A depressing article as a whole, but the section on infibulation was an especially horrific read.

There isn’t a reliable way to test for virginity as both the hymen and vaginal laxity vary with individual anatomy (most hymens partially cover the vagina and have one or more openings, but some women are born without any openings in the hymen or without a hymen altogether), the hymen can tear from non-sexual activity, the hymen may be flexible enough that penetration doesn’t result in tearing, and bleeding can be caused by injuries to vaginal walls rather than from damage to the hymen itself which has few blood vessels. [source]

Halloween - ???

Thanksgiving - ???

Christmas - 7/1

New New Year - 1/1

Old New Year 14/1

Memes are like farts, if you have to force them, they’re probably crap. Let them arise organically, whatever the platform.

Cash me offline, howbow dah?

Some kind of non-irritating sound or music without voices to confirm the call hasn’t been disconnected in case I zone out or switch to another task.

Great use of colors, shading, and blending the limbs into other shapes!

I prefer the hairless look but don’t think anyone’s personal preferences should be imposed on others.

You don’t need to know which employees participated to calculate a percentage based on number of submissions / total number of employees, but yeah, never assume any feedback to company surveys is anonymous.

Raising criticism of the actions of one company’s CEO is not an attack on all privacy-centered platforms. Besides, many of those who are criticizing Proton joined in the first place because they wanted to escape the Google and Microsoft ecosystems. I don’t think anyone is arguing that Proton is the worst of these three options or trying to push users back to Google or Microsoft, and there are other providers beyond these three to consider.

• View by “all”, subscribe to communities you’re interested in and block the ones you don’t want to see. Fediverse is still small enough that it’s relatively easy to sort through.
• Use the search bar to look for specific keywords for topics that interest you. Depending on your interface, you probably have some version of an “explore communities” page where you can see what’s popular.
• Sometimes I’ll find communities by seeing what other users with similar interests interact with on their profiles.

Of course your interests don’t have to align with what’s popular for your region. It might make fitting in harder initially, but you can most likely find other common topics with people around you. Or you may find it helpful to gain at least superficial knowledge of what’s popular where you are for the sake of making conversation. Sometimes it develops into a deeper interest.

One of the beautiful things about the internet is that it allows you to find communities for the things that do interest you. It’s not a perfect substitute for in-person interactions but it can make you feel less alone.