You know LHOD, I was being honest when I said before that my impression of you as a poster has always been favorable. Prior to this thread I would not have expected you to say that transgendered people who don’t share their histories with their sexual partners are essentially rapists. After a series of negative analogies from you I was more disappointed than surprised by this, but even so if you’d claimed just now that you’d phrased things badly and written something that you didn’t really mean then I’d have believed you.
Since you have refused to do that, I can only conclude that you really meant exactly what you wrote in posts #215 and #226. It doesn’t make me happy that you said those things. I would not have chosen to put those words in your mouth. But you said what you said and you clearly don’t want to take it back, so don’t try to blame me for what you decided to post all by yourself.
I understand that you believe there’s an important difference, I just don’t agree. But since it doesn’t look like we’re likely to change each other’s minds on that point then I’m fine with an “agree to disagree” with no hard feelings.
I disagree. You sound like you’re trying to score points, not trying to have a reasonable discussion, and as such are perfectly happy to misinterpret what I say. Well, I hereby declare you the winner of the Internet, so run up the score all you’d like. When you’re done–when you’re interested in having a reasonable conversation–lemme know. Until then, you and not_alice knock yourselves out.
I actually think this is an interesting debate on its own: the intersection between “treating someone as if they were a certain gender,” “sleeping with that person,” and “being sexually attracted to that person.”
As someone upthread pointed out, transgendered people often don’t have the physiology of people born as their “preferred” (for lack of a better word) gender. If a straight man doesn’t want to sleep with a M-to-F transgendered person who has obvious male physical features, is that bigotry?
IOW, where does sexual desire fall in the wide range of human behavior? To what extent is it controllable, and thus fall into bigotry?
LHOD, you compared a transgendered person who doesn’t disclose their history to a scene in The Three Musketeers between one of the Musketeers and Milady that you called “repellent, one step (if that) removed from raping her.” You also said that the Musketeers “come across as pretty horrible people, with this incident one of their low points.” That’s what you said. The words I’ve placed in quote marks are your exact words. It wasn’t an ambiguous post. No twisting or special interpretation is needed to get at the meaning: a transgendered person who doesn’t disclose their history to their sexual partner is a horrible person and either a rapist or very close to it.
You have refused several opportunities to say that you simply misspoke. You haven’t made any effort at all to explain what else you possibly could have meant by your Musketeer analogy. I think I made my understanding of that analogy clear in post #235 (I also alluded to it in #217), and you did not correct me then. You chose to amend your marriage analogy, but not the Musketeer analogy – or the broken car or smelly house analogies for that matter. In #254 I again pointed out that you’d made a comparison to rape or near rape, and all of a sudden you get upset and decide to accuse me of lying about what you wrote. But anyone can look back at posts #215 and #226 and see that you said just what I’ve attributed to you.
Have you reread them yourself? In #215 you make the comparison to the scene from The Three Musketeers that you say was at best one step removed from rape, and you call the Musketeers horrible people. You do not directly refer to the transgendered in that post, but lest there be any doubt then in #226 you state that you were indeed comparing transgendered people who don’t disclose their histories to these same Musketeers.
As much as I appreciate the offer of a reasonable discussion, I don’t think I’m going to get one from someone who refuses to either stand behind or take back his own words. I don’t understand why you’re even bothering to post if you’re just going to turn around a day or two later and deny having written what you actually wrote.
Why do I have to keep repeating that its unethical to harm people? Because anyone who believes it’s OK to hurt other people should expect the same treatment and that is illogical on top of unethical.
At the point where it occurs to you to ask, “Did I correctly understand what you meant?” instead of telling me repeatedly what I said and never questioning your understanding, I’ll believe you appreciate that offer.
Unless someone is ideologically opposed to same-sex attraction, I don’t see what the non-trans partner has to fear from being “deceived” beyond perhaps finding the transgender person less sexually attractive. (Therefore, I’d say a trans person has an ethical duty to reveal their history before entering into a long-term relationship. As does anyone, of course. Sexual intimacy is important in a romantic partnership.) I don’t see why, if you have no ideological problem with homosexuality, your response to sleeping with a trans person would be anything beyond “oh. I’m kind of turned off now.” If that.
Sorry for introducing yet more analogies, but I don’t think many in this thread have been terribly convincing. Many people believe that sleeping with a married person is wrong. Jews believe eating pork is wrong (or goes against their personal code), many vegetarians don’t eat meat because they think it’s morally wrong. Therefore IMO it is wrong to trick these people into going against their beliefs.
But I don’t think it’s wrong to ‘trick’ someone when their only potential objection coud be on the grounds of taste, rather than morals or beliefs. A vegetarian who doesn’t eat meat because they consider it kind of gross - I don’t see the problem withoffering them something with gelatin in it. Or a white person who considers themselves only attracted to other white people - I don’t see a problem with an Irish girl who’s actually a quarter black not letting such a person know before she shags him.
Left Hand of Dorkness, do you consider the characters in Wedding Crashers to be rapists? (The characters of this film crash weddings, making up a backstory connected to the marrying couple in order to seduce women.)
No. And I don’t consider lying transgendered folks to be rapists, either, and I’ve never said that. You’re reading Lamia’s flawed interpretation of me, not me. I consider both the characters in Wedding Crashers, and the subjects of the OP, to be acting unethically.
I am not a mind reader, so it is not within my power to understand what you MEANT unless it is also what you WROTE. I already invited you to explain yourself if you meant something other than what you wrote (#258). You have refused to do so. You’re perfectly willing to accuse me of misinterpreting you or twisting your words, but you won’t offer any hint of what your Three Musketeers analogy was supposed to mean if not “a transgendered person who doesn’t disclose their history to their sexual partner is a horrible person and either a rapist or very close to it.” You didn’t even object to that interpretation when I first presented it.
Why should your intended meaning be a big secret? If you were actually interested in a reasonable discussion you wouldn’t expect others to beg you to explain yourself. I’m not here to play games. If you aren’t going to say what you mean then it’s your own fault if other people don’t guess your meaning. But I have to admit I am curious. If I’ve somehow missed the obvious, correct interpretation of the posts below then I’d be very interested to hear it, because I really truly do not see any room for an interpretation other than the one I’ve given.
You are at no point going to persuade me to continue the conversation with you until you back down from this ridiculous insistence that you needn’t reexamine your misinterpretation of what I said. YOu’re still trying to score points, and I’m just not going to play that game.
dude, we interacted at length earlier in the thread, and it was quite clear that you didn’t understand a word I say. don’t come back now and profess to speak for me.
I gotta head out today, so more tonight or tomorrow.
meantime, you are responsible for what you do with or for your own dick, no one else. That is my position in a nutshell, no pun intended. no more, no less.
If a person is just not attracted to a TS, that’s fine, and I would* not *call that bigotry. But this is not our scenario.
In our scenario, a guy wants to sleep with the TS as long as he is unaware she is a TS. The TS is clearly sexually attractive to him. I’ve chosen to focus on a fully-transitioned TS, where (despite protests) I think it would take an expert to tell the difference between a neovagina and a congenital one nowadays.
So, Man A is sexually attracted to M-F TS B. Without being explicitly told, he would walk away from the encounter perfectly satisfied. But on being told his partner is TS, he suddenly isn’t attracted any more?
Let me ask - if A KKK member sleeps with what he thinks is a white girl, only to find out afterwards that she’s a passing biracial, and he reacts the same way the TS’s partner does, is he or isn’t he a bigot?
The way I see it, the only reason a man could have a problem with a fully-transitioned TS that he was otherwise completely into, is if he somehow considers transsexuals to not be “real women”. And that’s the bigotry I’m seeing. I think covering it up under a general blanket of “sexual preference” is a smokescreen.
I disagree. See my example of the white-seeming, but not actually, person.
I agree people are free to sleep with whomever they prefer, even if their tastes are bigoted or even perverse.
That’s not the issue.
The issue is on whom the onus falls for full discovery. I’m saying if sleeping with a TS is your hangup, the onus is on you to find out whether your partners are TS, not on them - even if 99.999% of people share this hangup. A M-F TS is fully woman, and shouldn’t preface every activity with a warning or caveat. They’re not syphilitic or HIV+, I don’t think it’s their responsibility to pre-empt someone else’s hangups if they don’t want to. And that’s all it is - a hang-up. No-one’s catching anything from a TS they wouldn’t catch from any other woman.
Not really. It’s interesting to note that the TS situation is the only one in which the differences weren’t externally discernible like all the others you’ve mentioned. The crucial difference between every example of yours, and the TS one (and the biracial one) is that it only becomes an issue if the guy is told. In all the others, the guy is free to make his choice upfront. Only in the (IMO, bigoted) cases would there be buyer’s remorse.
I’ve read and reread your posts, and I honestly cannot find any room for any interpretation other than “The musketeers were horrible people, one of whom committed a repellent act that was rape or near rape. Transgendered people who do not reveal their histories to their sexual partners are like the musketeers. Therefore such transgendered people are horrible people who have committed a repellent act that is rape or near rape.” No amount of reexamination on my part is going to turn up a different meaning. I am not refusing to look for one, I have looked and not found it.
If there were some alternate meaning that I’ve missed then you’ve certainly had ample opportunity to point it out. I specifically asked you to do so, but you won’t. I can think of only one reason for such a refusal: you know perfectly well there is no other way your posts could be interpreted. You are welcome to prove me wrong by providing a different interpretation, but I don’t think you can.
*No, the game you’re playing is the game of denying responsibility for your own words and blaming me for what you wrote. I read what you posted. I told you what I understood it to mean. You’ve refused to offer any other interpretation for your words and you’ve refused to say that your words didn’t really reflect your true meaning.
Instead you’re trying to “score points” by claiming that I am maliciously and dishonestly misinterpreting you just to make you look bad. I am doing no such thing. I have no reason to want to do so. I thought this discussion was dying down a few days ago with the two of us more or less in agreement…but then you chose to compare transgendered people who do not reveal their histories to a fictional character you called a horrible person and who committed an act you described as repellent and either rape or almost rape. That’s what you said in plain English. I’m not going to let you pin that on me. If you’re going to keep on falsely accusing me of twisting your words then I am going to keep on pointing out that you said exactly what I have attributed to you.
Amazingly, the very next line from me you quote explains my refusal: I don’t believe you’re interested in an honest conversation, as evidenced by your continued weirdly-attacking posts. When those cease–when I see an honest question from you that convinced me you’re interested in honest conversation, that doesn’t keep explaining why you’re right and I’m wrong about what I said–then I’m happy to explain. But I don’t think that’s coming.
FWIW, your behavior here isn’t exactly putting you on my list of good people in GD, either.
Are you taking back what you yourself introduced into this thread - i.e. an analogy to rape or near-rape - or do you merely not wish others to pick up on that and question you further?
The problem with this is, you are trying to put the label of “bigotry” on some sexual preferences. That would be like saying homosexuals are bigoted against the opposite sex.
But as previously pointed out - you are not doing someone a harm by not having sex with them. No one has the right to demand that someone else find them sexually attractive.
Maybe I only like women with big breasts. (As a matter of fact…) And I don’t like implants.
But if I am attracted to a woman, and find out later that she has implants, I am not doing her any harm by no longer finding her sexually interesting.
Like was said earlier, if it turns out now that society can insist that certain members had better be attractive, then we are opening the door to laws against gay sex.
How dare you not like that woman? She looks better than any transvestite! IYSWIM.
…but the TS is of the gender the man in question is attracted to.
I’m not suggesting that the TS is harmed if she is rejected when the fact of her transition is out.
I agree, you are not doing any harm - but you don’t have to be doing any harm to be a bigot.
I don’t (see what you mean), but anyway, I have not, at any point, said that a person isn’t within their rights to refuse to sleep with anyone they want to. No-one’s talking about forcing anyone to sleep with transsexuals here.
No, since that’s focusing on an irrelevant aspect of the analogy (I’m also not suggesting that transgendered people operate breech-loading firearms or speak French). I was responding to someone who seemed to believe that lies of omission in sexual encounters carried no ethical weight, giving a counterexample in which such a lie of omission carried ethical weight. You’re fundamentally misunderstanding the use of analogies and examples in debate if you think that every aspect of the example or analogy is considered relevant.
If you wish to ask me further honest questions, feel free. If you simply wish to try to back me into a corner by claiming I said absurd things I didn’t say, knock yourself out.
No, s/he isn’t - that’s the problem. You can play all the word games you want - bottom line is that no one gets to define “the gender you are attracted to” besides you. You can insist you’re a woman until you are blue in the face - if you were born with a penis, you are not of the gender I am attracted to.
Then you have stripped the term “bigot” of any meaning besides disagreement.
If you want to call people names who aren’t hurting you, just because their tastes don’t agree with yours, go ahead, but don’t be surprised when I laugh at you. You want to tell me who I should want to fuck? Not likely.