Instigate

It’s ridiculous and stupid, I know, but it comes from some pretty basic biology.

Depending upon size/thickness of a person’s thighs, it can be pretty impossible to put one knee over the other without squishing your dick and balls either on top of your legs or tucked underneath them. Wearing tight brief-style underwear, this can lead to situations where someone tries to cross their legs like this and inadvertently squishes their balls - a pretty uncomfortable circumstance in my own experience. Thus people with male genitalia (usually men) tend to prefer to cross their legs with the ankle over the knee to allow their genitals to ‘breathe’ and not be all squished up.

People with vaginas (usually women) in Western societies are also far more likely to wear skirts or dresses. In order to prevent someone having a peek at their underwear (or lack thereof) while wearing a skirt/dresses and sitting, these people are more likely to put one knee over the other.

Again, attempting to measure masculinity or femininity by this one preference is utterly stupid, but there are reasons why this behavioural pattern has become commonplace in Western societies. I (cis man) tend to do both in different circumstances; usually dependent upon weather, underwear and outer clothing I’m wearing.

And herein lies a big issue - only a minority of men are creeps towards women, but because they’re creeps towards so many women it means that women ubiquitously experience creepy dudes. That causes women to become (understandably) more guarded and jaded and makes things harder for the majority of men who aren’t creeps.

Essentially, yeah! There were three driving modes - kart, hovercraft, and plane. Some tracks only allowed certain driving modes and you would pick your driving mode before the race started. It was pretty novel for the era!

Diddy Kong Racing was the best racing game of this era and yes, I am most definitely willing to die on this hill.