Also so many people have decided that emotional connections outside of a relationship are cheating.
To that i say GFY.
Humans are emotional beings that have evolved with the help of community. isolating yourself for a partner is self harm. it is normal, acceptable, and expected to have extra-relationship emotional connections with people of all genders.
probably refers to the elimination of 'third places' a place besides home and work where people gather to socialize. About the only place left we can go without the expectation of spending money is a public library, and libraries are amazing but they're not always the best socializing spot.
A major tenet of our capitalist system is separating us from things that are free and natural. If we isolate everyone in their own homes, or pods or what have you, then people can be charged for the services they use to connect to one another. Of course one may rebut that these services are usually free, to which I'd respond with the old adage "If it's free, you're the product and not the customer."
I worry some that therapy has gotten into an industry where more people are interested in making profit than providing quality of care which has made a market where therapy can serve as a kind of yes man market as well. I definitely don't mean to belittle the benefit of therapy, but I know plenty of people who have shopped around therapists until they got one who said what they had already decided they wanted to hear as opposed to looking for a partner to work through specific issues with.
“I’d like to give you genuine and forceful advice, but I also don’t want to get sued for poor decisions so I’ll just ask a bunch of vague philosophical questions about your life. Get ready to say ‘I dunno, I guess.’ and fill a check for $300.”
The difference between a therapist and a stripper as far as giving you their emotional support, is that if a therapist fucks up and you harm yourself, the therapist can lose their job. If the stripper fucks up and you harm yourself, the stripper can still strip.
Strippers don't have the accountability factors that therapists do.
The shrink is a she, the whore uses both he and she pronouns in the song. The pronouns are even bolded in the lyrics sheet and quite noticable in the song.
Singer is bisexual and while he was supportive of generally challenging gender norms, sometimes his trans comments were what would be considered transphobic nowadays. See:
As a kid who had no understanding or awareness of anything that challenged gender norms, I was confused about the mixed pronouns. Then I forgot about that song. Some twenty years later, this mystery was addressed. Thank you for the information.
It could also be that the prostitute is male and telling the singer to quit whining because their life is so boring that it's probably even bringing down their therapist.
Interesting, I never pictured the character in Android as a trans person, honestly what I had in mind was more of a mentally unwell, possibly unhoused, person that perhaps had no other choice but to wear woman's shies. Given, all of that in today's lens is very problematic, but the song is 33 years old after all and I didn't really have an understanding of trans people when I first heard it more than 20 years ago. Though I did pretty clearly understand the meaning of the line in basketcase.
Idk, maybe it's because I grew up with them and Billie Joe was a queer idol for me growing up, but king for a day never struck me as demeaning towards people who cross dress or people who are trans either. Just a (probably autobiographical) song about breaking gender norms.
I am almost as old as Android and probably my views are getting outdated so feel free to ignore my ramblings. Just interesting to see how the world has changed even from when I was little confused kid. (Now I'm a big confused kid)