Many Such Takes: Ube Ice Cream, Orgasm Gap, Ugly Sandals and More

The most unhinged discourse of the week, always free.

Welcome to Many Such Takes, my occasional (monthly? bimonthly?) roundup of Internet drama, funny tweets, and current events too obscure (and in some cases, stupid) to put on the news.

Surveys to Take

First thing’s first, I need more participants for my extremely quick BDSM survey—but if you aren’t interested in BDSM, that’s fine. I’m looking to get all perspectives, even people who have no experience or interest.

Another cool one, available to everyone: my survey on first dates. No dating experience required! Married people can take it too!

I’m also doing one on gender and social media, which should be applicable to everyone!

Ube Ice Cream

It’s been ages since we’ve gotten good old-fashioned Peak 1 “cultural appropriation vis-a-vis food” drama. This was all the rage in the 2010’s, when all it took was one white person making noodles to spark discourse for days, or alternatively, just college cafeteria workers attempting to make a banh mi sandwich despite no Vietnamese ancestry. But since anyone who would get upset about such things sectioned themselves into Bluesky over the past year, I thought this type of drama just didn’t happen on Twitter. Until this week.

Presenting, the “ube ice cream” discourse.

It all started when a writer named Julian who works at an ice cream shop posted a photo of an ube flavored ice cream which he “developed.” Uh oh!

People immediately jumped on him for claiming to have invented the traditional Filipino recipe, Sorbetes (sometimes referred to as “dirty ice cream.”) Part of this accusation came from the fact that he said the recipe was vegan, and sorbetes is usually vegan, which (in some people’s minds) sounded like he had invented a “vegan version” of a Filipino dessert that is already vegan.

He clarified that he was not claiming to have invented ube ice cream, but rather that he had to develop a specific recipe that would work with his workplace’s ice cream machine, because any ice cream made at his shop needs to be developed specifically for their machinery.

First, his initial attempt at clarification, slightly tongue-in-cheek:

Then, apologies:

This was…not good enough:

Eventually, Julian clarified that he did speak with Filipino chefs about the recipe, which I’m assuming he thought would absolve him—but not so fast! People got angry that he didn’t adequately credit these chefs.

At one point, someone attempted to mass-poison foreigners who might be arrogant and racist enough to want to try Filipino cuisine (thankfully, community noted almost immediately.)

Although honestly? This followup tweet should have tipped everyone off:

Then she got multiple responses telling her to use “Filipinx” which I’m assuming were jokes, but I’m not 100% sure.

Finally, we got some voices of moderation, such as the person who doesn’t want the ube ice cream guy to be killed":

And then, the best way to sum it all up:

Ugly Sandals

I was actually so happy that this came up on the TL because as a very aggressive walker (I frequently walk 3+ miles a day, especially when traveling) it seems like if you want to wear anything other than sneakers or flat boots, you simply cannot find anything that is both aesthetically pleasing and comfortable. This has always been a huge frustration of mine during sandal season, and it was vindicated by this thread:

While many posters offered up options for sandals, others noted that all suggestions were oogly.

However, critics of the ugly shoes did not suggest prettier alternatives, which once again validates my whole theory which is that for truly long-term walking, you will simply not find a comfortable and pretty sandal. Or, at the very least, it will be difficult.

The best I can do is Vivaia, a brand a bit like Rothy’s in price, material and appearance, although in my experience they are more comfortable. I wore a lot of Vivaia on my trip to England and France last summer, and I did not regret it. For example, these sandals were somehow very walkable despite being slim/minimalist and not chunky or orthopedic (yes, that’s me, I had a really bad spray tan, don’t laugh.)

But even then, the struggle is real. Maybe instead of laughing at ugly sandals we should be acknowledging our own humility. Let she who can walk five miles in a stiletto cast the first “those shoes are ugly.”

Orgasm Gap

I’ve written before about the well-known heterosexual “orgasm gap,” or the fact that straight men are more likely to orgasm during sexual encounters than straight women (this gap is also wider for those on the Right politically, although not as much as you may think.)

The orgasm gap came up again this month, although I’m not sure exactly where it started. This viral tweet seems to be the catalyst, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a subtweet of something else:

The orgasm version of ube ice cream:

A few responses from the other side:

Somehow, I did not see this response, so I’m glad this Twitter user was able to surface it in a subtweet:

Male Standards

Who is pickier, men or women? Okay, when it comes to all attributes, women, but who is pickier about looks? This seems to be the age-old question, and even members of the manosphere disagree on how much women care about men’s looks (the incels or blackpillers will say all women are singularly interested in 6’5” Chads, where more old-school red pillers believe looks outside of basic fitness aren’t as important as charisma and game.)

But overall, the manosphere is aligned on the idea that women’s standards are too high compared to men’s. This month, a Twitter user patted himself on the back for his (and other men’s) reasonable standards by posting an example of an “average” girl he would deign to date:

Men in the comments chimed in to point out that actually, they’d date this woman over an Instagram model, and we are supposed to believe both of these options are available to them:

At one point, some commenters asked him to clarify what about this woman was average:

Ooh! Bingo card filled! We have someone immediately projecting cuckoldry onto the situation:

It’s kinda giving (vintage CHH):

Bryan Johnson Curing Endometriosis

Last time I published Many Such Takes, I covered eccentric billionaire Bryan Johnson posting about his girlfriend and co-founder, Kate Tolo’s top 1% vagina. (He meant her vaginal microbiome, not its appearance or…function, although I assume he’s happy with all of the above.)

This month, he took his special interest in his girlfriend’s pussy to the next level by making it his pet project to cure her endometriosis:

Okay, perhaps he did not specifically promise to cure endometriosis, but knowing him and his obsession with biohacking, this is the closest women will get to a cure, or even a halfway decent treatment. Endometriosis is profoundly under-researched, and a weird vagina-obsessed billionaire is really women’s only hope in this arena.

A few people were concerned about Kate’s privacy, as if this was not literally what she signed up for by choosing to date a man who publicly tweets about going down on her. In a way, we should all aspire to this:

All that effort and the betting markets still don’t think he’s likely to propose to Kate by the end of the year—in fact, this intimate peek into their lifestyle didn’t budge the predictions at all. A man will literally cure endometriosis before proposing to his girlfriend, I guess.

Part of a data partnership with Polymarket.

Problematic Age Gaps

Just in case you weren’t done with the genderslop, we had drama this week when a Twitter user complained about a prom photo of teenagers that featured no grown adult men dating the girls. You had to be there, I guess. I covered it in more detail here:

Funny Tweets/Other Happenings

Nobody should be surprised by this, but the fruit AI videos are now doing fart porn:

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