benjamin weil

agreed on every single count! all this stood out to me too!

what? there are at least three people in this article doing so.

we have to be able to have conversations about porn consumption and production in the realist middle ground between puritanism and vacuous, reactive and uncritical sex positivity.

the therapists quoted in this piece offer very empathic descriptions of porn addiction (which I believe is as real as any other form of addiction) that don’t centre porn itself, but rather the culture within which it is being consumed, as problematic. i appreciate that enormously.

a woman produces perhaps the most culturally significant story ever written about the hubris of men ,,, but we need TWO women scientists in it who talk about the monster to make it feminist enough

have just seen someone criticise the new adaptation of mary shelley’s frankenstein for failing the bechdel test…. Media literacy is dead

We’re in an STI crisis. Once again, Black women are being left behind The gonorrhoea vaccine should be a major breakthrough, but young Black women are being left out of sexual health policy – with devastating effects.

excellent article by @tabbykibugiwriter.bsky.social on continued inequities faced by Black women in sexual health: national.thelead.uk/p/sti-crisis...

great observations!!!

you have nothing to apologise for! 🫶

not only do i agree with you - it’s something i advocate for consistently in my PH work! something is getting lost in translation I think. it is my view that we will promote trans health by forwarding an agenda of bodily autonomy BUT one that recognises trans need within it as exceptional.

completely agree! just don’t think when we use it as a “gotcha” it’s advancing this.

yes, they are similar. no, they are not the same. what we are demanding when we demand dignity and care for trans communities is a demand for an end to barriers and cruelty that render gender-affirming care life-saving *in the first place*. the same is not true of veneers.

but to make an argument in the public sphere that, say, a cis hair transplant is the same as *gender affirming care* is to undermine the terms that require us to make a plea for trans rights to gender affirming care in the first place.

hormone use, for instance, is now routine, normalised and even aggressively advertised to people cis and trans alike.

torrey peters once said in interview (and i am paraphrasing, poorly) that many of the experiences of transness are not unique to trans people and that the work ahead is to remind people of our commonalities in this regard. and i agree. wholeheartedly.

gender affirming care is *life-saving* - on a scale of thousands and thousands across years. the same cannot be said of hair transplants for cis men - not matter how prohibitively expensive they are.

folks i think it is actually politically expedient to stress that "gender affirming" and "confidence building" are contiguous and similar but *not identical*.

the right folks will keep advocating that HIV justice work - health justice work in general - is anti-racist, pro-trans, pro-migrant. but this needs to be much more widespread a sentiment. /6

worse still, a reform government may (or: will) eventually use these realities as arguments that shore up the need for strong borders. they will say migrants bring infection to our country, instead of the truth: that it is our country that places them at risk. it is our country who is sick. /5

these ideologies drive people away from the care they need, strip them of it, render them afraid and unaware. the kinds of conditions that viruses thrive within. /4

the grim reality of fascism, regressive racism, virulent transphobia, and widespread anti-immigrant sentiment; all of these will - not just threaten to - undermine any achievements we stand to make in HIV equity. /3

it is an immense privilege that there is broad support in the UK for this kind of roll-out. these days, whenever we celebrate an advancement in health technology like this, i cannot help but think about the wider context in which they are emerging. /2

🧵: the availability of new injectable formulations of PrEP is going to be enormously difference-making in our collective mission to tackle HIV inequities. more people than ever before will be able to use medications that are essentially 100% effective at preventing HIV. /1

Our horror at the genocide in Gaza, at the mass murder of civilians on Oct 7 2023, and at today's atrocity in Manchester, comes in each case from the same, inherent part of our shared humanity. We need to assert that shared humanity as loudly as possible, and in as many practical ways as we can.

you know what’s very british? using antisemitism as a mask for violent settler colonialism.

literally no correlation here except to massage the notion that the cause of palestinian liberation is antisemitic and to manufacture consent for genocide from jews (which, itself, places jews in harm’s way).

PPE Medpro must repay £122m for breach of contract | Good Law Project The company Michelle Mone landed on the Tories’ unlawful VIP lane has 14 days to repay £122m for gowns supplied during the pandemic and never used.

“I’m pleased to see that, after five years... some people involved in this national scandal are starting to face consequences. But we cannot claim to have moved on from the venal political culture that brought us the VIP lane until the ministers involved face consequences too.” goodlaw.social/f2e9

i'm back 😜

for a second i thought Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x was a new tv programme

The cover of the September 29, 2025, issue of The New Yorker.

An early look at next week’s cover: "Remote Control,” by Barry Blitt.
nyer.cm/6ApBXER