Chicken.

If you want to eat at Chick fil-A to make a point, I suggest you do so. If it makes you feel good about yourself, I assume you need to feel good about yourself, and I encourage you to do it. There's nothing wrong with wanting to feel good about yourself. If you're the kind of person who's going to complain that I shouldn't dislike you because you shouldn't have to be a good person to be liked, not eating at Chick fil-A won't make me like you, and it won't make you a good person.

Fun with Bayes' Theorem.

5% of Republican Congressmen are closeted gay men. 90% of closeted gay Republican Congressmen are publicly homophobic. 50% of heterosexual Republican Congressmen are also homophobic. A Republican Congressman has just announced that he thinks homosexuals are an abomination and that the Lord’s punishment on them will be swift and just. What is the probability that he is actually visiting truck stop bathrooms when he tells his wife he’s at campaign meetings?

Empowerful.

Joss Whedon has gotten a lot of well-deserved shit over the years for his particular Nice Guy approach to feminism, wherein a dude feels entitled not to sex but to legitimate feminist cred for being Nice. Not knowing the guy personally, and having no interest in reading the many, many things he's had to say about himself and his philosophy, I don't know if he honestly believes that being a leather-clad dominatrix is empowering for women. However, I have a feeling he knows his audience does. And I guess if it's so important to you to feel like a Real Feminist that women totally like and respect that you don't mind completely ignoring what women have to say about it, you might be able to convince yourself that you're a feminist because you think it would be hot to be speared on the end of Eliza Dushku's stiletto. Not that that's a specific thought I've had or anything.

Consciousness-raising.

It's unfortunate, isn't it, that once you realize the cheesecake you've been eating all your life is actually bullshit, you can't go back to thinking it's cheesecake again.

Minority.

It's often suggested that there's a positive correlation between atheism and intelligence, and fucking hell don't we atheists know it. Even those of us who are atheists because we didn't grow up in terribly religious families and never had much encouragement or reason to be religious in the first place aren't giving up our automatic smartypants points. As atheists, we also get to be an oppressed minority, so we get bonus victim points, and we don't have to feel bad when those feminazi bitches start yammering to us about privilege. After all, we totally think women should have rights, starting with the right to suck our cocks and scrub our floors. Hey, where are you going? Jesus, we were kidding.

When you have it, and when you don't.

I've started occasionally calling people out on Facebook for sexism. If they're good friends, I'll say something in a calculatedly nonthreatening, jokey way, and if they're not good friends I'll just unsubscribe from them or unfriend them depending on the severity. I'm sick of having sexist bullshit weigh on my mind all the time. I'm sick of having to justify my annoyance to myself when there are a million things I'd rather be using that mental energy for. I'm ready to stop caring what anyone thinks and start kicking it the fuck out of my space. But it gets me thinking.

Why I probably won't go to Pride this year.

1. I no longer feel the need to come up with an excuse to get drunk at 3 in the afternoon.
2. I don't like being hungover before it gets dark outside.
3. Also when it's still sweltering at 9 at night.
4. I don't remember what happened at the last couple of Prides I went to, and not because I had blacked out.
5. I'm entirely too special a snowflake to do what everyone else is doing. I also imagined that skipping my ten-year high school reunion made me cool.
6. I'm too young and ungrateful to appreciate the struggles of my forebears, and I take LGBT equality entirely for granted.
7. Eh.

Rank.

I stumbled across a GMAT discussion board the other day, and there's one comment that sticks in my mind made by one of its apparent regulars to which I'd like to respond without trolling the individual's own safe space. I'm going to change the numerical details because I'm sure this precious young man's sentiment is quite widely shared, and I don't want to single him out specifically.

Mmm, lesbians.

This might never have happened had I not read this post, so that's where you can address your letters of complaint.

The post is about how it's important not to write off all porn because most of it is soul-crushing misogynistic bullshit, and some people got to talking about what kind of porn they like and what they like about it and what disgusting pervs they are or aren't for it, but hell if you'll see me speaking up there. I suggest stopping here if you find your knowledge of my sexual proclivities perfectly adequate.

From the Skeptic's Dictionary

Pyramidiocy is characterized by having an outlandish, farfetched theory about the origin, nature or purpose of the Egyptian pyramids.