real trick is not scolding people into adherence, but it’s coalition building and asking people to think critically about their choices. They have to find their beliefs, you can’t just demand them.

I think these hard line stances do more harm than good.

My wife and I are active in not supporting any new things, but to talk about how you think it’s morally wrong to even talk about the franchise is going to alienate a ton of people.

I feel fine talking about it, and the memories I had with it. Because everyone I surround myself with is completely aligned that Harry Potter was meaningful when we were kids and also JK Rowling is a complete fucking asshat.

This sort of purity testing has got to stop. If mentioning the name of Harry Potter marks someone as a transphobe who is equally as bad as politicians actively stripping them of their rights… The movement will never build a coalition.

Saying that financially supporting JK Rowling is actively harming the trans community is a reasonable argument. Saying that talking about Harry Potter, even if you note that JK Rowling sucks, makes you an outright transphobe is not reasonable to me.

I don’t like most of the responses here so I’m offer my own. Love is not found it is built.

My wife and I got married young. I’m 34 and I’ll be celebrating my 9th anniversary in under a week.

Love is where all those things come together. We have the deepest friendship. We’re weird in the same ways and we’ve basically developed our own brand of humor. I can make my wife laugh literally with a look.

Love is also a commitment to never, ever bail. It’s unlike anything else. With friends, you still try to be good company or you wouldn’t tell them the deep thoughts. But my wife and I can share anything. We’re so intertwined that there’s more understanding than judgment. We can say things we don’t like about people, about the world, about ourselves. We can be truly vulnerable.

We didn’t find love, we built it. From 25 to 34 I’m a phenomenally different person, but we’re like two planets oscillating around each other. Our orbit influences the other, and vice versa. We never would have been these people if we weren’t together. With most friends I feel like they may have some influence… But in marriage it’s just undeniable.

It’s a truly unique thing. But I will say I couldn’t understand it until I had it. And I still don’t. Dating for 4 years wasn’t the same as marriage after 1 which wasn’t the same as marriage after 5 and that’s not the same as it is now after almost 9 years. It’s always growing, always deepening, and it’s just insanely personal at a very deep level.

I would hope so. I think it would be the right thing to do. But I don’t think Democrats would see all the “instant landslide wins” that are talked about. I don’t think they can accurately predict how that will go. I just don’t buy that the average non-voter is definitely voting Democrat.

But again - we should push for it because I think it’s the right thing to do, not because I think it’s good strategy.

I don’t think this is clear cut anymore. Low information voters broke very hard for Trump. Democrats have work to do to win back the average voter, but the adage of “we win when people turn out” broke in this last election.

Democrats need to get off their ass and offer something better. The fact that Trump won so handily should be a damn wake up call that they are out of touch. Republicans message sucks ass, but it still beat the hell out of Democrats. The party leadership needs an overhaul because they are floundering and trotting out these old adages excuses how piss poor they’ve done leading the party.

Deadpool is to The Avengers as Austin Powers is to James Bond.

No.

And by no I mean we’re not just now asking that. A lot of us already knew we were the baddies. We have been.

He’s been working on that for 4.5 years. 10s of thousands of attempts.

The grind is so real

I asked it who will win the super bowl later today and it said it didn’t know.

That’s the same thing as what you were asking, from a timeline perspective.

Yeah I’m a bit confused. He’s said they are trying to provide a pretty base level of education… Just enough to get started, but aren’t meant to be crazy deep dives. The labs content is a bit different, but I think it’s pretty easy to tell the difference.

I’ll start with a caveat that I’m a huge FF7 fan.

Remake was cool, but plagued with pacing problems. The biggest issue was they had to make everything sort of from scratch, and so a ton of development time was put into the “fixed costs” of things. The result was a cool, but extremely padded game. It really is maybe 15% of the content of the original, but stretched out.

Rebirth covers SO much more. Like holy shit it is maybe 10x the game that Remake is, and there’s good quality content. There’s the usual side quests, but they are, in fact, side quests. If you don’t want to do the fetch quest things they talk about, you can skip over the vast majority. I didn’t like that critique… If a game has optional content you find boring, it’s hard to knock the game for it.

But the visuals in this game are dazzling. I thought the map was huge and vast, and had so many different environments… And then realized there were 5 or 6 completely unique areas like that. It’s a real marvel to go through the different landscapes.

Story wise, I think they did an excellent job, provided you did play the original. It’s hard to get around that part, but it’s sort of a price of admission for a sequel game. But they cleaned up SOOOO many issues with the original game. Things are explained so much more clearly, that I think people forget how incoherent the original story was. There was a lot of hand waving and completely unexplained sides. This game really brings them all into focus. They added a pretty hefty amount of story as well, and I thought it was for the better.

There are some knocks I agree with… The Cait Sith sections are a bit brutal, but luckily they’re infrequent. The combat is super fun - again I think I disagree with the author on this… There’s so many shortcuts you can set to not have to go through menus. I rarely found myself in the situations they talked about, but to each their own.

The game is not perfect, and not for everyone. But I thought the voice acting and story elements were great. They found a reasonable way to be really goofy and funny at times, while also maintaining a more serious tone when needed.

I massively enjoyed it, and thought it was a great 2nd addition. Like all middle parts of a trilogy, I could completely sour on a lot of them if they don’t bring it home. Part 2 sets up a lot, pays off a small amount, but they’re really setting up for a massive ending. If they execute, both games will be seen as massive achievements, in my eyes. Though I think most of the criticisms of Remake are well warranted.

It’s 2 of 3

I’m pretty shocked that you’re getting downvoted for saying that a murder might not be the way to invoke change.

That’s pretty nuts to me. Everyone seems like they are trying to justify this… Why are we justifying murder? People can be pretty devoid of empathy. I understand that people want change, and that we need it. I worked in health insurance and know how wasteful it is and how much pain it causes.

Pseudo-celebrating a murder and trying to back-justify it is about the same as actively hoping/campaigning that it happens. It honestly seems like some people are on here with the mentality that any CEO should be moderately expecting to be murdered, and that it is acceptable to live in a world that operates that way.

I mean the polls for Biden were bad and getting worse. Harris was only down a couple points… Biden was down double digits. I hate to say it, but with the 2 point polling error, Biden had 0 path to make it. I don’t know a single state that he would have taken off of Trump.