Being horrified at the idea of going on a date that is destined to go nowhere is explicitly fear. That word ‘horrified’ that you’re dancing around is a big clue.
You expect people you date to go through genetic testing? That’s pretty unusual, most people don’t actually know whether they’re XX or XY and just assume that they’re one of those without actually knowing it, and having a preference for something that you can only determine with an uncommonly done lab test seems pretty unusual.
If you’re horrified at the idea of going out on a date with someone who turns out to have black ancestry, then you’re racist enough that I would certainly care. Trying to convince people that your bigotry is no big deal isn’t likely to work.
If what’s bigotry? Being harmlessly tactless? Yes, if bigotry is just being harmlessly tactless then nobody cares.
And honestly, if somebody’s bigotry is so tightly contained that it only expresses itself in slight paranoia about other people’s genitals followed by polite withdrawal and no hateful attacks whatsoever, then great! That’s perfectly fine. I have slight paranoia about tons of things and it doesn’t seem to cause any problems. Feel free to have slight paranoia and polite withdrawals all day.
There are other ways bigotry express themselves that do cause problems, mind you. Like if one’s withdrawal isn’t so polite.
Being “horrified” is explicitly fear. If someone is scared of even the possibility of going on a date, or holding hands, or merely touching, a trans person, then they are transphobic and bigoted against trans people. Pretty simple. A lack of attraction is not bigotry. Fear is.
Those all sound like minor details that are typical and expected to be discovered in the dating process. I wouldn’t consider them equivalent in importance to genitals. A similar example should be about things that most people consider major issues, like kids, age difference, distance, etc.
For example, if on a dating profile someone creates the impression that they are in their 20’s, no kids, and live in the same city, they are likely going to match up with people who are looking for that kind of person. If instead the person is in their 50’s, has 3 small children, and lives hundreds of miles away, it’s not going to work out very often. I suppose it can be said that the other person should give it a try because maybe it will work out, but that will rarely happen. In most every case the other person is going to feel like it was a waste of time. I don’t know that the common advice in this situation would be that the other person needs to put those qualifications on their profile. Rather, I think the common recommendation would be that the person in their 50’s with kids living far away should be up front about those details.
Honestly the best comparison I’ve seen yet in this thread is with being in the witness protection program. It’s a detail about yourself that others would wish to know, but which would be a bad idea to put into a public profile because there are people out there who might do you harm with that information.
That being the case, I dunno when the polite time to ask about it or disclose it would be, but I’m not thinking it’s “in the profile”.
And guess what? Most people in this country aren’t going to try to shame someone into dating someone they don’t want. You know why? Because individual freedom to choose a mate is, currently at least, still a thing.
Furthermore, to reiterate, the opinions of the tiny minority that would label dating preferences as bigotry are irrelevant. The person making the case that someone is obligated to date someone they don’t want to date, for any reason at all, is the person who is going to be looked at funny.
Sure, but a trans person isn’t lying in their profile – they just aren’t providing the additional information that they are trans. So it wouldn’t be like somebody living hundreds of miles away – it would be like someone simply putting “California” for their location, instead of either San Diego or Sacramento. If that’s not specific enough for you, don’t ask them out.
Unless REALLY, what you have issue with is the idea that a trans man would put “Male” on his profile, or that a trans woman would put “Female” on her profile? Do you consider that to be lying? Because if so, then yes, you are a bigot and a transphobe.
You are now saying that there are people test their date’s chromosome’s prior to dating/mating? Sorry, that’s not credible. For one thing, that sort of definitive testing costs money and takes time.
*::: picks up phone :::: *“Hi, I’d like to date you but before that I have to ask you to test your chromosomes to make sure they’re compatible with my sexual preferences — hello? Hello?”
Nope, I don’t believe that happens. Ever.
What you’re claiming is that someone can tell just by looking. Well, yes, for some people you can but for others you can’t. It still comes down to you being so repelled by someone’s medical condition that not only won’t you date them, you want them to wear a scarlet letter and probably walk around ringing a bell crying “Unclean! Unclean!” so you can give them a wide berth without, you know, actually ever having to speak to them or even come very close. :rolleyes:
This statement is utterly false, and I continue to be baffled as to why you can’t seem to figure that out.
What you have been repeatedly told is not that you are obligated to “disclose everything that might be a deal-breaker”, but that you are obligated to disclose every deal-breaker that is so crucially important to you that you consider it imperative to avoid even the most preliminary stages of dating with a person in that category.
If a dating partner with characteristic X is a deal-breaker for you—irrespective of how many other people would or wouldn’t consider characteristic X a deal-breaker—then as Babale pointed out, you have two possible ethical choices:
1) Don’t say anything about characteristic X on your profile and accept the fact that you might end up on a date with someone who happens to have characteristic X, and will need to politely end your interaction with that potential dating partner when you learn of their X-characteristic status.
2) Declare on your profile that you aren’t interested in dating anybody with characteristic X.
That’s it. It really isn’t that complicated.
:rolleyes: The accurate version of this statement is that if you are so determined to avoid people who are X that you insist on never running the risk of even going on a first date with someone who turns out to be X, then yes, it is indeed up to you to make that clear.
As pretty near everybody else in this thread seems to have no difficulty understanding.
I advise you never to try to get back into it, irrespective of any possible future changes in your personal life and/or relationship status. It would not be fair to inflict on the dating scene a participant who has so much trouble figuring out even the most basic logical and ethical principles of dealing with potential dating partners.
Then how do you ever date from an online profile? I mean, most women don’t give any of that information, and aren’t going to to some guy they’ve never met. You’re a stranger to them. I’m not going to discuss my genitals with a stranger, and I’m a cis man.
Over 99% of the time you’re not going to be sure about a woman’s genital status before you’ve ever even met her. Sure, outside of online dating, you might be close enough friends that it’s come up. But, with online dating, the first meetup is a date–it’s the first time you’ve ever met.
Generally, in online dating, you exchange only a couple of messages before setting up the first date. Getting too involved online before meeting and seeing if you’re actually compatible is not a great idea, unless you want the relationship to stay online-only.
You’re not going to likely become very intimate before this starts. And people’s genitals are a very intimate thing. That’s why we cover them up. This is no less true of trans people than cis people.
Plus, frankly, as a cis man, if you ask me whether I have a penis before a first date, that’s going to be quite insulting to me, and there will be no date. I would suspect this is would be similar for cis women–you know, the people you want to date.
Well, a lot of cisgender people find such questions insulting because from the traditional viewpoint of a cisgender man, even the implied possibility that he might not have a penis seems to suggest that he’s unmanly, and from the traditional viewpoint of a cisgender woman, even the implied possibility that she might have a penis seems to suggest that she’s unwomanly.
Also, a lot of people feel that getting inquisitive about genitalia right at the start of an acquaintance is just plain intrusive and creepy. And, again, there may be the worry that someone who’s overanxious to know about what your genitals look like right from the get-go might have some kind of transphobic hangup.
As a cisgender man, I find it unlikely that a lot of cisgender men would find that question insulting. Like I said, the woman is already interested in your penis before the first date, so that’s good.
Of course, I can’t speak of what a cisgender woman would think.
Hmm, I guess maybe in a kind of uncritically hopeful “heh heh she said penis” kind of way? I have a feeling that if it was phrased along the lines of “It wasn’t really clear from your profile whether you have a penis, so if you don’t, could you please let me know now?”, quite a few men would find that rather unflattering.
I agree that the same question phrased along the lines of "So tell me, big guy—do you have a penis or don’tcha? [winky smiley]" would probably be received more enthusiastically.
