Shodan, it’s quite clear that your interpretation is that nobody has the right to lie so as to someone else gay. That is, anyone who conceals their maleness from another man who is deceived into having unknowing homosexual intercourse has been devastatingly and irreparably harmed.
To you, I say, “Horseshit.” Nobody is being harmed except people with extremely narrow minds about sexuality. And, if you’re going to have sex with people you don’t know very well, you probably shouldn’t have a narrow mind about sexuality.
I don’t see Lida as having committed any serious offense. It’s not my obligation to preemptorily declare that I was born with a penis to everyone I meet on the off chance they want to have sex with me. It’s not even my obligation to tell them that after it becomes clear that they want to have sex with me. I won’t lie about it if asked (although I may refuse to answer). If it’s so important to you that you never have sex with a person with XY chromosomes, then I suggest you ask all your sexual partners that question before you commence the sexual encounter. I have no obligation to volunteer that information than I do to tell you I own a Toyota.
Hm, I misstated that. It’s “any man who is deceived into having homosexual intercourse with another man who deceives his maleness has been devastatingly and irreparably harmed”. My apologies for any confusion this may cause.
I think I have to agree with Shodan and catsix on this. The simple declaration, ‘I am a woman’ does not make it so. A man who declares he is a woman is just that; a man that declares he is a woman.
Nice to see you deign to come from on high and settle this for us Rhum Runner.
And catsix, instead of going away with hurt feelings, you should step back and realize your question may have been inserted too late in the discussion. I won’t lump you in with Shodan and Rhum Runner, because I think you were asking an honest question to try to understand. This well is perhaps too poisoned and emotions already too high to get your question answered calmly. I feel certain Sterra or KellyM could have answered less defensively had they not already faced the stupidity of Shodan. How about it ladies? Can you see that, perhaps, catsix was making an honest effort?
The notion that gender (a subtle concept) is determined by sex (a gross concept) is no more or less obvious than the notion that the sun revolves around the earth, and no more or less accurate.
If you remove the enculturated prejudices against transgendered people, this becomes an uncontroversial point which is much easier to see.
Absenting these prejudices, it’s very difficult to describe precisely how Araujo is supposed to have transgressed against her attackers.
Insisting on a basic male/female gender dichotomy is allowing yourself to go through life tripping over excluded middles every time you try to describe someone who falls outside these narrow and arbitrary definitions-- something that’s bound to happen pretty frequently unless you spend your entire life in a cave.
In a lot of ways, the human race has really backslid in the last 2,500 years. But I’m betting we’ll get things worked out in the end, praise be to Cecil.
I was, but right now I think the instant reaction to imply that I’m just some intolerant asshole is going to make it hard for me to discuss this calmly for a while.
So, I’m sorry I asked. Not because I don’t really want to understand, but because I really do want to understand. Because this is not the result I hoped for, and I’m even further from understanding than I was yesterday.
Objecting to being lied to is having an “extremely narrow mind”? Being deceived into sex is harmless?
Would you apply the same low standard of behavior to other forms of deception? Lying about your HIV status? Lying about being committed to another relationship?
How about slipping roofies into someone’s drink and then making advances? Obviously just another form of manipulation to get sex, isn’t it?
The problem being, if I do ask, and get told a lie in return, according to you I have no kick coming. I just have to grin and bear it, because of your absolute right to force me to join your fantasies. “By any means necessary”, as Malcolm X said in a much different but more honest context.
Feh. The stuff people are willing to justify, if it gets them laid.
How the fuck are you harmed by getting a blow job, even if you didn’t know it was from a guy? They still enjoyed it enough to brag about it. Only when it turned out it was a transgendered person who gave it to them was there a problem.
But I still want to know how they were harmed in any way?
And how the fuck do you compare it with someone knowingly lying about their HIV status? You are being intentionally inflammatory now. I hope Polycarp can now recognize just how big of a bigot and asshole you are and will quit defending you.
What makes you so certain that Araujo lied? I think it’s extremely unlikely that she ever said, “By the way, I have a vagina” to anyone. Wearing a dress and using a feminine name isn’t lying.
If anyone was taken advantage of sexually it was poor Araujo. She was just a teenager. These were grown men who had sex with her (and I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that she was the one who initiated it), and grown men who murdered her.
Nice to see you deign to come from on high and settle this for us Rhum Runner.
No problem. Happy to be of service. Feel free to call upon me at any time.
Ok, then I guess I misunderstood you. What did you mean by
I am guessing misunderstanding will be common in this when you give cites that dissagree you and you claim that you understand them.
You show an incredible amount of willfull ignorance, but then I guess you need that ignorance to keep your world view. So I can understand why you can possibly believe that things like gender assignment aren’t arbritrary after reading the links you gave me if you actually read them. Let me quote the third link again just for effect
I imagine it could cause some emotional distress. In particular I could see how someone with little sexual experience could sustain heavy emotional damage by finding out a heterosexual encounter was closer to a homosexual encounter. Not that this is the case with Gwen. Despite what some may believe I think it is more then just a matter of being narrow or open minded in regards to sexuality. I’d be pretty upset upond finding out that the woman I’ve been dating for four months has a penis.
Shodan, do you still think that transgenderism is merely a question of “pretending” or “lying” in order to “get into someone’s pants”?
What do you say to Larry Mudd’s statement that:
I don’t feel like a woman because I have tits and a cunt and a pair of ovaries. I feel like a woman because I… feel like a woman. Gender identity comes from various brain factors, not all of them fully understood (we’re talking about little regions in the brain that tend to be larger in men than in women or vice versa - that sort of thing). In the vast majority of cases, the brain and body “agree”. But sometimes they don’t. If (say - cos I don’t actually know fer shure how many gender realted sites there are in the brain) 4 out of 5 gender sites in the brain say “woman” even though the chromosomes and genitals say “man” - what do you do? What the hell do you do? Me, I’d make like KellyM and start the tough process of transitioning, to make sure that a) the outside world related to me as I was in my brain, and b) that my body could be brought into line with my brain, as far as possible.
Women’s brains are, on the whole, different from men’s brains. this is not to say that all women think alike. It’s to say that among the thousands and thousands of brain characteristics that make up all the aspects of our personality, there are a very small number that are related to gender identity, and a few more that are related to gender on a kind of sliding scale (thus you have tomboys, girlie girls, and everyone in between).
“So he swore up and down that he wasn’t married. Turns out he was - so how is that harmful?”
“So you got groped on the subway. How is that harmful?”
“So he called you a faggot. How is that harmful?”
For heaven’s sake - listen to yourself!
Sterra - The link I provided is evidence that genotype is determinative of gender. That is why the 27 XY cases examined showed strong male tendencies, even though castrated and raised as females. It therefore argues against your idea that gender is arbitrarily assigned.
You asked for cites to prove my statements that genetic and genital abnormalities exist. That is what I provided. The misunderstanding is yours, not mine.
The sum of the research to date is that genotype is influential on gender, but is not determinative. The actual situation is (as usual) more complex than those with simple mindsets want to deal with.
Imagine being a 25 year old hetero male. You’re chatting up a pretty young thing at a party. Next thing you know, you’re in the back seat of your car fulfilling the desired outcome of the evening and then much to your chagrin, your partner turns out to be a guy. (Being a “guy” according to just about any 25 year old hetero male means, having a penis.)
What do you feel? Betrayal? Disgust? Rage? Considering that people at the party probably knew that she was a he and word might get around about this, embarassments galore. More rage?
Just about any hetero male, when their masculinity is threatened, will (or would like to) violently lash out and/or otherwise make masculine displays so as to assure themselves and others that they are truly masculine. It’s like that scene in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles when Candy and Martin wake up in a spooning position, then pop out of bed and start discussing football. It’s what guys do. I’m not saying such behavior is right or wrong, but it certainly is a well known aspect of male behavior.
Now obviously murder is unacceptable, but if (assuming that the three guys were deceived about Araujo’s sex) Gwen came back afterwards with a black eye and a bloody nose, I’d have to say, “What the hell did you expect?”
