Interesting timing. Just before logging onto the Dope I was browsing YouPorn and “finished” with a fascinating video of a gorgeous tranny with a fully engorged schwanz teasing a strapping young fella. Now, I’m straight but comfortable with men sexually. I wouldn’t call myself bi but you might. He/she was really stunning, wonderful shape and skin, lovely breasts, and very feminine face, eyes and lips.
I spent several hours this morning in bed with my girlfriend, but enjoyed the erotic experience of watching this video very much.
BrainGlutton, I guess I’m the kind of guy you’re asking about. What would you like to know?
Interesting because I’ve seen at least three of them in porn, with functional penis and vagina intact. (and one of those videos was two of them together having sex with each other, each using their penis to penetrate the other’s vagina simultaneously. That was a seriously interesting video)
Most interesting. At a guess ( and that’s all it is ) those were people surgically altered to look like hermaphrodites. Or, I may be using the term more strictly than you; a real hermaphodite would have both real ( as opposed to plastic implants, say ) testicles and a female internal reproductive system, not just the parts you can see in a porn video.
Heh, you know after I posted that I loaded up Limewire and lo and behold, the video I was thinking of is still available. Anyway, I’m reviewing the evidence now and the features of the genitalia both look very real externally, but I wouldn’t know if they have the reproductive system or not.
You can check it out for yourself though if you like. Just do a search for “hermaphrodite” 
Any serious perusal of your local Craigslist (well, OK, my local Craigslist at least) will turn up any number of men–generally committed men who consider themselves straight, it seems–who are fishing for what they call “passable TVs”. Being neither one of these men nor a “passable TV”, myself, I can only speculate on the attraction; seems to me these guys are bi-curious but don’t want to step any further outside of their comfort zone than they have to. If their partner is physically male but genuinely looks and acts female, they’re still having sex with a woman, in a way.
As for the porn, there’s that whole comfort zone thing, and then there are probably guys who want to see women having sex with each other but don’t want to see just manual/oral/strap-on sex.
How so? I mean, what’s not to love if you like both penises and the female form?
Funny, I feel exactly the opposite–I could see myself being with a man but I just can’t get into the whole penis thing. Where’s my niche? 
… Balloons?
I’m having a failure of imagination.
Buck Angel? (no images, Wikipedia link)
I’m having a hard time understanding how being attracted to a penis is not the same as being attracted to a male. I think guys that like the shemale porn are at least bisexual, by definition. They are sexually attracted to males. Maybe they like women too, but they obviously aren’t totally straight. My survey sample of one (myself) tells me that men who are completely heterosexual have no interest at all in touching someone else’s penis, even if the owner of said penis has boobs.
Yes, this is an awesome novel. Starts out slow, but then it builds up and you simply can’t stop reading. And I don’t think I still fully understand it.
Siam Sam, those are awesome posts and very informative. Thanks!
ETA: Changed to plural on posts!
Siam Sam - I’ve never been to Thailand, I just read a lot. One interesting thing about the Thai language is you have to announce your gender every time you say something. In English it’s possible to talk without ever having to declare which gender you identify with. In languages that have gender agreement of adjectives and participles, you have to genderize yourself sooner or later. If I understand correctly, speaking Thai you end a sentence with khâ if you’re female-identified and khrap if male-identified. I searched for those two words and found anecdotes of Thai butch lesbians saying “khrap.”
Not nessesarily surgically, just FX. Get a rubber penis and you can attach it right above the vagina in such a way it looks seamless.
Is having a penis the sole definition of what it means to be male?
Well, no, they aren’t. Being attracted to males means you’re attracted to things like wide shoulders, a broad chest, a strong chin, usually some amount of body hair or facial stubble, and a variety of other characteristics/behaviors that are not usually found in women. These are the first and primary features one notices when one is attracted to someone. These are not features that are attactive to someone with an interest in transexuals - usually, just the opposite. Again, if you’re attracted to a person who has 90% of the visible traits of one gender, and 10% of the visible traits of another gender, does it make sense to define that person’s sexuality by the 10% of what they’re attracted to, and not the 90%?
Maybe, but “not totally straight” != gay, or even bisexual.
I don’t actually need to explain to you why this anecdote is entirely meaningless, right?
Huh. That is interesting. I didn’t know that there were languages like that, although I did know of at least one where you say something different according the gender of the person to whom you’re speaking.
They are called Traps because originally the meme started when a picture/s of a girly boys was posted, the viewers all made positive comments, and then the original poster of the picture/s revealed that she was actually a he. These threads/images started being called traps and eventually the individuals themselves became traps. Overtime, people started to request images of “traps” and a meme was born. Now some people aspire to be traps and they are viewed more positively than negatively, although the original terminology has remained.
Diogenes the Cynic: :rolleyes: Did you even read the thread? There is plenty of evidence that straight males are the primary consumers of “shemale” porn.
My contention is that they can’t be all that straight. They may be ostensibly straight in their personal relationships, but a sexual attration to their own sex is, by definition, homosexual. If wanting to get railed up the ass by a penis is not gay, then what the hell IS?
Well, look at it this way-if that’s the case, he’ll probably wind up with a nasty surprise.
I think the genitalia that one is attracted to is enough to define orientation.
When that 10% an individual is attracted to is the genitalia, then yes, I think so. How else can sexual attraction be defined?
I think it kind of does. There are only three choices. Straight, gay or bi. if you’re not totally straight, you have to be one of the other things, don’t you? Orientation is defined by attraction. Attraction to both sexes is the definition of bi, is it not?
I don’t get the defensiveness about it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with any orientation. What’s so offensive about pointing out that guys who are attracted to dicks must have at least some homosexual inclinations? A heterosexual male who is attracted to dicks is a contradiction in terms, is it not?
Okay, time for Human Sexuality 101: a homosexual is someone whose primary sexual attraction is to members of their own gender. A transexual is someone who was born into one gender, but wants to live as another. A pre-operative male-to-female transexual is not a man in a dress, it’s a woman who has a penis. A man attracted to MTF transexuals is not gay. He is not attracted to people of his own gender, because an MTF transexual is not a member of his gender.
That out of the way, whence the assumption that men interested in MTF transexuals are looking to be the bottom in the relationship? While by no means universal, the majority of straight-identified men who are interested in transexuals want the transwoman to assume the traditional female role in intercourse: as the receptive party.
Of course, there are some men who do want to be penetrated by a transexual. There are also some men who want to be penetrated by a biological woman wearing a strap-on. Are those men gay? Why would the putative straight man looking for a trans top be any different?
I beg to differ on this one. Physical attraction cannot be intellectually parsed like that. Just because you can linguistically categorize somebody as a woman for social reasons doesn’t mean your body or the animal part of your brain is going o do it. I disagree that a hetero male is going to be attracted to someone with a cock just because he can intellectualize that person as a woman.
I know that. I was alluding to a post that Starving Artist made in this thread about a specific “straight” male who asked to be buggered by a CWAD. To me, that’s gay.
The difference is when there’s an actual penis involved. How can a male being anally penetrated by a penis be called anything but gay? It sure isn’t heterosexual.
I didn’t ask about orientation, I asked about gender: does having a penis automatically make one a male? In your view, is a pre-operative MTF transexual a man, or a woman? What about a post-operative transexual?
When you see a hot woman at a bar, do you immediatly think, “Damn, check out the vagina on that chick?”
Gender is a largely social construct, made up of a large variety of different features and mannerisms. There’s no particular reason to place genitalia over and above any of those other characteristics.
No, you don’t. You can be straight, and still have the occasional attraction to someone of your own sex. You can be gay, and still think tits are neat. Sexuality isn’t a three-phase toggle switch, and bisexuality isn’t a catch-all category for anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly into the other two categories. Sexuality is a continuum, and there’s a lot of room on the straight side of the continuum for non-traditional sexual attraction before you get tipped over into queersville.
But this is all beside the actual point of this thread.
It’s not your attitude towards homosexuals that people are reacting to, it’s your attitude towards transexuals. You are, in effect if not intent, insisting that a MTF transexual is really a guy. More broadly, I have a problem with you reducing the entire definition of maleness to a six inch* tube of flesh. My manhood is not defined by my manhood. If, through some horrible industrial accident, my little admiral was lost at sea, I’d still be a man. And the fact that some of my sisters out there haven’t been able to lose theirs yet doesn’t stop them from being women.
*YMMV