I was reading a book on social life of the upper-middle class and new rich of the American 1920s and realized so many things we now do proudly were considered socially taboo back then. This was especially the case for clothing, makeup, women in certain public spaces, etc. What do you think will be different in the 2120s? Or maybe even the next 50 years?
Wearing clothes of the opposite gender.
Time begins and then time ends. And then time begins once again.
It is happening now, it has happened before, it will surely happen again.
Yes, my husband is sooo cute wearing a dress even though he is 76 yo. Its time to change!
True. We should just get rid of gender because it’s all just a social construct anyways so it’s not even real. The world would be better off if we just got rid of gender and then you can wear whatever clothing you want without it being “closed off” because you don’t identify as that gender.
Okay, please don’t attack me if this is wrong to say, but I wonder sometimes if someone of the people questioning their gender just want to wear / like the things the opposite gender wears / likes without being attacked for it. Like if we just un-gender all the things, some people wouldn’t feel “trans” because they can outwardly represent themselves however they want without people judging them. (note: I am in no way trying to illegitimize anyone’s trans-ness).
I just can’t believe you could wear a flowy floral print summer dress and be considered a dependable guy by everyone. Some cultures put such an high effort to preserve their old ways that I can’t see that going away in 100 years, or even 300 years. The rest of us unfortunately have to play by their rules and taboos.
Last year, my father called me up to tell me that he saw a guy wearing a dress. He was obviously looking for a “This is surely a sign of the end times” reply, but I just said “So?”
My father then asked me if I’d wear a dress. I replied “it’s not for me, but I’m not going to judge someone who wants to wear one.”
I can definitely see “guy wearing a dress” going from “this is horrible and the guy should be arrested for such indecency” (what might have happened 100 years ago) to “whatever” in 100 years given how attitudes changed between my father’s generation (Boomer) and mine (GenX).
Oh I can see it go away in the next 100 years. Fashion can be very weird and chaotic.
Also, remember when men didn’t wear pants at all?
Heck, at one point wearing tights and high heels with a big white wig was the height of men’s fashion. Women, meanwhile, didn’t wear high heels or tights at all because those were “men’s clothing.”
So even if society doesn’t accept “men wearing a woman’s flowery sun dress” as normal, things might change so that flowery sun dresses are seen as masculine and guys who don’t wear them could be called various names.
Being topless regardless of gender in public during hot days.
I’ve seen shirtless dudes doing sports outside (e.g. basketball or jogging - though these activities may be uncomfortable for ladies with big tatas, but that’s another matter.)
Or shirtless dudes in public parks enjoying a barbecue day.
I do concede that these are very specific circumstances, though.
While I do agree that this is a double standard, I don’t see any signs of it going away
It has been a thing in many African and South American indigenous communities for centuries. And it’s a normal thing to do in many European beaches.
So whereas you’re technically right - I don’t see signs of it going away in our communities either - I wouldn’t discard it too quickly.
Prostitution and drugs being illegal.
I have a hard time seeing a proper utopia driven society penalizing these. Everyone should be able to fuck. Everyone should be able to put whatever they want in their bodies too. Dicks or drugs, doesn’t matter.
Total agree with prostitution, Drugs on the other hand are tricky. I like Portugals approach. Decriminalize it for individuals, prosecute the distributors and get those addicted help to get off of it. Seems to work quite good for them.
I’ve recently read it isn’t going so well for them. People aren’t being diverted to rehab as much anymore. The country is attracting addicts that want to get high with no repercussions.
Prostitution is already legal in a number of countries, as is cannabis and some other drugs in some places eg Portugal
I’m in general agreement with you but would make an exception for some extremely high harm drugs such as meth
Drugs are not legal in Portugal. It’s decriminalised up to small amounts (ie personal use), which is different.
My understanding is that:
If you get caught with a couple of joints (or any drugs), they are confiscated, you are identified and you might have to pay a fine, do community service or go to an addiction consultation.
If you’re over that limit, but not overly, you get the above + go to court and will likely receive suspended sentence and will have a criminal record.
If you get caught with a truckload (obviously for distribution), if it’s your first offence you’ll likely also get suspended sentence, such is the state of our justice. If it’s not your first offence, you’ll likely do jail time.
What benefit does making ‘extremely harmful drugs such as meth’ illegal provide? In the US meth is illegal. In the US meth use is an epidemic. Prohibition doesn’t stop people from accessing or using drugs. It just puts a legal constraint that adds fear of repercussion and social stigma on users that is another barrier to overcome when attempting to seek help and treatment. Not to mention illegal drug trades mean potentially dangerous, unregulated products and the crime that drug trade is often associated with.
If you make most drugs legal bar the most harmful ones, people will gravitate towards the less harmful ones because of legal availability. The mistake the US made is to make all drugs illegal, blanket prohibition has been a disaster
I dunno about taboo, but I think there’ll be a lot fewer “monosexual” (homo/hetero people) and a lot more bi/pan people. I think we’re seeing an increase already in acceptance that most people have at least a few people of their non-preferred gender they’re attracted to, and those kinds of mentalities will permeate to a mushy continuum of sexuality, rather than hard categories.
This is just a personal opinion but I suspect the trend is not linear. There will be a surge in acceptance and then possibly a calm in popularity. Social pressures aside, I feel there may be some portion of the world that is bi/pan but not in numbers so large that it would be a huge shift in current status quos. We’re also at a time when mental health is seeing an identity crisis and we’re trying to label every quirk. Gender identity almost seems like part of a shotgun approach to try and fix other issues.
I do not want to sound like I’m downplaying the importance of sexual orientation and gender identity, but there’s just so much going on socially with how fast we’re moving as a culture with the Internet that it’s hard to predict what is real and what is trendy.
Of course I could be entirely wrong.
I think it’s similar to what happened when left handedness was destigmatized. Suddenly, there was a sharp increase in the number of people saying they were lefties. It wasn’t that more people were becoming lefties. It was that more people felt free to be who they really were.
A trans person 100 years ago couldn’t really come out as trans. If they did, they’d likely face a violent response. So they lived their life in suffering - maybe not even knowing why they felt so different from everyone else and thinking that there was something wrong with them.
As being trans is destigmatized (and hopefully the anti-trans stuff recently is short lived), more and more people will “come out” as trans. It’s not that the actual number of trans people is increasing, but that trans people don’t feel like they have to hide who they are. Eventually, like lefties, the rate will level out and stabilize.
A hundred years from now, people will be referencing trans people instead of lefties when talking about the next marginalized group that’s being destigmatized.
In a more general sense, this is leaving out people who want to try something different or people who are confused. They may or may not be bi/gay/trans or whatever, but the mental health damage is from being pigeonholed. Everyone should be able to try a few things without repercussions.
I don’t know if this is still true, but it seemed like a few years ago it was considered ok for women to “experiment”, but I don’t think it ever was for guys. They should all be able to figure things out without worrying about labels or face social pressure to be one thing or another
I hope you’re right. When my kids started asking questions and wondering what they might be, my answer was that labels are just a convenience and you should never worry about fitting any one. Be yourself first, then decide out if there is a close enough label you want to use. This needs to be the fururey
The Kinsey report looked at this objectively in the 40’s and 50’s. Everyone is on a spectrum of homo/heterosexuality. Labels, social norms, politics, etc change with time and mostly exist to for “othering” people.
It’s worth looking back at history. Ancient Romans make for interesting reading. Things change and tides change without logic or reason. Just be who you are and be good to others.
This is already rapidly becoming a thing, the younger generations are far more open about their sexuality than any that preceded them.
I’m neither so take this with a cup of salt:
Originally they were the same. Pan (and some others) faded from use and was largely forgotten.
When it first came back into use, there was a lot of “you’re attracted to both genders; we’re attracted to all genders” but this got a lot of pushback as being bi-phobic because it paints bisexuals as being transphobic (although if you really think about it, the accusation that this is transphobic is itself transphobic as it implies trans people are not included in “both genders”. Perhaps enby-phobic would have been a more appropriate accusation).
These days the generally accepted distinction is that pansexuals are attracted to people regardless of gender, as in gender plays no part, as opposed to bisexuals who may (or may not) be attracted differently to different genders.
Drugs. The prohibition of psychedelic substances in particular is looking more like a crime against humanity since we are rediscovering their therapeutic properties in the west (that shaman have known for mellenia).
Discussion on the topic of mental health. Virtually nothing was known about mental health until very recently. We are the first generation that even talks about it. Therapy didn’t exist in any practical and organised sense for my mother’s generation. If you got PTSD during WWI, it was a death sentence because your own frigging side would shoot you.
