Tuesday Check In: How's Everybody's Mental Health?

[u/MLModBot]

Good day, everyone and welcome to our weekly mental health check-in thread! Feel free to comment below with how you are doing, as well as any coping skills and self-care strategies others can try! For information on mental health resources and support, feel free to consult our resources wiki (also located in the sidebar!) (IMPORTANT NOTE RE: THE RESOURCES WIKI: As Reddit is a global community, we hope our list of resources are diverse enough to better serve our community. As such, if you live in a country and/or geographic region that is NOT listed/represented but know of a local resource you feel would be beneficial, then please don't hesitate to let us know!)

Remember, you are human, it's OK to not be OK. Life can be very difficult and there's no how-to guide for any of this. Try to be kind to yourself and remember that people need people. No one is a lone island and you need not struggle alone. Remember to practice self-care and alone time as well. You can't pour from an empty cup and your life is worth it.

Take a moment to check in with a loved one, friend, or acquaintance. Ask them how they're doing, ask them about their mental health. Keep in mind that while we may not all be mentally ill, we all have mental health.

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: This mental health check-in thread is NOT a substitute for real-world professional help/support. MensLib is NOT a mental health support sub, and we are NOT professionals! This space solely exists to hold space for the community and help keep each other accountable.

[u/my_dear_cupcake]

Hello r/MensLib ,

I'm been looking for a feminist to converse with on the issue of pornography. Why? I'm been curious about the claim that a good person does not watch pornography, and wanted to speak with a feminist about it. However, all the feminist subreddits either don't approve my posts or their bots auto-remove my posts. I also tried to join a Discord on feminism, but its rule were so convoluted I just left as I couldn't figure out how to get permission to chat in it.

Are there any feminists here willing to have a conversation with me either here or my dms? I really want to explore this topic as I'm open to giving up pornography. The idea that there are non-religious reasons for giving up pornography fascinate me, and I want to discuss them with a feminist.

(Whether you're a man, woman, or of another gender, isn't important to me).

[u/Kippetmurk → u/my_dear_cupcake]

I'm a feminist and I'm always happy to give my opinion on any topic, but I can only give you my own personal opinions. I don't think there's a "feminist consensus" on pornography.

And even if there were I would not expect it to be necessarily internally consistent or fair.

And even if there were consensus and it were consistent, there would probably be differences in the theory (i.e. healthy and non-opressive porn can exist) and the practice (but currently the majority of it is neither).

I think that applies not only to pornography, but to sex work in general, and the answers you'd get will be very diverse and often contradictory.

[u/my_dear_cupcake → u/Kippetmurk]

Thank you for your time. I can't help but believe that amateur pornography that is consensual is fine. It feels odd to me that it would be bad. Yet, I've come across feminists who have said that all pornography is bad, and I'm struggling to wrap my head around it.