Welcome back. You’re very informative.

I’m very confused about how numerous people, from you, to other antisocial people speaking from their experiences (some of which I learned are actually friends) to prosocial researchers of ASPD say that antisocial people see relationships as transactional. It’s not weird that you guys see it that way, it’s more like “and prosocials… don’t???” Because I’m certain I’m prosocial. I’m neurodivergent, sure, but no signs of ASPD. So, how do most prosocial people typically view relationships if they’re not transactional?

So I find prosocials and pwASPD both tend to think “but doesn’t everybody” when we hear this - it’s a super undescriptive term - but we’re thinking different things define something as transactional. We also see the reason for that transaction to be different.

From a prosocial generally, they’ll mean “I only want to be around people that ‘don’t drain my energy’, that don’t just take take take, that we mutually enjoy the friendship/relationship and want to be around each other”. That’s kinda their definition of getting something out of it, and they want everyone to get something out of it. If they’re draining you, they want you to be free of it so you can be happy, and the transactions involved can be purely emotional/vibes. The reason they feel this way is a desire for positive and enjoyable social connection; the consequence for an uneven/bad/missing transaction is discomfort and wasting their time in negative experiences and generally feeling bad in association with that person.

PwASPD see those transactions very very literally. There’s no vibes nor emotions in the transactions, those are either a reaction to the transaction or a bonus. We mean that we are getting something tangible or practical out of it. Rides, help with things we can’t or don’t want to do alone, sex, maybe even the social relief from the annoyance of “why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” coming from all sides. We also don’t always care if it’s even on the other person’s end. If they’re ok driving me everywhere/if they do it and don’t say or show they’re uncomfortable, then I will assume they are fine with that piece of the transaction. If I’m taking more than I’m giving and they seem chill with that then I’ll accept it. However, I won’t give them *nothing* and that’s because of our reason for transactions - it’s dangerous otherwise. First off, I have shit I need I can’t get myself as much as it sucks, so I need to be around people. But if we need something from them, what we learned in our childhoods is that we don’t get that for free. There’s always something over your head. A lot of pwASPD had friends or caregivers that would hold favors or even *basic, legally-mandated caregiving* over our heads as though we didn’t deserve it. Often our value was determined as a child by what we provided, and since children can’t provide much, we were worthless and not deserving of good treatment.

This is part of the reason (TW non-descriptive CSA mention, skip to the next paragraph if you want) that people thought ASPD was directly correlated with CSA for a long time - many cases of long term CSA come from either “I’ll give you x/do x for you if you help me with this” or worse, doing something first then saying “but I gave you X!/did X for you! I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d act like this”, often call us selfish if we tried to say no and maybe get aggressive or forceful after, and that is an easy lead-in to our view of interactions.

So a lot of us see it that if we want to be safe/know we can continue to get what we need, we HAVE to be giving them something. If you claim you like being around me “just to be around me” or worse that you’re willing to do something for me “just because I want to”, that’s not safe. You want something from me and I’ll give it to you - just tell me what it is. If you’re not telling me, that means it’s not good or you’re just gonna decide later that I’m selfish. You might hurt me to get what you want and justify it with this. Take something from my side so we’re even, because even means safe. Even means I get access to what I need and you get access to what you need - so now we’re both using this relationship/friendship/etc for something and you wouldn’t wanna mess that up by putting me in danger any more than I’d want to mess it up by putting you in danger.

Of course, not every prosocial sees it the first way and not every pwASPD had those experiences and/or sees it that way. But that’s what I’ve found to be common. If you see “they make me happy” as what your or their end of the transaction is, it’s definitely a prosocial response, maybe with the exception of thinking of it as “getting their brain to dopamine/oxytocin” vs caring how they’re actually feeling. If not, if you need it to be practical, that’s definitely transactional.

It’s important to note this is personal relationships with no practical consequences to ending the relationship - most people see relationships (platonic) with coworkers or managers as transactional and that’s a way I usually explain it to prosocials (“do you deal with your boss bc you like them or bc they sign your check - and would your boss keep you hired if you didn’t do your job because you make them happy just by being there?”). But with a romantic or sexual partner, a friend, etc. this is not a typical view of relationships.

That said - you can *absolutely* not have ASPD and have transactional view of relationships. It’s not a 1:1 thing there; not everyone with ASPD has it and not every prosocial doesn’t. It’s just a really common piece of the puzzle that is this personality disorder.

Edit: ack I’m so sorry I forgot to add the csa tw tags they’re there now.

Plain text below the cut:

So I find prosocials and pwASPD both tend to think “but doesn’t everybody” when we hear this - it’s a super undescriptive term - but we’re thinking different things define something as transactional. We also see the reason for that transaction to be different.

From a prosocial generally, they’ll mean “I only want to be around people that ‘don’t drain my energy’, that don’t just take take take, that we mutually enjoy the friendship/relationship and want to be around each other”. That’s kinda their definition of getting something out of it, and they want everyone to get something out of it. If they’re draining you, they want you to be free of it so you can be happy, and the transactions involved can be purely emotional/vibes. The reason they feel this way is a desire for positive and enjoyable social connection; the consequence for an uneven/bad/missing transaction is discomfort and wasting their time in negative experiences and generally feeling bad in association with that person.

PwASPD see those transactions very very literally. There’s no vibes nor emotions in the transactions, those are either a reaction to the transaction or a bonus. We mean that we are getting something tangible or practical out of it. Rides, help with things we can’t or don’t want to do alone, sex, maybe even the social relief from the annoyance of “why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” coming from all sides. We also don’t always care if it’s even on the other person’s end. If they’re ok driving me everywhere/if they do it and don’t say or show they’re uncomfortable, then I will assume they are fine with that piece of the transaction. If I’m taking more than I’m giving and they seem chill with that then I’ll accept it. However, I won’t give them *nothing* and that’s because of our reason for transactions - it’s dangerous otherwise. First off, I have shit I need I can’t get myself as much as it sucks, so I need to be around people. But if we need something from them, what we learned in our childhoods is that we don’t get that for free. There’s always something over your head. A lot of pwASPD had friends or caregivers that would hold favors or even *basic, legally-mandated caregiving* over our heads as though we didn’t deserve it. Often our value was determined as a child by what we provided, and since children can’t provide much, we were worthless and not deserving of good treatment.

This is part of the reason (TW non-descriptive CSA mention, skip to the next paragraph if you want) that people thought ASPD was directly correlated with CSA for a long time - many cases of long term CSA come from either “I’ll give you x/do x for you if you help me with this” or worse, doing something first then saying “but I gave you X!/did X for you! I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d act like this”, often call us selfish if we tried to say no and maybe get aggressive or forceful after, and that is an easy lead-in to our view of interactions.

So a lot of us see it that if we want to be safe/know we can continue to get what we need, we HAVE to be giving them something. If you claim you like being around me “just to be around me” or worse that you’re willing to do something for me “just because I want to”, that’s not safe. You want something from me and I’ll give it to you - just tell me what it is. If you’re not telling me, that means it’s not good or you’re just gonna decide later that I’m selfish. You might hurt me to get what you want and justify it with this. Take something from my side so we’re even, because even means safe. Even means I get access to what I need and you get access to what you need - so now we’re both using this relationship/friendship/etc for something and you wouldn’t wanna mess that up by putting me in danger any more than I’d want to mess it up by putting you in danger.

Of course, not every prosocial sees it the first way and not every pwASPD had those experiences and/or sees it that way. But that’s what I’ve found to be common. If you see “they make me happy” as what your or their end of the transaction is, it’s definitely a prosocial response, maybe with the exception of thinking of it as “getting their brain to dopamine/oxytocin” vs caring how they’re actually feeling. If not, if you need it to be practical, that’s definitely transactional.

It’s important to note this is personal relationships with no practical consequences to ending the relationship - most people see relationships (platonic) with coworkers or managers as transactional and that’s a way I usually explain it to prosocials (“do you deal with your boss bc you like them or bc they sign your check - and would your boss keep you hired if you didn’t do your job because you make them happy just by being there?”). But with a romantic or sexual partner, a friend, etc. this is not a typical view of relationships.

That said - you can *absolutely* not have ASPD and have transactional view of relationships. It’s not a 1:1 thing there; not everyone with ASPD has it and not every prosocial doesn’t. It’s just a really common piece of the puzzle that is this personality disorder.

Edit: ack I’m so sorry I forgot to add the csa tw tags they’re there now.

I had this idea, so here it is

//tw- mentions of pedophilia, csem, csa, and lolicon

Guys, please please please don’t use the term CSEM to refer to fictional pornographic drawings that involve fictional characters who are depicted as minors

I can’t believe I have to say this, but I’ve seen too many people, just in the past 24 hours, use the term to describe porn that someone drew

Holy shit, lolicon and the like is not CSEM, CSAM, or CP just because a hypothetical and fictional minor is involved in the art. Those terms are specifically used when talking about real sexual abuse cases involving real-world minors.

Fiction cannot be CSEM because it doesn’t involve the direct sexual exploitation and abuse of a real minor! The creation of these pieces of media do not involve the direct harm of a real minor!

Just say “lolicon” or “fictional porn involving fictional minors”. Just use something, ANYTHING, that isn’t used to specifically identify real life abuse materials! Please just don’t use a term that has this much seriousness attached to it as a means of labeling fictional content that you don’t like, even if it triggers you!

You being uncomfortable doesn’t justify the misuse of a term that is used to directly describe abuse, and it makes real victims of CSEM feel like shit when you label some random anime girl as a “victim” right next to them. Because, get this, when you label something fictional as CSEM, CSAM, or CP, you are inherently insinuating that there is a victim involved in the creation of this media, which is inherently untrue with fiction. STOP DOING THIS!!!

cw for talk about sa/csa

Reading some of @nerves-nebula’s posts about writing sexual trauma made me wanna attempt at being more blatant regarding stuff my ocs went thru so here’s !! A thing with Kay el being a self proclaimed master of repression. No visuals of it, just talk

okay this is gonna be a bit of a long rant (with some SA and CSA mentions so pls don’t read if that will be too much for you rn) but I’ve been thinking a lot about the “male loneliness epidemic” lately and I have some Thoughts ™

we live in very isolating, depressing and scary times. we live in a hyper-individualistic capitalist hellscape that seems to punish people who need community support. and I truly believe that we as humans should try to help each other out in the ways that we are able to.

but I lose 100% of my empathy for lonely depressed men when they start using their own personal issues as an excuse to peddle ideologies that advocate for rape, pedophilia, child marriage, sexual slavery, and even murder of women and girls. I don’t fucking care how sad you are, if you advocate for other humans beings to be subjected to the cruelest treatment possible then you either need to get serious help or die (and not take anyone with you when you do).

you do not have a fucking paramount on suffering. you are not the only ones who experience loneliness. I know you think women get to just pick and choose whichever romantic partner/friends we want, but that is false, and also being seen as nothing but a sex object by men is so incredibly isolating too. that’s not real love and connection, that’s only being valued for what we can provide for men. so many people feel so alone and it genuinely is a big problem.

I was raised in an extremely misogynistic cult that preaches that grown men are not responsible for anything they do to little girls bc “they’re wired that way.” I had very bad things happen to me before I was even old enough to realize what it meant. and you know what the excuse always is? “well it happened to him when he was younger too so he can’t help that he does it to you.” I learned very early that male suffering is viewed as more important than the suffering they inflict on innocent people. and despite going through this, despite seeing nearly every woman in my life go through something similar, despite all of this, I still would never ever sympathize with any ideology that preaches rape, slavery, sex trafficking, pedophilia, white supremacy, etc. and that doesn’t make me some super hero, it makes me a mildly normal person.

so no, nobody “pushed” you into your evil ideologies, nobody made you do that. if true suffering at the hands of the opposite sex is really the root cause of inceldom then almost every single woman I know would be the most insane incel you’d ever meet in your entire life. but they’re not, even though many of them are lonely and long for true companionship, none of them feel so angry and entitled to it that they want to murder and rape men or little boys. not a single one. the root cause of inceldom is, and always has been, male entitlement. men who were raised to believe the world and every woman in it exists to serve them in some way, but then grew up and realized that actually nobody is owed sex and you don’t get to force women to marry you and have kids, because we are human beings who deserve to be happy too. and this makes them so mad that they start thinking it’s okay to do whatever they want to whoever they want, because after all, nobody on planet earth could ever suffer as much as incels do when a woman tells them no.

I’m fucking sick of it. stop saying “they pushed me to this” and start taking even an ounce of accountability for your deranged, entitled mindset.

LSDqueers don’t belong in the radqueer community /srs

Hot take: supporting child porn, rape and sui baiting is bad

!

Disclaimer. The owners of this blog may not agree with the opinions submitted. Remain civil in the notes, please & thank you.

All of Charlie’s art in Dee Made a Smut film has always fascinated me. But today I want to focuses on a couple that really stood out to me and why I think they help teach the message of the episode.

This painting shows a woman with dirty blonde hair and a halo ripping out a man’s heart while he’s wearing The Boy footie pajamas from Nightman. I think when Charlie painted this, he intended it to be him and the Waitress—she ripped his heart out when she rejected him after his play but he still sees her as an angel.

But doesn’t it also kind of look like Dee and Dennis? Especially with the messy makeup on the woman, the way the man’s face looks like it can have facial hair or be clean shaven depending on how you look at it. In this scene where the painting is shown, Dee is confronting Dennis with his trauma, showing everyone his bloody ripped out heart and acting like she’s doing him a kindness (killing him while seeing herself as an angel). Also super interesting in hindsight when you consider that in DTAMHD Dennis fantasizes about eating a bloody heart to sooth himself, taking the trauma back into his own body in a sense.

Let’s look at some more.

A painting of dogs barking (at a human shape maybe? Hard to tell) and a rat covered in blood. To Charlie, I again think these are pretty straightforwardly about his life—he was illustrating Cricket’s dog orgy and the rats he bashes at Paddy’s.

But in the scene they’re framing Dennis, who is in the middle of trying to make excuses for the CSA he suffered. He’s trapped like a rat who’s being bashed, he wants to scream and howl like those dogs but he can’t. And the dog orgy is literally Cricket being assaulted by dogs and then playing it off casually so that’s also a pretty obvious parallel.

In this scene Dennis also explains that he thinks good art is just whatever the “right” people say is good art. Because he’s never been able to connect with his feelings due to his trauma, Dennis has always had a hard time connecting with art on a personal level (in sharp contrast to Frank, who sees himself in art depicting WWII so deeply he has an out of body experience). Like most things in life, Dennis only sees art for its social and commercial value, not as a way to feel connection. That’s why he’s so dismissive of all art that isn’t porn, because porn at least has an obvious tangible use. But even then, even then, when he tries to make “artistic” porn, his mind immediately (subconsciously) tries to express his trauma, using art to express his deepest wounds in a way he isn’t even aware of. And I think Dee sees that and tries to help him through her own interpretation of his art, continuing the metaphorical conversation he started, but she’s also petty, and bitter about him mocking her art at the beginning of the episode, so she does it in a way that’s vicious and public. Art can hurt you, make you think about things you don’t want to, and Dennis hates that. He doesn’t see the emotional connection he could make with Charlie’s art or Dee’s or even his own because he won’t let himself.

A long time ago, as a toddler, I screamed in my head for someone, anyone to help me. To make it stop hurting. To let me be free.

A man with wings like lambskin, large clawed hands, deep gray skin, and eyes like nothing I had ever seen in my couple of years stood in front of me inside of my head - what I didn't yet know was the headspace - took my small frame into his arms and said "you'll need to toughen up". That scared me more than anything.

"I don't want to be tough. I want to be small and fragile and naïve. I'm supposed to be that right now, I think. I think I would like to be soft forever."

"Okay," he said, amazing me by being a man respecting my no "then I will be tough for you."

Without hesitation, he took the form of someone my age and he lives my life for me, allowing me safety inside of the head with the alters I know are safe to be around. No more outside interaction I don't explicity choose - and he tells me if it's safe or not when I do decide to.

He has taken the risk out of people. He has allowed me the privilege of love and interaction without giving up security or the childish belief that the world can be good.

I'll never, ever say thank you enough times even if I used the breath of the entire world for the next million years.

My host saved my life, my sanity, and maybe even saved the system some trauma by being better at handling the situation, sure.

But most importantly, he saved my innocence. And he didn't even know me yet.

So dear host, when I say I love you and you are the best "brother" I could ever ask for, please don't look at me with those confused eyes. Don't shrug away and hide your demonic wings from me because they are the same ones that you wrapped around me when I was broken and believed I was beyond repair.

Your claws have never ever scratched my skin because unlike every other man, you have always been careful not to hurt me, yet you make it seem effortless. You make me wonder how careless everyone else must have been if you so easily avoid causing any harm at all.

You don't have to be embarrassed of the smell of fire in your breath or your "unnatural" eyes. These have been my comforts for as long as I have had any. That firey smell filled my lungs as you breathed life into a husk of a girl; a tattered doll. Those eyes showed me love larger than any cruelty I had experienced, as impossible as that seemed.

My dear brother, you may be a demon but you are ten times the good any man on Earth could ever be.

I did not know a man could hold me without thoughts and hands and other things under my clothes. I did not know I could feel loved by a man in an entirely platonic and familial way without being in denial of their true thoughts. I did not know safety and a man could exist in the same room.

These things that make you "evil" are the only good I know. The pieces of you that you hate are the exact parts that made you different enough to trust.

Please don't hurt yourself in the process of making yourself appear small and human for me. Human is exactly what I was afraid of. What you think will make me run and hide are the only reasons I didn't back then.

I would never, ever want you to hide even a single one of them.

Be yourself as you are, my gentle host, because that is the version of you that saved me. To me, that is the best of you.

But whoever you are, I love you and am grateful to you and those run deeper than any hurt I have ever experienced. Thank you for showing me something could be larger than the pain.

-B

The fact that the whole fucking house was decorated for Uncle Jack's birthday but Charlie, at 46, didn't even know he was over 40 seriously fucks me up.

More than the reveal in Shoots, where we find out he didn't know, and kinda have to deduce that the Gang never celebrate his birthday (or anyone's, really), now we're shown that birthdays do have some substance in Charlie's life via his family, but only for Uncle Jack, his abuser, and not him.

(Also, to point out, Shoots is sequentially after Cursed, and so we should be seeing Uncle Jack have a big party and then getting hit with the 'Charlie didn't know he was well over 40 years old' moment)

And holy shit if that reveal can't fuck you up immediately, sure, but christ, looking deeper. We know Bonnie has some care for Charlie, an actual obsession with keeping him alive and worried about his safety, she loves him, but her love is fractured and distant and fucked up. And of fucking course that's Uncle Jack's fault, from the beginning and continuing to stay rooted there in Bonnie's life, contributing to the insane emotional distance Charlie and Bonnie have always had.

Like Charlie's upbringing was so fucked up and broken and she failed so miserably protecting him as a kid that she's now stuck in this cycle of viewing Charlie as the 'idea' of a son, obsessing over his protection and his safety, but not viewing him as a real person outside of that. He's an idea of something she failed to protect and now must protect in her mind, but his actual existence is a wash, and continues to be every time Uncle Jack is back, every time he drives Charlie away.

Charlie lost his dad, and he continues to go to his mom, trying, to build something back, but he can't mend their relationship because Uncle Jack continues to stay rooted, his reality takes precedence over Charlie's in Bonnies mind, and she's trapped catering to him, fucked up by their history, continuing to blur through, and Charlie's still trying to push through. But Uncle Jack is always there.

I hope he fucking kills that man.

Anyone else have a breakdown about something that doesn’t have to do with CSA but then the breakdown morphs into a breakdown about what happened to you?

anyways shout out to recovering radqueers. shout out to anti contact harmful paraphiles. shout out to the women who tell girls if a man’s following them, shout out to fathers chasing down catcallers with fists, the world is not all evil .

Your "reasons I believe Spencer's father assaulted him" masterpost was very helpful while writing my last fic! I referenced it multiple times and would gladly link it to you/reference it in my author's note. Ty again!

Yesss, I would love a link to what you wrote! You are welcome to dm me a link or send it in an ask so I can reshare it. I feel like I have found even more reasons since I wrote that post. I have a hard time believing that it isn't actually canon.

I'm glad you liked the post, thanks!

Canon reasons why I believe Spencer’s father SA-ed him post