By "spoil," I mean things like:

• Smothering him in kisses
• Stroking his hair
• Using a soft or warm tone of voice associated with "puppy talk" or "baby talk"
• Telling him he's cute, precious, or any number of cutesy and diminutive pet names
• Praising him for who he is, not just what he does
• Holding and reassuring him when he's scared or sad
• Being the big spoon when cuddling
• Cherishing his soft or vulnerable emotional expressions
• Initiating affection and sex
• Treating his emotional well-being as equally important to her own
• Being playfully affectionate -- overwhelming him with kisses, tickling him, squeezing him, etc

My ideal relationship is one where she spoils me about as much as I spoil her, and we support each other and make decisions together as a team.

::: spoiler Optional Traumatic Context (click)

I (23M) grew up in an environment where my parents initially showed me affection and played with me when I was very young, but stopped doing so around age 3. After this point, they were cold and emotionally abusive, with my dad being downright threatening and physically abusive. They told me that I was too old to be smothered in kisses or played with anymore. But the memories of those moments and the yearning to experience them again kept bouncing around in my head... and they never disappeared. I only became more and more ashamed of them.

As a young child, I kept trying to find ways to elicit this kind of attention from strangers, which I did by acting cute. This worked for a while, but soon I got old enough that the nice ladies in the supermarket stopped paying attention to me, and I believed that I would never receive this kind of love again. Things only got worse when I learned about gender roles -- the man was the strong, stoic knight who worked tirelessly and quietly endured pain for his damsel in distress, all for a pittance of affection. In all of the media I had ever watched, not once was a male character absolutely drowned in smooches like I had wished for.

In middle school, I was often called "gay" by people for expressing the cuteness and emotional expressiveness that used to get positive attention. I didn't know how to be stoic, so I felt trapped. It felt like they were attacking my unspoken desires to be soft and vulnerable with a woman and asserting that they were undesirable in straight relationships, a claim that I didn't know how to refute. In defense of those desires, I felt solidarity with queer, kinky, and gender nonconforming people and channeled my nihilistic rage into bullying any sexists or homophobes I could get power over.

Since then, I've mostly gone underground and retreated to various progressive online spaces, not really engaging with real life. Eventually I discovered terms like "gentle femdom" and "role reversal," which showed some of what I liked, but it also made me believe that what I wanted was an exotic kink and not a real thing IRL.

I just want lots of kisses and praise and comfort. I don't want someone in charge of me and I don't want to be "the woman" in the relationship. I just want to feel precious and adored by a partner just as much as I would do the same for her, and that feels like asking for too much.

I've been going to therapy for this because the shame has become crippling and caused a learned helplessness that has made it difficult to leave my abusive situation. I didn't have any motivation to try in life because I'm tired of hiding my true soft self and thought I could never find a partner or safe spaces in public to be me. My therapist says that my desires aren't unusual, but that doesn't make it feel easier to find people I can feel safe with.

:::

So, what do you think? Are my desires some kind of strange Oedipal amalgamation that doesn't really exist in real relationships, or is believing so just another cognitive distortion from my upbringing?

I (23M) started therapy today, hooray!

Only problem is, my family is too goddamn spicy. Once I got into my brother's (25M) increasingly homicidal fantasies and animal killings, she stopped me before I mentioned the threats he made to kill people and told me that she is a mandated reporter and has an obligation to report certain situations to the authorities.

I think adding police to the equation will make everything worse and immediately paint a target on my back because I am the only one who would ever disclose the violence that happens under this roof. It might result in me being homeless if I have to flee for my life. I live in Ohio and it's the middle of winter, so not a great start.

I wanted to work with a therapist because I grew up in this place and it traumatized me so badly that I'm scared of leaving this dump (not to mention, I have disabilities now that make that difficult). How much will I have to tiptoe around here? Is merely being afraid that someone will use violence against me reportable? What about if they fantasize about murder and domestic terrorism? What about violent crimes that they committed in the past? Or specific threats in the present?

Is therapy just not the right fit for this kind of thing? Did I end up with a heavy duty "fuck you" problem and therapy is just for "I feel sad sometimes" problems? It feels like bullshit to have to self-censor so much just because things were harder for me. How is throwing cops at the problem supposed to help when there is no universal basic sustenance or housing for the victims to escape to?

What are your experiences with mandated reporting, and how do you avoid triggering it?

I'll (23M) try to summarize:

• Mom and Dad were authoritarian parents who never gave us comfort or affection. They were very impatient and demanding. Dad would physically and verbally abuse us. Mom would do nothing to intervene. Even when he threw a goddamn toddler across the living room.

• By the time I was born, my parents didn't appear to have any romantic or sexual chemistry. It was a constant hot-cold dynamic of fighting and silence.

• My parents had fragile egos; any criticism would lead to rage and punishment. Brother turned out the same way, but his anger would lead to violence.

• Since I was the youngest, I was bullied by Dad and Brother. I was shamed for being sensitive to the abuse and wanting comfort.

• Brother would easily become explosively enraged and take it out on his environment, screaming and breaking things. Mom and Dad made fun of his reactions and didn't care about his feelings.

• Dad was overtly hateful and would openly advocate for genocide for any country or group of people he didn't like.

• From a young age I became intensely sexually attracted to receiving nurture and affection. This created far fewer awkward moments than one might think, thanks to the environment I lived in, but it led to paralyzing insecurities later since it was a behavior my parents never exhibited and mainstream pornography didn't showcase it.

• I also became insecure about my empathy and desire to care for others because none of my family members modeled this behavior.

• The moment Brother discovered YouTube (probably 7-10 years old), he immediately looked up videos of characters being set on fire and melting in a grotesque fashion. When Dad allowed Brother to play a superhero game, he spent the entire time killing all of the civilian NPCs and laughing at their deaths instead of following the game's objective.

• Even without my low self-esteem, expressing myself authentically in school as a kid was risky because my bullies would relay anything I said and did back to Brother, creating a decentralized surveillance network.

• I believed that nobody would ever like me because I was sensitive and wanted care and was shamed for those things. I struggled with masculine gender roles and felt like I was unwanted by the world. I became suicidal and wanted other people to hurt me.

• I was scared of expressing my feelings and ideas because I thought this would be met with violence if I said or expressed anything that my family didn't like. I learned to be stone-faced and speak as little as possible unless I saw a strategy in doing otherwise. I pretended to listen to and care about my other family members so they wouldn't kill me. The surveillance wherever I went ensured that this authentic expression was impossible in-person.

• Around age 13, I retreated into solitude. I had a seemingly unexplainable impulse as a young teen to bypass my family's totalitarian control of information and self-expression by securing Internet access on other devices or bypassing parental controls. I befriended people in chat rooms and felt like it was safe to be me, though I still struggled with socializing immensely. I educated myself about everything I wasn't allowed to learn about and slowly learned how to talk to people. This outside contact is what made me feel less isolated and allowed me to learn about how pro-social humans think and act, though my sense of normalcy was still distorted by my immediate environment.

• Once I suspected I was being abused and made a futile attempt to call it out, my mother taught me to fear Child Protective Services and never tell anyone about the conditions at home or else CPS would put me into a worse place.

• We had a dog, but I had to witness Dad beating the poor thing every fucking day while Mom pretended nothing was happening.

• My parents insisted on me keeping the bedroom door unlocked even when they knew I might be jerking off. Once, my Dad forcibly unlocked my door while I was masturbating to see what porn I was watching, something he used as blackmail 7 years later.

• I had to reconstruct a vision of what love looked like through my vivid sexual fantasies and verify with online friends that they have similar feelings.

• Brother developed a worldview in which he is a god and his seminal fluid makes him powerful. He explicitly wants to "dominate" women and "destroy their egos" and he cites random reoccurring numbers and symbols as signs that he is the chosen one. He dreams of living in a mansion with dozens of wives and hundreds of kids. He says that relationships built on cooperation and compromise are too complicated and it's more practical to take absolute control.

• Brother, seeking an outlet for his rage, went on to torture and kill a bird and display its corpse in a tree and beat his ex-girlfriend's cat to death. He fantasizes about shooting up peaceful protests and believes that emotional men are the downfall of civilization. When Dad asked him if he would be willing to kill me, he said yes, thinking I couldn't hear. Most recently, Brother went into a destructive rage and threatened to kill Dad with his knife. I stayed holed up in my room and prepared to jump out of the bedroom window if I had to make a run for it.

• Mom pearl-clutches and threatens to withhold sustenance from me if I criticize her, but will allow Brother to scream at her and command her and won't even protest.

Earlier this week, I finally woke up and saw that all of my family members are batshit insane and incapable of change; there is zero logic to their behavior and all of my insecurities were me indirectly blaming myself for it. I took some short trips out into the real world and found out that pro-social and progressive people are everywhere. Much of my anxiety lifted and I could suddenly see examples of people loving and caring for people like me everywhere. I finally felt like people could love me and I felt genuinely happy FOR THE FIRST TIME because I realized the world is WAY less hellish than I thought at first and it's worth the effort to escape. I accepted so many things as normal because I was too scared to talk to anyone in the real world to challenge my beliefs.

Now, I'll have to risk my life to escape, but the chance for freedom beats the slow death of depression. Even if I am killed in my attempt to find freedom, I don't think anything is more painful than submission. I will die at the happiest point of my life.

Unfortunately, I'm very suspicious of men because of the whole violence and homicide thing. I want to know how common men like this are in the general population and what signs I should look out for. Although, since most murders are committed by those the victim knows, I have a feeling that the men who I have to worry the most about are the ones who live under the same roof.

So I'm curious how fucked this is. Worst 20% of households? 5%? 1%? Should I expect people with trauma like this to be walking around everywhere, or did I genuinely win the shit lottery?

I (23M) live in an abusive household (Ohio, USA) with narcissistic asshole parents, bad enough that I was insecure about the fact that I was seemingly the only one in the family who could experience love or empathy. I haven't been able to move out yet because I have disabilities and no job.

My older brother was a brooding quiet kid, so for a long time, I didn't know exactly how he was affected by his upbringing, except that he had anger issues. My parents always shrugged off my fear of him, accusing me of overreacting, even when he killed a bird with his bare hands and displayed its corpse in a tree in the backyard. Today, he's a strong 6'2" guy with military training and a gun.

My worst fears were confirmed when he displayed a pattern of escalating threats and violence over the past year or so. In October 2024, when he thought I wasn't around, he candidly told my dad that he would be willing to kill me if there were no consequences. Last February, he remorselessly beat his girlfriend's cat to death (she did not press charges), which my parents saw as petty drama. Last June, he gleefully described his fantasies of shooting up peaceful protests, which my parents shrugged off.

A few hours ago, I experienced the most terrifying moment of my life.

I was in my bedroom when an argument broke out between my brother and my parents about finances. When my brother didn't get the response he wanted and my dad started heckling him, he erupted in a way that I had never witnessed before.

"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!! MESS WITH ME, MOTHERFUCKER, I'LL SLICE YOU UP!! DIE, BITCH, DIE!!" He screamed at the top of his lungs in a roaring voice he had never used before, repeatedly threatening to kill my dad. My heart was beating out of my chest as I prepared to dial 911 and leap out my bedroom window. I waited tensely for the sound of gunshots or my parents screaming. Since I was holed up in my room, I couldn't see if he was brandishing a weapon. "Okay, that's enough," my mom said in a casually disapproving tone that was psychotically unfitting for the severity of the situation. (My parents aren't exempt from his violence, as my father was struck in the head by him a few years prior.)

After a couple more minutes of horrifyingly unhinged screams and threats, my brother finally reverted back to "regular pissed off" mode and left to hang out in the woods, while my parents continued to go about their day as if nothing had happened.

So... I can't fucking believe I'm in this situation. For years my parents told me I was overreacting and paranoid, and I kind of believed them. I always thought that murder was a far-off threat that I would read about on the Internet but never be faced with myself. It's so hard to shake off this feeling of normalcy and relative stability, and part of me wants to just forget what happened like my parents do. Being uprooted from my home and having to suddenly figure everything out with physical limitations, chronic fatigue, no friends, no home, and no job, in the middle of a cold winter, feels dangerous in itself.

I don't know what to do. A lifetime of abuse has made me stupid. I feel like if I contact law enforcement, they won't keep my brother away for long enough for me to get my life in order and make a clean break. He's almost certain to know that I called the cops, so he will be able to target me after whatever light questioning or slap on the wrist they give him. Plus, my parents will likely try to sabotage my efforts to stay safe. If I contact the authorities or any kind of help resource and it gets back to my family, I will have placed a bright red target on my back and won't be able to undo it.

It is very hard to focus with the constant threat of violence looming over my shoulder. I failed my last semester of college because my brother suddenly became much more domineering and threatening, and I became too paranoid to even use the bathroom, let alone study.

I can't think straight. I need help, but I don't know how to get help in a way that protects me from retaliation.

For context, I (23M) live in the United States. In Ohio. A bit concerned about privacy because of the whole Nazi problem and the fact that I live in an abusive household.

I've been working on myself a lot recently and realized that I can't do this alone anymore (or rely on Internet strangers to talk about my issues). I feel like I finally have the strength to ask for help in the real world. I've just never done this before. What's it like? Is it warm and fuzzy, or cold and analytical? (Does it feel like someone is providing care and comfort, or is it more like an emotionally detached scientist meticulously studying you and scribbling down notes while mumbling "Hmm, I see, I see" while you yap at them?) Do you start to see results right away, or are things slow at first? How much stuff is recorded in a database that other systems can look up?

All of my (23M) immediate family members turned out to be narcissists, with two of the three being violent. I can't believe I didn't recognize sooner that they were ALL like this and were irredeemable -- no amount of patience or playing "armchair therapist" would help. I am just trying to make it off the ground, but I feel completely unsupported, anxious, and alone. I have lived under the constant threat of violence from a young age and the stress has poisoned me with chronic illness and moderate disability. It has taken me this long to see past the gaslighting, the cynical appeals to my empathy, and the charitable image I had of them that turned out to just be projection. I feel so dumb for not seeing it earlier.

It feels like I was meant to die young, like the very circumstances of my birth were inherently fatal. A covert narcissist married a violent criminal. The offspring were an even more violent criminal and a scapegoat. I am suddenly expected to succeed in an environment with zero (more like negative!) emotional support, where any attempt to assert an independent identity is violently suppressed, and where one misstep could trigger my brother's killer instinct or make me the next subject of his sadistic fantasies.

I have savings, but I don't know where to run to. It seems like both of my parents' family trees are filled with trauma. I'm thinking of going to an in-person college, but I might not be able to afford living there year-round. My employment prospects are quite limited due to my conditions. I live in the U.S. in one of the worst times in recent history to be disabled. I am looking to live in an affordable city with good public transit.

Before I became disabled at my previous job, coworkers thought I was sweet, funny, caring, and gentle. But regardless of my surface potential for making friends, I am programmed to fear everyone in case they are hiding narcissism, sadism, or psychopathy beneath the surface.

Obviously I know that nobody can predict what my specific fate will be, but I'd like to hear about stories of people from similar backgrounds who have actually survived and found happiness and avoided what felt like certain doom. I want to have hope that things will be okay, and maybe get some ideas on how I'll pull off this insane project.

I (23M) am a broke online college student living with my parents. I have an abusive brother (25M) who also lives under the same roof.

My brother is a narcissist. He believes that he is the most important person in the universe. Boundaries and respect do not matter to him. He will hijack every conversation into being either constant self-aggrandizing or personal attacks and force me to repeat it back to him. He is physically violent when provoked and he has killed multiple animals by beating them to death with his bare hands. Unfortunately, he seems to consider "no" to be a provocation. He searches through all my stuff without permission and I've had to start being careful about what things I leave lying around.

My parents do not care about this. My father doesn't because he's the OG narcissist who passed it down to my brother and actively cheers for my suffering, and my mother doesn't because she is the enabler who chose to stay married to my father and told me I had to suffer the abuse endlessly like she does.

I don't have any irl friends because I have medical conditions that make it difficult for me to be outside on my own for extended periods of time. I also can't drive because of that. It sucks. This isn't to say it's impossible for me to go out, but it's hard and kind of risky (my condition can cause me to faint).

I have constantly been told to give up on being treated like a human being, but I have begun to recognize that my family is feeding me false narratives of hopelessness to keep me complacent and submissive. I surely have power, but my internalization of their narratives is obscuring the ways to exercise it.

What would you do in such a situation, or if you have been in a similar situation, what did you do?

EDIT: I live in the U.S.

I (22M, straight) have never tried dating women due to gender roles. There is nothing that turns me off more than an unequal partnership where I'm pigeonholed into being some stoic protector who never cries, never needs comfort, doesn't like "girly" things, and always leads affection and intimacy.

You know what I like? When a woman is strong, confident, playful, and comforting, but is also down-to-earth and vulnerable. Someone I could take turns caring for and being cared for by, pursuing and being pursued by her. I don't want some stupid power dynamic; I want us to be like best friends, equals with matching vibes who care for and comfort one another. And for us to have lots of fun together: foam sword fights in the living room, baking cakes together despite neither of us knowing what we're doing, having goofy staring contests... whimsical and silly stuff like that.

There is absolutely no room for gender roles in my life because I want us to feel like buddies, not the infallible chivalrous knight and the small vulnerable one. I see the opposite genders as complements that equally embody both strength and vulnerability. Hell, there's not even any room in my life for this serious adult facade everyone seems to put on. Having adult responsibilities doesn't mean I also have to act all serious and sophisticated. No, I'm going to be silly because we have only a finite amount of time on this earth and I'm going to use it to make people laugh and smile.

The Internet has made me disillusioned with the idea of a relationship because gender roles are constantly reinforced. "If you show your emotions to a woman she'll use them against you later" or "If you cry in front of a girl she'll break up with you" or "Guys who are too feminine give me the ick". Often some variation of "If you want a girlfriend, you have to maintain the image of a strong stoic hero, and the moment that illusion is shattered, you're fucked."

That's why, as soon as I realized what my attractions were, I immediately wrote off the possibility of ever fulfilling them because they didn't fit a patriarchal world, and I saw the idea of trying to force myself into that world as torture. I had somehow "fallen out" of gender roles and was attracted to equality instead of hierarchy. I didn't want to be "manly," I wanted to be adorable, playful, caring, and sweet, and I was attracted to those exact qualities in women. Once I developed chronic health conditions and physical limitations, the idea of me being strong and infallible became even more unattainable.

I'm interested in hearing others' experiences in navigating this. I really want to believe that equal straight relationships can be found, but I am surrounded by an information ecosystem that mostly points to their nonexistence, tainted by universal gender expectations.

Honestly, the fact that there isn't an "incel" subculture full of progressive men who gave up because their personality wasn't patriarchal enough makes me wonder if most guys with this issue: (1) don't have the self-awareness or courage to post about it, (2) enter relationships where they spend their entire lifetime in hell suppressing their personality, or (3) actually did find partners who loved them for their authentic selves, and most people have figured this out and I desperately need to touch grass.

I (22M, heterosexual) am interested in a sensual and affectionate form of intimacy involving purely oral stimulation. My desire is entirely centered on kissing and being kissed as a way to exchange love and pleasure (with oral sex being an extension of kissing). It is so hot to me that it is genuinely all I want, and penetrative forms of sex do not interest me. (Due to medical issues, they also might not work super well at this point.)

I have never had a sexual partner because I was raised with a traditional model of intimacy in which an active male partner penetrates a passive female partner. Since my desires did not fit this framework, I never tried to even date anyone, believing that the type of intimacy I wanted - one in which both partners took turns giving and receiving oral pleasure - was impossible. At least, not without having to participate in an activity that didn't arouse me.

I am not nearly as ignorant as I was back then, but I would like to know if there is a general dating strategy to efficiently narrow things down to women who aren't interested in or don't require penetrative sex.

Does anyone know of someone in a similar situation who found a compatible partner regardless? If so, how did they do it?

I (22M, American) was raised by a conservative family and taught traditional gender roles. I was told multiple times that that "gay" men (men who didn't conform to traditional masculine gender expression) were ruining society and literally deserved to die, and that people out in the real world do the dirty work of disposing of them through stochastic violence.

Unfortunately, I turned out almost exactly how I wasn't supposed to. I wanted to embody a cute and delicate masculinity, my true personality was caring, affectionate, and emotional, and I loved cute and pretty things. Ironically, I was so in love with feminine energy that I developed an emotionally intense heterosexual attraction to women, though in a way that was nothing like the typical straight model.

Long story short, I faced an entire childhood of ridicule and isolation and eventually developed an autoimmune disease with disabilities as a souvenir. I wanted to take my own life, but the Internet existed, so I numbed myself with endless slop content instead.

The progressive side of the Internet taught me that there are a lot of ways of being beyond the "conform or fucking die" model I was raised with. I learned that a minority of women actually could be attracted to me despite my utter disregard for the manliness rules, something I was blackpilled on before.

But I am still too scared to leave home. It is hard to motivate myself to do anything because the source of my fulfillment is to make people happy, but I can't meet anyone because I'm frozen in fear. I still feel like everyone will hate me for being too feminine, and that the occasional stray vigilante will try to put a bullet in me. Even if I could defend myself, it feels too risky: I have to win every single time, while they only have to win once. On top of that, I am now visibly disabled, so I have to deal with ableism on top of everything else.

I can't function this way. I'm not motivated to take care of myself or put effort into online college because I see no point to life if I can't be social and authentic IRL. I literally just want to make people smile and feel cared for, but it feels like I'm too alien for people outside of a progressive echo chamber to accept me, and life will be full of constant gender policing, harassment, and threats of violence (especially because this is the U.S. we're talking about). The most productive day of my life happened when I thought for a moment that I had a chance, but I fell back into my old habits once I started having doubts again.

It could be worth noting that I live in central Ohio, somewhat close to the city, so it's not like I live in the middle of a rural hellscape. I also saw a non-binary androgynous person working at a clinic the other day, which seems like a good sign? I went to school in a more rural area, but of all of the people who seemed to like me, most of them were closer to the city.

If you have faced a similar situation, how did you make it through?

Over the past several months, I've been going down the privacy rabbit hole and started ditching centralized, non-E2EE services like Discord. I've been avoiding mainstream services and managed to coax a couple of my existing Discord friends (though not most of them) to use more private services like Matrix.

There's only one problem: Nobody uses them. There is virtually no way to meet like-minded people who live near me because there just aren't enough people or communities on there. Even on Lemmy (which I know isn't totally private, but still beats Reddit) doesn't have the volume needed to come across a lot of people who live near me. I want to meet people. I want to have friends in real life.

I don't live in an urban planner's utopia. I live in a car-dependent suburb on the outskirts of a city. You can't just walk outside and meet a bunch of people, not with all of the "get off my lawn" types everywhere. You have to go somewhere else to meet people. There are cameras everywhere, so you will probably be seen in most normal meetup spots. Not to mention all of the phones.

I hate to say it, but I don't see how it's feasible to meet up with normal people without some corporation or the government finding out where you're going and who you're associated with, at least not in the U.S. where I live.

If we insist on living as hermits who only use obscure Internet services, aren't we ceding influence to the exact forces that are ruining society in the first place? Aren't we at our weakest when we're isolated and alone, yelling into an echo chamber of scattered individuals instead of forming strong local communities in the real world and educating people who aren't fully in the know?

I'm not saying that these services don't have value; I'm just starting to doubt that you can make new irl friends and be totally private at the same time. Showing up to a meetup or event with a bunch of face-covering gear and telling people to follow you to a remote place where there aren't any cameras is probably going to raise some major red flags.

But maybe I'm taking it too literally. Maybe private services are more for discussing sensitive stuff with people you already know. That's why I wanted to ask Lemmy. What do you think? How do you approach this tradeoff between privacy and staying connected with everyday people?

I'll give you some context: I (22M) was raised to believe that heterosexuality and its associated biological drives naturally resulted in paternalistic relationship structures where the man has absolute power and the woman is his willing subject. This dynamic was seen as natural and desirable as long as the man led in good faith. As such, men were active partners who showed initiative, while women were passive partners that responded to a man's advances. Male passivity and female initiative were viewed as unnatural desires.

My tendency to treat others with soft-spoken gentleness and careful consideration instead of stern authority and quick decisiveness made me originally believe that I was incompatible with women despite being attracted to them. I also viscerally hated the idea of subjugating or controlling others because it felt evil. I wanted to work with a partner, not above her.

Additionally, I had fantasies about women initiating affection, taking active roles during intimacy, and expressing a primal hunger to take the reins, fantasies which I believed were impossible to fulfill because my upbringing taught me that female initiative fundamentally did not exist anywhere except in niche fetishes (e.g. femdom), and male passivity would be a turn-off.

The dynamic I find appealing is one in which a partner and I are excited to pursue each other's pleasure by mutually initiating affection/intimacy and taking turns swapping between active and passive roles. My worry is that there aren't a lot of women who have that drive to pursue their partners in an assertive manner. What is that impression based on, you ask? Not much, except the "values" I was raised with and the trashy adult sites that I've looked at over the years.

It may be worth noting that I hate BDSM and power exchange dynamics where one partner is subject to another's command and absolute control. What I crave is a consensual, passionate, and attentive lead over someone's pleasure from a place of love, not domination, and for that initiative to change fluidly between partners.

Is this something with a substantial presence in the real world? How might I find partners who see intimacy in this way as opposed to the "lay down and take it" model? Usually the people on Lemmy have a lot of decently helpful and non-regressive takes, so I'm interested in the opinions here. Thanks!

(And yes, I know that there's a decent chance that I sound completely stupid and embarrassing here because I fell for a multi-generational psyop used to consolidate political power in the hands of evil men, but think about how many millions of people there are who wouldn't even think to question this programming... Also, I don't plan on pursuing a relationship yet because I'm still deconstructing the mountain of lies that I was fed and building my self-confidence, but I think I can make it there eventually.)

The Internet appears to equivocate female dominance with a selfish, cruel, and controlling dominatrix figure. I'm sure it works well for people who are fascinated with power itself, but for me, I am interested in power only when it is used altruistically in the form of affectionate protection and care. I prefer something deeply humanizing, benevolent, and connected rather than something dehumanizing, malevolent, and disconnected.

EDIT: I'm also aware of the label "gentle femdom," but from what I've seen in practice, much of the content under this label is the same kinds of power plays but less overtly cruel. In general, anything that restricts or denies pleasure or hints that the female partner is emotionally disconnected or taking advantage of the submissive partner is a huge turn-off for me. I'm looking for something that feels romantic and genuine. It would be nice if there was a label that specifically implied pure romantic connotations and excluded edgy "bad girl" behavior. What I'm looking for is more like, as someone commented, a golden retriever woman who's confident and eager.

The hottest thing to me is a big cuddly woman spoiling her partner with affection and wrapping him up safe and snug with her body. She's totally in control, but she's devoting herself to her partner's enjoyment and making him feel completely loved and protected. She's effectively a protagonist, embodying strength, agency, and ultimate good.

And, I don't know. I guess I was just expecting that to be more common. Perhaps this is just a product of the fact that most adult entertainment is produced for mass consumption and tends to focus more on the visuals and mechanics of sex instead of the emotional side of it. But that doesn't explain the fact that there is tons of NSFW art for lots of different niches. So, I don't really know.

What do you think? Have you observed these trends yourself? Do you have your own theory? Am I just bad at searching? Should I touch grass? I'd like to know your thoughts.

I (22M) grew up in a rural-adjacent suburb where the culture was complete dogwater. My dad openly fantasized about committing violence against minority groups ever since I was a young child, and he constantly threatened to kill me if I ever turned out to be gay. The public school I went to was full of bullies who singled me out for being emotional and therefore easy to pick on.

I never turned out to be gay, but I did turn out to be very gentle and emotional. In my natural state, I want to be sweet and caring and talk in a higher-pitched, softer manner. I love cute things, I love making people happy, and I love fantasizing about big strong women who will protect and care for me.

I have had very few opportunities to express myself. Various factors like disabilities and my older brother surveilling me in K-12 school (by using my bullies as a spy network to report every weird thing I did) made it impossible to express myself without being abused at home for it.

In recent years, I have been able to spend some limited time on my own without constant surveillance. The people I've talked to, typically from chatting with people at various appointments I've been dropped off at, seem to have a very laissez-faire "be yourself" attitude and don't seem very interested in persecuting weirdos like me. One of them even corrected me for accidentally saying something politically incorrect. This wasn't even that close to the city—this was adjacent to the new suburbs that my family moved to recently.

Still, it's hard to shake off a decade of paranoia about getting found out and beaten for being, in my dad's words, a "pansy". I keep stopping myself from expressing any kind of emotion in public for fear of what will happen to me. Tomorrow is the first time I get to visit my city proper, which is said to be fairly progressive and has big pride parades every year (around 1 million people turn out). And yet, I keep telling myself that I can't because some fascist goon could be watching and signal to all of the other fascist goons to jump me.

Is it safe to just be me now, or do I still have to be very careful about when and where to express myself? I'm so tired, honestly. I just want to be allowed to exist for once in my life.

The other day, my parents asked me (22M) if there were any women that I find attractive (I guess because they're paranoid about me being gay lol) and I told them yes, there's a fair number of women that I've seen in public that I've found attractive.

They asked me, "Do you talk to any of them?" and I said "No??? It's inappropriate to approach women in public unless you have business with them."

I told them that it is only appropriate for a man to talk to a woman he doesn't know when the social situation is explicitly designed for meeting strangers—dating apps, hobby groups, meeting friends of friends, etc. In my view, cold approaching women you don't know just because you're attracted to them is harassment.

My parents told me that I'm being ridiculous and making excuses because I'm nervous. They are adamant that I need to learn to approach women or else I will never find a partner. I told them that times have changed and this is disrespectful and potentially predatory behavior along the lines of unsolicited flirting and catcalling. Approaching women is a violation of their personal space and could make them feel very uncomfortable, especially if they feel like they don't have an easy way out.

My parents are almost 60 and they are very conservative, so they don't exactly follow progressive discourse, and I feel like they're super out of touch on this as a result. Particularly, my mom tends to strike up conversations with other women in public, and she's skeptical when I tell her that I can't do the same thing because I'm a man and would be viewed as a potential predator.

But I also don't get out much, which makes me second-guess how distorted my understanding of the social world is from reality. My parents are like a broken clock, and sometimes they DO have a point about something despite 90% of their opinions being insane. Maybe there is a more nuanced reality that I'm not picking up on.

So I wanted to ask here. Are my parents out of touch? Am I out of touch? Are we both wrong? I want to know your opinion.

Circulation issues have been plaguing me for the past several months, and getting a doctor's appointment is taking an eternity. As I've been waiting, the issue has only worsened, to the point where I am quickly losing sensitivity in my hands and fingers. EDIT: "Quickly" as in over the span of a few days or weeks having cold hands, not hours. If that makes a difference.

As a cis male, this has also begun to affect a certain part of the body that requires good blood flow to properly function. Without an incredible amount of sexual excitement, it remains worryingly cold and lifeless. I'm enjoying what I have left while it lasts, but it would be horribly fitting for me to lose feeling there too before I can even set foot into the vascular specialist's office.

It's brutal. It really is. I'm in my early 20s, and this, on top of a multitude of chronic health problems, is hitting me all at once. I've never had a partner, but I was always so excited to find one someday. But now, things have just gotten a whole lot harder. (That is, except for one thing.)

I don't want to lose hope. I've already tried that in the past from my other health issues, and it only makes things worse. But it's kind of difficult to imagine what a relationship looks like without functioning parts. Especially when this doesn't magically make me asexual. I still want to enjoy some kind of sexual activity, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to do it in the way that most women who would otherwise be compatible with me are hoping for.

I'd appreciate any kind of hope or encouragement, or just practical advice for what to do if the worst comes to pass. I feel that this is a scenario that I need to be prepared for, because god knows that the medical system isn't fast enough to do anything except record the damage that has already been done.

Thank you, and I wish you all luck in dealing with whatever fucked up shit has come your way, too.

EDIT 2: You know what? Maybe this isn't about my junk as much as it is my entire fucking body. "Oh that's weird, the lack of circulation has spread from my fingers to my entire hand in a few days." Uh, yeah, you THINK? My feet are turning blue, my hands are going numb, my mouth is getting cold, and I'm worried about THIS? Maybe the commenters telling me to get care immediately have a point. Maybe I'm the meme guy who worries about the economy while a meteor crashes into Earth.

I don't fit very well with the idea of masculinity. I'm just a goofy nerd with a gentle personality and the desire to make others happy. I have always wanted to look soft and approachable; I have smooth, rounded facial features, wavy hair, big glasses, and a clean-shaven face. My personality is utterly non-threatening. I love caring for people, I enjoy being silly and whimsical, I'm a bit clumsy and get flustered easily, I wouldn't hurt a fly (unless I had to), and I'm polite to a fault. My paradise is a warm, cozy, quiet safe haven surrounded by cute plushies.

I'm not manly in the slightest, and I love being that way. I'm a total softie through and through, and I purposely align my appearance with my personality. I look gentle because I am gentle.

I have always been treated differently than my male peers. Many people are inexplicably nicer or softer on me even if they barely know me. Female friends have fawned over me, calling me things like "cute," "adorable," and "sweetheart," and expressing a desire to protect me. And I love it. I don't find it offensive or infantilizing at all.

Through extensive introspection, I later figured out that care and nurturing are incredibly attractive to me, and the funny tickle I felt whenever I was shown care and protection by my female friends was actually a subtle tinge of attraction. It's rather curious that my personality and gender expression just happened to develop in such a way to subconsciously solicit that kind of attention.

This is all well and good, but I worry that this makes me categorically unsexy due to my intentional suppression of gendered characteristics and desire to give off pure, wholesome vibes. Could I really be sexually desirable if I'm the kind of person who apologizes to trees for bumping into them? Some women have even teasingly called me a "Christian" or "virgin" because of this perceived innocence, suggesting that some people do indeed associate my personality with sexual restraint or abstinence.

In reality, I absolutely do want a sexual relationship, and I have always imagined myself treating a partner with the same gentle caregiving energy that I myself crave. I don't do "naughty" or "dominant"; I would view a partner's body as something to passionately take care of, not something to tease or conquer.

I would appreciate some outside perspective on this. Thanks!

Whenever it's someone's job to help me, I think of it as an opportunity to create a bright spot in what would otherwise be a pretty boring shift. I make them laugh with my silly commentary, engage them in interesting conversation, and above all, show that I care. I hope it makes them as happy as it makes me. And if it doesn't, well hey, there's always next time, right?

I want to show people that there is still good left in this world. When social media blares humanity's worst all the time, love and compassion need to be loud, too. Cynicism, nihilism, and indifference have pervaded every aspect of our culture and, in my opinion, they just aren't cool anymore. Joy is rebellion. Kindness is radical. Optimism is counterculture.

It may be their job to provide the service, but it's my mission to provide the goofy to whoever needs it. Yes sir, I know this is a Wendy's, but I'm not going to let that stop me!

I always assume that my brain is structured in a way that at least 5% of people could relate to my general thought processes, but it turns out that some of my experiences of being a human are really just a "me" thing. I've often told myself that I'm just like everyone else, and that all of my personality traits are explainable by a mishmash of stereotypes and systemic influences. But I guess there's more to it than that, and I've been selling myself a bit short.

I'm interested in a wholesome relationship dynamic where the girlfriend acts as a comforting source of warmth, protection, and abundant physical affection. She's a cozy safe haven, wrapping her boyfriend in adoring hugs and showering him in doting kisses. He's gentle and sensitive, relaxing in her care and taking it all in, responding in an endearing way that fuels her nurturing.

It seems like the Internet's idea of a "strong" female presence in a hetero relationship is a dominant/submissive coercive femdom dynamic. That's not what I want at all; I want to see a female character who is eager to lead out of a loving desire to snuggle and care for her boyfriend—she wants to protect him, not exploit him. There is also no power imbalance or one-sidedness; while the girlfriend's doting affection is a defining feature, the boyfriend happily initiates and reciprocates affection as well. There are lots of open heartfelt exchanges, and it's all so subversively tender that it feels taboo.

I have never seen a relationship like this depicted anywhere. It took months of introspection and creative writing to work out the essence of my preferred dynamic and understand that labels like "gentle femdom" or "gender role reversal" utterly fail to capture the nuances of what I truly want. The romance novel and adult video industries almost completely alienate me. It feels like there is nothing for me, or at least no way to easily find it in the vast cosmos of the Internet.

It would be wonderful to find something, a book, some kind of show or movie, an obscure Internet board... really anything to scratch this constant itch that I have. Despite my mediocre skills, my own writing vastly outstrips any media I've seen so far. I'd love to see something made by someone more professional.

And yeah, mayyyybe I've dodged a bullet by being immune to the endless piles of sex appeal industry slop and provocative ads that deactivate the frontal lobe, but sometimes I want in on the fun too.