benjamin weil
writer-researcher-bodybuilder / head of research @thelovetankcic.bsky.social / they/he / insta: @benvyle / ✡️ 🍉
(london, where views are my own)
- 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.
- 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.
- have just seen someone criticise the new adaptation of mary shelley’s frankenstein for failing the bechdel test…. Media literacy is dead
- 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
- excellent article by @tabbykibugiwriter.bsky.social on continued inequities faced by Black women in sexual health: national.thelead.uk/p/sti-crisis...
- folks i think it is actually politically expedient to stress that "gender affirming" and "confidence building" are contiguous and similar but *not identical*.
- 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.
- 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.
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View full threadyes, 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.
- 🧵: 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
- 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 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
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View full threadthe 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
- Reposted by benjamin weilOur 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.
- 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).
- you know what’s very british? using antisemitism as a mask for violent settler colonialism.
- Reposted by benjamin weil“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
- Reposted by benjamin weili'm back 😜
- for a second i thought Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x was a new tv programme
- Reposted by benjamin weilAn early look at next week’s cover: "Remote Control,” by Barry Blitt. nyer.cm/6ApBXER
- Reposted by benjamin weilI don't think pointing out the fascists' 'hypocrisy' is a good use of time. It's not hypocrisy, it's hierarchy. They actually do believe that they have the right and obligation to dominate you because they are superior to you. They are using their power not being hypocritical.
- not only a masterpiece - a truly exceptional investment in art, spirit and vision that has more or less been obliterated under the thumb of late stage capitalism
- you would be hard pressed to find such commitment to the very human exigency of beauty, the struggle to fashion an experience that approaches god in the making of place, on the planet today.
- Reposted by benjamin weilSensing Starmer's departure, and aware his performative hatred of trans people has fatally harmed his own ambition to become PM, he utters some warm words - and commits less than £3 per person to tackle the problem his bigotry helped to create. www.independent.co.uk/news/health/...
- Reposted by benjamin weil"I just want to say, go birds, fuck ICE and free Palestine," "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder at the #Emmys
- home tomorrow
- please admire this regal weight bench i saw today
- holiday has been very good for getting rid of inflammation (the enemy of condition)
- i have the best workouts on holiday
- you can’t tell but i am in 🇦🇱
- Reposted by benjamin weilActually, Frankenstein is a doctor success at the Venice film festival
- last check in before holiday. been holding at 96ish kg since competition (97 here) and happy with what the rough starting point for bulk will be.
- i resent that bluesky automatically flags this as “sexually suggestive” (because who is making that suggestion or invitation? certainly not me.)
- Reposted by benjamin weilI'm doing the World AIDS Day Red Run in November to raise money for Prepster and @thelovetankcic.bsky.social! Donate to my JustGiving page here: www.justgiving.com/page/edftmxxx Any and all donations appreciated🥰
- the term “performative male” has just finished judith butler off
- the term performative was popularised by their work on gender performativity… and at some point lost so much meaning that it can no longer describe the actual ideas butler was forwarding with it… namely, that ALL gender is performative lol (not just the gender of some men you don’t like xx)
- Reposted by benjamin weil111/NHS direct is a joke. Having to misgender yourself to the people there for no reason is outright humiliating. It's designed to put trans people off reaching out for healthcare support. There were years of surveys that worked on finding respectful ways to gather this information, disregarded.
- this is brill. the section on dialectical materialism is very well written.
- A guide for activists that explains Marxist concepts in non-technical language. Terms like "imperialism," "self-determination" “dialectical materialism” and "socialism" are defined and illustrated. Please check this out if you want to grasp Marxist concepts www.workers.org/books2016/wh...
- Reposted by benjamin weilWhat are the drug & alcohol needs of queer people in the UK? This new community-based research hot-off-the-presses, stunningly authored by @benvyle.bsky.social
- Reposted by benjamin weilThis is a 5-year postdoc position! One for the queer STS / medical humanities and other scholars out there. What a cool opportunity
- Exciting new post-doc fellow post just announced at University of Edinburgh - working alongside The Love Tank on the new Medicine Without Doctors collaboration. Closing date 02 Oct 2025. elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
- Reposted by benjamin weilExciting new post-doc fellow post just announced at University of Edinburgh - working alongside The Love Tank on the new Medicine Without Doctors collaboration. Closing date 02 Oct 2025. elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
- Reposted by benjamin weilJust for perspective, a few weeks ago roughly 100,000 turned up for the London Trans+ Pride march. By contrast fewer than 3,000 ACROSS THE WHOLE COUNTRY, have turned up to anti-asylum "protests". Yet we are meant to take the latter as "the voice of the people" and the former as "the minority".
- most people on this app have bad taste and no sense of humour,,, proving carrie fisher in ‘when harry met sally’ right once again
- the average bluesky user blindly loved the new superman movie and, to prove the above, will find this post v offensive
- “what’s wrong with the new superman movie???” we should care about art xx
- read alongside a roughly inverse pattern in A levels, record levels of As, paints a deeply unequal portrait of who is seeing school through to A level.
- beware of moral entrepreneurs; someone is *always* profiting from your panic.
