I think I cited the death of Gwen Araujo in this thread. I’m not sure. Her killer found her attactive. He consented to- dancing with her, going someplace private with her, kissing her, and receiving oral sex from her. He then found out she had a penis and killed her. Lumpy is that normal?
If it isn’t, how do you know if somebody you find romantically/sexually attractive has “the wrong set of equipment”? What method should we use going forward?
I think it’s normal to find any sexual practice that doesn’t turn you on to be a little squicky. Just ask any 6 year old.
It’s not normal to violently attack someone because you retroactively feel squicky about the sex you consensually engaged in.
I have posted many times about the Henri David Ball. I have gone for the past two decades or so. My beloved came with me once we started dating. One year, she asked which of the many women in tight and/or revealing costumes I found the most attractive. Being no fool, I said “You, honey!” This did not satisfy her. Eventually, she convinced me it wasn’t a trick or trap. I pointed out, politely and without being obvious, one of the women in Cat Woman costume. Later during the costume contest, she went up to compete in the Female Impersonator category. Cis females are banned from that category. Occasionally, you get a trans woman. Mostly, the contestants are gay men in flamboyant (and wonderful) costumes. My beloved noted this and said roughly ‘So the woman you found most attractive is a female impersonator’. I shrugged and said “What are you gonna do?” that was the end of it.
What if I had not been seeing somebody at that time? What if I went up to Cat Woman and told her I found her sexy, beautiful and a little dangerous looking? What if she had complimented me back? How exactly should I have found out she had a penis? At exactly what point would Cat Woman be required to disclose that information?
By the letter of the law murder was unwarranted (some traditional cultures might have felt differently). I would certainly say the trickee would be entitled to be outraged and condemn the tricker as the worst sort of asshole. Where it becomes a broader issue is the assertion by some that we should ideally all be genderfluid enough to not care about what we find in someone’s groin beyond “meh, not my cup of tea”; and that no one should have a problem with that. THAT is why mainstream cisgender people find the whole trans movement to be aggressive.
So Gwen was a “tricker”?
Who in the nine hells is asserting that?
Interesting phrasing. You appear to be defining anybody who doesn’t find it to be aggressive as being outside the “mainstream”.
Some traditional cultures recognize[d] transgender people as a normal variation.
Agree.
Yes, there’s no physical risk to a cis het man finding out he was hitting on/making out with a trans woman. It’s also a low probability event. The risk to the cis het man is purely psychological, and lots of men are adjusted well enough that that hit is minor, mostly “Oh, she’s not what I wanted. Nevermind.”
Too bad too many men aren’t that well adjusted, comfortable with their own manliness to not see it as a challenge to that male identity.
I haven’t had the situation with a trans woman, but I remember the first time I was hit on by a gay man. Not his fault, I was in a gay friendly club. I had gone with a friend who had recently come out. I just politely declined. It was a bit flattering to a guy with low self esteem.
I think now if I happened to discover a woman I like is trans, it wouldn’t bother me anymore.
I have met a trans woman that I was attracted to. I think now if I found the right person and we hit it off and physical attraction was there, I might be open to trying. It’s not what I’m seeking, but I’m no longer adamantly opposed to even considering it.
Yeah, but we know a good beatdown is probably justified, and should be legal, right?
Interesting that you phrase it as some kind of trick, like a malicious act to embarrass the person or something? As if the intention was to mislead someone who was opposed to a trans partner, rather than a genuine effort to find connection with someone who seemed interested.
Worst sort of asshole? So worse than a guy chanting “Your body, my right,” at a bunch of college girls, or a creepy dude copping a feel on the bus, or some drunk turd getting in your face at a party, or a dick cutting you off in traffic, or a dick who thinks you cut him off so he pulls a gun and throws some lead your way, or a the bastard who keyed your car…
I think at least the bastard that would kill a trans woman because he had been making out with her without knowing is a worse sort of dick. I guess your mileage varies.
You feel it’s aggressive to want to be able to be in society, to interact with people without fear of being beaten or killed for just existing?
You know, all this talk about cis het men finding “surprise penis”, but what about all the women out there who find “surprise penis”, i.e. they’re expecting a normal sized cock only to find a micro penis, or maybe a bad case of unexpected peyronies’ disease. Or a someone discovering the partner has horrible hygiene?
Situations occur where people change their mind when they discover something unexpected about their partner. That doesn’t make it okay to assault them.
You know what’s aggressive? All those commercials with mixed race families we’re inundated with. Look around, you’ll see them everywhere. It’s almost like that’s a common thing and no big deal.
Now gay couples are everywhere. You can’t even watch Wheel of Fortune without being subjected to a man mentioning his husband. That’s so aggressive.
Why can’t we go back to the '50s when everybody was “normal”? The 1850s.
Yes, this. Like most people there’s a ton of things I find “squicky”, sexual and otherwise. That doesn’t justify violence. I don’t like beets; if somebody served me beets would I make sense for me to react by leaping up and strangling them? Of course not, that’s absurd - so why is it any less absurd to attack somebody for being trans/gay/whatever?
The answer of course is that it is at least as absurd; it’s just that a certain bigoted segment of our society is devoted to pretending otherwise. They’re just trying to justify their bigotry and thuggishness.
Oh, I feel the need to add something- I have been going to the Henri David Ball since before smart phones and before digital cameras became widespread. Despite that, some things stand out. Cat Woman was one of them. I consider my being very attracted to somebody who turned out to be a man just another amusing episode. There are plenty of other amusing or interesting things that happened at the balll over the years. But none of the others is relevant to this thread.
My response to being told that an apparent attractive woman is actually a male “female impersonator” would be “well, they’re really good at it”. It actually helps demonstrate the illogical nature of homophobia, since finding a man attractive when they are convincingly pretending to be a woman is a confirmation of being attracted to women.
I mean, when I find a picture of a pretty woman displayed on my computer monitor attractive, that doesn’t mean I’m secretly compusexual. It just means that things that look like pretty women attract me.
Better than “well, nobody’s perfect!”
…I think the word “revulsed” is unnecessarily emotive, and out of place for this discussion. It goes beyond mere “I’m not attracted to…” to instead “a sense of disgust and loathing.” If you are feeling “revulsion” here: that’s a problem you need to deal with, and not something trans people or their allies can fix.
This isn’t normal at all.
I mean he’s already used a slur against them and compared them to incest practitioners. I think his position is quite clear.
The kind of people who murder trans folks do feel revulsion. Genuine ignorant unnecessary carefully cultivated revulsion.
How we un-train what’s been carefully trained into them is the $64K question.
…we start by when they ask “isn’t it normal” by responding “no it is not.”
Which, unless you want to simply participate in an echo chamber where people congratulate you for how enlightened you are, is exactly what’s controversial: the Ick Factor. The idea that you should feel “a sense of disgust and loathing” towards some things. Once upon a time the Ick Factor was not merely allowable it was considered a moral compass. Only a pervert, someone desensitized to something grossly and blatantly aberrant, could even have any doubts on the subject, on a level with necrophilia, bestiality, or coprophagia. Yet postmodernist values regard the Ick Factor as false consciousness, something no one would feel unless they were taught to; and, we are confidently assured, will pass away along with all our other old prejudices once they are no longer reinforced (or possibly after they’re actively fought against).
This isn’t really debatable except at the axiomatic level: either you believe in, or reject, traditional moral judgement.
Gotcha. People have always felt the “ick factor” about gay sex. Did the Romans or the Greeks know this? I feel somebody may have forgotten to tell them.
…living in society is basically an echo chamber. We don’t coddle people who openly express racist thoughts, who openly express misogyny. We shouldn’t coddle people who openly express “disgust and loathing” here either.
When was this exactly? What were the mores and laws of the time?
I sometimes wonder if our knowledge of Greek and Roman cultural mores is colored by the fact that what we know of them is largely the writings of an urban intelligentsia; as if in the future all people knew of the 20th century United States were the writings of Truman Capote, William S. Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson. I wonder if the average Classical era Mediterranean peasant farmer would have muttered “bloody buggerers” referring to them.